Restricting the Movement of You and Your Money - American Free Press.net - Keith Hansen - Last year’s legislation punished Americans—many of whom had sought a more stable financial environment for their money than existed in the U.S. amid a wave of bank failures—by obligating foreign banks to disclose the full details of non-exempt bank accounts to the Internal Revenue Service... These measures were implemented ostensibly to prevent terrorists and drug lords from moving and laundering money. But their chilling effect successfully froze Americans, who were ready to move their assets to foreign banks. The government’s implied message was clear: Your money isn’t going anywhere... Now the State Department has jumped into the restriction game. Last month it revealed a new application process for granting passports—which, by the way, will be needed for travel to Canada and Mexico—that in some cases is impossible to provide.
Subpoenaed Documents Show Goldman Sachs Offered to 'Tear Up' AIG Derivatives Contracts at 'Right Price' Before NY Fed Took Over Negotiations - DailyBail - May 26, 2011 - AIG has said they were negotiating "tear-ups" with counterparties at 50 cents on the dollar before the NY Fed told them to 'stand down' in negotiations with counterparties. 'Stand down' was the exact language from emails unearthed last week by Hugh Son of Bloomberg... Goldman openly admits that they were willing to tear up contracts with AIG for the 'right price,' as you will see below... But Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein told Angelides and the FCIC panel last week that they were 'never asked' by the the New York Fed negotiators, working on behalf of AIG, to accept any haircut, or less than 100 cents on the dollar... The only logical conclusion is the following -- somebody's lying... Either New York Fed officials lied to investigators and reporters when they said that they had worked for a week to extract haircuts from AIG counterparties. OR Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was lying when he testified under oath that haircuts were never proposed by NY Fed negotiators.
Frank recommended partner for housing agency - Boston Globe - Donovan Slack - May 27, 2011 - Representative Barney Frank, who for more than two decades has been a member of the House committee charged with oversight of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, acknowledged yesterday that he recommended his live-in companion for a job at one of the housing agencies in the early 1990s at the same time Congress was writing legislation to improve oversight of the agency... Frank also said problems with subprime mortgages at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not occur until the early 2000s, long after Moses left the job at Fannie Mae in 1998, the year Frank and Moses split up... “I think what it was, was an example of the type of favors that Fannie Mae was happy to provide,’’ she said. Morgenson also reported in the book that Fannie Mae made sizable grants — $25,000 in 1994 and $50,000 in 2001 — to a Boston organization cofounded by Frank’s late mother and twice gave the group an award for its work in providing housing for the elderly. Frank said yesterday in an interview with the Globe that the grants to the organization, the Committee to End Elder Homelessness, did not influence his duties.
The brittle financial American middle class – 50 percent of Americans would be in financial trouble if $2,000 of expenses came up in 30 days. By 2020 the world’s richest households will control $202 trillion in wealth, 4 times current global GDP. - MyBudget360.com - This economic recovery has excluded working and middle class Americans which begs the question, what really defines a financial recovery? In past and distant recoveries the economic gains were widely distributed amongst all Americans. Most realize that income gains will never be equal simply because in a market based economy those with certain desirable skills will be rewarded more than others. Yet in the last decade the banking sector has co-opted the government to turn it into a welfare state for the large banks. Desirable qualities are now replaced by predator diseased qualities of ripping off the taxpayer for bad market based bets. That is why recent data showing that nearly 50 percent of Americans are unable to come up with $2,000 in 30 days if an emergency came up is startling. $2,000 for most is the basic monthly expenses on food, home, and other little items. So half our country is living one paycheck away from financial collapse. 44,000,000 Americans are living with food assistance from the government already. Keep in mind the recovery has been going on now for close to two full years. According to the NBER the recession was over in June of 2009. The fact that $2,000 is enough to bankrupt half of American households tells you about the new state of our economic recovery.
Stubborn Jobless Claims Still Keep On Climbing Higher - CNBC/Reuters - May 26, 2011 - New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to 424,000 last week from a revised 414,000 in the prior week, pointing to a painfully slow improvement in the nation's job markets... Last week marked the seventh straight week in which claims topped the 400,000 level, indicating that payroll growth is soft and may continue to be so for some time. A department official said there were no exceptional factors to account for the rise in last week's claims.
Global Economic Rebound Weakens on Quake, Oil Price, European Debt Crisis - Bloomberg - Simon Kennedy - May 27, 2011 - Data this week backed that outlook as reports showed Chinese manufacturing expanding at the slowest pace in 10 months, orders for U.S. durable goods dropping the most since October and confidence among European executive and consumers sliding for the third straight month... Oil prices reached a 31-month high of $114.83 on May 2 as the war in Libya cut supply. Goldman Sachs this week raised its forecast for Brent crude at the end of 2012 to $140 a barrel from $120, suggesting the price’s path will be 20 percent higher than anticipated at the start of the year. That’s enough to shave 0.5 percentage point from U.S. growth over two years and a little less in other wealthy nations... The global economy’s change in tone is reflected in some company announcements. Chicago-based Boeing Co. (BA), the world’s largest aerospace company, said it received two orders last month compared with 98 in March. Hermes International SCA, the Paris-based maker of Birkin handbags, said on May 11 that its forecast for 2011 is “clouded by geopolitical and economic uncertainties.”
More Confirmation Of The Economic Slowdown - Comstock Partners Inc. - May 26, 2011 - First quarter revised GDP growth was not revised upward as the consensus expected, but remained at the originally reported 1.8%. Moreover the underlying data deteriorated as consumer spending growth was revised down to 2.2% from 2.7% and inventory accumulation was revised up by $9 billion. Furthermore, major firms have been reducing their second quarter GDP growth estimates to well below 3%. Recall that toward the end of 2010 most pundits were looking for 4% growth in the quarters ahead... The May numbers for both the Richmond and Kansas City Fed indexes fell sharply, confirming the previously reported results for the Philly Fed and the Empire State Manufacturing Survey. This strong unanimity strongly suggests that industrial production is still extremely sluggish in May.... Keep in mind that this has happened during a period where QE2 poured reserves into the financial system, the stock market rallied and fiscal policy was boosted by the reduction in payroll withholding. With all of that, we have an economy that is growing below trend and fading rapidly. Now QE2 is ending within weeks, fiscal policy is about to tighten and housing prices are still falling with lots of additional supply still coming.
Less banger for your buck: The Memorial Day BBQ will cost you 29% more this year thanks to inflation - UK Daily mail Online - May 26, 2011 - Those thinking of hosting a BBQ - even a modest one - can expect to fork out an extra $45 on food to serve a dozen guests... The total cost comes to $199, or around 29 per cent more than last year... and that's before soda and alcohol, according to the latest data for metro New York... Lettuce has sky-rocketed 28 per cent since last year's traditional BBQ, while an ear of sweet corn is now 50 cents, up from 20 cents last year... Ground beef is up 12.1 per cent on last year and sausages are up 6.2 per cent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics... And don't even think about potato salad. The apple of the ground is up 13.4 per cent... Ice cream is up 5.1 per cent, beer up 2.4 per cent and coffee has increased by 13.8 per cent nationwide.
20 Questions To Ask Anyone Foolish Enough To Believe The Economic Crisis Is Over - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com - Unfortunately, the truth is that the economic crisis is far from over. In 2010, more homes were repossessed than ever before, more Americans were on food stamps than ever before and a smaller percentage of American men had jobs than ever before. The reality is that the United States is an economic basket case and all of these natural disasters certainly are not helping things. The Federal Reserve has been printing gigantic piles of money and the U.S. government has been borrowing and spending cash at a dizzying pace in an all-out effort to stabilize things... #20 If the U.S. national debt (more than 14 trillion dollars) was reduced to a stack of 5 dollar bills, it would reach three quarters of the way to the moon. The U.S. government borrows about 168 million dollars every single hour. If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days. So how in the world can our politicians tell us that everything is going to be okay?
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