Free Republic

It looks that a big part of Gold bars in Banks vaults are in fact tugsten plated gold , the scandal is just starting to leak and it could cause the burst of the Gold bubble. Video interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0-hGHJSgNA

Considering it was just a year ago when we were jolted into this banking-induced recession, you can imagine my astonishment when I read this recent Forbes headline: “Dubai's Failure Exposes A U.S. Advantage The well-regulated U.S. financial sector has a lot to show for itself.” I’m also equally perplexed by Dick Bove, a widely followed banking analyst, suggesting “Bank of America (BAC) should beg Ken Lewis to stay,” and that “The success of this bank is due to the brilliance of Ken Lewis as a visionary and tactician.” We are talking about Ken Lewis, who has failed his fiducially duty...

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida Highway Patrol trooper suspected golfer Tiger Woods had drunk alcohol on the day of his car accident last month, according to a subpoena request by the officer rejected by a state prosecutor. The detailed subpoena request, released by the State Attorney's Office for Orange County on Monday, added fresh intrigue to the media storm around the world's No. 1 golfer, who ran his Cadillac SUV into a fire hydrant and a tree while pulling out of the driveway of his home at about 2 a.m. on November 27. The November 30 request by the trooper...

Neighbors say Tiger Woods was unconscious, snoring after crash Neighbors described to FHP what they saw following Tiger Woods' crash outside his Isleworth home. The once-pristine image of golf superstar Tiger Woods took more blows Thursday after revelations that neighbors found him lying shoeless and snoring on his Isleworth street after he plowed his SUV into a fire hydrant and tree. These details, included in an interview recorded by Florida Highway Patrol troopers of neighbors who rushed to Woods' aid, emerged as a celebrity gossip publication reported that yet another party girl had trysts with Tiger Woods. Kalika Moquin, 27,...

This is what you are, for investing so much money in his fantasy.You have to give Sheikh Mohammad Al-Maktoum credit. After borrowing massively from the rest of the world, and then blowing all that cash on ridiculous investments, he's not afraid to tell the international investing community the truth about how dumb they were. The Independent: The ruler of Dubai hit out at international investors yesterday as his government's impecunious investment vehicle revealed plans to restructure $26bn of its debts. Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum said: "They do not understand anything." Basically, everyone was a bunch of suckers.

We really don't know what to say except: you really, really want to watch this animated recreation of the Tiger Woods crash. It seems to be some sort of foreign newscast. And it is amazing.

WINDERMERE, Fla. (AP) - Tiger Woods canceled another meeting with state troopers on Sunday, the third straight time he's done so. He posted a statement on his Web site that said the accident was his fault, but failed to address the lingering questions about the crash that sent him to a hospital. The statement was posted about an hour before state troopers were to meet with the world's No. 1 golfer at his home inside the gates of Isleworth. A meeting was not rescheduled.

Moments after pulling out of his driveway in the middle of the night, Tiger Woods drove his SUV over a fire hydrant and into a tree, causing injuries that sent him to the hospital to be treated. The investigation of that mysterious crash has moved much more slowly. Woods added to the suspense Saturday when for the second straight day, the world's No.1 golfer was unavailable to speak to the Florida Highway Patrol. State troopers are looking for answers about the accident in which the Windermere police chief said Woods' wife, Elin, used a golf club to smash out a...

The US government is shouldering a vast $12 trillion debt pile – that's 12, followed by 12 zeros. The trade deficit of the world's biggest economy also remains huge. How much longer can the dollar defy gravity? Last week, America's currency fell to a 15-month low against the euro, cutting through $1.5050. Against a trade-weighted currency basket, the dollar was also at its weakest since July 2008. The greenback plunged to parity with the rock-solid Swiss franc, then hit a 14-year low against the yen. The dollar's weakness is based on fundamentals – not least America's jaw-dropping debt. It's a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Secret Service is investigating how an uninvited couple was admitted to U.S. President Barack Obama's White House state dinner, penetrating layers of security and mingling with VIP guests. The couple from northern Virginia was not invited to the dinner, not included on the official guest list, and were never seated at a table in the South Lawn tent where the dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was held, The Washington Post reported, citing a White House official it did not identify. A Secret Service spokesman told the Post that no one was under any risk...

Any good ideas what to invest in to protect against further currency devaluations and economic drops? What are you doing or thinking of doing?

I am preparing a text which I will publish at The Brussels Journal in the not-too-distant future, but I will begin the discussion here first. When I read the various comments at Lawrence Auster’s place and Dennis Mangan’s blog, Takuan Seiyo’s recent piece at TBJ and the latest post by El Inglés at Gates of Vienna, I get the feeling that tensions are building up and that something big is going to happen within the coming generation, probably within the next five to ten years. Since I have been writing about geology lately I will use an analogy from plate...

Odds are the huge stock market rebound since March has run its course. And even though it yields nothing, it's time to raise cash. Nothing is screamingly cheap. The easy money has been made in both equities and fixed income. From the low point in March, it seems you can't pick an asset class that hasn't gained something in the area of 60%. That was some fear discount back in March. During this universal recovery, as in most post-recessionary periods, lower-quality high-yield bonds have outperformed quality issues, and lots of smart guys who had the guts and money to buy...

America’s mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated—one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it’s still going strong. Like the ambitions of many immigrants who attend services there, Casa del Padre’s success can be measured by upgrades...

3 Arguments for China’s Looming Economic Crash By Rocky Vega 11/10/09 Stockholm, Sweden – Billionaire hedge fund investor Jim Chanos, the famous Enron short seller, is in the camp of professionals who view China as headed toward a crash. The China bears suspect that the economy is not as healthy as portrayed, and that many of its components that are actually stronger have become overheated. Basically, they believe that the “entire system is teetering toward collapse.” Here are three factors that suggest serious problems in China… * First, they claim the huge $900 billion spent by the government on economic...

Prechter: The 2008 Crash Was Merely A Warmup Joe WeisenthalNov. 5, 2009, 6:19 AM Elliot Wave analyst Bob Prechter explained to Maria Bartiromo why this market rally is kaput. The internals are ugly, momentum is breaking down, valuations are too high, and everyone's too bullish. He ominously described the 2008 crash as a warmup, and he likes Treasuries.[snip](click on the site to see the video)

Soros, Ross: Commercial Real-Estate Crash Is Coming And It's Going To Be Terrific Henry BlodgetNov. 1, 2009, 8:35 AM The commercial real-estate crash is the worst-kept secret in the economy, but it's happening. It's just taking a long time to play out. (Except in the hotel industry, which essentially has "one-day leases"). Wilbur Ross and George Soros were freaking out about it on Friday: John Gittelsohn and Thomas R. Keene, Bloomberg: Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr., said today the U.S. is in the beginning of a “huge crash in commercial real estate.” “All of the components of real estate...

Investigators are trying to determine why a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 airplane and a U.S. Marine Corps attack helicopter collided on Thursday night, likely killing nine crew members. Aircraft and ships are scouring the ocean off San Diego for any signs of survivors of the nighttime collision, but Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the crash likely killed both the plane's seven crew members and the two-person crew of the AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter.Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the crash occurred minutes after control of the C-130 was handed off from FAA controllers to military air controllers.

About an hour ago a twin engine Cessna general aviation aircraft crashed into a home about three miles (straight line) from our house. The sole occupant of the home (friend of a friend) died in the home. Unknown yet about how many souls were on the plane. I was working at home today and heard/felt the 'boom'. Weather is overcast, light rain, winds 10 miles or less from the east, 65 degrees. Probably not more than 5 miles north of the airport. I guess the plane would have departed to the east, made a left hand turn. Should have been...

BreakingNews San Diego media: 9 missing after collision of Coast Guard C-130 and Marine Cobra helicopter off the SD coast. BNO News working to confirm.

Roubini Sees Market Crash All Over the World By Rocky Vega 10/29/09 Stockholm, Sweden – New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who recently saw the recovery as “U-shaped,” is now concerned a dollar rebound will cause global markets to crash. His main concern is the carry trade in the US dollar. The dollar is being borrowed at near-zero interest rates to then be invested into a wide array of now-popular assets including gold, commodities, equities, credit, and emerging markets. There are simply more dollars available in the system that are chasing the same types of things. The risk is that...

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A Navy T-34 jet trainer with two people aboard has gone missing off the Texas gulf coast. U.S. Coast Guard officials said an air traffic controller at Corpus Christi's naval air station lost contact with the crew about 3:20 p.m. Wednesday. The single-engine T-34 was last reported near Port Lavaca. The Coast Guard has dispatched a helicopter, jet and boats to search for the jet. Port Lavaca is about 75 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) - Fourteen Americans died in a pair of helicopter crashes in Afghanistan on Monday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. In the deadlier crash, a helicopter went down in the country's west. "Seven U.S. service members and three U.S. civilians were killed," an ISAF statement said. "Those injured include 14 Afghan service members, 11 U.S. service members and one U.S. civilian."

In a strongly worded internal memo, Air France has warned its pilots to be more vigilant about safety procedures and upbraided those blaming flight equipment for the crash of Flight 447 into the Atlantic in June. No one knows what caused the accident, which killed all 228 people aboard and was Air France's deadliest crash. Pilots' unions said Saturday the company is trying to distance itself from blame — and shift attention to the possibility of human error — as the investigation drags on. "Enough Scandals and False Debates about Flight Security!" reads the memo, sent to pilots Tuesday and...

VIRGINIA BEACH One person was killed and eight others were injured when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed on a Navy ship during joint training with the Army. The services were doing "fast rope" exercises 20 nautical miles off Fort Story about 8 p.m. Thursday, sliding down a rope from helicopters and landing on the fast combat support ship Arctic, when one of the Army helicopters made a hard landing, said Capt. Cate Mueller, a Navy spokeswoman. It was unclear whether the injured were from the Navy, the Army or both. A Navy news release this morning says that members of...

Edward Pinto, the former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, and a consultant to the mortgage industry lays out the sad truth. The government is aggressively making the same pro-homeownership moves that got us into the last mess.

Sounds like it to me. These are truly remarkable words coming from inside the Fed. Reuters has the details: U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh on Tuesday called gains in Asian and U.S. stocks noteworthy and wondered whether those increases signal a return to financial normality after a wrenching crisis or raise the prospects for asset bubbles. Stock markets in a number of Asian economies have posted hefty gains in recent months, Warsh said while moderating a panel at an Asia economic policy conference hosted by the San Francisco Federal Reserve. "This is a remarkable move, certainly the U.S. has...

Harry Dent Sees A Big Crash Coming, Urges Investors To Prepare By Rocky Vega 10/20/09 Stockholm, Sweden – In an interview with Moneynews, Harry Dent, author of The Roaring 2000s Investor and The Great Depression Ahead, said that “deflation in turn will trigger crashes in stocks, bonds and real estate.” According to Dent, the deflation will be caused by “way too much debt in our system,” and he advises investors to stay in cash. His debt calculation includes corporate at $11 trillion, government at $14 trillion, and the financial sector at $17 trillion. The solution he suggests is that “we...

Why the Dollar Will Likely Rally in the Next Crash by: Washington October 20, 2009 As I have previously noted, HSBC currency chief David Bloom doesn't think that the dollar will rally when the stock market next tanks: The dollar rallied last year because we had a global liquidity crisis, but we think the rules have changed and that it will be very different this time [if there is another market sell-off]. Is he right? I have argued that the new dollar carry trade could very well unwind during the next crash, which could create an enormous need for dollars....

October 2007 Shows Us How This Rally Ends By Ron Coby On 2:10 pm EDT, Monday October 19, 2009 Crisis, What Crisis? As I scroll through hundreds of charts, I continually see that markets are right back to where they were before this credit crisis began. It's almost like investors have completely forgotten why markets collapsed more than 50%. They must believe the Federal Reserve has once again saved the day. Who can blame them really? The Fed saved the day in 1987, 1997, 1998, and 2001, so why not today? You know the formula: Markets correct or crash, the...

PLEASE HELP: I recently suffered a BSOD event on my other computer, which happens to be the one my children use for schoolwork, reports and the like - I had to re-install Windows XP, which solved the problem, but now nothing wants to work (internet, screen laggy and can't access old files). I can see a lot of what I had on the computer before this problem, but cannot access it and cannot connect to the internet at all now... I realize this may be an involved process, but could someone please help?

William K. Black - professor of economics and the senior regulator during the S & L crisis - says that that the government's entire strategy now - as during the S&L crisis - is to cover up how bad things are ("the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts").Indeed, as I have previously documented, 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980's during the "Latin American Crisis", and the government's response was to cover up their insolvency. Black also says: There has been no honest examination of the crisis because it...

The Biggest Bust Will Follow The Biggest Bubble By Bill Bonner 10/13/09 London, England Our ‘Crash Alert’ flag goes back up the pole… October is almost half over. Will we get through the month without a major sell-off? Dear reader, if you think we know the answer to that you’ve got us mixed up with someone else. Someone who is crazy. No one with his wits about him thinks he knows what the stock market is going to do. Still, here at The Daily Reckoning, we have our hunches. We think it’s time for a major pull back. Frankly, we’ll...

Stock Market Bull Trap Heading For A 50% Crash To 5,000 Stock-Markets / Financial Crash Oct 13, 2009 - 11:00 AM By: Captain_Hook At the risk of getting ahead of myself prior to being able to confirm the turn, I am suggesting stock market action over the past week bears the distinct odor of a bull trap, with even informed technicians still waiting for a push to 50% retracements on the indexes. In this respect then, you should realize the context of such a bull trap would be profound in that we are talking about the March lows being tested...

My wife was working on a PowerPoint 2002 presentation on her Sony Vaio laptop, using Vista home. She saved the file, then kept working on it. Then, PowerPoint suddenly ended/crashed. When she restarted PowerPoint and attempted to reopon the file, she got the message that the file caused a serious error, and did she want to open it? She answered yes, and PowerPoint simply hung up while trying to open the file. Since that time, I have tried creating a new presentation and inserting slides from the other one, but that method didn't succeed. I also have tried simply double...

Keep flying, keep control is 'the No. 1 priority,' Buchanan Dam pilot says. The engine rumbled ominously and the plane unexpectedly started to shake. As Alan Crawford flew through low-hanging clouds on his way from Fort Worth to his hometown of Buchanan Dam on Saturday, he knew he was going to crash. When Crawford realized the plane was not producing enough thrust to keep him airborne, he said he pulled out of the clouds and shut down his engine to avoid a post-crash fire. In 40 years of flying, he said, he had had an engine fail only once. Crawford,...

Commercial Real Estate: The Shoe Dropped In California Yael BizouatiOct. 6, 2009, 4:23 PM More proof that the commercial real estate crash is coming: hotel foreclosures in California have more than tripled in the first nine months of this year, according to Bloomberg. Foreclosures in Dana Point climbed to 47 in January through September from 15 a year earlier, and properties in default more than quadrupled to 259. Loans secured by more than 1,500 hotels with a total outstanding balance of $24.5 billion are in danger of default.[snip]

It was no way to treat a senior citizen: sending a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air hurtling into a collision with a 2009 Malibu at 40 miles per hour. As the video produced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows, the outcome wasn’t pretty, either.

More than two dozen motorcycles crashed on a freeway in Oregon on Friday, blocking traffic for hours, police said. Oregon State Police said the bikers were behind a car when traffic unexpectedly slowed in the northbound lanes on Interstate 5. The collision sent bikes scattering across the road, near Wilsonville, south of Portland.

WILSONVILLE -- Members of the Brother Speed outlaw motorcycle club rolled into a bloody 26-bike crash on Interstate 5 north Friday afternoon, south of Wilsonville. "When we arrived on scene, it was ordered mayhem," said Lt. Mike Towner of Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue. "There were ... two dozen motorcycles scattered across the freeway." Two bikers with critical injuries were flown by LifeFlight helicopter to Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center and OHSU Hospital in Portland. Seven other crash victims with less serious injuries were taken by ambulance. Northbound lanes at Milepost 282, near the Baldock Rest Area, were shut...

Man Proposes To Woman Right Before Head-On Crash Crash Victims In Washington County Flown To Hospital CLAYSVILLE, Pa. -- A head-on crash in Washington County sent five people to the emergency room Tuesday night. Police say a man driving a pickup truck had just proposed to his female passenger and was leaning over to kiss her when the vehicle drifted into oncoming traffic. A pickup truck traveling westbound on Route 40 crossed into the eastbound lanes near Cunningham Road, colliding with an oncoming car, authorities said. Police said the man driving the truck had just proposed to his female passenger...

China threatens to repudiate derivatives contracts and the market floats on air - until today, when suddenly the fake "buying" (that is, computer passing of shares back and forth) in bankrupt firms (AIG, Fannie and Freddie specifically) disappears in a puff of smoke and oops - down she goes!

"A Plane was damaged while landing at Nellis AFB Friday, causing the plane to catch fire and forcing its 32- member crew to escape..."

An angry shopper drove his Rolls Royce into a Tesco superstore after a dispute over the delivery of a bed.

This is an alert that a stock market crash is imminent in the TSX, Dow, and other global stock markets. Get out now before it's too late! Safety can be found in gold, silver, and bonds. It is imperative that you take cover now. The coming weeks will be turbulent to say the least. The crash will start Wednesday or Thursday of this week. Get out of long positions. REPEAT: Get out of long positions! I don't care if you're invested for the long term. The Dow is going to 2300. It will be a stomach-churning ride if you have...

Video at site Global stock markets could crash in October as the much hoped-for economic recovery fails to materialize, Enzio von Pfeil, CEO of EconomicClock.com, told CNBC. Anko Beldsnijder from MainFirst Bank disagreed.

Investors tend to love templates and patterns. Why? They provide a market guidance that offers a higher probability of accuracy than most other research. Some say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. How is this for historic irony, the first leg of the Great Depression reduced the Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI) by 48%. The subsequent rally lifted the Dow nearly 50%. Fast forward and you will find that the first leg of this recession melted the Dow Jones (NYSEArca: DIA - News), S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC), and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) by just over 50%,...

Capt. Chesley Sully Sullenberger made it his life's mission to protect lives because he couldn't save his father from suicide, according to the hero pilot's blockbuster new book. "One of the reasons I think I've placed such a high value on life is that my father took his," Sullenberger reveals in the memoir, a copy of which the New York Daily News obtained ahead of the tome's October release. Sullenberger reveals that his father, a dentist from Texas, battled depression and shot himself in 1995 at age 78 in the book "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters." "I'm...

Britain's Uber-bear is growling again. After predicting a torrid "relief rally" over the early summer, Bob Janjuah at Royal Bank of Scotland is advising clients to take profits in global equity and commodity markets and prepare for another storm as winter nears. "We are now in the middle of a parabolic spike up," he said in his latest confidential note to clients.

"It’s a little redneck, but we love it, we accept it, we admit and we enjoy it." Watch video: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=116368