Heartland Coin Gallery - Economic & Financial News Headlines

HEADLINE Economic, Financial & Global News...
every weekday, to keep you better informed.

Monday 11.21.2011

Regulators close 2 banks in Iowa, Louisiana
By Drew FitzGerald - MarketWatch.com
Regulators on Friday closed a bank in Iowa and another in Louisiana, bringing the nationwide tally of bank failures up to 90 for the year.
Johnston, Iowa-based Polk County Bank was closed by the Iowa Division of Banking, which allowed Grinnell State Bank of Grinnell, Iowa, to take over the failed bank as part of a purchase-and-assumption deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It was the state's first bank failure this year.
Regulators also shuttered Lacombe, La.-based Central Progressive Bank. New Orleans-based First NBC Bank agreed to take over the bank and its 17 branches. The FDIC-assisted transfer was also Louisiana's first this year.

SF Fed confirms they are a private corporation
and pay dividends to shareholders
By David Haynie – Pacific Progress
Humboldt State University was visited by David Lang andYelena Takhtamanova from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and they presented some information about the Federal Reserve System.
I along with the department took video of this event. I was unable to take footage of the entire event unfortunately, but I did get David Lang’s presentation as well as a short portion of a question and answer period.
There were also presentations from students from an Economics class. Each group had to play the role of private central banking head for each of the 12 Federal Reserve branch banks. They had to make policy suggestions for the Federal Reserve banking system going forward.

San Francisco Federal Reserve Employee
Admits FED IS PRIVATE - Pays Dividends

Fed alone cannot cure economy's ills: Pianalto
By Steve Bailey
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve must do its part to boost a "frustratingly" slow recovery, a top Fed official said on Thursday, but low interest rates alone cannot get households spending again.
"Our policy is appropriate in this economic environment; it is supporting a stronger recovery while ensuring that inflation remains consistent with our mandate," Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Sandra Pianalto told the Rotary Club of Lexington, Kentucky. "But in this economy, monetary policy alone cannot cure all of the economy's ills."

Ron Paul: How To END THE FED 1/2 FED Crimes / Solutions

Ron Paul: How To END THE FED 2/2 FED Crimes / Solutions

When will gold take off?
By Jeff Clark - CommodityOnline.com
Because the Fed continues to pour money in to the economy, it’s difficult to say for certain when Gold will make a dramatic move. The historical record indicates that a surge in money growth has its peak effect on economic activity about 9 to 18 months later. Add another 12 months or so for the peak effect on consumer price inflation.
In other words, the Federal Reserve is always driving with a loose steering wheel. Most of the experience behind those numbers is with relatively tame ups and downs in the business cycle – not the kind of financial violence we've been seeing over the last several years – which adds another variable. And on top of that, the numbers are about peak effect, not initial effect.

Gold Housing Ratio Falls to Historic Low
BY DANIEL AMERMAN CFA - FinancialSense.com
In gold terms, an average single family home in the United States can now be purchased for only 18% of its pre-bubble price in 2001. The term "pre-bubble" merits emphasis: the average house can be purchased at an 82% discount (in ounces of gold) not from the peak real estate values of 2006, but the much lower home prices of 2001, before the real estate bubble began.
These numbers are based upon the Gold / Housing ratio, which is a measure of relative value between gold and real estate. When we take the $171,900 current median national price for an existing single family home (per the National Association of Realtors) and divide by the $1,785 price per ounce of gold as of November 15, 2011, we come up with a Gold / Housing ratio of 96, meaning it takes 96 ounces of gold to purchase an average single family home.

Print or Die:
When you need a truck full of dollars
to buy a loaf of bread
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Someone's going to print a boatload of money—and soon. And when that happens, assets like Gold and oil will rise in price. This is not a guess. It is a fact. We are already seeing the wise guys and speculators get their early bets in. . .
They will do it in Europe with some kind of ultra massive TARP program. The French and Germans have already knocked on every door, looking to borrow the specie they need to keep an entire continent solvent. It just ain't happening. (Heck, the Chinese laughed in their faces and told them to work harder.)

Interview: Jim Rickards on Inflation and Currency Wars
BY RON HERA - FinancialSense.com
Hera Research Newsletter (HRN): Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Let’s talk about the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program (QE2). Is there a risk of price inflation?
Jim Rickards: I think there is a definite and highly significant danger of inflation coming from QE and QE2 specifically. A lot of people have said, in fact, the Fed has said, that, if you look at the key price indices, the Producer Price Index (PPI), Consumer Price Index (CPI), and the Personal Consumption (PC) price deflator, they are very, they use the phrase, "well behaved". For the past year and a half, the critics, and I would include myself, have been saying that this situation is dangerous and unstable. The Fed has been pointing to the price indices and saying that you can’t find inflation under a rock, you can’t find inflation with a microscope, so what are you worried about?

Rising silver & gold demand in China-
On the Edge with Max Keiser 11-18-2011

China's premier: Yuan reforms already effective
By Andrew Galbraith - MarketWatch.com
SHANGHAI (MarketWatch) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told U.S. President Barack Obama that liberalization of the yuan has already shown clear effects, but indicated that China may boost its currency's trading flexibility, state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday, the latest sign that Beijing sees the yuan's exchange rate as nearing balanced levels.
"We are closely watching the changes to the yuan's exchange rate ... and will encourage the yuan's flexibility in both directions," Wen was quoted as saying at a meeting with Obama on the sidelines of a regional summit in Indonesia.

Supercommittee failure
could trigger US credit downgrade, economists warn
Economists predict dire consequences if committee fails to reach agreement on how to reduce America's massive debt
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Economists are warning of dire consequences if US politicians fail to make progress this weekend in tense talks aimed at reducing America's massive deficit ahead of a Wednesday deadline.
The bi-partisan congressional super-committee is charged with drawing up plans for a $1.2tn reduction in the nation's deficit by the middle of next week. Failure to do so will trigger an automatic "sequester" that will make cuts of that size to defence and social welfare programmes starting in 2013. But the two sides seem far from finding a solution after clashing over tax revenues.

ON DEADLINE, NO SIGN OF A DEBT DEAL
Truthdig.com
Talks between congressional leaders charged with coming up with a plan by Wednesday to cut the national deficit by $1.2 trillion have descended into squabbling and finger-pointing, suggesting that automatic cuts to domestic programs, Medicare and defense spending —rather than a mix of cuts and tax increases — are inevitable.
Republicans remain stubbornly opposed to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, while Democrats insist that a deal could be reached if Republicans would agree to allow the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire. —ARK

Supercommittee likely to admit defeat on debt deal
By Lori Montgomery and Rosalind S. Helderman - WashingtonPost.com
The congressional committee tasked with reducing the federal deficit is poised to admit defeat as soon as Monday, and its unfinished business will set up a year-end battle over emergency jobless benefits and an expiring payroll tax holiday.
Those provisions are among a host of measures set to lapse at the end of December. During nearly three months of negotiations, the "supercommittee" had been weighing whether to extend at least some of them as part of a broader plan to shave a minimum of $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

Debt supercommittee members brace for failure
By Paul Kane - WashingtonPost.com
Admitting gridlock was at hand, lawmakers on the so-called supercommittee cast blame and pointed fingers at one another Sunday as the panel’s leaders prepared to formally acknowledge their failure early this week, bracing for the reaction from financial markets.
Using the weekly Sunday political news shows as their outlet, Republicans and Democrats on Congress’s special deficit committee did not officially throw in the towel on their mandate of finding $1.2 trillion in savings before Thanksgiving. However, most of the lawmakers spoke of their efforts in the past tense and said it would take something akin to a miracle to reach a deal, which unofficially must be unveiled before midnight Monday to meet the panel’s parliamentary rules.

Eurozone crisis:
European Union prepares for the 'great leap forward'
As EU politicians desperately try to save euro, plans emerge to deepen the union, widening Brussels regulatory powers
By Julian Coman, The Observer - Guardian.co.uk
As the skies over euroland darken, at least the jokes in Brussels are getting better. At a recent gathering to discuss the crisis that threatens to unravel the euro, one former member of the European parliament observed acidly: "They ought to give this year's Charlemagne prize [for services to European unity] to the bond markets. Who has done more for the cause?"

Could gold-backed bonds
be the answer to the eurozone crisis?
The security of gold would allow Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland to leave the eurozone, devalue and start growing again
By Neil Behrmann - Guardian.co.uk
A solution to the eurozone crisis is staring European leaders in the face. Remarkably, they have failed to consider gold as the asset of last resort. Eurozone member nations and the European financial stability facility (EFSF), the bailout fund, could use gold to back new bond issues.
The security of gold-backed bonds would encourage investors. Indeed, central banks purchased 4.8m ounces of gold worth $8bn (£5bn) in the third quarter. The application of gold backing would allow stricken nations such as Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland to depart from the restrictive eurozone and the accompanying depressive austerity policies, if they wished. The bonds would give them time to devalue, adjust and grow again, and also isolate the crisis from other European nations.

Greek bailout deal hits new obstacle
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – One of three leaders in a new Greek coalition refused to sign an oath that he will approve austerity measures, creating a new obstacle for Greece’s bailout deal, according to reports Saturday.
Antonis Samaras, leader of Greece’s top conservative party, New Democracy, said there is no need for him to offer a written declaration because he can be trusted, according to reports.

The euro is
a macro-economic weapon of mass destruction -
it simply must be defused.
"There’s no such thing as an orderly break-up", argued my friend, a perceptive and highly-educated man, as we discussed the eurozone over dinner. His argument was that a down-sizing of the single currency should be resisted at all costs.
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk
"The prospect of one or more countries leaving, or being forcefully ejected, is now very real, whether you like it or not," I replied.
"So we should face reality, take the decision, prepare for it now, and do what we can to manage the transition, rather than enduring the horrendous consequences of a market-imposed outcome".

The euro must be split up
Only way to rebalance economies of North & South
By David Marsh, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — The world's greatest macroeconomic imbalances are not between the U.S. and China, as many believe, but within the not-so-united states of Europe.
This is just one result of the currency and competitive distortions caused by what German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls the "common destiny" of economic and monetary union. Destabilizing European current-account imbalances will need to be eliminated, sooner or later, by splitting up the euro area into a creditor and a debtor group.

Center Can’t Hold
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
11/18/11 Baltimore, Maryland – Italy seems to have gone too far. Its 10-year bonds yields are back over 7%. It is "the beginning of the end" say analysts.
But the end of what?
When the going is good people have little patience for questions. They are too busy, earning and spending, buying and selling, and getting where they are going. But then comes a major turnaround, all of a sudden, and they develop the deep torments of a retarded poet in an unhappy marriage.
'What really matters?' they ask themselves. 'And what the hell am I doing here?'

Spain - the fifth victim to fall in Europe’s arc of depression
Let us all extend our sympathies to the Spanish people. They face the greatest national emergency since the Civil War yet their vote for drastic change is palpably useless, even if democracy has in this case at least been respected.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
As union leader Javier Dos put it, the EU-imposed austerity plans of the incoming Partido Popular are "nothing more than the continuation of policies leading Europe toward disaster".
The new government of Mariano Rajoy has precious few policy levers at its disposal and cannot alone do anything at this late stage to prevent a death spiral within the strait-jacket of EMU.

Freedom: The New and Future Experiment
By Joel Bowman - DailyReckoning.com
11/17/11 Buenos Aires, Argentina – Before I get started… Anybody here know what glossophobia means? The word derives from the Greek glossa, meaning tongue, and phobos, meaning fear or dread. Glossophobia, also known as speech anxiety, is a fear of public speaking.
And I suffer from it terribly.
Glossophobia aside, I’m going to press on today anyway because what I want to talk to you about is very important. Maybe more so now than ever.
The title of my speech is "Freedom: The New and Future Experiment."

China could overtake US economy by 2027
Jim O'Neill, the head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has predicted that China could overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and urged a fundamental rethink of the operation of the G7 which he believes is too dominated by the West.
By Kamal Ahmed - Telegraph.co.uk
In his long awaited update to his seminal 2001 paper on the BRIC economies of Brazil, India, Russia and China, Jim O'Neill says that the economies he highlighted have exceeded even his expectations in the way they have become global powerhouses.
Mr O'Neill says that the four countries should no longer be considered "emerging" economies but rather "growth" economies and should be given their rightful place as the top table of power.

Anger mounts as MF Global clients see $3 billion still stuck
By David Sheppard and Jeanine Prezioso
(Reuters) - Three weeks after MF Global's collapsed, furious former customers are still fighting for access to billions of dollars as they question why as much as two-thirds of their money is still stuck.
While authorities have touted the fact that they are returning 60 percent of the collateral and cash that had been frozen in the wake of the broker's October 31 bankruptcy, a closer look shows that in fact only about 40 percent of customers' total funds have been authorized for release so far.
The remainder, more than $3 billion, ostensibly remains on hand to cover a shortfall originally estimated by MF Global to regulators at just $600 million.

Keiser Report: Vampire Banker Hunter (E212)

JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs Are Sued
Over Alleged Misstatements on MF Global
By Joel Rosenblatt - Bloomberg.com
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)units were sued by two pension funds over claims they made misleading statements about the exposure of MF Global Holdings Ltd. securities to European sovereign debt.
As a result of the misstatements, MF Global’s stock traded at "artificially inflated prices," the funds said in the complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan. "While the extent of MF Global’s exposure to European sovereign debt was concealed, the defendants were able to raise some $900 million in the offerings."

Treasuries slip, watching Congress, Europe
Long-term bonds, see a for weekly gain
By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices drifted down Friday, pushing yields up for the first day in three as the bond market focused on news out of Europe.
Analysts also noted concern that the committee in Congress charged with coming up with a deficit-reduction plan is reportedly at an impasse, days before it’s supposed to report back recommendations on how to cut the federal budget.
Yields on 10-year notes, which move inversely to prices, rose 4 basis points to 2.01%. A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.

Sale of Pension Income Targeted by Senator
By LESLIE SCISM - WSJ.com
A U.S. Senate committee is considering tackling a burgeoning and controversial business in which veterans and other retirees sell some of their future pension income to investors, with an array of middlemen profiting from the transactions.
"The sale of pensions to investors in secondary markets is a worrisome new practice that deserves careful scrutiny," said Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "In tough economic times, hard-working people are often forced to make difficult choices between immediate economic needs and their future retirement security.

Main Street making a comeback
at the expense of the shopping mall
By Jonathan O’Connell - WashingtonPost.com
Shopping malls gained stature in many corners of America by evolving into mini-cities, places where senior citizens took exercise walks and Girl Scout troops sold cookies. Some malls leased space to Post Offices and libraries. On Halloween, the mall became a place to trick-or-treat and come Christmas time, it was where Santa Claus spent the day accepting wish lists.
In short, the most successful malls usurped the role of Main Street as the commercial and even cultural center of the communities they served.

Foreign Investors in U.S. Real Estate: Beware!
BY MARK NESTMANN - FinancialSense.com
Since the beginning of 2011, nearly one out of every four purchasers of real estate in the Phoenix area has been a foreigner. Wealthy Chinese and Indian investors, among others, regularly visit the area, sometimes in "real estate investment tours."
It's not hard to see why foreign real estate investors find Phoenix attractive. The weather is near-perfect most of the year, and prices are 50%-70% below their 2007 peaks. I've confirmed from contacts in southern California, Las Vegas, and Atlanta that foreign buyers are very active in those real estate markets as well.

Congress Supports Homes for the Wealthy Over the Poor
Somehow the government is managing to do exactly the opposite of what it should be doing: it's subsidizing home ownership for the rich while cutting funding for affordable housing for the poor
By Daniel Indiviglio - TheAtlantic.com
When Congress allowed the conforming mortgage limit to decline slightly to $625,500 in October from $729,750, it was an important test. Could the private market step back in and take on this small portion of mortgage risk? The test was short-lived. This week, Congress reinstated the higher limit for loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Authority. To make matters stranger, it simultaneously cut funding to build and renovate housing projects for the poor.
Lending Very Wealthy First-Time Homeowners a Helping Hand
Let's start with the conforming limit news. In fact, Congress did not raise the conforming limit for loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy or guarantee. It only raised the limit for FHA loan guarantees. This is a very odd move.

Older, Suburban and Struggling,
'Near Poor' Startle the Census
By JASON DePARLE, ROBERT GEBELOFF
and SABRINA TAVERNISE - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as barely scraping by.
Down but not quite out, these Americans form a diverse group sometimes called "near poor" and sometimes simply overlooked — and a new count suggests they are far more numerous than previously understood.

Housing hypocrisy
Editorial - WashingtonPost.com
BEFORE THE housing market meltdown, the Federal Housing Administration was a pokey little agency with a limited mission — insuring mortgages with low down payments for a limited segment of humble but relatively creditworthy home buyers. The idea was to encourage homeownership by directing capital to a low-income market segment that could not attract it otherwise.
Since the crisis, Congress and the last two administrations have used the FHA to prop up housing more broadly, so much so that the agency’s portfolio exceeds $1 trillion and it backs about one of every three purchases of new homes.

* * * * *

The 32 Rules of Thanksgiving Touch Football
By Jason Gay - WSJ.com
Thanksgiving is Thursday and there's no avoiding it—make the drive, eat the turkey, pass the cranberry goo, and try not to say something you regret. If you can survive until dessert without crying at the table or sticking a fork in someone's arm, you're home free—just inhale the pecan pie, hit the couch, and pass out watching the NFL.
But for the love of Lombardi, go outside and play some Thanksgiving touch football. It's a perfect opportunity for family bonding, or at least calorie-burning. Unless you're in a fraternity or live inside a Tommy Hilfiger commercial, you probably play touch football only once a year, and Thanksgiving is that day.

Is Obama Utterly Focused on Jobs
or Just Worried About Reelection?
The administration's dismissal of new smog rules may show a growing preference for a practical approach to encouraging the economic recovery over progressive priorities
By Daniel Indiviglio - TheAtlantic.com
Are we just seeing an election year flip-flop, or is President Obama heeding Republicans' warnings about job-killing regulation? Although some parts of the administration continue to play down the potential negative effects of regulatory uncertainty on the economy, the president's recent decision to take a less aggressive approach to new smog rules is telling. Either he worries that the right may be onto something, or he's trying to show swing voters that he has moved to the center.

Vets Join Tough Job Market
Returning Military Personnel
Are Prime Candidates but Face Array of Obstacles
By EMILY GLAZER - WSJ.com
As the U.S. pulls troops out of Iraq, some companies say they are looking to add a few former soldiers to their ranks.
That may be easier said than done.
Following President Barack Obama's October troop withdrawal announcement, tens of thousands of service members are expected to leave Iraq by Dec. 31. Those who don't re-enlist, join the reserves or ride out a contract will re-enter civilian life and for most, that means getting a job.

America's Jobless, Yearning for Oz
Mining Isn't Pretty, but Tale of a Well-Paid Australian Unleashes Pleas for Work
By JOHN W. MILLER - WSJ.com
When John Salisbury, a 51-year-old unemployed chef in Winchester, Va. — population 26,000 — read a profile of an Australian miner making $200,000 a year, published in The Wall Street Journal, he asked how to apply.
"There's nothing within a 30-mile radius of me, so why not Australia?" said Mr. Salisbury in a phone interview. After all, he'd worked as a chef at a gold mine in Peru.
Mr. Salisbury was not alone. Hundreds of others — most of them among the 13.9 million Americans who are unemployed — also inquired, providing an informal survey of the ambitious and jobless.

We're Hiring
Many business schools have trouble filling faculty positions
By BETH GARDINER
When it comes to hiring, business schools are running up against one of their most basic classroom lessons — the law of supply and demand.
While thousands of new schools have opened around the world in recent years, the number of new Ph.D.s in business subjects has held relatively steady, and many schools are now facing a serious shortage of well-qualified faculty.
For top institutions in the U.S. and Western Europe, it has mostly meant a jump in the salaries that professors with strong research records can command. But some less-wealthy schools in the West, and many B-schools in the developing world, are having real trouble filling teaching posts. Often, the jobs remain vacant or are filled by visiting or part-time faculty, or by moonlighting businesspeople without doctorates.

Get Elected, Get Money
By Al Lewis - WSJ.com
People who say Washington should be run like a business don't realize that it is a business.
First, you pretend you're in it for the people, or America, or some nonsensical ideology. Then you get elected. Then you chase money.
Remember, you are not a lying, self-dealing scoundrel, you are a bold entrepreneur, entitled to speaker's fees, consulting contracts, and insider stock and real-estate deals. And if you end up taking a spin through the revolving door, you can be a highly paid lobbyist one minute and America's greatest hope the next.

UPS to raise rates 4.9% for ground, air shipments
By Joan E. Solsman - MarketWatch.com
United Parcel Service Inc. plans to raise its rates next year 4.9% for ground package shipping, air shipping and, for packages originating in the U.S., international shipping.
The new net rates reflect higher base rates but lower fuel surcharges. The rate increase for ground shipments is based on a 5.9% increase in the base rate minus a one percentage point reduction to fuel surcharge. The rate increase for air and international shipments is based on a 6.9% increase in the base rate minus a two-point reduction in fuel surcharge.

Tech Gifts That Don't Break the Holiday Budget
Edited by CRISTINA LOUROS-RICARDO - WSJ.com
Electronic gadgets are huge holiday sellers, but it's hard to find really cool stuff for $100 or less. With a half-nod toward thriftiness in these tough economic times, here are some gifts to consider that won't cost more than a C-note.

Technology companies see 'monster opportunity'
in federal shift to Apple, Google phones
By Kathleen Miller and Juliann Francis - WashingtonPost.com
Citrix Systems and Juniper Networks are among the technology vendors that could benefit from a U.S. government search for ways to secure Apple’s smartphones and tablet computers for the use of federal employees.
Apple’s devices, along with those using Google’s Android software, are drawing interest from U.S. agencies responding to a workforce that increasingly wants an alternative to the Research in Motion BlackBerrys that have long dominated the federal market.

Follow Your Heart:
Darpa’s Quest to Find You by Your Heartbeat
By Adam Rawnsley - Wired.com
The U.S. military can see you breathing on the other side of that wall. It can even see your heartbeat racing while you crouch behind the door. But if you think running farther away or hiding in a crowd will make you invisible to the Defense Department’s sensors, you might be in for a surprise. The Pentagon’s geeks are looking to tweak their life-form finder so they can spot your tell-tale heart no matter what you do.
Darpa, the Pentagon’s mad-science shop, announced last week that it’s looking to improve on technologies that sniff out biometric signatures like heartbeats from behind walls. Dubbed "Biometrics-at-a-distance," the program seeks to build sensors that can remotely identify humans from farther away and tell them apart in a crowd.

Cyber-attack claims at US water facility
FBI and Homeland Security to investigate shutdown of a water pump suspected to be work of foreign hackers
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
US homeland security and FBI officials are investigating an apparent cyber-attack on a water utility near Springfield, Illinois.
The attack may have been the cause of a water pump shutdown, and could be the first case of foreign hackers successfully targeting a US industrial facility.
The shutdown did not result in any supply issues, but the incident triggered a high-level investigation.

When—and Why—U.S. Foreign Policy
Stopped Being About Democracy
Roosevelt's democracy-promotion plan saw some of its greatest success in the same place where it would later die in a power struggle between American diplomats, spies, and policy-makers: Southeast Asia
By Joshua Kurlantzick, fellow, SE Asia (CFR) - TheAtlantic.com
When Jim Thompson arrived in Thailand, in 1945, the United States' global prestige had never been higher. "They Love us in Siam," boasted one article in the Saturday Evening Post. It was true. While average people in Bangkok filled up any container they could find when water from bombed-out pumping stations actually flowed, Thais held massive parties for the Americans arriving in Bangkok after the Japanese surrendered. One American working in Thailand after the war remembered "a dinner which will live long in my memory" at the house of one Thai prince: turtle soup in fresh coconuts, lobster thermidor, goose, Thai curries, shrimp soufflé, and ice cream made from steamed bananas.

Airstrike Against Iranian Nuclear Facilities
Could Kill 100s of North Koreans and Russians
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
As the drums for direct military intervention to derail Iran’s purported covert military nuclear weapons program beat louder in both Jerusalem and Washington, an overlooked issue is the possibility of international "collateral damage," to use the Pentagon’s favourite euphemism for civilian casualties.
On 14 November South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo stated, "Hundreds of North Korean scientists and engineers are working at about 10 nuclear and missile facilities in Iran, including Natanz, The North Koreans are apparently rotated every six months." Russian technicians also remain at Iran’s first nuclear electrical energy facility, Bushehr. So, any aerial strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities could result in significant numbers of dead Russian and North Korean specialists as “collateral damage,” with all the diplomatic uncertainties that might ensue from Moscow and Pyongyang as the body bags start arriving home.

Dr. Bill Deagle MD -
Fukushima Radiation Continues To The US 1/3

Dr. Bill Deagle MD -
Fukushima Radiation Continues To The US 2/3

Dr. Bill Deagle MD -
Fukushima Radiation Continues To The US 3/3

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -