XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Thursday, 30 December 2010

17 National Debt Statistics Which Prove That We Have Sold Our Children And Grandchildren Into Perpetual Debt Slavery -

What we have done to future generations over the past 30 years is absolutely criminal. 30 years ago the U.S. national debt was a bit under one trillion dollars, and at that time it was considered a huge national crisis. Today, the national debt is 14 times larger and the years ahead look absolutely apocalyptic at this point. We have literally sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery. We have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and our children and our grandchildren will be burdened with it for the rest of their lives. All of our politicians keep talking about how it is vitally important that we do something about all of this debt “soon”, but they just can’t seem to stop wildly spending our money. They keep telling us that now is not the time for deficit reduction because it would harm “the economic recovery”, but the “right time” for deficit reduction never seems to come along. The national debt statistics in this article are meant to shock you. Hopefully they will shock you enough to actually take action. Up to this point, the vast majority of Americans have been extremely apathetic about the horrific crime that we are committing against future generations.

How would you feel if you found out one day that your parents had run up a million dollars in debt that now you were obligated to pay off?

Would you be absolutely furious?

Of course you would be, and rightly so.

So how do you think future generations will feel about us?

We were once the wealthiest nation on the planet, but we have taken that great inheritance and we have squandered it.

Now we are handing our children and our grandchildren the largest debt the world has ever seen.

How in the world can we do that?

How can we consign our descendants to perpetual debt slavery and still feel good about ourselves?

The America that we have all been enjoying so much today is going to be wiped out by all of this debt.

We have literally stolen the future.

We just had to keep spending more and more and more and more.

The greed of this generation will be remembered for a very, very long time.

The truth is that both political parties are responsible. Both of them have voted over and over and over to keep running up these huge budget deficits.

If you have voted for big spending Democrats at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem. If you have voted for big spending Republicans at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem.

Now we have reached a point where a horrific financial meltdown is basically inevitable. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and it is only a matter of time until it bursts.

The following are 17 national debt statistics which prove that we have sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery….

#1 As of December 28th, the U.S. national debt was $13,877,230,355,933.00.

#2 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.

#3 If the federal government began repaying the national debt at a rate of $10 million dollars a day it would take approximately 3,800 years to pay off the national debt.

#4 Today, the U.S. national debt is increasing by roughly 4 billion dollars every single day.

#5 The U.S. government is borrowing approximately 2.63 million more dollars every single minute.

#6 On September 30th, 1980 the U.S. national debt was 907 billion dollars. Just thirty years later, the U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger.

#7 According to a recent U.S. Treasury report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will reach 19.6 trillion dollars in 2015.

#8 It is being projected that the U.S. government will be paying 900 billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.

#9 A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globemore than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.

#10 The U.S. Congress has raised the federal debt ceiling six times in just the past three years.

#11 The 111th Congress added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.

#12 The 111th Congress got us into so much new debt that it breaks down to $10,429.64 for each of the 308,745,538 people counted by the 2010 U.S. census.

#13 The U.S. government currently has to borrow approximately 41 cents of every single dollar that it spends.

#14 When you break down the debt that the U.S. government owes to China alone it comes to over $10,000 for every single American family.

#15 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. Almost unbelievably, the U.S. government will accumulate well over a trillion dollars more debt in 2011.

#16 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#17 The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080.

But the American people don’t want to hear that we have spent decades creating a horrific debt crisis that is not going to be easy to fix. They just want someone to “tweak” a few things and get us back to being the greatest economy on earth. Unfortunately, it is simply not that easy.

Just check out the chart posted below. Our debt is exploding at an almost exponential rate….

17 National Debt Statistics Which Prove That We Have Sold Our Children And Grandchildren Into Perpetual Debt Slavery The National Debt2

But what do you tell a nation that is completely addicted to debt?

On an individual level, it can be a lot of fun to wildly run up credit card debt, but at some point you have to stop and start paying down that debt.

Unfortunately, on a national level we can’t even get our politicians to slow down the rate at which our debt is increasing.

Sadly, the chart above does not tell the real story. It is based on fraudulent government accounting. If the government used GAAP accounting (like all public companies on Wall Street must), the numbers would look much worse.

John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics says that if the federal government would have used GAAP accounting standards to calculate the federal budget deficit for 2009, it would have been approximately 8.8 trillion dollars and that there is simply no way out of all this debt….

The government’s finances not only are out of control, but the actual deficit is not containable. Put into perspective, if the government were to raise taxes so as to seize 100% of all wages, salaries and corporate profits, it still would be showing an annual deficit using GAAP accounting on a consistent basis. In like manner, given current revenues, if it stopped spending every penny (including defense and homeland security) other than for Social Security and Medicare obligations, the government still would be showing an annual deficit. Further, the U.S. has no potential way to grow out of this shortfall.

The U.S. government is essentially bankrupt at this point. It is just a matter of playing out the hand.

The rest of the world is starting to realize this, and confidence in the U.S. dollar is beginning to significantly decline.

Things did not have to turn out this way, but Americans did not listen to the warnings and so now this is where we are at as a nation.

The next time you see a small child, look into the hopeful eyes of that child and just think about what we have done to the future of all of our children.

We have obliterated the financial future of this nation. Someone should be put into prison for all this. But instead the mainstream media treats prominent politicians from both political parties like rock stars.

The mainstream media continues to perpetuate the myth that the U.S. economy is on the road to a grand recovery and that eventually we can get a handle on all this debt and that somehow everything is going to be okay.

Well, everything is not going to be okay.

All that is on the horizon is great financial pain, and the sad thing is that it could have all been avoided.

But now the game is over and the day of reckoning is coming soon.

We are going to reap what we have sown.

Sunday, 19 December 2010

Buying Gold: Why Are The Chinese Gobbling Up Gold Like There Is No Tomorrow? - 209.7 metric tons first 10 months of 2010 -

Why are the Chinese buying so much gold? In 2010 it has been demand out of China that has been one of the primary factors for the dramatic rise in the price of gold. Gold is up approximately 26 percent this year, and most analysts expect it to go even higher in 2011. So is China buying gold at a breathtaking pace because they view it as a good investment, or are there other factors at work here? Do the Chinese view gold as a hedge against inflation? Is China seeking to get out of U.S. Treasuries? Has gold simply become much more attractive than paper currencies such as the euro and the U.S. dollar? Or could China be preparing for the coming financial collapse that so many economists see coming? It is always difficult to tell exactly what China is up to, but one thing is for sure - they are buying gold like there is no tomorrow.

It recently was announced that China imported 209.7 metric tons of gold during the first ten months of 2010. That was five times more gold than China imported during the first ten months of 2009.

So what can account for such a dramatic increase?

Does China need all of that gold for domestic use?

Without a doubt gold is becoming much more popular in China, but it is not as if China does not produce a massive amount of gold on their own. In fact, since 2007 China has been the number one producer of gold in the entire world. They are certainly not suffering from a shortage of gold.

If that is the case, then what else could explain why China is buying gold so rapidly?

Well, there seem to be four primary theories for why China is buying up so much gold right now.

#1 A Hedge Against Inflation

Already we are starting to see some very serious inflation in China. In particular, food inflation threatens to spiral out of control. In an inflationary environment, gold is always a good investment.

#2 An Alternative To U.S. Treasuries

Over the past decade, China has invested very, very heavily in U.S. Treasuries. In fact, the U.S. government owes China nearly a trillion dollars at this point. However, over the last year or two China has dramatically slowed down their purchases of U.S. Treasuries and they have been actively seeking out alternative investments. Gold has always been a very safe investment, and with the world financial system so unstable right now it makes a lot of sense to invest in gold.

#3 A Lack Of Faith In Paper Currencies

Over the past decade, China has accumulated a gigantic pile of foreign exchange reserves, but lately paper currencies such as the euro and the U.S. dollar have become increasingly unstable. The European sovereign debt crisis threatens to collapse the euro at any moment. Quantitative easing 2 and the tax cut deal that Barack Obama and the Republicans are trying to push through Congress are causing the rest of the globe to lose a tremendous amount of faith in the U.S. dollar. In this type of environment, holding paper currencies has become much less attractive.

#4 Preparing For The Coming Financial Collapse

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that we are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world and that at some point the world financial system is going to crash. When that happens, the safest place to be will be in precious metals and other commodities. The Chinese have been busy gobbling up gold, silver and many other commodities, and so whether they mean to or not, they are positioning themselves to weather the coming financial storm better than most other nations.

Once again, it is always hard to tell exactly what China is doing. Perhaps in six months or a year China will change course again. But right now China is gobbling up huge amounts of gold, and if this continues it is going to create a huge imbalance in global financial markets.

In fact, if all of this Chinese gold buying goes on long enough, it could blow out many of those who are holding significant short positions in gold.

But it is not just the Chinese government that has caught "gold fever" these days.

Chinese citizens are buying gold at a rate that has never been seen before.

On the Shanghai Gold Exchange, trading volume soared 43 percent during the first 10 months of 2010.

As the Chinese middle class has grown, gold has become much more popular. Amazingly, Chinese households have purchased almost half as much goldsince mid-2007 as all the investors in the West combined.

This is yet another sign of how far China has come. China is not a minor player on the world stage any longer. The truth is that China is now a major economic superpower.

In a previous article entitled "China #1, United States #2? 25 Facts That Prove The Transition Is Really Happening", I detailed some of the statistics that prove that China has become an absolute powerhouse. The following are just a few examples of those statistics....

*The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for about 100 years, but this past summer China took over the number one spot.

*Over the past 15 years, China has moved from 14th place all the way up to 2nd place in the world in published scientific research articles.

*According to one recent study, China could become the global leader in patent filings by next year.

*China now possesses the fastest supercomputer on the entire globe.

*China now has the world's fastest train and the world's largest high-speed rail network.

*Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China's share had soared to 20 percent.

*Nobel economist Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040 if current trends continue.

So what about the United States?

Well, the truth is that Americans have become so dumbed-down that only about 70 percent of them can even find China on a map.

How sad is that?

On the global chessboard, China seems to constantly be four or five moves ahead of the United States these days.

So if China is busy buying gold at a feverish pace perhaps it is because they know exactly what they are doing.

Saturday, 18 December 2010

Winter Solstice, Lunar Eclipse Overlap first time in 456 YEARS - starts just after midnight Eastern Time on Tuesday -

This year's winter solstice — an event that will occur next Tuesday — will coincide with a full lunar eclipse in a union that hasn't been seen in 456 years.

The celestial eccentricity holds special significance for spiritualities that tap into the energy of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and a time that is associated with the rebirth of the sun.

"It's a ritual of transformation from darkness into light," says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto's Wiccan Church of Canada. "It's the idea that when things seem really bleak, (it) is often our biggest opportunity for personal transformation.

"The idea that the sun and the moon are almost at their darkest at this point in time really only further goes to hammer that home."

Cooper said Wiccans also see great significance in the unique coupling of the masculine energy of the sun and the feminine energy of the moon — transformative energies that she plans to incorporate into the church's winter-solstice rituals.

Since the last time an eclipse and the winter solstice happened simultaneously was just under five centuries years ago, Cooper said she wasn't familiar with any superstitions or mythologies associated with it.

Instead, she said, they can only be interpreted personally.

"Wiccans don't think of things as being good or evil — they just are. Our experience of them makes them positive or negative for us."

The winter solstice also played an important role in Greco-Roman rituals.

"It's seen as a time of rebirth or renewal because, astrologically, it's a time where the light comes back," said Shane Hawkins, a professor of Greek and Roman studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.

For the ancient Romans, it was also a time of great feasting and debauchery.

"If (the eclipse) happened on the 21st, they might well have been drunk," he said.

A lunar eclipse taking place during the solstice is not an event Hawkins has seen in research, but he said it would have been viewed as something special.

"Eclipses could be taken either way," he said. "Certainly it would have been an omen, but it would have been up to the interpretation of specialists of whether it was good or bad."

And that interpretation would likely be based on whatever was happening at the time.

The last time the two celestial events happened at the same time was in AD 1554, according to NASA.

An otherwise seemingly unexceptionable year in recorded history, the darkened moon happened during a bleak year for Tudor England.

Lady Jane Grey was beheaded for treason that year, while Princess Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mary of Guise — the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots — became regent of Scotland.

Scientifically, however, it's just a coincidence of natural cycles.

"It's quite rare, but there's no profound significance. It's luck of the draw; you got dealt four aces," said Robert Dick, an astronomy instructor at Carleton.

The eclipse will start just after midnight Eastern Time on Tuesday, with the main event starting at 1:30 a.m. ET and lasting until 5:30 a.m., when the moon reappears.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Solstice+eclipse+overlap+first+years/3983582/story.html#ixzz18U1OpRkK

Friday, 17 December 2010

Federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected Obama's contention warrant not needed to obtain cell-site information -

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the Obama administration’s contention that the government is never required to get a court warrant to obtain cell-site information that mobile-phone carriers retain on their customers.

The decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is one in a string of court decisions boosting Americans’ privacy (.pdf) in the digital age — rulings the government fought against. The most significant and recent decision came Tuesday, when a different federal appeals court said for the first time the governmentmust obtain a court warrant for an internet service provider to grant the authorities access to a suspect’s e-mail.

The case that concluded Wednesday concerns historical cell-site location information, which carriers usually retain for about 18 months. The data identifies the cell tower the customer was connected to at the beginning of a call and at the end of the call — and is often used in criminal prosecutions and investigations.

“Prosecutors across the country use the statute in criminal investigations to obtain a wide range of evidence,” (.pdf) the administration told the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit.

The Stored Communications Act, the appeals court ruled in September, granted judges the discretion torequire a warrant under the Fourth Amendment for the government to obtain the cell-site information. It was the first appellate court to reach that conclusion, despite a handful of lower-court decisions freeing the government from that requirement.

The Obama administration urged the appellate court to reconsider its position, an offer the court declined Wednesday without commenting on the merits.

The administration has also asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reverse its August ruling requiring court warrants to affix GPS devices to vehicles to track their every move. The administration said Americans should expect no privacy “in the totality of his or hermovements in public places.”

Tipping Point: 25 Signs That The Coming Financial Collapse Is Now Closer Then Ever -

The financial collapse that so many of us have been anticipating is seemingly closer then ever. Over the past several weeks, there have been a host of ominous signs for the U.S. economy. Yields on U.S. Treasuries have moved up rapidly and Moody's is publicly warning that it may have to cut the rating on U.S. government debt soon. Mortgage rates are also moving up aggressively. The euro and the U.S. dollar both look incredibly shaky. Jobs continue to be shipped out of the United States at a blistering pace as our politicians stand by and do nothing. Confidence in U.S. government debt around the globe continues to decline. State and local governments that are drowning in debt across the United States are savagely cutting back on even essential social services and are coming up with increasingly "creative" ways of getting more money out of all of us. Meanwhile, tremor after tremor continues to strike the world financial system. So does this mean that we have almost reached a tipping point? Is the world on the verge of a major financial collapse?

Let's hope not, but with each passing week the financial news just seems to get eve worse. Not only is U.S. government debt spinning wildly toward a breaking point, but many U.S. states (such as California) are in such horrific financial condition that they are beginning to resemble banana republics.

But it is not just the United States that is in trouble. Nightmarish debt problems in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and several other European nations threaten to crash the euro at any time. In fact, many economists are now openly debating which will collapse first - the euro or the U.S. dollar.

Sadly, this is the inevitable result of constructing a global financial system on debt. All debt bubbles eventually collapse. Currently we are living in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and when this one bursts it is going to be a disaster of truly historic proportions.

So will we reach a tipping point soon? Well, the following are 25 signs that the financial collapse is rapidly getting closer....

#1 The official U.S. unemployment rate has not been beneath 9 percent since April 2009.

#2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are currently 6.3 million vacant homes in the United States that are either for sale or for rent.

#3 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit with China could hit 270 billion dollars for the entire year of 2010.

#4 Back in 2000, 7.2 percent of blue collar workers were either unemployed or underemployed. Today that figure is up to 19.5 percent.

#5 The Chinese government has accumulated approximately $2.65 trillion in total foreign exchange reserves. They have drained this wealth from the economies of other nations (such as the United States) and instead of reinvesting all of it they are just sitting on much of it. This is creating tremendous imbalances in the global economy.

#6 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were approximately 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.

#7 The United States now employs about the same number of people in manufacturing as it did back in 1940. Considering the fact that we had 132 million people living in this country in 1940 and that we have well over 300 million people living in this country today, that is a very sobering statistic.

#8 According to CoreLogic, U.S. housing prices have now declined for three months in a row.

#9 The average rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage soared 11 basis points just this past week. As mortgage rates continue to push higher it is going to make it even more difficult for American families to afford homes.

#10 22.5 percent of all residential mortgages in the United States were in negative equity as of the end of the third quarter of 2010.

#11 The U.S. monetary base has more than doubled since the beginning of the most recent recession.

#12 U.S. Treasury yields have been rising steadily during the 4th quarter of 2010 and recently hit a six-month high.

#13 Incoming governor Jerry Brown is scrambling to find $29 billion more to cut from the California state budget. The following quote from Brownabout the desperate condition of California state finances is not going to do much to inspire confidence in California's financial situation around the globe....

#14 24.3 percent of the residents of El Centro, California are currently unemployed.

#15 The average home in Merced, California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four years.

#16 Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has come up with a new way to save money. He wants to cut 20 percent of Detroit off from essential social services such as road repairs, police patrols, functioning street lights and garbage collection.

#17 The second most dangerous city in the United States - Camden, New Jersey - is about to lay off about half its police in a desperate attempt to save money.

#18 In 2010, 55 percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent. More older Americans than ever find that they have to keep working just to survive.

#19 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China's share had soared to 20 percent.

#20 The U.S. government budget deficit increased to a whopping $150.4 billion last month, which represented the biggest November budget deficit on record.

#21 The U.S. government is somehow going to have to roll over existing debt and finance new debt that is equivalent to 27.8 percent of GDP in 2011.

#22 The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for about 100 years, but this past summer China took over the number one spot.

#23 According to an absolutely stunning new poll, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to bail out of the profession over the next three years.

#24 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.

#25 All over the United States, local governments have begun instituting "police response fees". For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come up with a plan under which a fee of $365 would be charged if police are called to respond to an automobile accident where no injuries are involved. If there are injuries as a result of the crash that is going to cost extra.

Thursday, 16 December 2010

A remote-control drone operated by the Mexican government crashed in the United States near El Paso, Texas, this week -

A remote-control drone operated by the Mexican government crashed in the United States near El Paso, Texas, this week, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency confirms to TPM.

"CBP/U.S. Border Patrol responded to a concerned citizen's call and recovered small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle which belonged to the government of Mexico (GOM)," CBP Press Officer Roger Maier told TPM in an e-mail. "We worked collaboratively with the GOM and other US Federal agencies to coordinate the return of the UAV to the GOM."

A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, tells TPM that the plane that crashed was a "mini orbiter UAV" but declined to elaborate further. A Google search turns up a drone called a Orbiter Mini UAV made by Aeronautics Defense Systems, an Israeli company (check out the brochure and a video of the Orbiter in action hereand here).

The news was first reported in The El Paso Times, which reported that the drone crashed in El Paso's Lower Valley on Tuesday. "I was told that it crashed in somebody's back yard, and that no one was injured. I was paged at 6:28 p.m. on Tuesday, so it happened shortly before that. We were told it was not a police matter," El Paso Police Department spokesman Mike Baranyay told the Times. The Times suggests that the crashed drone was returned to the Mexico government by U.S. authorities at one of the bridges which span the U.S.-Mexico border.

Keith Holloway, the NTSB Public Affairs Officer, told TPM that his agency was still collecting data on the incident, but that it would not be sending people to the crash site to investigate.

"We may or may not do a report on this," Holloway said.

Last year, Mexico spent $23.25 million to buy an "unspecified" number of Hermes 450 drones from the Israel-based Elbit Systems Ltd., Reuters reported in August. In July, the blog mxsecurity.wordpress.comreported that The Mexican Navy's Institute for Technology Innovation was developing three Unmanned Aerial Vehicles of its own, having previously purchased a "similar number" of UAVs made by Hydra Technologies.

The Department of Homeland Security started flying a Predator-B drone out of Corpus Christi, Texas in September. According to The Arizona Daily Star, the U.S. now how seven Predator-B drones operating on the border, with three more scheduled to begin operation before the end of 2011. In April 2006, a Predator-B drone crashed while on patrol near Nogales, Arizona.

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

Ron Paul: Audit the Fed in 2011 -

Since the announcement last week that I will chair the congressional subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve, the media response has been overwhelming. The groundswell of opposition to Fed actions among ordinary citizens is reflected not only in the rhetoric coming out of Capitol Hill, but also in the tremendous interest shown by the financial press. The demand for transparency is growing, whether the political and financial establishment likes it or not. The Fed is losing its vaunted status as an institution that somehow is above politics and public scrutiny. Fed transparency will be the cornerstone of my efforts as subcommittee chairman.

Thanks to public pressure earlier this year, Congress did pass legislation that requires the Fed to disclose some information about its bailout of select industries and companies following the 2008 financial crisis. So two weeks ago the Fed released data concerning more than $3 trillion of assistance it offered to banks through its bailout facilities. After reviewing this data, however, we are left with many more questions about the Fed’s “lending”.

In the “Term Securities Lending Facility”, the Fed was supposed to have loaned against AAA-rated securities– yet over half of the collateral put up by banks to obtain loans had no listed credit rating. Should we assume that the Fed accepted absolute junk rated securities as collateral for loans? Presumably these securities were so bad that they wouldn’t even publicize their credit rating. So why should our central bank, backed up by your taxes, accept such collateral?

On another note, of the $1.25 trillion purchased under the Fed’s “Mortgage-Backed Securities Purchase Program,” only $877 billion in purchases have been publicized. What happened to the remaining $400 billion?

These kinds of limited disclosures by the Fed only underscore the need for a full and complete audit of the Fed’s financial books. This audit should be done by an independent third party, in the same manner that public companies are audited. The Fed should make public its balance sheet, income statement, and perhaps most importantly its cash flow statement. It also should publicize the notes explaining those financial statements.

We seem to forget sometimes that Congress created the Fed– it is a government-created banking monopoly, and its top decision-makers are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If the Fed does not perform satisfactorily in the eyes of these politicians and their constituents, the Chairman and Governors may not be re-nominated.

In theory, Congress could even repeal the Federal Reserve Act altogether since it has the authority to do so. Obviously Congress is within its authority to audit an organization it created by statute, and it is time to assume that responsibility.

With 320 Members of Congress cosponsoring my legislation to fully audit the Fed in the 111th Congress, my hope is that we can build on our broad bipartisan coalition in 2011 and continue the push for greater Fed transparency going forward.

Halliburton reportedly agrees to pay Nigeria $250 million to drop bribery charges against Cheney, and their firm -

The massive industrial conglomerate Halliburton has reportedly offered to pay $250 million to settle charges against its former chief executive, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, in a multi-million dollar bribery case.

Nigeria filed charges against Cheney last week in an investigation of alleged bribery estimated at $180 million. Prosecutors named both Halliburton and KBR in the charges, as well as three European oil and engineering companies -- Technip SA, EniSpa, and Saipem Construction. Eleven Halliburton officials were arrested last month and freed on bail Nov. 29.

The charges allege that engineering contractor KBR, until 2007 a subsidiary of Halliburton, was among companies that paid bribes to secure a $6 billion contract for a natural gas plant. KBR pleaded guilty to the same bribes in a US court in 2009, and agreed to pay a $382 million fine. The Nigerian charges appear to stem from the US case -- though, in that trial, Cheney was never directly charged.

The $250 million figure would include a direct $130 million fine by the company and an agreement to repatriate another $120 million from Switzerland.

Representatives for Cheney and Halliburton met with Nigerian officials in London over the weekend.

Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission spokesman Femi Babafemi told Reuters the company had offered to pay up to $250 million.In the United States, KBR has already admitted bribing Nigerian officials. In February 2009, the company agreed to pay a $402 million fine. Halliburton itself paid $177 million to settle allegations paid to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but didn't admit wrongdoing. Still, despite the settlements, Halliburton's spokeswoman said “there is no legal basis for the charges” in a statement Dec. 8.

"They have made offers of fines to be paid in penalties. They offered to pay $120 million in addition to the repatriation of $130 million trapped in Switzerland," Babafemi said.

"It will need to be ratified by the government and we expect a decision by the end of the week," he added.

Earlier this month, Halliburton said they hadn't seen the new charges, but still denied their involvement.

"Halliburton's oil-field services operations in Nigeria have never in any way been part of the LNG project and none of the Halliburton employees have ever had any connection to or participation in that project," Tara Mullee Agard, a spokeswoman for the Houston-based company, said in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg.

Cheney led Halliburton as CEO and Chairman of the Board from 1995 to 2000.

Writes Reuters:

Halliburton split from KBR in 2007. It has said that its current operations in Nigeria -- raided by the EFCC last month -- were not involved in the Bonny project and that there is no legal basis for the charges.
Those charged in Nigeria include KBR Chief Executive Officer William Utt and former KBR CEO Albert "Jack" Stanley, who worked under Cheney when he headed Halliburton and pleaded guilty in 2008 to U.S. charges related to the case.
KBR said Utt had only joined the firm in February 2006 and that the rest of its executive team was appointed thereafter. It has accused Nigeria of "wildly and wrongly asserting blame".

Notes Bloomberg, "An aide of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was charged with six counts of money-laundering in Abuja on Oct. 13 in connection with the alleged payment of bribes."

"The case is Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Halliburton and others, CV/435/10, High Court of Justice, Abuja Judicial Division (Abuja)."

The world's five biggest airlines now hail from Asia and Latin America -

The world's five biggest airlines now hail from Asia and Latin America, highlighting the industry's shift away from the U.S. and Europe to higher-growth countries, the International Air Transport Association said Tuesday.

Air China is twice the size of either Delta in the U.S. or Germany's Lufthansa. But despite emerging markets' strength and a broad earnings rebound this year, weak economic conditions in Europe and low margins are acting as a drag on profits, the group warned.

"The world is changing in aviation, and it's changing very, very quickly," IATA Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani told a news conference in Geneva. "Rapidly developing markets are shifting the industry's center of gravity to the East."

Air China has a market capitalization of $20 billion, followed by Singapore airlines with $14 billion and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific with $12 billion.

China Southern has a market cap of $11 billion, as does LATAM, the Latin American airline recently created from the merger of Chile's LAN and TAM of Brazil. U.S. carrier Delta and Germany's Lufthansa follow with market capitalizations of $10 billion each.

IATA said strong growth in developing countries and a rebound in North America are largely responsible for the industry's recovery this year.

Airlines will see net profits of $15.1 billion in 2010, IATA said. This marks a massive turnaround from the $10 billion industry loss in 2009 and $16 billion loss in 2008.

Asian carriers will contribute $7.7 billion to the global total, while North American airlines will earn $5.1 billion. Europe, with estimated net profits of $400 million, lags behind the Middle East ($700 million) and Latin America ($1.2 billion). African carriers will earn $100 million this year, IATA said.

The full-year estimate is a significant jump from IATA's prediction in September for an $8.9 billion industry profit in 2010.

"2011 is going to be a much more challenging period," said IATA chief economist Brian Pearce, noting that heavy debts and new taxes will weigh on consumer travel spending in Europe and North America.

IATA forecasts net profits of $9.1 billion for the industry next year.

Bisignani warned that profit margins remain "pathetically low" and pose a threat to the industry in case of another economic shock.

Recently introduced air travel taxes in Britain, Germany and Austria, and efforts to introduce a regional carbon emissions trading market harm Europe's competitiveness, he said, noting that these further squeeze profit margins for the continent's carriers.

Fuel price rises are also expected to hurt profits in 2011, further driving the industry to reduce aircraft fuel consumption and find viable renewable alternatives.

Still, the Geneva-based group representing some 230 carriers and 93 percent of scheduled air traffic said the outlook is bright for Asia.

A rapidly expanding middle class in Asia and growing demand for air links between the continent's 15 mega-cities, with over 10 million inhabitants each, promise strong industry profits in the region, Bisignani said.

If "archaic ownership rules" in the United States were changed the industry might soon see the first takeover of a U.S. carrier by an Asian airline, he added.

The Italian, who has been at the helm of IATA for nine years, will be succeeded by Cathay Pacific CEO Tony Tyler next year.

10 Signs That Confidence In U.S. Treasuries Is Dying And That Financial Armageddon May Be Approaching -

Selling government debt is a gigantic confidence game. For decades, investors all over the globe have gobbled up massive amounts of U.S. debt at incredibly low interest rates because they believed that it was a certainly that they would be paid back and be able to make a little bit of profit on top of it. Unfortunately, things have changed. Confidence is U.S. Treasuries is dying, and if confidence in U.S. government debt completely collapses at some point we could literally be looking at financial Armageddon. Why is that so? Well, when the world totally loses faith in U.S. Treasuries, interest rates on U.S. Treasuries will have to keep going up until enough investors are found to buy them. But much higher interest rates will mean much higher interest on the national debt and thus much higher federal budget deficits. That will erode confidence in U.S. Treasuries even further. In the end, a vicious cycle of eroding confidence and higher interest rates could ultimately lead to hyperinflation as the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve flood the system with endless amounts of paper money to try to keep the system solvent.
Faith in U.S. Treasury bonds is absolutely critical if the world financial system is going to continue to operate in a stable manner. In the post-World War 2 era, U.S. Treasuries have been largely viewed as the absolutely safest investment out there. So if there comes a point when the market for U.S. Treasuries completely collapses, it is going to cause unprecedented financial chaos. The worldwide derivatives market, which is already highly unstable, would almost certainly implode. Credit markets all over the globe would seize up. Global trade would quickly grind to a standstill.
This isn’t going to happen overnight (hopefully). Rather, the loss of confidence in U.S. Treasuries is something that is likely to take months or even years to play out. But once that confidence is gone, it is not something that will be able to be rebuilt easily.
Think of it this way – once you drive a car off a cliff, is it easy to reconstruct it?
Of course not.
Well, that is where we are headed with U.S. Treasuries.
The Federal Reserve is flooding the system with new dollars, Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress seem poised to pass a new tax deal which does not include corresponding spending cuts which will cause U.S. government budget deficits to become even more bloated, and there is a tremendous lack of faith both in U.S. political leaders and in the Federal Reserve at this point.
The rest of the world is losing faith that the U.S. government is going to be able to handle all of the debt that it has accumulated. We may be approaching a “tipping point” soon.
The following are 10 signs that confidence in U.S. Treasuries is dying….#1 The financial community is extremely concerned that the tax deal that Barack Obama is pushing is going to dramatically increase U.S. government budget deficits over the next two years. On Monday, Moody’s warned that if Barack Obama’s tax deal with the Republicans becomes law, it will increase the likelihood that Moody’s could soon be forced to slash the rating of U.S. government debt.
#2 Already there are signs that some bond investors are looking for the exits. Last week, U.S. Treasuries suffered their largest two day sell-off since the collapse of Lehman Brothers back in September 2008.
#3 The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds set a six-month high on Monday before pulling back a bit. Most analysts believe that Treasury yields are going to push significantly higher in coming weeks.
#4 This trend of rising yields has been going on for a while. In fact, yields on 10-year Treasury bonds have been steadily rising since October 7th.
#5 Even before the recent tax deal was announced there were already troubling signs regarding the growth of U.S. government debt. The U.S. government budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion in November, which was the largest November budget deficitever recorded.
#6 It is not just the new tax deal that has investors around the globe spooked. The truth is that the rest of the globe reacted very negatively to the new round of quantitative easing that the Federal Reserve announced back in November. The Federal Reserve is flooding the system with liquidity and the rest of the world is not amused.
#7 The American people have less faith in the Federal Reserve and in the financial system than at any other point in recent memory. For example, a new Bloomberg National Poll has found that a majority of Americans now want the Federal Reserve to either be held more accountable or to be abolished entirely.
#8 Investors all over the globe are starting to wake up and realize that America’s debt problem is unsolvable. David Bloom, the currency chief at HSBC, raised eyebrows when he recently stated that “if yields are rising because people think America’s fiscal situation is unsustainable, then its Armaggedon.”
#9 There is also a growing feeling among investors that the Federal Reserve simply does not care about the danger of inflation, and this is making bondholders very nervous. Stephen Lewis of Monument Securities recently put it this way….

“There is a feeling that the Fed doesn’t care about inflation – in fact, wants more of it – and that is certainly not in the interest of bondholders.“

#10 Over the next 12 months, the U.S. government is going to be rolling over trillions of dollars in debt along with all of the new borrowing that it is going to be doing. In fact, the U.S. government is somehow going to have to find a way to finance debt that is equivalent to 27.8 percent of GDP in 2011.
For years our politicians have told us that “deficits don’t matter”, but the truth is that they do matter. The national debt of the United States is now the biggest debt in the history of the world by far, and yet most Americans do not seem to grasp the absolute financial horror that we are facing as a nation.
In the end, debt is always painful. It can be a lot of fun to run out and buy a beautiful new house, a couple of brand new cars and to run your credit cards up to the max, but eventually it catches up with you. Well, the same thing is now happening to us on a national level.
We are getting to the point where eventually we are not even going to be able to service the debt that we have already piled up. Once that happens we can either declare national bankruptcy or we can try to hyperinflate our way out of trouble.
Meanwhile, the once great U.S. economic machine is dying as well. The only reason we have been able to survive with all of this debt as long as we have is because of how powerful our economy has been.
But over the past couple of decades, the big global corporations that now dominate our economy have shipped thousands of factories and millions of jobs overseas.
The mighty economic machine which is supposed to provide funds to pay off all of this debt is being dismantled right in front of our eyes.
There was no way in the world that U.S. government debt was going to be sustainable even if our economy remained vibrant and healthy. The sad truth is that U.S. government debt is approximately 13 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
But now that the “real economy” is dying a savage death there is simply no hope that this thing is ever going to turn around. The only thing left to do is to take bets on when the implosion is going to happen.
All of this “great tax cut debate” nonsense going on in Washington D.C. right now is just a bunch of incompetent politicians running around rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Perhaps these tax cuts will provide enough of a short-term economic boost to get many of them re-elected in 2012. Meanwhile, our long-term economic problems continue to get a lot worse.
It has become quite obvious that Barack Obama is completely clueless about the economy, and what is even sadder is that the “highly educated” Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, seems almost equally as clueless.
Unfortunately, Americans have become so dumbed-down that they don’t even realize that their leaders are incompetent. In fact, as sad as it is to say, most Americans you will meet on the street probably cannot even tell you what U.S. Treasuries are.
Let us hope and pray that investors around the globe continue to have at least some confidence in U.S. Treasuries for at least a little while longer. When “financial Armageddon” finally does happen, it isn’t going to be pleasant for any of us.
So enjoy these happy economic times while you still have them, because at some point things are going to get a whole lot worse.

Read more - http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/10-signs-that-confidence-in-u-s-treasuries-is-dying-and-that-financial-armageddon-may-be-approaching