Free Republic

The Next Bank Meltdown Won't Be An "Accident" By Shah Gilani, Capital Wave Strategist, Money Morning April 22, 2013Big banks turned in a pretty stellar first quarter. All but one beat profits expectations. But as I told you last week, I'm now out of these stocks completely. Do you want the truth about what shape banks are in right now? Sure you can handle it? I'm sorry; I can't tell you the truth. Regulators can't tell you the truth. And the Federal Reserve won't tell you the truth. No one can tell you the truth. That's because banks don't tell...

IT HAS taken the Japanese government more than 18 months since the earthquake and tsunami that hit Fukushima to pay tribute to a group of brave men, once known as the “Fukushima 50”, who risked their lives to prevent meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant from spiralling out of control. But when the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, belatedly offered official thanks to them on October 7th something strange was afoot: six of the eight men he addressed had their backs to the television cameras, refused to be photographed and did not introduce themselves by name, not even to...

Last week on Meet the Press, it was NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel slamming the Obama administration's "diminished",foreign policy influence around the globe.Today on Meet the Press, two veteran Washington newsmen, The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and former ABC, now NBC News correspondent Ted Koppel, matter of factly described the present foreign policy environment as being in "meltdown" and entering "one of the most dangerous" periods in U.S. history. Their remarks were made without directly blaming President Barack Obama and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but they were made in response to a question pointing out Obama's...

Karl Rove taken off the air as Fox News distances themselves from conservative pundit after his Election Night tantrum Karl Rove has officially been benched as Fox News chief Roger Ailes has reportedly suspended the Republican operative from their airwaves. Rove and Dick Morris, a fellow paid political analyst, have been temporarily banned from appearing on Fox News as the network tries to distance themselves from the two men whose election predictions ended up being so far from the result. New York Magazine's Gabriel Sherman reports that Ailes decided that it is important for Fox News to take a step...

"Let it crash!" "Give them what they want and they'll see what happens!" "Surely, once the left's programs are implemented and the economy crashes, people will come to their senses." Since the election, many on the right have echoed this meme. They are convinced that widespread poverty and lack of opportunity will bring a resurgence of the America many of them knew growing up. Grandma and Grandpa's America. Perhaps these people forget that Roosevelt was re-elected three times during a depression that he helped prolong -- a depression that featured soup lines and starvation in a population that actually wanted...

MELTDOWN COMING: Canada Is Bleeding Private Sector Jobs, And Its Housing Market Is Tanking Mike "Mish" Shedlock, Global Economic Trend AnalysisNov. 4, 2012, 5:19 PMThe Financial Post has an interesting story on the state of the Canadian jobs market. It seem over 100% of job growth is from government jobs. Please consider Employment numbers hide the fact Canada is bleeding private sector jobs Canada may have added 1,800 jobs in October, but that number hides the fact that almost all the gains came from government and that the private sector lost more than 20,000 jobs. The 1,800 jobs added was...

The Obama campaign is on the verge of free-fall. The latest Gallup poll shows Romney up 52%-45% over Obama, gaining another point following Obama’s improved debate performance. Immediately following this week’s debate, LIVE pollster Frank Luntz interviewed a group of “undecided” voters, most of whom voted for Obama in 2008. Almost all of them switched to Romney after watching Obama’s more aggressive, but still defenseless performance.Meanwhile, the Internet was raging with threats to assassinate Mitt Romney, all posted by Barack Obama supporters. The Obama campaign was heading into total meltdown. The Secret Service is aware and following the leads on...

The 2012 presidential election is one of the most momentous crossroads in U.S. history. As Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee, stated in his Thursday debate against Vice President Joe Biden, the outcome on Election Day will determine “what kind of country we are going to give our kids.” Under Obama-administration policies, out-of-control government spending has grown to such an extent that federal debt is now larger than the gross domestic product of the United States, the largest economy in the world. U.S. power and prestige in the world are in such dramatic decline that armed Islamists can...

While careful not to get drawn into the conspiracy-theory wonk camp, CNBC's Rick Santelli just connects the dots on last week's miraculous unemployment rate. In one of the most voluminous rants we can remember, Santelli - from a position of realist (and market whisperer) - argued with Liesman - from a position of 'but, but, the data must be true' - and summed it all perfectly "if I told you that you'd win the lottery tomorrow, and you did; wouldn't you wonder how did I know that?" With Langone also chipping in that he does not see anything in his...

VIDEO HERE “What is riskier than living poor in America? Seriously! What in the world is riskier than being a poor person in America? I live in a neighborhood where people are shot on my street corner. I live in a neighborhood where people have to figure out how to get their kid into school because maybe it will be a good school and maybe it won’t. I am sick of the idea that being wealthy is risky. No. There is a huge safety net that whenever you fail will catch you and catch you and catch you. Being...

In this video I give you a rundown of a portfolio that I think will hold up in any adverse market collapse. The premise boils down to 3 major equity/asset categories: 1)Energy %25 2)Precious Metals %25 3)Defensive (ie Walmart, JNJ, McD,etc) %50 This is a simple, straight-forward approach to protect your capital and wealth in this tulmultuous time. Part 1: Just a recap, here are the companies I give a green thumb to: Energy: 25% of Portfolio 1) Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) 5.5% yield 2) Calumet (CLMT) 10% yield 3) Uranium Participation Corp (URPTF) 0% yield or Cameco Corp (CCJ)...

Unit 2 we now know completely liquified. We’ve never seen this before in the history of nuclear power. A 100% liquification of a uranium core.

BANGKOK (AP) - Asian stocks are sliding after elections in Greece and France heightened uncertainty about Europe's ability to solve its debt crisis. Japan's Nikkei 225 index has plunged 2.5 percent Monday to 9,142.47. Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled 2.5 percent to 20,564.87. South Korea's Kospi shed 1.7 percent.

We noted days after the Japanese earthquake that the biggest threat was from the spent fuel rods in the fuel pool at Fukushima unit number 4, and not from the reactors themselves...

DAVID KOTOK: 'PORTUGAL IS UNRAVELING' Rob Wile March 29, 2012, 2:41 PM If you want to know what's really going to set off the long-awaited Eurozone meltdown, look to the Lusophones. In his first note to investors back from his trip to Europe, Cumberland Advisors' David Kotok writes he's only grown more pessimistic on the situation, citing runs on Portuguese banks. "In my view, the situation in Portugal is unraveling. This may be the second shoe to drop in the European sovereign debt saga. Now that Greece has paved the way, the speed of unwind with Portugal may be much...

<p>TOKYO (AP) A new probe at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant has found fatal radiation levels and hardly any cooling water inside one of the reactors, renewing concerns about the plant's stability.</p> <p>The operator of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant says an endoscopic examination Tuesday detected radiation levels up to 10 times the fatal dose inside the No. 2 reactor's contain chamber, suggesting challenges ahead in shutting down the facility.</p>

Simi Valley California was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history in 1959, and the amounts of radiation leaked to the environment and atmosphere were more than 240 times that of the accident at 3-Mile Island. The area is beautiful today, but what still remains from many decades ago?

Geithner: Dodd-Frank critics are toying with another financial meltdownBy Peter Schroeder - 02/02/12 04:55 PM ET Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner swung back at critics of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law Thursday, arguing that those detractors are pushing for a repeat of the financial crisis. Both in Congress and on the campaign trail, the Obama administration's reforms have come under fire. Lawmakers are pushing several bills that would repeal portions of the law, and every major Republican candidate has vowed to kill it as one of their first acts in office. But Geithner said such a rollback would merely make the...

A remote-controlled endoscope with a thermometer showed the temperature inside the No. 2 reactor of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Jan. 19 was about 45 degrees, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. But the endoscope lens became covered in water droplets and the reception was sometimes fuzzy, so the operator of the plant could not determine the condition of the melted fuel or if the pipes were damaged. In addition, the endoscope, 8.5 millimeters in diameter, did not reach the surface of the water. TEPCO had predicted the water level would be 4.5 meters based on the...

Media propagandists continue to advance the Democratic Party line. On December 21, Bloomberg News breathlessly reported, "The leading Republican candidates for president have embraced an explanation of the financial crisis that has been rejected by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, many economists and even three of the four Republicans on the government commission that investigated the meltdown." Reporter David J. Lynch further explained, "Both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney lay much of the blame on U.S. government housing policies, saying they led to the real estate crash that almost brought down the banking...

Jim Puplava: Joining me as my special guest on the program today is Ann Barnhardt, formerly of Barnhardt Capital Management. And Ann, you were a commodity broker for eight years and then you formed your own independent brokerage for six years. A couple of weeks ago you made the painful decision to shut your doors because you felt your clients’ money and positions were no longer safe. What led you to draw those conclusions?Ann Barnhardt: Well, obviously, it was the MF global collapse and more specifically the fall out after the MF Global collapse and the reaction by the CFTC, the SEC...

The shocking collapse of MF Global with the amount of missing client funds now rising to $1.2 billion, is so devastating, we are at the precipice of complete financial disaster. The United States boasts far too much of its greatness and “liberty and justice for all” but its actions reveal nothing but greed, distain, and contempt of the rights of man that include his right to property. Jon Corzine was a bond trader at Goldman Sachs and has been known as an aggressive trader all along. He intervened at the SEC and changed the direction of MF Global. What is...

A tweet by a Lower House Councilman Hiroshi Kawauchi (DPJ) says the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency now admits in its report that the Reactor Pressure Vessel may have been broken by the EARTHQUAKE, not tsunami. No info about which reactor. Independent journalist Ryuichi Kino says whatever this document is, it is not yet uploaded to the NISA's site. I've checked the METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) press release page, and there is none so far. Councilman Kawauchi's tweet from December 9, 2011: 原�力安全�安院資料。原�炉内部�地震�よる微���傷��定�����記載。1時間�7トンも�冷���失�れる�傷を「微���表��る感覚��驚���り�������原�炉内部��傷��能性を������事実。 Document from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. It reads "a minute damage inside...

TEPCO: Melted fuel eroded containment vessel floor at Fukushima reactor December 01, 2011 Most of the fuel rods that melted in the pressure vessel of the No. 1 reactor of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant ate into the containment vessel, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. It said on Nov. 30 the melted fuel did not breach the containment vessel but partially eroded its concrete floor. As for the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, most of the melted fuel stayed within the pressure vessel, TEPCO added. Water levels have submerged the fuel rods at all three reactors, which...

But one thing is for sure, whenever i hear these days somebody says: “I will not do that if SHTF“ or „I ll do only that if SHTF“ whenever i hear that i feel sick. Wait and see… Truth is: You never know how far you are going to go with some things in order to survive, there is no chance to know that before SHTF, everything else is only talking and discussing in front of PC, in nice and warm room, safe, not hungry or thirsty and not under fire or chance of losing life or that loved ones...

What may be new to most Americans is nothing out of the ordinary for our readers. As the economic, financial and political situation around us becomes more dire by the day, people are realizing that if it hits the fan there will be no safety net to assist them. The government is already overwhelmed with nearly 50 million people on nutritional assistance and an estimated 100 million Americans living in or right on the edge of poverty. In a true emergency, be it economic in nature or an unforeseen outlier, there will simply be no way local or federal officials...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A sell-off on Wall Street gained momentum Monday, with the Dow sinking more than 300 points, as investors remained on edge about the lack of progress on solving U.S. and European debt progblems.

Gov't aims for 'cold shutdown' of Fukushima reactors, but bemoans lack of data The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) are trying to achieve a stable condition called a "cold shutdown" of crippled reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant by the end of this year, but they have yet to come to grips with exactly what is happening inside the reactors crippled by the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami. In the latest roadmap to contain the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the government and TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, aim for a...

President Obama says the Occupy Wall Street protests show a "broad-based frustration" among Americans with the financial sector, which continues to kick against regulatory reforms three years after the financial crisis. "You're seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place," he complained earlier this month. But what if government encouraged, even invented, those "abusive practices"?

As anticipated by LEAP/E2020 since November 2010, and often repeated up to June 2011, the second half of 2011 has started with a sudden and major relapse of the crisis. Nearly USD 10 trillion of the USD 15 trillion in ghost assets announced in GEAB N°56 have already gone up in smoke. The rest (and probably much more) will vanish in the fourth quarter of 2011, which will be marked by what our team calls "the implosive fusion of global financial assets". It’s the two major global financial centers, Wall Street in New York and the City of London, which...

Der Spiegel says:It's official: Jörg Asmussen, State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, will succeed Jürgen Stark as chief economist of the European Central Bank. Diesen Vorschlag hat Wolfgang Schäuble dem Euro-Gruppen-Chef Jean-Claude Juncker unterbreitet. This proposal was Wolfgang Schäuble the euro group chief Jean-Claude Juncker presented...Asmussen was willing to assume the position on the Governing Board and assured them he would do everything possible to ensure the stability of the euro-zone. Asmussen: "willing to assume the position." Definitely looks like the type.

From Fox News Channel Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Special Report With Brit Hume

A nuclear power plant located in Louisa County, the epicenter of the earthquake in Virginia, has shut down. The North Anna Power Station, operated by Dominion Power, has two reactors. The plant declared an "unusual event" in the wake of the 5.9 magnitude quake, which is the lowest stage on the plant's emergency scale. As a result, the plant has been shut down. The AP reports the plant is being run off of four emergency diesel generators, which are supplying power for critical safety equipment. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah says the agency was not immediately aware of any...

Turn on Fox Business if you have it. They're all over the REAL situation, the $15 trillion U.S. debt - are we acknowledging that the principal will not be repaid ? Mark Steyn is ON and wants to know. The Judge was on before. IT IS FANTASTIC THIS MORNING...

THE PARTY IS OVER: Democrat, That Is © 2011 by Anthony James The fur is really flying now. President Obama and his Democrat handlers, enablers and rumpswabs are scurrying about like ants on crystal meth, plopping themselves in front of every news microphone and TV camera they can find to continue to perpetuate the mindless “Tea Party downgrade” meme some Progressive propaganda genius came up with over the weekend. It has become clear that, despite the outrageously preposterous implication that The Tea Party had anything at all to do with the Standard & Poor's downgrade of the United States’ credit...

The historic downgrade of the United States engendered by political gridlock in Washington caused one of the worst days ever on Wall Street Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average plummeting more than 600 points in its sixth-biggest drop. Standard & Poor’s cut in the once-untouchable U.S. credit rating to AA+ from AAA late Friday night shook global markets and added to worries that the world’s largest economy is sinking inexorably toward a double-dip recession. In a panicky day of tumultuous trading on Wall Street, even a pledge by President Obama to double down on efforts this fall to come...

Marco got Bob lost in the debate.

The Greater Depression Is Upon Us By David Galland 07/15/11 The phrase “Greater Depression” was coined by Doug Casey a decade or so back, as a way of describing the economic crisis he foresaw as inevitable, and which is now materializing. Doug Casey now believes that the unfolding crisis is going to be even worse than he first imagined, and the longer the rest of us at Casey Research study the tea leaves, it is hard to disagree that the Greater Depression is still ahead. Consider: * The eurozone is growing increasingly desperate. Watching the heads of Europe dither and...

Italy Getting Uglier: Main Index Down Nearly 3%, As Short-Term Yields Explode Joe Weisenthal Jul. 11, 2011, 8:06 AM It took awhile -- the early trading wasn't so chaotic -- but the Italy minimeltdown people were waiting for all wekend is on. The main index is now down about 2.8% (see chart to the right). 2-year yields are exploding higher, preparing to break through 4%.

This morning, Issa and Senator Charles Grassley released a letter that they sent yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder. It is explosive, to say the least. You should read it in its entirety; here are some excerpts: Yesterday, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson participated in a transcribed interview regarding Operation Fast and Furious and related matters with both Republican and Democratic staff. He appeared with his personal counsel, Richard Cullen of McGuire Woods LLP. His interview had originally been scheduled through the Justice Department to occur on July 13 in the presence of DOJ and ATF counsel. As you know,...

Body language expert Tanya Reiman told Bill O’Reilly recently that Obama lied – He was no friend of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Reiman said that Obama had “contempt in his eyes” and displayed it with his body language when he was with Benjamin Netanyahu. It was obvious. Narcissists don’t like being challenged. Now we know the rest of the story…Obama went into a rage after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured him on his suicide plan for Israel. NewsFavor reported, via Doug Ross: Shortly after the photo-op meeting and “working lunch” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one that...

/begin my excerpts Nuclear Fuel could have Melt through Pressure Vessels ... Government Report On Jung 7, the whole content of government report to be submitted to IAEA has been revealed, regarding TEPCO's Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Plant. The report points out the possibility that molten nuclear fuel leaked out of the bottom of damaged pressure vessels in Reactor Unit #1 to #3 and accumulated in the containment vessels. Molten nuclear fuel falling down to containment vessel is called "melt-through" and this is the worst case which is beyond meltdown. It also says that the location in pressure vessel where...

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday. The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said. Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.

Anthony Weiner doesn't want to talk about that photo anymore, so much so his office will call the cops on you if you try and make him. A week after a crotch-shot appeared on the married Congressman's Twitter feed, Weiner's "certitude" regarding his junk is still national news, as much as he and the 21-year-old co-ed who the image was directed at wishes it weren't. At least we've all learned a lot about the "confident security" provided by those $11.25 Jockeys. Weiner made it clear that he was done talking about the issue and wanted to get back to work,...

Two damaged reactors may have holes in their containment vessels: TEPCO data At least two reactors at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant may have holes in their containment vessels, according to a report released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on May 24, a finding that could hamper efforts to meet a government-sanctioned timetable to end the crisis. TEPCO, the operator of the troubled nuclear power plant, said in the report that meltdowns had occurred at the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors. The report revealed for the first time the possibility of the No. 1 and...

A layman's guide to the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant BY RYOMA KOMIYAMA STAFF WRITER /snip Q: What happens if fuel rods melt? A: Melted fuel rods cannot be easily cooled by water because they are completely deformed. They become like a chunk of concrete. Cooling them requires the continued injection of water. In this case, intense heat from melted rods on the bottom made holes in the metal pressure vessel, causing the contaminated water to leak. Q: What are these holes like? A: There are several of them. Their total size is about the same...

N-reactor cooling failed before tsunami The Yomiuri Shimbun An emergency cooling system of the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant malfunctioned after the March 11 earthquake and before the tsunami hit, data released by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. have revealed. According to a large cache of data concerning plant operations from March 11 to 14 released Monday by TEPCO, the No. 1 reactor's isolation condenser, which operates on direct-current power, began to malfunction shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake struck the Tohoku and Kanto regions. /snip According to the data, the No....

TEPCO: Meltdown at No. 1 reactor started much earlier than initially reported The meltdown at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant started only five-and-a-half hours after the March 11 tsunami struck, hours earlier than Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s earlier estimate. TEPCO originally said the meltdown began on March 12, and implemented measures to contain the crisis based on this assumption. It had said the water level in the core started to drop around 9:30 p.m. on March 11, and the fuel rods became fully exposed just before 9 a.m. on March 12. But new...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) admitted for the first time on May 15 that most of the fuel in one of its nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had melted only about 16 hours after the March 11 earthquake struck a wide swath of northeastern Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami.

Meltdown may have occurred also at Nos. 2, 3 reactors TOKYO, May 16, Kyodo An adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Monday that the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had failed to inject water into the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors for more than six hours after the March 11 massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Goshi Hosono, tasked with handling the nuclear crisis, said at a press conference that Tokyo Electric Power Co. had not been able to cool down the reactors' cores due to loss of external power for a long time after the quake,...