By Catherine
Hubble Repairs Complete
By Associated Press
Andrew Feustel, left, and John Grunsfeld work to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope during a spacewalk, Monday, May 18, 2009.
The Atlantis astronauts plan to release the space t…
Rachel Maddow Interviews Eliot Spitzer
Rachel Maddow Interviews Eliot Spitzer Part One
Rachel Maddow Interviews Eliot Spitzer Part Two
An End to the War on Weed?
Each year, Americans spend a whopping $39 billion on domestically grown marijuana, and another $7-10 billion on weed smuggled in from Canada. In short, untaxed and unregulated marijuana is America�…
Camelot’s Kitchen
Years ago, my dear friend Shoreh was sitting in her elegant Beverly Hills home when a beautiful, white bunny rabbit appeared at her door. Immediately welcomed, the rabbit moved in with Shoreh and …
Mapping Real Small Business Risk
There are a number of forces causing small business income and equity to decline that are not related to fundamental economic productivity.
Many of these forces revolve around overt and covert econom…
Angelo Left Hanging Out to Dry?
Now that all the money is safely offshore, and the Countrywide mortgage operations are tucked into Bank of America, will Countrywide’s founder Angelo Mozilo be used as one of the whipping boys to te…
Foreclosures
See Chart
The Bailout and the New Planet
By Jon Rappoport
I’ve been talking to a few people lately who are knowledgeable about the bailout at ground level. There are still many mysteries and half-baked plans in the works, but whatever sh…
Dubai Goes Green
This past February, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce authorized the development of a “free zone” dubbed Food City. GCLA, a green landscape architect firm, proposed a master plan for the city sector…
Something So Terrible, No One Dare Know
(Artwork: Mark Clifford)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama declared Monday he would try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners, abruptly reversin…
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
The state of Montana approved what commentators are dubbing a “revolutionary” new law earlier this month. The “Montana Firearms Freedom Act” is set to trigger a legal showdown between the fe…
GATA Goes to London
Last week a three-man team from the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) presented to an audience of more than 70 people including portfolio managers, brokers, journalists, and gold mining execut…
Capital Controls by Another Name
Is the attack on “tax havens” an attack on corporate
abuses or an attack on privacy, freedom and capital
controls by another name? Is our model to force control
of capital and then send it to inside…
Take Action
Kua Tapapahia Nga Korero
~ M?ori Saying
Translation:
The time for talk has been laid down upon the earth . . . The time for talk is over.
Wikipedia on M?ori
Las Vegas Crapshoot
Read More
US Dollar Turns Down
Read more
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?
A Center for Public Integrity Project
“The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or backed by giant banks now collecting billion…
The Real Annual Pentagon Budget – $1 Trillion
Winslow Wheeler, Counterpunch – “For decades, the media have taken their descriptions of the size of the defense budget straight from the Pentagon’s annual press release – without even rudimentary d…
Will Oklahoma Pull the Trigger?
Although Governor Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty.
Unlike House Joint Resolution 1003, House …
Central Banks & The Rise of Narco Dollars
Inspired by events in Afghanistan and rumblings about Iran, I described the correlation between the creation of the Federal Reserve and the creation of an illegal narcotics industry in the United Stat…
NASA's Themis Mission
[Artist’s concept of Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: NASA]
Sun Often “Tears Out A Wall” In Earth’s Solar Storm Shield
Earth’s magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outwa…
The Risks of Arson
This week is the U.S. Fire Administration’s Arson Awareness Week.
As a former Assistant Secretary of Housing, I want to assure you that the patterns of fires related to areas of significant mortgag…
New York Fed Chairman's Ties to Goldman Raise Questions
New York Fed Chairman’s Ties to Goldman Raise Questions
Wall Street Journal (4 May 09)
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington’s response to the financial crisis late last year, which b…
Questions, Questions
Was the public disclosure of the bank stress tests delayed so Goldman Sachs could raise capital? Is national policy managed to serve one private investment group’s convenience? As the disclosure and…
Financial Data One-Way Street
As the US government disclosure continues to diminish and the government continues to refuse to find money missing from its coffers or explain why it has refused to produce audited financial stateme…
It is Lawful to Decline an Unlawful Order
Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, peace officers, and veterans…Below is [their] declaration of orders [they} will NOT obey:
Oath Ke…
Who Owns Capitol Hill?
“The banks—hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created—are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”
…
A Short History of the Gold Cartel
By James Turk, Editor
Freemarket Gold & Money Report (3 May 09)
“This week Bill Murphy and Chris Powell, co-founders of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. (www.gata.org), will be in Lond…
Nazi International
Project Camelot Interviews Joseph Farrell
Chrysler Bankruptcy
The banks were secured and get 28 cents on the dollars back. The people who make real things, including the 38,500 employees who will lose their jobs, will not have that benefit.
Chrysler LLC’s T…
Double Standard
Key Cog in South, Silverton Bank Fails
Wall Street Journal (2 May 09)
Excerpt: Federal regulators were “not sympathetic” to the argument that a Silverton failure had to be averted, Mr. Moeling said. …
Jack Kemp: 1935 – 2009
By Matt Apuzzo And Carolyn Thompson, Associated Press Writers Sun May 3, 1:45 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Jack Kemp, the former pro quarterback who turned fame on the gridiron into a career in national po…
Brady
Blast From the Past
ForexHound (27 Apr 09)
Excerpt: Nicholas Brady, former Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan and Bush I administrations, gave a speech (below) at a dinner in his honor celeb…
Paper vs. Real Things
From RunToGold.com
Spring Tree
“Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things.”
~ Georgia O’Keefe
Putting Swine Flu in Perspective
YouTube Video
Novavax (NVAX) Up 25% on Flu
Swine Flu Propaganda – 1976
A YouTube Video
Novavax (NVAX) Up 25% on Flu
Catherine Austin Fitts Blog
Change Bankers Had Hoped For
Now that the 5th Summit of the Americas is over, we would like to point out that there is no interest in renegotiating or reopening NAFTA.
No need to renegotiate NAFTA to improve it: USTR
Reuters….
Manipulating Food Stamp Jobs Funded with U.S. Taxes
Food stamp programs in the US (including by state government in Florida and Tennessee) have been outsourced to a JP Morgan operation in India.
abcNews (29 Apr 2009)
If you want to read the story of…
Our Financial Incentives
Significant intervention in the banking system and economy with the ‘strong dollar policy’ and various forms of government credit and subsidies has paid some of us extraordinary amounts of money to …
What's In a Name?
Ever have trouble pronouncing names? Here are two websites that can help:
Pronounce Names: The Dictionary of Name Pronounciation
How to Say That Name
AIG – Down to Zero
It would appear that AIG is selling everything but it’s black budget operations, which the government will then essentially own. Sounds a bit circular to us but that is how document management on very…
The Importance of the Navy
Friedman argues America’s power on the world stage will actually increase in the 21st Century for three major reason:
The immense size of the U.S. economy: The current crisis is painful and America’…
Novavax (NVAX) Up 25% on Flu
Novavax Annual Proxy
Novavax Lead Investors
The Unknown Knowns
Albert Bates
PRUDEN: A Pandemic of Panic — Are We Dead Yet?
Washington Times (28 Apr 09)
The Swine Flu Pandemic—Fact or Fictio…
The World's Best Places to Live in 2009
In Mercer Consultings annual Quality of Living Survey, Europe once again dominates the list of 215 countries around the world. The top three cities are, by rank, Vienna, Zurich (last years winner), …
"Goldman Sachs-NJ Gets 747 Fly-by"
Click here for “official story”
Wall Street Journal (28 Apr 09)
Turk on Gold
“The outlook for gold remains bullish. Central bank ‘printing presses’ are running at full steam trying to keep up with those governments around the world that are spending more money than they have o…
Forget Gold; 1 oz Opium = $10,000
read article
Lots of Tax Hikes Coming in 2011
By Joan Pryde, Senior Tax Editor, the Kiplinger letters
“But there may be a silver lining, at least for big corporations: Congress will consider lowering the 35% top corporate tax rate by several per…
Strawberries for Breakfast
We have had a Spring ripe with rain and sunshine here in Hickory Valley, Tennessee. My strawberry beds are bursting with fresh strawberries every morning. I do believe there is nothing more delicious….
Quarterly Report to Congress from SIGTARP
Quarterly Report to Congress from SIGTARP: Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is now available.
America's Top 10 Urban Farms
More than a decade ago, Mary Seton Corboy and her partner, Tom Sereduk, transformed a toxic industrial site into a thriving 1-acre urban farm.
read article . . .
PPT…Where are you?
PLEASE help me find the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. The Working Group, which is also affectionately known as the “Plunge Protection Team,” was a favorite of former Treasur…
More Creative Municipal Finance
As part of $6.9 Billion “Build America” Bond Issue, California Issues Taxable Bonds to Fund Stem Cell Research.
. . . read more
Pulitzer in Drama
The wonderfully talented American playwright Lynn Nottage has won this year’s Pulitzer Prize in Drama—the play explores the systematic destruction of the local community through the rapes of the w…
Freddie Mac Official Found Dead
Reports: Freddie Mac official found dead
Wednesday April 22, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, was found dead at his home Wednesday morning …
Ten Principles For a Black Swan-proof World
By Nassim Nicholas Taleb
1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount …
Audit the Federal Reserve
read article
Guantanamo Prisoner Calls Al Jazeera
“Since Obama took charge he has not shown us that anything will change.”
– Guantanamo captive Mohammad el Gharani
Excerpt:
Gharani, now 21, has been held at Guantanamo for seven years. He was order…
Criminal Probe of Death of 21 Polo Ponies Opened
View Article
Vets Ponder What Killed 21 Ponies at U.S. Open Polo Championship
Daily News (21 April 09)
Army: 3 Vials of Virus Samples Missing From Maryland Facility
CNN.com/US (22 April 09)
Scrut…
Knowledge Maps
NetAge OrgScope provides a tool for mapping trees and networks for collaboration.
Biodynamic Gardening Workshop
The host of this workshop is a personal friend of mine. If you are in the Ashland area, you might want to take it in.
It’s springtime! And I urge everyone everywhere to search out the many activiti…
In From the Network . . .
Two (unrelated) headlines appeared next to each other on Yahoo today:
White House Will Not Prosecute CIA Officials for Waterboarding
Yahoo.com (16 Apr 09)
Not On the Menu: Pizza Workers Charged in P…
Meet Susan Boyle
47 year old Susan Boyle wows the judges with her performance in the auditions for Britains Got Talent, singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables.
Susan Boyle – Singer – Britains Got Talent 200…
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs is very much in the news. The most astute comment on Goldman these days comes from a taxi driver in Kuala Lumpur:
“Why does Goldman Sachs run your government? What’s wrong with A…
Farming in the 'Hood
In its fourth year of operation, using the SPIN Farming method, the Somerton Tanks Farm produced over $68,000 in gross sales growing high value vegetables on a half-acre—in Philadelphia, the fifth…
Anybody Seen Our Gold?
GATA Renews Requests to Treasury, Fed for Gold Data
Responding to President Obama’s instruction to government agencies of January 21 this year, seeking greater openness in government, GATA today re…
Gov. Perry Backs Resolution Affirming Texas Sovereignty
“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “T…
Are Your Pies Legal?
There is a wave coming towards all of us. Be prepared.
The political pressure on enforcement bureaucracies is growing. People are mad. They want their government officials to crack down on corrupti…
Estonia's Bank of Happiness: Trading Good Deeds
From dog-walking to rubbish clearance, civic-minded Estonians can now draw on a virtual Bank of Happiness which trades in good deeds. Anjana Ahuja reports from Tallinn
On one level, it was just a…
Spotless Days
“The lack of sunspots in 2008, made it a century-level year in terms of solar quiet. Remarkably, sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of t…
Happy Easter
Susan Johann’s website
The Real Deal on Somalia Pirates
YouTube Video
Ask ‘But Why?’ (11 April 09)
Liquidating Thy Neighbor-Part II
Morgan Keegan defended itself today against the NY Times report which we commented on yesterday, titled Liquidating Thy Neighbor – Part I.
I do agree with Morgan Keegan’s spokesman that this was …
Homegrown Stimulus
While the wheels of state bureaucracy grind away on how to use stimulus funds and how much of those funds to accept, some communities are taking matters into their own hands.
According to the “Advers…
Liquidating Thy Neighbor – Part I
LEWISBURG, Tenn. — Five years ago, this small factory town was struggling to pay the interest on a bond for new sewers. Bob Phillips, Lewisburg’s part-time mayor and full-time pharmacist, was ur…
Community Business
In my segment on Flashpoints Radio with Dennis Bernstein. April 8, 2009, I address real levels of unemployent and describe why the financial fraud is not limited to Washington and Wall Street – fraudu…
What Did Newt Say About Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons?
YouTube (05 April 09)
Continue reading “Retracted” in The Raw Story
Electromagnetic Pulse from Wikipedia
To Make Newt Feel Better: "You Can't Handle the Truth"
From A Few Good Men with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise.
Communities Print Their Own Currency To Keep Cash Flowing
View the full article at USA Today . . .
Eliot Spitzer with Fareed Zakaria on CNN
A four part video series at YouTube
10×10
The 10×10 website
“Every hour, 10×10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in th…
From A Network Member
This in this morning:
“My construction friend said he talked to two separate people who had been to Chernobyl recently and asked how things were there. They both separately said concrete is constan…
Paul Stamets: 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World
Fungi Perfecti (fun ji’ per fect’ i)
fungi.com
Latest from shadowstats.com
Click each image to view larger ones.
From Shadow Government Statistics ~ John Williams
Harvard Derivatives Whiz Fired For Emailing Larry Summers About "Frightening" Trades?
“A former quantitative analyst at Harvard Management Company, the university’s once-vaunted endowment manager, tells the Harvard Crimson she was fired for voicing concern to then-university president …
Parzival
I am reading Parzival with a friend from British Columbia and it has me thinking about the search for the Holy Grail.
I just wrote a note to a subscriber:
“One way to organize your finances is to as…
Should Obama Control the Internet?
“Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?
Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday th…
Oldie but Goodie From shadowstats.com
Hyperinflation Special Report
Shadow Government Statistics (8 Apr 08)
Excerpt: “Howard J. Ruff, who has been writing about these problems and issues since Nixon closed the Gold window, rightly argu…
DJIA "Bear's Eye View"
View larger image here.