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From DemocracyNow: The U.S. State Department has imposed an order barring employees from reading the leaked WikiLeaks cables. State Department staffers have been told not to read cables because they were classified and subject to security clearances. The State Department’s WikiLeaks censorship has even been extended to university students. An email to students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs says: "The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. [The State Department] recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as...

Just look at the video and then make your comments. I will be supprised if this dosent get a CWII ping before the 10th response. Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200 - Key Points I have to go load some more ammunition, and will be back when the powder runs out. Semper Fi An Old Man

Fed Crosses the Rubicon and Ignites Powerful Parabolic Gold Bull Market Commodities Gold and Silver 2010 Nov 08, 2010 - 02:27 AM By: Clive_Maund The Fed crossed the Rubicon last week with its announcement of another massive tranche of QE (Quantitative Easing or in common parlance money printing), known as QE2. It is thus clear that what is now known as QE1, which was portrayed at the time as "one off rescue of the financial system" was nothing of the kind, but represented instead the bursting of a dam that can never be put back together again. The junkie has...

Economic Recessions, Banking Reform, and the Future of Capitalism Economics / Economic Theory Nov 01, 2010 - 08:51 AM By: MISES Jesús Huerta de Soto writes: It is a great honor for me to have been invited by the London School of Economics to deliver this Hayek Memorial Lecture. To begin, I would like to thank the school and especially Professor Timothy Besley for inviting me, Professor Philip Booth and the Institute of Economic Affairs for allowing me to also use this as an opportunity to introduce my most recent book, entitled Socialism, Economic Calculation, and Entrepreneurship, and finally Toby...

U.S. Mortgagegate Scandal Puts Taxpayers into the Title-Insurance Business Housing-Market / US Housing Oct 29, 2010 - 05:48 AM By: Money_Morning Shah Gilani writes: U.S. taxpayers already own pieces of such problem-plagued companies as General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC, American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG), Fannie Mae (OTC: FNMA) and Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC). Now the increasingly problematic "Mortgagegate" saga could land American taxpayers in the trouble-ridden title-insurance business. On Oct. 8, Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) indemnified Fidelity National Financial Inc. (NYSE: FNF) against any losses that Fidelity might sustain in litigation over title insurance it writes on...

Keep Your Head Above the U.S. Dollar Currencies / US Dollar Oct 29, 2010 - 10:29 AM By: Peter_Schiff There has been so much discussion recently about "QE 2" that you would think the entire financial sector were about to embark on a transatlantic cruise. Unfortunately, they, and we, are not so lucky. In the year 2010, "QE 2" doesn't refer to a sumptuous ocean liner, but a second, more extravagant round of "quantitative easing" - stimulus. In the past, this technique was simply called "printing money." As if the nation has not already suffered enough from the first round,...

The following is a sample from an forthcoming book by Andrew Gavin Marshall on 'Global Government', Global Research Publishers, Montreal. For more by this author on the issue of the economic crisis and global governance, see the recently-released book by the Centre for Research on Globalization, "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century," co-edited with Michel Chossudovsky, in which the author contributed three chapters on the history of central banking, the rise of a global currency and global central bank, and the political economy of global government. Problem, Reaction, Solution: “Crisis is an Opportunity” In May...

At the end of last week's letter on the whole mortgage foreclosure mess, I wrote: "All those subprime and Alt-A mortgages written in the middle of the last decade? They were packaged and sold in securities. They have had huge losses. But those securities had representations and warranties about what was in them. And guess what, the investment banks may have stretched credibility about those warranties. There is the real probability that the investment banks that sold them are going to have to buy them back. We are talking the potential for multiple hundreds of billions of dollars in losses...

Foreclosure Expert Confirms Mortgages Pledged Multiple Times, Not Actually Securitized, Document Problem Is Really a System of "Push Button Fraud" Yesterday, I showed that mortgages were fraudulently pledged to multiple buyers at the same time. Today, foreclosure expert Neil Garfield (former investment banker, trial lawyer and board member of several financial institutions) confirms this, explains that the loans were not actually securitized, and the whole "sloppy paperwork" excuse is really an attempt to explain away a system of push-button fraud: The game was to move money under a scheme of deceit and fraud. First sell the bonds and collect the...

Foreclosure-gate is heating up and the mad scramble for what's left of $45 trillion in real estate is guaranteed to leave homeowners homeless, pension funds unable to pay their pensions and even some of the biggest banks insolvent. A great housing goat rodeo was created when some of the 65 million mortgages on U.S. homes didn't follow proper legal procedures; Fraud by homeowners who lied on their loan applications Fraud by banks who didn't follow proper legal procedures around the notarization and processing of mortgage documents Fraud by investment banks who packaged this junk and resold it to unsuspecting pension...

There are two really weird regarding the parties who are suing Bank of America over mortgage repurchases. The first is that the New York Fed -- who would suspect would be solely focused don the health of big banks -- is one of the parties. But also suing BofA, according to Bloomberg, is Blackrock, the asset manager that's 34% owned by BofA! Bank of America, of course, acquired its stake in BlackRock when it acquired Merrill Lynch during the crisis. It was reported in August that BofA may seek to unload its stake in BlackRock.

See:New york Times

And So It Begins.... (Countrywide Breach of PSA) Well well well what do we have here? HOUSTON, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ --Today, the holders of over 25% of the Voting Rights in more than $47 billion of Countrywide-issued RMBS sent a Notice of Non-Performance (Notice) to Countrywide Home Loan Servicing, as Master Servicer ("Countrywide Servicing"), and to Bank of New York, as Trustee, identifying specific covenants in 115 Pooling and Servicing Agreements (PSAs) that the Holders allege Countrywide Servicing has failed to perform. The Holders' Notice alleges that each of these failures has materially affected the rights of the Certificateholders under...

Washington (CNN) -- Bipartisanship is in the eye of the beholder, it seems, as Democrats and Republicans ponder how cooperation between them can improve after the upcoming congressional elections. The voting on November 2 is expected to diminish Democratic majorities in both chambers and perhaps cost them control of the House. Whatever the final tally, widespread voter dissatisfaction with the hostile political climate in Washington is evident. Democrats blame Republican intransigence, calling the GOP a "party of no" that has opposed almost every initiative to undermine President Barack Obama's campaign pledge to change Washington politics. Republican leaders say their opposition...

It is easy to make a case for east Asia's economic success, but only over the next two decades. East Asia's economies are growing because their economies are being freed by decisions by politicians to reduce government regulations. But they all have two major problems: (1) the extreme boy/girl birth ratio of at least 120 to 100; (2) the threat of a rapidly aging population after 2025 or 2030. Economist Nick Eberstadt has been writing about this for a decade. Japan will hit the demographic brick wall first. It probably has already hit it. South Korea faces the threat, but...

Foreclosuregate is rapidly spiraling out of control, and is going to get worse.As I have repeatedly said since 2007, this is not about bad paperwork.  It is about fatally-defective securities sold to investors for half a decade and the fraud up and down the line that enabled those sales.In no particular order the biggest (but by no means the only) problems are: Borrowers overstated income, assets or both.  In some cases they did so willingly and knowingly.  In others loan officers changed numbers to "ram it through" the computer-operated approval systems, submitting files multiple times while doctoring figures.  In the latter case perhaps...

In his latest note, David Rosenberg of Gluskin-Sheff says you should ignore recent data showing that personal income is growing again. Why? Because as the chart below shows, more than ever, personal income is comprised of government transfer payments, not actually real income derived from the productive part of society. But maybe that's no big deal. We're getting older all the time, so naturally things like Social Security are going to comprise more and more of our income. Obviously the recession has hurt a lot, but due to demographics alone, we could see this chart go up and to the...

Well, that pretty much seals the deal. I’m talking about the latest, lousy batch of employment data. The ADP Employer Services report out Wednesday showed the economy shedding 39,000 jobs in September — the biggest decline since January and far below the Bloomberg forecast for a gain of 20,000. Barring some huge surprise from this morning’s Labor Department report, the QE2 is poised to set sail. That was only reinforced by Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who said “unemployment is too high” and inflation is “low,” and by New York Fed President William Dudley, who late last week called current...

Economic Depressions, Their Cause and Cure Economics / Economic Theory Oct 08, 2010 - 08:18 AM By: Murray_N_Rothbard We live in a world of euphemism. Undertakers have become "morticians," press agents are now "public relations counsellors" and janitors have all been transformed into "superintendents." In every walk of life, plain facts have been wrapped in cloudy camouflage. No less has this been true of economics. In the old days, we used to suffer nearly periodic economic crises, the sudden onset of which was called a "panic," and the lingering trough period after the panic was called "depression." The most famous...

Some significant events are in progress, extremely important developments in the grand pathogenesis that reflects the deep decay and deterioration in the US financial structure. The most recent events pertaining to mortgage loans, home foreclosures, and disclosed fraud carry great potential to open extremely wide cracks in the American social order. Revealed systemic fraud is slowly coming into the open. Civil disobedience has already entered the arena of popular protest. However, the recent events surrounding illegal home foreclosure seizure of properties elevates the exposed fraud to a very clear high new level. This is a boil ready to break open,...