konane's Blog

Clusty search for Gerlad Celente for verification of his credibility.    http://clusty.com/search?tb=firefox-1.3.3&locale=en-US&query=gerald%20celente

Gerald Celente on Russia Today 17 June 2009

Found this article as a link from SteveQuayle.com. I personally know nothing about the site it appears on.  However found the informtion about squaline being used in some vaccines to be highly interesting.  Live link to entire article at the bottom of excerpts below.

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"Swine Flu Vaccination Poses Serious Threat to Your Health

Posted by Anders  June 15, 2009

Source Euro-Med.DK

"That worrying wall of debt
By Vipal Monga
Source TheDeal.com
Published June 5, 2009 at 11:59 AM

"The leveraged loan market got accustomed to big numbers over the past decade. There's $3.6 trillion, the amount of leveraged loans made since 2000, according to Thomson Reuters' Loan Pricing Corp. There's 735-fold, the amount of growth between 2003 and 2007 in the volume of collateralized loan obligations -- the funds that helped fuel the loan market's surge after the tech and telecom bust of 2001. And there's $375 billion, the amount of bank debt used to fund leveraged buyouts completed between 2005 and 2007.

But right now, the leveraged loan market is fixated on one number: $430 billion, the amount in leveraged loans due to mature between 2012 and 2014. Despite the big numbers of the past, this might be simply too big. Indeed, the $430 billion figure is already worrying lenders, borrowers and loan-market investors alike as they struggle with the possibility that a large portion of those loans will neither be repaid nor refinanced, raising the specter of a wave of defaults among the debt-fueled LBO borrowers of 2005 through 2007.

"People are in a panic about it right now," says one lawyer who specializes in corporate finance. "There's not enough capacity to refinance this."

Is the panic justified?

Standing where we are today, it certainly seems as though the looming maturities will break upon an already fragile market, causing further damage and potentially extending the crisis. But just how serious a threat the maturities pose is an open question. Markets are dynamic, ever-evolving systems, and it's virtually certain the conditions that exist today will have changed substantially, even fundamentally, tomorrow. As Alexander Gendzier, capital markets lawyer at Jones Day, says, "2012 is a couple of lifetimes from where we are today."

The problem, in perspective: According to Standard & Poor's Leveraged Commentary & Data unit, about $10.8 billion worth of loans will mature in 2010. In 2011, the total more than doubles, to $26.5 billion, and almost triples in 2012, when it reaches $73.6 billion.

Given that the Loan Syndications and Trading Association estimates that average yearly issuance of leveraged loans totaled $107 billion between 1998 and 2005 (and ignoring for now the fact that the market for risky loans today is frozen and few expect it to regain anything like its recent size when it does thaw), those numbers could be deemed manageable. But in 2013 and 2014, the scale of the problem reveals itself as the volume of maturing loans surges to $152.5 billion, then surges again to $203.1 billion, before falling back to $27.7 billion in 2015.

The $430 billion making up the bulge that begins in 2012 largely consists of debt owed by some of the largest and highest-profile borrowers of the past several years. Private equity firms such as Apollo Management LP, Bain Capital LLC, Blackstone Group LP, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and THL Investment Capital Corp. placed billions of senior debt on the balance sheets of companies such as Clear Channel Communications Inc., First Data Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc. to finance their megabuyouts.

There was some concern even then of the amount of debt being piled on to balance sheets. For example, KKR's financing plan for its purchase of credit- and debit-card processor First Data initially met resistance in the summer of 2007 as investors struggled with the company having an Ebitda-to-­interest-payments ratio of 1.2 times, meaning KKR had barely enough cash flow to cover interest on its debt. (The deal was eventually financed, but only after KKR agreed to add some covenants, though very loose ones, to the loan agreement.) Still, the availability of cheap credit served as powerful encouragement for financial sponsors to load more debt onto the balance sheets of portfolio companies.

LCD's data shows this quite clearly. Total equity in leveraged buyouts between 1999 and the first quarter of 2009 dropped from 35.72% to 32.91%. That decline in equity came with an increase in bank debt, which jumped from 47.88% in 1999 to 53.31% in 2007.

As one executive at a private equity firm describes it, the availability of so much cheap debt profoundly affected how sponsors did business because it encouraged them to change their focus. "The PE firms were not investing in specific industries," he says. "They were investing in the capital markets."

This strategy was predicated on faith that loans could be continually refinanced, that exit options in the form of the equity markets or mergers and acquisitions fueled by more financing would be easily available and lead to profits that justified the outsized risk the sponsors were taking. There was also the belief that an ever-expanding economy would allow companies to keep increasing their Ebitda and pay down debt. The strategy had more than a few similarities with the one used by people who borrowed in increasing amounts to finance home purchases and hoped for either a quick flip or continually rising prices that would make debt more manageable.

Seen in that light, the $430 billion maturity bulge represents the bill from the lending surge coming due. But issuers and lenders have clearly been chastened by the crisis atmosphere of the past six months and are not passively waiting for the tidal wave to break upon them. Many are working aggressively to whittle away their debts. Some are using the relatively open high-yield bond markets to refinance some loans or getting bank lenders to amend and extend agreements to push out the maturities and delay the day of reckoning. "You do have evidence in place of how much of [the outstanding loans] will be reasonably refinanced," says a leveraged finance banker.

As LCD notes, the stock of outstanding leveraged finance paper -- including both leveraged loans and high-yield bonds -- has dropped from its peak of $1.15 trillion in October to $1.11 trillion as of April. This was the largest decline since 1997, although in percentage terms the 3.1% decline in outstanding paper was smaller than the 3.4% decline between December 2001 and April 2002.

Much of that decline has been in the high-yield bond market -- where LCD estimates that $372.5 billion will come due between 2012 and 2016 -- either through debt exchanges or through debt buybacks. In terms of exchanges, companies such as TPG Capital and Apollo-owned Harrah's Entertainment Inc. and Blackstone portfolio company Freescale persuaded debtholders to exchange some debt for a lesser amount that carries higher interest or has more seniority, helping to push out the maturity dates.

In the loan market, buybacks have been more popular. Companies such as Ford Motor Co. and Apollo's Berry Plastics Corp. have gained approval to buy back their loans in the secondary market, which in today's climate is a cheaper option than repaying them at par. This has allowed companies to retire about $2.8 billion of loans, according to LCD.

Borrowers have also been taking advantage of a revival in the high-yield-bond markets to repay some of their loans by issuing bonds. The LSTA's vice president of research, Meredith Coffey, says that about $11 billion has been refinanced in this way. Chief among the companies that took this tack is HCA Inc., the hospital operator that KKR, Bain Capital and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity bought for $33 billion in November 2006.

The sponsors had loaded about $12 billion of bank debt onto HCA's books, but used the resurgent bond market to pay that down by about $1.5 billion.

And, most recently, companies are looking to extend maturities in a bid to make their debt loads more manageable. Blackstone portfolio company Graham Packaging Co. LP did this in May, when it extended $1.1 billion of a term loan to April 2014, from October 2011.

But these strategies aren't exactly free rides, and much uncertainty still surrounds the loan market outlook. "Capital has a tendency to find its way to places that need it," says one leveraged finance banker. "But that doesn't mean it won't cost a lot more."

Refinancing loans for bonds, for example, is an expensive proposition, costing HCA an extra $85 million a year in interest payments, according to LCD. The ability to afford higher interest rates is very much an issue, even with lower interest rates overall, because the struggling economy has put pressure on company balance sheets.

According to LCD, average borrowing costs for leveraged loan issuers fell roughly 8% between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. Ebitda numbers, however, fell even more during that time period, down 15% on the year, which pushed the ratio of Ebitda to cash interest to 3.1 times, from 3.5 times a year earlier. This suggests companies have little room to take on increased interest expense, even in the face of looming maturities that they might not be able to pay.

Other strategies, such as debt buybacks, also pose problems. In particular, ratings agencies view debt buybacks as a sign of distress and often downgrade companies that choose the route. This is what happened to troubled radio company Emmis Communications Corp. when it announced it was buying back term loans at about 45 cents on the dollar in April. Both Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service reacted by lowering the company's ratings, signaling high default risk.

Graham Packaging, in exchange for its extension, had to agree to increase the price of its loan from LIBOR plus 225 basis points to LIBOR plus 425 with a 2.5% floor.

Then, there is also the difficult problem of rejuvenating loan market demand.

According to Dave Preston, a structured products analyst at Wachovia Capital Markets LLC, the surge in the loan market between 2003 and 2007 was prompted by a concurrent surge in the creation of collateralized loan obligations -- structured funds similar to the collateralized debt obligations that bought mortgage-backed securities -- that invested primarily in leveraged loans. Preston estimates the yearly volume of CLO creation jumped from $52 million in 1997 to $85.9 billion in 2007, with the vehicles responsible for about 66% of loan demand at the height of the credit boom.

But that demand will not return. Preston says existing CLOs, which are still returning money to investors, will themselves hit the end of their reinvestment periods between 2011 and 2014, meaning they won't be able to use cash in their vehicles to buy new loans.

And there's little expectation that new CLO creation will be sufficient to replace that lost demand from existing vehicles. The primary investors in the triple-A tranches of the CLOs were foreign banks, the now discredited structured investment vehicles and the monoline insurers, which doesn't exactly bode well for a resumption of investment in these structures.

"As CLOs purchased approximately two-thirds of loans from 2003-2007, these loans may face difficulty refinancing without a CLO market," Preston says. "Just as mortgage defaults rose and recoveries fell due to option ARM borrowers with limited refinancing opportunities, loan cumulative losses could spike if the market is not revived by 2012-2014."

Which brings us to the nuclear option of debt reduction: bankruptcies. S&P estimates that default rates in the loan market hit 8.03% in April and could double as the recession continues. This may, in fact, be the most effective method of reducing maturities. LCD estimated on May 12 that about 15 bankrupt leveraged loan issuers will reduce secured debt by 41%, from $24.6 billion to $14.6 billion.

LSTA suggests that if defaulted loans are taken into account with the other options issuers are using, the loan-maturity bulge could shrink by 40%.

"This is never a good option," says the LSTA's Coffey, adding that bankruptcy is an uncertain process that could inflict broader economic pain by increasing layoffs, not to mention destroy returns for many private equity investors.

But, as one debt markets banker puts it, companies that default because of onerous debt, as opposed to a flawed business model, such as the one that brought down Apollo portfolio company Linens 'n Things Inc., could still emerge as healthier companies on the other side. This may hurt private equity firms and shrink the loan market, but these could be good things in the end.

"It's clear we won't be turning the spigots back on," says the banker, referring to both the loan market and the private equity industry that fed off it. "But the name of the game right now is survival."

http://www.thedeal.com/newsweekly/features/that-worrying-wall-of-debt.php

It is the month of June, on the shores of the Black Sea . It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to thebutcher.

The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.

The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplierof his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debtto the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism..

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is doing business today.

Read a few years back China was buying most of the world's cement due to their building boom. Now hard data, great article excellent graphs.

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"A Pretty Stunning Graph of World Cement Production (and China is Certainly Using It)

Posted by Prof. Goose on June 20, 2008 - 6:00am
Topic: Economics/Finance
Source The Oil Drum

Annual production of cement by country in billions of metric tons. Click to expand. Source: USGS 2006 report (PDF) and the USGS 2008 report (PDF).

Cement is mainly used to make concrete, and is sort of the "active ingredient" in concrete - it is combined with sand and gravel in roughly fixed proportions. So cement production can be considered a rough proxy for the total amount of construction going on in a country.

This post updates Stuart's post about this two years ago (and yes, it's still a graph that will blow you away!) with two more years of USGS cement data, 2006 and 2007. The growth in China, from 1 GT to 1.3 GT in two years is mindboggling, even India and Russia are interesting...and there's more to think about under the fold.

edited to add: As a couple of folks pointed out--I have interchanged "production" and "usage" in this post incorrectly--however, China's 2007 cement exports were only 33 million tons out of 1.3 billion tons produced. So, at least for China, production is a good proxy for demand/consumption. My apologies for the mistake.

Also interesting is the percentage of the world's production of cement that China took up in 2007 (50%) compared to 2004 (42.5%); some of this can no doubt be due to preparation for the Olympics, but that surely cannot not be all of that growth can it? Also note that other countries (perhaps the "developing world?") seems to be using less of the total proportion of cement used.

 

Percentage of yearly worldwide cement usage. Click to expand. Source: USGS 2006 report and the USGS 2008 report.

 

Some things we learned from the comment thread from Stuart's post a couple of years ago:

Remember, in China, oil isn't used in cement production. In the "clinker" stage, it's all coal. In the blending stage it's electricity (which is generated 80% from coal in China).

And cement production in China is inefficient. There are hundreds of small plants, both wet and dry processes, and the local environmental impact is severe.

Making a pound of cement releases a pound of CO2. And a Gigaton or two?

This also isn't a new phenomenon. This link shows data back to 1999 that illustrated that China has been at this for quite a while, but perhaps not to this extent.

To conclude, here is the percent change of production bar graph from 2005 to 2008. Think about what all that means in terms of energy. Also note the numbers from India, Russia, and the US.

 

Percentage growth in cement consumption 2005-2008. Click to expand. Source: USGS 2006 report and the USGS 2008 report.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4162

"New Exotic Material Could Revolutionize Electronics

"ScienceDaily (June 16, 2009) — Move over, silicon—it may be time to give the Valley a new name. Physicists at the Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have confirmed the existence of a type of material that could one day provide dramatically faster, more efficient computer chips.

Recently-predicted and much-sought, the material allows electrons on its surface to travel with no loss of energy at room temperatures and can be fabricated using existing semiconductor technologies. Such material could provide a leap in microchip speeds, and even become the bedrock of an entirely new kind of computing industry based on spintronics, the next evolution of electronics.

Physicists Yulin Chen, Zhi-Xun Shen and their colleagues tested the behavior of electrons in the compound bismuth telluride. The results, published online June 11 in Science Express, show a clear signature of what is called a topological insulator, a material that enables the free flow of electrons across its surface with no loss of energy.

The discovery was the result of teamwork between theoretical and experimental physicists at the Stanford Institute for Materials & Energy Science, a joint SLAC-Stanford institute. In recent months, SIMES theorist Shoucheng Zhang and colleagues predicted that several bismuth and antimony compounds would act as topological insulators at room-temperature. The new paper confirms that prediction in bismuth telluride. "The working style of SIMES is perfect," Chen said. "Theorists, experimentalists, and sample growers can collaborate in a broad sense."

The experimenters examined bismuth telluride samples using X-rays from the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource at SLAC and the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. When Chen and his colleagues investigated the electrons' behavior, they saw the clear signature of a topological insulator. Not only that, the group discovered that the reality of bismuth telluride was even better than theory.

"The theorists were very close," Chen said, "but there was a quantitative difference." The experiments showed that bismuth telluride could tolerate even higher temperatures than theorists had predicted. "This means that the material is closer to application than we thought," Chen said.

This magic is possible thanks to surprisingly well-behaved electrons. The quantum spin of each electron is aligned with the electron's motion—a phenomenon called the quantum spin Hall effect. This alignment is a key component in creating spintronics devices, new kinds of devices that go beyond standard electronics. "When you hit something, there's usually scattering, some possibility of bouncing back," explained theorist Xiaoliang Qi. "But the quantum spin Hall effect means that you can't reflect to exactly the reverse path." As a dramatic consequence, electrons flow without resistance. Put a voltage on a topological insulator, and this special spin current will flow without heating the material or dissipating.

Topological insulators aren't conventional superconductors nor fodder for super-efficient power lines, as they can only carry small currents, but they could pave the way for a paradigm shift in microchip development. "This could lead to new applications of spintronics, or using the electron spin to carry information," Qi said. "Whether or not it can build better wires, I'm optimistic it can lead to new devices, transistors, and spintronics devices."

Fortunately for real-world applications, bismuth telluride is fairly simple to grow and work with. Chen said, "It's a three-dimensional material, so it's easy to fabricate with the current mature semiconductor technology. It's also easy to dope—you can tune the properties relatively easily."

"This is already a very exciting thing," he said, adding that the material "could let us make a device with new operating principles."

The high quality bismuth telluride samples were grown at SIMES by James Analytis, Ian Fisher and colleagues.

SIMES, the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource at SLAC, and the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences within the DOE Office of Science."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615144431.htm

Found this video on another site.  Exceedingly well done, worth your time to view.

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"The American Form of Government

Found this video on another site.  Dunno if you agree but she does make some salient points.

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"We Now Have A Total Gangster Government

Source The Heritage Foundation

"Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures

• Posted March 24th, 2009 at 10.20am in Ongoing Priorities.

President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, giventhat Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimuluspackage, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The Washington Post has a great graphic which helps put President Obama’s budget deficits in context of President Bush’s.

What’s driving Obama’s unprecedented massive deficits? Spending. Riedl details:

• President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
• President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
• President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund.
• President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it.
• President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent.
• President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.
• President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the publicdebt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush andObama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in publicdebt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.

UPDATE: Many Obama defenders in the comments areclaiming that the numbers above do not include spending on Iraq andAfghanistan during the Bush years. They most certainly do. While Bushdid fund the wars through emergency supplementals (not the regularbudget process), that spending did not simply vanish. It is included inthe numbers above. Also, some Obama defenders are claiming the graphicabove represents biased Heritage Foundation numbers. While we standbehind the numbers we put out 100%, the numbers, and the graphicitself, above are from the Washington Post. We originally left out thelink to WaPo. It has been now been added.

CLARIFICATION: Of course, this Washington Post graphic does notperfectly delineate budget surpluses and deficits by administration.President Bush took office in January 2001, and therefore played a leadrole in crafting the FY 2002-2008 budgets. Presidents Bush and Obamashare responsibility for the FY 2009 budget deficit that overlaps theiradministrations, before President Obama assumes full budgetaryresponsibility beginning in FY 2010. Overall, President Obama’s budgetwould add twice as much debt as President Bush over the same number ofyears."

Found this link on another site.  Link to bill text and ability to download PDF at the bottom of this article.

These bozos need to be voted out next election cycles.   

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"H.R. 1728: The Death of Creative Financing

By Mandelman - Last updated: Thursday, June 11, 2009 -
Source Mandelman Matters

"H.R. 1728 passed the House by an overwhelming majority in a record three days time. Now it’s in the Senate and is widely expected to pass quickly as well. Why the rush? Is AIG planning to hand out zillions in bonuses again?

My guess would be that our elected representatives and their banking benefactors would prefer that we don’t know anything about it.

Consider this scenario:

You own a house. You want to sell it.

Someone wants to buy it.

You decide to sell it to the person who wants to buy it and carry the paper yourself for whatever reason. Maybe you want the income instead of the cash. Maybe you’re just particularly fond of the buyer, I don’t know.

I’m sorry… you can’t.  It’s illegal.

Huh? Excuse me. It’s my house… Why can’t I sell it to whomever I choose, however I choose.

Nope, sorry. You’ll have to become a “lender” and get a lender’s license.

Why? I’m not a lender.

Well, because you’re only allowed to sell your own house once every three years without going through the bank for a mortgage. And there are a lot more rules than that, believe it or not.

It has to be a 30-year, fully amortizing loan and you must comply with RESPA regulations, provide Truth in Lending documentation, and “verify” that the borrower is able to repay the loan, just like the banks don’t.

You can read the bill for yourself… I’m going to stop right here for a moment.

The moniker for the HR 1728 bill is the Mortgage Lending and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, so it sounds absolutely fabulous, doesn’t it? It sounds like something we’ve needed for a long time… a bill to stop “predatory lending”. Who could possibly be against that?

(Before I go on, I’d like to register my extreme displeasure at being treated like I’m four years old by our elected representatives. They obviously believe that I’ll be happy to eat cow pies if they’ll just call them Ding Dongs.)

Look, obviously this is an important piece of legislation. After all, just look at what caused this unstoppable catastrophic meltdown in the first place. If it weren’t for a bunch of individual homeowners selling their own homes to other people and carrying back the paper themselves we never would have gotten into this mess in the first place. Those sellers obviously have to be stopped.

There’s another clause in this bill that I found absolutely unbelievable. The bill says that if you own rental units and the government decides that you’re at risk of foreclosure, the government can seize your property… before you’re foreclosed on, mind you.  Someone wakes up in the morning and decides that you might lose your units to foreclosure, and you are screwed.

You want time to go over that one again? It’s perfectly understandable if you do.

What it said was that the legislation makes it possible for the government to seize your rental units if they deem that you are at risk of losing the property to foreclosure. I assume the intent is to prevent renters from being put out of their rented homes, which is perfectly understandable because everyone knows that it’s only okay to put actual homeowners out of their homes.

Now, I know that usually I like to go into some level of detail on these types of things, but this time I’m keeping it short and sweet.  A memo ought to do it…

Memo to the Members of the U.S. Politburo… I mean Senate:

Don’t even think about it. It’s none of your G<snip> business who I sell my house to, and if I want to get paid in marbles over 16 months with a 5,000 Twinkie balloon payment at the end of a year ending in 7, I don’t give a rat’s right foot what you guys in congress think about it. Want to know what else… get your lazy, self-important asses back to working on something that’s actually a problem, because we’ve got plenty of those and a big part of why we have plenty of those is that you guys can’t seem to stay focused on anything important for more than an hour or so.  If you want to <snip> the banking lobby, do it on your own time… got it?

Now, back to the rest of us. Let’s get serious here. This is crap and we all know it. But the banking lobby is going to just keep throwing their heft around as they please until we put our collective foot on someone’s neck. I’m serious about this. If we don’t.. what’s next? You can’t sell more than one of your cars every eighteen months without becoming a car dealer, and providing floor mats?

People, we have HUGE problems that no one in our government has even come close to solving and this is what they’ve got time to work on? If we just sit back and say… “Oh well,” then we deserve everything we get in the future.

Remember AIG bonuses? We had congress jumping all over the place like they had ants in their pants over those bonuses. One week of pitchforks and torches and they were passing “90% Bonus Tax” legislation. Let’s flex our muscles on this piece of crap bill, and maybe after a time or two, our elected representatives will realize that we’re not playing around here.

Look… if you don’t agree, here’s what Sen. Barbara Boxer authored to add to a bill about a week or two ago:

A provision authored by Sen. Boxer requires homeowners to be alerted within thirty days if their lender sells or transfers their home mortgage loan. The measure would help homeowners whose efforts to avoid foreclosure have been complicated because they can’t find out who owns their mortgage. ”Homeowners have the right to know who owns their mortgage,” said Sen. Boxer.  ”This measure will give homeowners another tool to fight unlawful foreclosures and renegotiate their loans so they can stay in their homes.”

Well… it’s about time.  That’s exactly why my best friend lost his home… he couldn’t find out who owned his mortgage.  It was soooo frustrating.  They never even foreclosed.  Finally, after missing five payments, he just gave up and moved out.

See what I mean. It’s out of G<snip> control over there. We have hundreds of bankrolled idiots running things in D.C. and they don’t even think there’s anything wrong.

Let’s let each of our respective senators know that if they even consider voting for this bill, we will all be actively campaigning against them Obama-style in their next election… no matter which party they’re attending.

Unemployment’s going through the roof, and we’ve had 1 million foreclosures since January 1, 2009. Fix that, you grandstanding morons. And leave my house alone. Don’t worry… the way things are going the bank will have it back soon enough.

And on a more serious note, in the years to come, seller financing will be the only way that hundreds of thousands of Americans can buy houses, so in terms of our eventual economic recovery, this bill can only hurt.

Here’s a link to the bill if you want to read it:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1728  

And by the way, I don’t think sending a letter or email is enough.

Let’s send each of our respective senators pairs of kneepads, and a map to the banks in their area. Seriously."

http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/2009/06/now-the-banks-want-to-stop-you-from-selling-your-own-home-without-them/

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             Interesting opinion.

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"Serial killers and politicians share traits

By Jim Kouri
Source Examiner.com

(The following commentary includes material obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Analysis Unit.)

"Psychopathy is a personality disorder manifested in people who use a mixture of charm, manipulation, intimidation, and occasionally violence to control others, in order to satisfy their own selfish needs. Although the concept of psychopathy has been known for centuries, the FBI leads the world in the research effort to develop a series of assessment tools, to evaluate the personality traits and behaviors attributable to psychopaths.

Interpersonal traits include glibness, superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, and the manipulation of others. The affective traits include a lack of remorse and/or guilt, shallow affect, a lack of empathy, and failure to accept responsibility. The lifestyle behaviors include stimulation-seeking behavior, impulsivity, irresponsibility, parasitic orientation, and a lack of realistic life goals.

Research has demonstrated that in those criminals who are psychopathic, scores vary, ranging from a high degree of psychopathy to some measure of psychopathy. However, not all violent offenders are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are violent offenders. If violent offenders are psychopathic, they are able to assault, rape, and murder without concern for legal, moral, or social consequences. This allows them to do what they want, whenever they want.  Ironically, these same traits exist in men and women who are drawn to high-profile and powerful positions in society including political officeholders.

The relationship between psychopathy and serial killers is particularly interesting. All psychopaths do not become serial murderers. Rather, serial murderers may possess some or many of the traits consistent with psychopathy. Psychopaths who commit serial murder do not value human life and are extremely callous in their interactions with their victims. This is particularly evident in sexually motivated serial killers who repeatedly target, stalk, assault, and kill without a sense of remorse. However, psychopathy alone does not explain the motivations of a serial killer.

What doesn't go unnoticed is the fact that some of the character traits exhibited by serial killers or criminals may be observed in many within the political arena. While not exhibiting physical violence, many political leaders display varying degrees of anger, feigned outrage and other behaviors. They also lack what most consider a "shame" mechanism. Quite simply, most serial killers and many professional politicians must mimic what they believe, are appropriate responses to situations they face such as sadness, empathy, sympathy, and other human responses to outside stimuli.

Understanding psychopathy becomes particularly critical to law enforcement during a serial murder investigation and upon the arrest of a psychopathic serial killer. The crime scene behavior of psychopaths is likely to be distinct from other offenders. This distinct behavior can assist law enforcement in linking serial cases.

Psychopaths are not sensitive to altruistic interview themes, such as sympathy for their victims or remorse/guilt over their crimes. They do possess certain personality traits that can be exploited, particularly their inherent narcissism, selfishness, and vanity. Specific themes in past successful interviews of psychopathic serial killers focused on praising their intelligence, cleverness, and skill in evading capture.

Experts recognize that more research is needed concerning the links between serial murder and psychopathy, in order to understand the frequency and degree of psychopathy among serial murderers. This may assist law enforcement in understanding and identifying serial murderers.

Over the past twenty years, law enforcement and experts from a number of varying disciplines have attempted to identify specific motivations for serial murderers and to apply those motivations to different typologies developed for classifying serial murderers. These range from simple, definitive models to complex, multiple-category typologies that are laden with inclusion requirements. Most typologies are too cumbersome to be utilized by law enforcement during an active serial murder investigation, and they may not be helpful in identifying an offender.

As most homicides are committed by someone known to the victim, police focus on the relationships closest to the victim. This is a successful strategy for most murder investigations. The majority of serial murderers, however, are not acquainted with or involved in a consensual relationship with their victims.

For the most part, serial murder involves strangers with no visible relationship between the offender and the victim. This distinguishes a serial murder investigation as a more nebulous undertaking than that of other crimes. Since the investigations generally lack an obvious connection between the offender and the victim, investigators instead attempt to discern the motivations behind the murders, as a way to narrow their investigative focus.

Serial murder crime scenes can have bizarre features that may cloud the identification of a motive. The behavior of a serial murderer at crime scenes may evolve throughout the series of crimes and manifest different interactions between an offender and a victim. It is also extremely difficult to identify a single motivation when there is more than one offender involved in the series.

Identifying a homicide series is easier in rapidly-developing, high profile cases involving low risk victims. These cases are reported to law enforcement upon discovery of the crimes and draw immediate media attention.

In contrast, identifying a series involving high risk victims in multiple jurisdictions is much more difficult. This is primarily due to the high risk lifestyle and transitory nature of the victims. Additionally, the lack of communication between law enforcement agencies and differing records management systems impede the linkage of cases to a common offender.

While many political leaders will deny the assessment regarding their similarities with serial killers and other career criminals, it is part of a psychopathic profile that may be used in assessing the behaviors of many officials and lawmakers at all levels of government."

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org).  In addition, he's the new editor for the House Conservatives Fund's weblog. 

http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m6d12-Serial-killers-and-politicians-share-traits

» 06/08/2009 15:18
ASIA – ITALY
"US government securities seized from Japanese nationals, not clear whether real or fake

Source AsiaNews.it

"Bonds worth US$ 134.5 billion are seized. This is the largest financial smuggling case in history. But are they real? Concern over ‘funny money’ or counterfeit securities is spreading in Asia. The international press is silent.

 Milan (AsiaNews) –  Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollar each.
Italian authorities have not yet determined whether they are real or fake, but if they are real the attempt to take them into Switzerland would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history; if they are fake, the matter would be even more mind-boggling because the quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are undistinguishable from the real ones.

What caught the policemen’s attention were the billion dollar securities. Such a large denomination is not available in regular financial and banking markets. Only states handle such amounts of money.

The question now is who could or would counterfeit or smuggle these non-negotiable bonds.

In order to stop money laundering Italian law sets a ceiling of 10,000 euros per person for importing or exporting money without declaring it. The penalty for violating the law is 40 per cent of the money seized.

If the certificates were real, for Italy it would be like hitting the jackpot. The fine alone would amount to US$ 38 billion, five times the estimated cost of rebuilding quake-devastated Abruzzi region. It would help Italy’s eliminate its public deficit.

If the certificates are fakes the two Japanese nationals could get a very lengthy jail sentence for fraud.

As soon as the seizure was made the US Embassy in Rome was informed. Italian and US secret services were called in to assist the Italian financial police.

Some important international financial newspapers had already reported on the existence of ‘funny money’ circulating on parallel, i.e. unofficial, financial markets.

For AsiaNews a few points need considering:

1.      When it comes to Italy the world press has tended to focus on Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s personal problems rather than on stories like the bonds smuggling affair which has been front page on Italian newspapers.

2.      The fear of counterfeit bonds and securities has spread across Asia with the result that real securities are also considered with suspicion.

3.      During the Second World War several countries at war printed and put in circulation perfectly counterfeit enemy money. It is also historically established that some central banks, like the Bank of Italy 65 years ago, issued the same securities twice (identical registered number and code). This way they could print more money with legal tender than they officially declared. The main difference though is that 65 years ago the world was involved in a bloody war, which is not the case today."

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15456&size=A

"America a weapons supermarket for terrorists, inquiry finds

Undercover inspectors manage to buy high-grade gear including nuclear triggers and evade export bans

Daniel Nasaw in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 June 2009 11.48 BST

"The US is a virtual supermarket for terrorists and foreign governments seeking high-end military technology, including components that can be used to build nuclear weapons and equip militants fighting US and British troops, the American government has found.

Over the past year, government investigators posing as private buyers purchased military-grade body armour, technology to stabilise and steer guided missiles, a device that can be used to detonate nuclear weapons, and other munitions through legal means in the US. They evaded export controls and posted dummy versions of the gear to countries known as trans-shipment points for terrorist groups and foreign governments seeking arms and weapons components.

The investigation shows lax sales restrictions and export controls could allow terrorists and hostile foreign governments to buy equipment to use against US and British troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries, US officials say. Foreign governments and terrorist groups have sought to purchase military technology from the US, according to officials, and in 2008 more than 145 people were charged with violating export control laws, with 43% of those attempting illegally to ship gear to Iran and China.

The private US companies that provided the equipment – in some cases from government surplus – said they were not required to check buyers' backgrounds or obtain government licences for the sales. The US commerce department found that the companies selling the equipment had not violated any laws or regulations. The problem, investigators said, was that sensitive military equipment barred from export was often legal to sell within the US, with little restriction, and buyers need only establish a plausible front company.

Gregory Kutz of the Government Accountability Office told a congressional panel: "The lack of legal restrictions over domestic sales of these items, combined with the difficulties associated with inspecting packages and individuals leaving the United States, results in a weak control environment that does not effectively prevent terrorists and agents of foreign governments from obtaining these sensitive items."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/08/arms-trade-us-terrorists-nuclear/print

Not pretending to know anything about stocks, swaps, etc., just posting what seems pertinent from buzz words used on the news relative to our current financial crisis.

Youtube sidebar comment by the person posting this video:

"BBC Newsnight feature by Alex Ritson on Credit Default Swaps - until recently a little-known financial product that Lehmans Brothers, AIG and the Icelandic banks were up to their necks in. Could this be the black hole at the centre of the financial crisis?"

YouTube - Credit Default Swaps explained clearly in five minutes