Ron Paul On Bringing Transparency To The Fed - hammers home point of why the Fed needs to finally be accountable -

Watching - Ron Paul On Bringing Transparency To The Federal Reserve - Ron Paul hammers home the point of why the Federal Reserve needs to finally be accountable

Watch here - http://fora.tv/2009/06/24/Ron_Paul_Bringing_Transparency_to_the_Federal_Reserve#fullprogram

Twitter, the popular but money-losing microblogging service, is hiring engineers and specialists who can help turn it into a money-maker.

Reading - Twitter, the popular but money-losing microblogging service, is hiring engineers and specialists who can help turn it into a money-maker.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Twitter, the popular but money-losing microblogging service, is hiring engineers and specialists who can help turn it into a money-maker.

The 2-1/2-year-old Internet start-up, whose short text messages or "tweets" have become a global social phenomenon, is building up a team focused on generating revenue with a new range of yet-to-be launched products, judging by job postings on the company's website.

Among the 26 job openings listed on Twitter's site, four are specifically identified as being devoted to "monetization." Striking licensing deals are key responsibilities for two other jobs.

"Twitter is looking for new members of our technical staff to work on cutting edge monetization projects," several of the postings said.

The move to invest in such projects signals that making money is becoming a bigger priority at Twitter, as it seeks to evolve from being one of the Web's fastest-growing social media firms into a self-sustaining online business.

"The company has crossed into the phase where monetization matters. They're ramping it up," said a source close to Twitter who did not wish to speak on the record about its finances.

A Twitter spokesperson said co-founder Biz Stone was not immediately available for comment. The company has about 120 employees, she said.

Tweets, which are limited to 140 characters, have grown into an established communications medium that has played a key role in world events such as the post-election protests in Iran last summer.

"They know they're here for the long term now, so they need to turn on these monetization engines," said Altimeter Group analyst Jeremiah Owyang.

Twitter, a privately held company, does not report earnings, but its website says: "While our business model is in a research phase, we spend more money than we make."

The company spokesperson did not confirm if that is still accurate.

Twitter struck deals in October -- widely reported to total $25 million -- to license its data feed to Google Inc and Microsoft Corp, allowing tweets to appear within search results on the companies' Internet search engines.

The job postings make it clear that generating revenue beyond the licensing deals is one of the 2010 priorities for Twitter, said Altimeter's Owyang.

Twitter, which recently moved into a larger office space in San Francisco, had 19.4 million unique visitors to its U.S. website in November, according to comScore, up sharply from the 1.5 million visitors a year earlier. Many industry watchers believe the actual number of worldwide Twitter users is much higher, since many people access the service through third-party applications instead of the website.

In September, Twitter raised $100 million in a move that valued the company at $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, from backers including mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price and private equity firm Insight Venture Partners.

Twitter executives have said in the past that the company is interested in offering premium services, such as analytic tools for certain customers, and that it was exploring ways to integrate advertising into the service.

According to the job postings, the company is seeking engineers to build out the infrastructure and front-end features to support monetization systems that include "customer applications and reporting."

A posting for a product marketing manager for monetization said the person would focus on "enhancing business users' understanding of the value of Twitter."

Aspartame: Sweet Misery A Poisoned World - This is the movie that Pepsi and Coca Cola don't want you to see.

Watching - Aspartame: Sweet Misery A Poisoned World - This is the movie that Pepsi and Coca Cola don't want you to see.

There is no Economic Recovery Happening - Economic Stability and Recovery = Credit Expansion - We cannot recover until we purge the excess debt

Reading - There is no Economic Recovery Happening - Economic Stability and Recovery = Credit Expansion - We cannot recover until we purge the excess debt from the system.

Look folks, this is really quite simple.

Economic Stability and Recovery = Credit Expansion.

We cannot recover until we purge the excess debt from the system, and the longer we take to do that, the longer the pain will last and the worse it will be.

President Obama and Tim Geithner know this - that's why they are constantly harping on banks to "lend more."

Well, they may want banks to lend more but the people are fed up with being debt slaves and are borrowing less.

Today, we got the latest from The Fed on this subject:

Consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 8-1/2 percent in November. Revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 18-1/2 percent, and nonrevolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 3 percent.

I have updated the charts, and this is where we are as of November:

Non-revolving debt (basically auto loans) has pretty much stabilized since mid-year. But consumer revolving debt - credit cards - continues to accelerate in its rate of decline.

The longer-term view looks like this:

These rates of decline are unprecedented and they are not slowing down.

The drop in credit card debt outstanding is on the largest on record since The Fed started keeping those records in 1943!

Consumer recovery?

There is none!

It is axiomatic that you can pump yourself full of speedballs (e.g. government spending) and stay up for days at a time. It is also true that if you do too many speedballs you will have a heart attack and die, and there is no way to know precisely which is the "one too many" until you shoot it - at which point it's too late to change your mind!

The so-called "recovery" has been driven by pump-priming, which has had at its root one primary intent - to drive citizens into herd behavior and get them to spend more and more (that they don't have!)

But at the same time this has been the message credit card rates have been ramped and lines slashed. So now Joe Six Pack is faced with a 30% interest rate on his credit card - if he has any open line left!

There is no possible way for this program to work, since the entire problem originally - what began this recession - was people that were unable to make their debt payments in the first place!

Small business will not hire until their debt load comes down to a reasonable level. This will take literal years if we don't quit trying to prevent the contraction of both asset prices and credit levels. In the mean time millions of Americans will remain in destitution!

There is no way to avoid the bankruptcy of those firms and individuals who are over-levered. The best solution (take the pain now!) will not prevent the bankruptcies, but it will get them over with and let the nation begin to emerge from the morass within 12-18 months. For every month we keep trying to prevent the liquidation of insoluble debt we add months of additional time to that required to resolve the bust and deepen the amount of pain that must be suffered, since all we are doing is adding more debt upon existing debt.

It is time for Washington DC, including The Fed and Congress along with President Obama to embrace the facts - we must finish the de-leveraging that is necessary to return the citizens and corporations of this nation to fiscal health. At the same time the government must stop spending twice what it takes in in taxes.

We have consumed too many speedballs, our heart rate is now 160, and if we don't cut it out the bond market is telling us that we are about to have a fatal heart attack.

Read more - http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1832-There-Is-NO-Economic-Recovery-Happening.html

Dr. Ron Paul and Steve Forbes discuss what is encompassed by the congressman's bill to audit the Federal Reserve

Watching - Dr. Ron Paul and Steve Forbes discuss what is encompassed by the congressman's bill to audit the Federal Reserve

Dr. Ron Paul and Steve Forbes discuss what is encompassed by the congressman's bill to audit the Federal Reserve.

Steve Forbes: What precisely will your bill on auditing the Fed do and not do? Let's just clear that up.

Paul: As a matter of fact, it's a pretty weak bill when you think about it.

Forbes: It seems pretty mild.

Paul: But from their viewpoint it is horrendous because we know what they've been doing. You know? And they don't want us to know what they've been doing. The big argument has always been they don't want transparency because they'll lose their independence. And independence means secrecy. If they lose their secrecy then the people and the Congress won't know what they've been doing. Who gets bailed out at what price? ... I put an explicit statement in there that we have no intention of monitoring monetary policy even though I have different views. But, you know, when you think of it, Bernie Sanders was a cosponsor in the Senate. He and I don't see eye to eye on the market. But we see eye to eye on transparency. So we wouldn't agree on monetary policy, but we agreed on this bill. But in order to clarify that Bernanke would say, "Well what we don't need is Congress coming in the day after we have a FOMC meeting and finding out who said what and why because everybody would be hesitant." And one of the arguments is, "If Congress had anything to do with this, they'd keep interest rates too low too long."

Read more - http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/08/federal-reserve-value-intelligent-investing-ron-paul.html

Venezuela devalued its currency by half - to reduce imports that aren’t strictly necessary

Reading - Venezuela devalued its currency by half - to reduce imports that aren’t strictly necessary

CARACAS – President Hugo Chavez, harried by recession and declining popularity, announced a major currency devaluation late Friday to shore up government finances and stimulate economic growth before key elections this year.

The move cuts Mr. Chavez's two-year-old "strong bolivar" currency by half – to 4.3 per dollar from 2.15 per dollar – for most imports and transactions. The central bank will also subsidize a stronger 2.6-per-dollar rate for imports of food, medicine and other essential items, Mr. Chavez said.

The move reflects the increasingly difficult economic and political trade-offs faced by Mr. Chavez, who has been in power for more than a decade and veered the country's economy sharply to the left through steps like nationalization of key industries, rampant government spending, and currency and price controls.

While those unorthodox policies can work for a few years, they usually set the stage for deeper problems down the road – troubles which have started to surface and which led to the currency devaluation. The move is also a humiliating turn for a currency renamed the "strong bolivar" two years ago, when Mr. Chavez chopped three zeros off the old currency and declared the beginning of an era of monetary fortitude.

The staunchly anti-U.S. leader is gambling that the benefits of a weaker currency will offset faster inflation, which threatens the purchasing power of his mostly poor backers. Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said devaluation, which makes the price of imported goods more expensive in local currency terms, may add 5 percentage points to the 27% inflation rate – already among the fastest in the world.

In Mr. Chavez's favor, the measure helps narrow a growing budget shortfall, could provide limited relief to a moribund local industry, and instantly gives his oil-rich government more local currency to spend per barrel of oil exported by the state petroleum company, PDVSA. That's a key consideration with Congressional elections looming in September.

The 55-year-old former soldier's popularity has slid amid corruption scandals, a shrinking economy, rising crime and shortages of food and electricity. Increased spending could paper over some of these problems and boost Mr. Chavez's popularity.

Devaluation brings "more room to increase public spending as way to spur economic activity," says Maikel Bello, an analyst with the Caracas-based research firm Ecoanalitica.

This year's congressional elections are especially important because, after previously boycotting some elections to protest Mr. Chavez's growing power over democratic institutions in Venezuela, traditionally fragmented opposition parties are making a push to dramatically improve their representation in Congress.

For years, Venezuela has been able to defend an overvalued currency thanks to currency controls. Venezuelan citizens and companies can get dollars at the official rate only with government permission. That has led to a thriving black market, where those who don't get government permission buy the U.S. currency. Even the Venezuelan government uses the black market to some degree, economists say.

On Friday, that black market rate stood at about 6.25 per dollar – well below the former official rate of 2.15 and still below the new rate of 4.30. Economists say one of the reasons for the move was an attempt to deflate the black market, a catalyst for inflation that has also spawned a frenzy of schemes to defraud the central bank of dollars.

Economists will be watching the black market rate on Monday to see whether the devaluation was big enough to cause Venezuelans to go through the legal route to get dollars or whether they will keep buying them at the unofficial rate.

In theory, the devaluation could fortify Mr. Chavez on a range of fronts. Announcing the devaluation on state television, Mr. Chavez predicted that a weaker currency would breathe new life into a domestic economy that has become almost totally dependent on imports for everything from beef and milk to automobiles during his 11-year presidency.

Devaluation "will give a boost to the productive economy, will stop imports that are not strictly necessary and will stimulate exports," Mr. Chavez said.

The measure may buttress the banking system, which has been rocked by the closure of several institutions amid an embezzlement scandal. Many Venezuelan banks head into the devaluation holding large stocks of dollars.

Holders of dollar-denominated bonds issued by Venezuela and PDVSA will be encouraged by the move. Devaluation narrows Venezuela's financing gap to around 3% of economic output from around 7%, according to Royal Bank of Scotland economist Boris Segura.

"This is good news," said Mr. Segura.

However, the devaluation does little to assuage the deeper problems plaguing the Venezuelan economy, economists say.

Foremost, devaluation by itself is not enough to revive a domestic manufacturing base that's atrophied amid a hostile operating environment. Few investors are willing to brave Venezuela's maze of price caps, currency controls and the ever-present fear of nationalization.

Higher inflation from the move will also keep chipping away at the value of the bolivar, even at its new peg.

What's more, by keeping a subsidized dollar rate for importing food, medicine and essential items, Mr. Chavez removes any incentive for Venezuelans to produce what they need most. It will almost certainly remain cheaper to import beef from Brazil, for example, than to produce it.

The fact that Venezuela has ceased to produce meaningful amounts of food, medicine and other basic goods under Mr. Chavez puts his government in a Catch-22 bind. Mr. Chavez can't use devaluation to stimulate production of the most essential products because doing so would instantly make the imported versions too expensive for his mainly poor constituents.

Official devaluations are nothing new for Venezuelans, with many getting their first taste of currency controls in 1961. The peg imposed then was kept for 22 years but a decline in oil revenue forced the government to devalue in 1983, marking the beginning a downward spiral that included several adjustments to the foreign currency rate. A devaluation in 1994 amid a deep economic crisis spurred a wave of popular unrest that Chavez eventually tapped to win the presidency five years later.

Mr. Chavez is returning Venezuela to an official dual-exchange rate last tried during the economic turmoil of the 1980s. Dual exchange rates around the world are associated with corruption by bureaucrats who decide which businesses get the preferential rate, and by importers who have an incentive to falsify import invoices.

It also adds to general confusion. Venezuelans will wake up Monday to a country with three exchange rates, if you include the black market rate.

The devaluation is a humiliating turn for a currency renamed the "strong bolivar" two years ago, when Mr. Chavez chopped three zeros off the old currency and declared the beginning a of an era of monetary fortitude.

But the currency became grossly overvalued amid galloping inflation and government spending. Pressure to devalue rose as the bolivar plunged to around of third of its value on the black market.

In a bid to stem central bank dollar losses amid the black market crash, the government restricted sales of dollars. But that only made things worse, by spurring the black market to new heights and punishing companies, such as importers, that need those dollars to do business.

"Companies had frozen their activities because they couldn't buy dollars at the official rate," said Pedro Palma, an economics professor at IESA business school in Caracas.

Mr. Chavez maintained unfettered access to dollars for importers of staples who supplied the government's subsidized food markets. But even that backfired. Late last year, the government jailed the nation's biggest such importer, billionaire Ricardo Fernandez. In part, he is accused of using access to dollars to enrich himself.

Mr. Fernandez has denied wrongdoing.

Read more - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126305109903923235.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

RIP Gumby - Gumby Animator Art Clokey Dies at 89 in California -

Reading - RIP Gumby - Gumby Animator Art Clokey Dies at 89 in California -

Art Clokey poses with a Gumby doll in 1995. (AP photo)

Clokey first molded Gumby for a surreal student project at the University of Southern California called "Gumbasia." That led to his making shorts for the "Howdy Doody Show" and several series through the years.

LOS OSOS, Calif. - Gumby animator Art Clokey, whose bendable creation became a pop culture phenomenon through countless satires, toys and revivals, has died at age 89.

Caretaker Chrisanne Wollett Clokey says Clokey died Friday in Los Osos on California's Central Coast.

Clokey first molded Gumby for a surreal student project at the University of Southern California called "Gumbasia." That led to his making shorts for the "Howdy Doody Show" and several series through the years.

He said he based Gumby's swooping head on the hairdo of his father, who died when Clokey was nine.

Clokey also created the moralizing and often satirized claymation duo "Davey and Goliath."

Eddie Murphy brought a surge in Gumby's popularity in the 1980s with his send-up of the character on "Saturday Night Live" as a cigar-smoking primadonna.

Stay away from Dubai too! - Raped in Dubai has passport confiscated and charged with having sex outside marriage -

Reading - Stay away from Dubai too! - Raped in Dubai has passport confiscated and charged with having sex outside marriage -

A British woman who alleged that she was raped in Dubai on New Year’s Eve has had her passport confiscated and may face a jail sentence after she was charged with having sex outside marriage with her fiance.
The 23-year-old woman, a Muslim from London, of Pakistani origin, said that she was attacked by a man who is understood to be a worker in the hotel where she had been drinking with her fiance to celebrate their engagement during a three-day holiday in Dubai.
When she reported to the police that she had been raped, she and her partner, 44, were themselves jailed for sex outside marriage, which is illegal under the emirate’s laws. Unmarried couples are not allowed to share hotel rooms or live together, although many establishments turn a blind eye. The couple were also charged with being drunk outside licensed premises.
The alleged assault on the woman took place at the upmarket Address Hotel in the Dubai Marina district.
After drinking heavily to celebrate the marriage proposal that evening, the woman passed out in the toilets, where she says that she was followed by a member of staff and attacked. It is unclear if the alleged rape is being investigated by police. The woman’s alleged attacker has denied rape and has claimed that sex was consensual. He has also been charged with illegal sex outside marriage.
A spokesperson for the Address declined to comment yesterday. Dubai police also declined to comment.
The woman’s fiance was unaware of the incident and took her home, but when she recalled the attack the next morning they went to the police.
It is reported that the police focused on the woman’s drinking and her sexual preferences. It is claimed that standard procedures in alleged rape cases were not followed, although legal sources in Dubai dispute this. A blood test proved that the woman had been drinking. The couple were arrested, charged and jailed overnight. They have been released on bail and their passports have been taken away.
The woman has been advised to drop the rape allegation, admit that she was drunk and marry her fiance immediately if she wants to go home. She told The Sun: “I always dreamed of a big family wedding in Britain, but now I just want to get married so I can get out of here.”

Stay away from Mexico! - assailants skinned Hernandez's face and stitched it onto a soccer ball -

Reading - Stay away from Mexico! - assailants skinned Hernandez's face and stitched it onto a soccer ball -

MEXICO CITY —

The body of 36-year-old Hugo Hernandez was left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces as a chilling threat to members of the Juarez drug cartel. A note read: "Happy New Year, because this will be your last."

To drive home the point, the assailants skinned Hernandez's face and stitched it onto a soccer ball.

The gruesome find, confirmed Friday by Sinaloa state prosecutors, represents a new level of brutality in Mexico's drug war, in which torture and beheadings are almost daily occurrences.

Hernandez was taken to Sinaloa after being kidnapped Jan. 2 in neighboring Sonora state, in an area known for marijuana growing, said Martin Robles, a spokesman for Sinaloa prosecutors. The motive for his abduction was unclear.

His torso was found in a plastic container in one location; elsewhere another box contained his arms, legs and skull, Robles said. Hernandez's face, sewn onto a football, was left in a plastic bag near City Hall.

More than 15,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels three years ago. While the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana have seen much of the violence, Sinaloa state is Mexico's drug-smuggling heartland and is the birthplace of the leadership of four of the six major cartels.

Often, victims are tortured and mutilated, in an attempt to intimidate rivals, officials and others who might represent a threat to the cartels.

Often, it works.

In the northern city of Saltillo, a major regional newspaper announced it would stop covering drug violence altogether after the body of a reporter was found Friday outside a motel with a threatening message. Valentin Valdes had recently written about the arrests of suspected drug traffickers.

"As of today we will publish zero information related to drug trafficking to avoid situations like the one we went through today," an editor of the newspaper Zocalo told The Associated Press. Tellingly, he asked that his name not be published.

Many Mexican news media have stopped covering anything that might be associated with drugs, or limit themselves to reporting on government news releases. At least 17 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992 in direct reprisal for stories, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Valdes had written about the Dec. 29 arrests at the Marbella Motel of five alleged members of the Gulf drug cartel. He also covered the arrests Wednesday of five others who barged into the same hotel and stole the surveillance tapes.

The 28-year-old reporter was shot to death, and his body was dumped outside the Marbella Motel.

Coahuila state Attorney General Jesus Torres would not give details of the threat left with his body.

JAL has lost 2/3ds of its value in the past year while spread on its five-year CDS are above 2,700 basis points -

Reading - JAL has lost 2/3ds of its value in the past year while spread on its five-year CDS are above 2,700 basis points -

American and Delta both want to be Japan Airlines’s partner. JAL lost $1.5 billion over the six months through September (Issei Kato/Reuters)

Growing concerns that Japan Airlines Corp <9205.t> will file for bankruptcy as part of a state bailout sent shares in the ailing carrier tumbling a further 10 percent on Friday amid uncertain signals from the government.

A state-backed turnaround fund is in negotiations with the government and creditors on a plan to support the carrier with an injection of fresh capital if it files for bankruptcy and can get debt forgiveness from its banks, sources have told Reuters.

The case for a court-led restructuring, which would dent the value of JAL's shares if not render them worthless, appeared to gather momentum on Thursday when Japan's new finance minister said he expected the fund to support JAL.

However, Transport Minister Seiji Maehara told reporters on Friday that he had not heard from a state-backed turnaround fund that a court-led bankruptcy is premise of JAL restructuring.

Shares of JAL, Asia's biggest airline by revenues, extended their slide for a third straight day, losing another 10.5 percent to 68 yen by the midday break, nearing to their record low of 60 yen marked on December 30.

"Investors are worried that the value of JAL's stock would be diluted," said Takahiko Kishi, senior analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities.

JAL has lost more than two thirds of its value in the past year while the spread on its five-year credit default swaps, used to insure against default, have been quoted at distresses levels above 2,700 basis points.

The state-backed turnaround body, Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan, is expected to make a final decision on whether to support JAL in the week starting January 18, with a filing for bankruptcy likely on the same day, sources have said.

Even as JAL flirts with bankruptcy, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have been stepping up their efforts to court the carrier, eyeing its network to fast-growing Asian markets and a stronger foothold in Japan.

American Airlines met with JAL executives on Thursday and raised its offer of investment, to be made with private equity firm TPG, by $300 million to $1.4 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site.

A spokesman for American Airlines declined to confirm or deny the figure.

Meanwhile, transport minister said it would be difficult to choose Delta or American as partner for JAL by the end of this month. (Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Lincoln Feast)