There is much talk about the impact on Wall Street and the banking system of the dramatic drop in the price of mortgage backed securities. Last week I heard a presentation that estimated that 94% of all BBB CDO’s would default and 16% of all AAA CDO’s would default. The silence about what this will do to US pension funds, particularly public pension funds is quite eerie.

Here is a link to Public Pension Fund Web Sites:

http://www.seiu.org/mbe/retirement_security/pensionfundsites.cfm

For instance, in the Ohio Public Employee Retirements System (OPERS), at the end of 2006, had $7.5billion in mortgage-backed bonds, accounting for 9.7% of the total value of the portfolio. Add to that government securities related to the mortgage markets, US real estate investments as well as homebuilding and related stocks (like banks and Wall Street firms) and we are talking about a lot of money.
In the Montana Teachers’ Retirement System fund, the ten largest fixed income holdings at market value (then, we wonder about the true market value now) are mortgage securities:

1. Freddie Mac——————————-$12,951,830
2. Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp——12,770,069
3. Federal Home Loan Pool G11812———12,400,941
4. Federal National Mortgage Assn———-11,749,780
5. Federal Home Loan Pool G02070———11,001,336
6. FNMA Pool 745250 ————————10,722,292
7. Federal Home Loan Pool G11777———10,278,513
8. Federal Home Loan Pool G11670———–9,962,779
9. ARIA CDO————————————-9,651,403
10. Cypresstree Synthetic CDO—————–9,290,660

The fastest way to finance successful communities is to stop financing the destruction of communities. Do you know where your retirement savings is and what it is doing? We encourage you to start digging through the available financial disclosure….

Stroger’s $888 Million Tax Hikes
By Mickey Ciokajlo - Chicago Tribune (17 Oct 2007)

Housing Downturn Takes Toll on Cities’ Revenue
By Monica Davey - New York Times (18 Oct 2007)

~ An inquiry and Catherine’s response:

Hello Catherine:

I stumbled onto your site quite serendipitously a few months back and have subsequently read almost everything posted here, including your essays. While I really value your insights, sentiments and efforts to enfranchise individuals and communities, I am having trouble reconciling how investing in precious metals squares with this.

I am a former exploration geologist, with expertise in mineral exploration and development (gold, especially), and one of the main reasons I abandoned this vocation was my observation that, by far, most mining developments were based on greed, not need, and were profoundly exploitative of the environment, individuals and communities. Today, with gold trading at higher prices, gold fever is pumping higher than ever, as you know, setting the stage for even more … exploitation and harm.

So, I am wondering how you reconcile this. While I really support much of your work and efforts, and I’m very attracted by your popsicle index, I’m considering purchasing some of your products, and I would consider trying to entice you to come to the [area] where I live, and where our communities are primed for initiatives like yours, I would really appreciate hearing from you about this issue before proceeding any further.

Thank you kindly,

Michael Maser
——————————————-
~ Catherine responds: Continue reading ‘Catherine Responds to an Inquiry About Precious Metals’

I am someone who is critical of the Wall Street Journal. That means, it is important to say something when they hit a home run. They have published an outstanding editorial that is worthy of your consideration.

Not Nobel Winners

The Chattanooga Declaration was drafted and approved by delegates to the Second North American Secessionist Convention on 4 October 2007.

1. 1. The deepest questions of human liberty and government facing our time go beyond right and left, and in fact have made the old right-left split meaningless and dead.
   2. The privileges, monopolies, and powers that private corporations have won from government threaten everyone’s health, prosperity, and liberty, and have already killed American self-government by the people.
   3. The power of corporations endangers liberty as much as government power, especially when they are combined as in the American Empire.
   4. Liberty can only survive if political power is returned from faraway and self-interested centers to local communities and States.
   5. The American Empire is no longer a nation or a republic, but has become a tyrant aggressive abroad and despotic at home.
   6. The States of the American union are and of right ought to be, free and self-governing.
   7. Without secession, liberty and self-government can never be sustained, and diversity among human societies can never survive.

We, the delegates of the Secession movements represented at the Second North American Secessionist Convention, acknowledging our differences, yet agree on the following truths: