Daily Musings

A network member points out that Don Coxe of BMO Financial Group, one of our favorite market analysts, has commented that we have now deleveraged everything that was doing well to help prop up the ban…

An Anniversary Prayer — September 11, 2008

Lord, we gather in prayer on the seventh anniversary of 9-11;
We thank you for the many blessings you have given us,
among them the gift of life;
Let our …

Dear Readers:

If you have comments to Catherine’s talk on Coast-to-Coast radio last night, please place them as a comment to this post.

Thanks!

Anais
Solari Web

I have a terrific friend who is coming home from the hospital tomorrow to recuperate from heart surgery. Her doctors say that this kind of surgery triggers feelings of sadness and depression. So I w…

“Eco-Iconic”
At trendwatching.com

Bahrain World Trade Center

Dubai Wave Tower

Affordable Housing Exists, If You Know Where to Look
By Prashant Gopal – BusinessWeek (4 Sep 2008)

1. Indianapolis-Carmel, Ind.
Median home price: $108,000
Median household income: $65,100
Share of h…

Independent Media Sustainability: A Review of Existing Media Capital Structures

By Carolyn Betts, MBA/JD

Anyone who is focused on building wealth—whether personal financial wealth or  community …

In our discussion on “Recommended,” there were several comments on Matt Simmons’ role in promoting the Peak Oil scenario. I thought it would be useful to point out that when Halliburton sold KBR stock…

Only Convenient Caring Please
A YouTube video by Catherine Austin Fitts

I just finished James Norman’s new book: The Oil Card: Global Economic Warfare in the 21st Century.

Norman makes the case that a suppressed oil price was the most important strategic variable in brin…

Our very special ally Paul Levy is sponsoring his very special teachers, Tibetan Buddhist masters Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, to teach three workshops in Portl…

DRINKING AGES IN SOME EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Albania—No minimum age
Austria—14
Denmark—No minimum drinking age
Finland—No minimum drinking age
France—16 (beer, wine)
Germany—16 (beer, wine)
H…

LUNATICKLE – noun. The thrill of fear, laughter, and incredulity that convulses your body when you read the financial news in the morning and realize that the lunatics have taken over not only the asy…

Now is a time when there is much discussion regarding the performance of gold in periods of deflation. A fine piece addressing some of these issues was written in 2005 by Bob Landis, Chairman of Amari…

Stephen Mackendrick Thompson – 1939 – 2008

Alastair Thompson, of New Zealand’s Scoop Independent News, writes of the passing of his father, Stephen, on 27 July 2008.

Whosoever cometh to me, and hear…

Place comments about Solari and the Moneychanger’s beta version of the Silver & Gold Payment Calculator here.

View previous comments here >>>

When my dog Forest died earlier this year, I was faced with the prospect of raising a new dog while traveling. I discussed my challenge with a farmer who lives nearby. She agreed to share one of her f…

Computing For Everyone Who Can’t Afford Their Own Personal IT Department
By Court Skinner

Computers are a necessity for success in our modern era, but owning and using one has become increasingly c…

$4 trillion missing from the federal government, collateral fraud and 9-11. . .

Dead and Buried, But Not Forgotten by Rob Kirby

Triskaidekaphobia – A phobia of number 13

Russian novelist, dramatist and historian, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure near Moscow on August 3, 2008 at, at the age of 89.

Putin Says Solzhenitsyn Death is Loss For Russia
By Maria Go…

Pacifica Station Blacklists Commentator on Business & Economics
By Sam Smith – The Progressive Review (1 Aug 2008)

Admittedly Catherine Austin Fitts has a pretty unusual background for a commenta…

My being censored (1) (2) (3) is your financial opportunity.

KPFA was going to provide our 2-CD audio seminar Positioning Your Assets for Growth in Uncertain Times as a premium for donations of $120….

Let me repeat something I said many times when I was Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner during Bush I, lead financial advisor to FHA during the Clinton Administration, an in…

Sometimes it pays to NOT understand what is going on. Can you imagine being the person who had to write the current announcement on the Bear Stearns website if you were fully educated to the real deal…

Reading the Solari webstats is always a fascinating prospect.

Ever since the sub-prime meltdown last August, the big mystery when I fire up my systems each morning is guessing who will be the larges…

For those of you following the censorship of Community Business on Flashpoints by KPFA and the finances of KPFA and Pacifica Foundation including their tax-exempt status, federal government funding, b…

John:

My assessment is that 90% of the value of the U.S. dollar comes from the U.S. military. After we had our satellite systems in place, Cheney said “deficits don’t matter.” The US debt and defic…

In our new audio seminar, Positioning Your Assets for Growth in Uncertain Times, among the many issues we address are one of the risks of holding your savings in a currency that is falling in value re…

Given the suspension of Community Business – a segment I have been doing on Flashpoints on Wednesday night with Dennis Bernstein, I thought I would take a look at KPFA Radio’s financial informati…

Imagine if hundreds of student associations globally formed syndicates. Two hundred student associations at $5,000 each would create a $1MM in winnings.

AUSA Offers $5000 for Citizen’s Arrest of Rice…

Sasha Lilley
Interim Program Director
ipd@kpfa.org

Lemlem Rijio
Interim General Manager for KPFA
igm@kpfa.org

Dear Lemlem and Sasha:

I learned from e-mail which was cc:ed to me yesterday that:

1. …

I just got a call this morning from another tenant in a HUD affordable building that a large developer would like to control and tear down. These calls trickle in.

If you think predatory lending is …

Spin #1: The problem has been unregulated markets.

Real Deal: The problem was a debt bubble engineered by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government with massive amounts of government guaranteed deb…

For a number of years I have been interested in the impact of the solar cycle on weather, mood and other aspects of our lives that impact the economy and markets. I am convinced that understanding our…

“Sir John Templeton was an investor and mutual fund pioneer who dedicated much of his fortune to religion and science. Templeton was born in the town of Winchester, Tennessee. He attended Yale Univers…

One of my favorite stories about community development was told to me by Jim Rouse and his colleagues about what happened at the charrette sponsored by the Rouse Company to design the planned city of …

Sometimes, it helps to step back and see the big picture.

Let’s say that I serve as the depository for a large government and I also own the central bank. I get my partners appointed to run the gover…

Our evaporating mortgage bubble represents the culmination of a long evolution of systemic mortgage fraud in the United States. If you want to understand the deeper story, here is the the update we wr…

Here is the heartwarming story of two British activists, Helen Steel and David Morris, achieving the impossible by rewarding McDonald’s lawsuit against them with a PR nightmare, a watchdog website “Mc…

“In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to B…

We had our July 4th Parade this morning. We had our three fire trucks, lots of ATVs brimming with kids and flags and a procession of beautiful, polished tractors and farm equipment. One mysterious gen…

Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was a five-term United States Senator from North Carolina, and a member of the Republican Party. He served as chairman of the Senate Fore…

I don’t know which is more nourishing – getting to know my cousin Jane or getting some of the Powell Farm’s sweet corn grown by her husband Billy and son Bob. You can do both this Saturday at the Farm…

Inspired by an insight from our attorney, Carolyn Betts, and the practice of one of our favorite journalists, Sam Smith at Progressive Review, we are going to republish bits and pieces of previous art…

Bringing Down Bear Stearns
By Bryan Burrough – Vanity Fair (Aug 2008)

On Monday, March 10, the rumor started: Bear Stearns was having liquidity problems. In fact, the maverick investment bank had aro…

Mark Dann was the attorney general of Ohio. In January, Ohio Attorney General Mark Dann sued Freddie Mac and the members of its board:

Ohio Pension Fund Sues Freddie Mac

That was right after Clevela…

A Letter to My Stockbroker
February 2008

Dear John:

I sent you the article on Bill Gross of PIMCO because I was interested in someone who feels as I do—that the U.S. and the dollar are moving in t…

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision on Valdez, I would like to ask for prayers for all the people and living things harmed by the Valdez spill and for the people of Alaska. I would also reque…

For those of you who do not typically use financial filings, I thought I would make it easy for you to access information on how the Presidential candidates’ money works. Once you see how to access …

I finally finished The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein. What a fine piece of investigative journalism. Klein nails Milton Friedman, Jeff Sachs and the line of economists…

The coolest techie we know, Court Skinner of Computers for Everyone, in Palo Alto says Puppy Linux is going to resurrect antique computers (that is, more than ten years old). New computers can use it…

When Jim Johnson announced his resignation, the first uncensored thought that came to mind was “I wonder if Andrew Cuomo and Jack Kemp where in cahoots on this one?” It was just intuition, but with Ke…

For those of you who do not typically use financial filings, I thought I would make it easy for you to access information on how the Presidential candidates’ money works. Once you see how to access …

I just saw a fascinating presentation. David Blume explained ethanol and its economics in the context of reviving communities at the Sonnenschien Festival in Hohenwald, Tennessee. Here are links for h…

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination
Harvard University Commencement Address
By J.K. Rowling – Harvard University Gazette Online (Jun 2008)

View a live video recording or…

Let’s take a moment and give thanks for the life and work of one excellent man.

Utah Phillips passed away on May 23rd. Described as the “Golden Voice of the Great Southwest,” you can learn more about…

I have been asked to start a list of things that the President could do to improve the economy. I thought I would start this list and invite you into the invention room to add. Remember, we are in bra…

Bishop:

Thank you so much for your words on this topic Negative Press Distracts Church from Mission and for offering us the opportunity to access your leadership and inspiration through your blog.

I…

Miss Catherine,

It is a pleasure to be introduced to you. I have been on Solari.com and read many of your papers. Your Narco Dollars series was particularly interesting/upsetting. I never realized ho…

John Cusack’s latest . . .

And You Thought It Could Never Happen
By Sharon Astyk – Casaubon’s Book Blog (14 May 2008)

On Television, the new version of “Survivor” takes over with a new theme – participants must create a fu…

I am a great admirer of patience and fearlessness combined in a persistent person. I got a chance to see Man from Plains which chronicles President Jimmy Carter’s book tour across America to publicize…

Largest study on angel investing is released by the Kauffman Foundation and Angel Capital Education Foundation.

From the Press Release:

The largest study on the financial returns of angel investors…