By Dena Aubin and John Parry – Analysis
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Is Campbell’s Soup a better bet than U.S. government debt?
No, we’re not talking about stocking a bunker for survival. This is talk ab…

Photo By: Merrick Davies

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[I get fascinating feedback. Here is an example. Worth thinking about the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and whether the oil price manipulations were part of an intentional hit. Cui Bono? Who benefits…

Photo: Douglas Jackson of E-Gold

By Kim Zetter

Jackson, 51, is the maverick founder of E-Gold, the first-of-its-kind digital currency that was once used by millions of people in more than a hundred…

Photo by: Media Gallery

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on April 28, 2009, on the question of whether state officials are barred by the National Bank Act and regulations of the Office of the…

My good friend Jason Eaton wants a new logo for his website Social Thread. So he is having a design competition. It is an interesting way to get a new logo!

Mark Lundeen has just published week 86 in his “Bear Market Race to the Bottom Series.”

View the series to date at Gold Speculator—weeks 69 through 86.

by Dennis Cauchon

Benefits, such as Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance and health care, accounted for 16.2% of personal income in the first quarter of 2009, the Bureau of Economic A…

Photo By: Wall Street Geek

By Marcy Gordon and Greg Risling

Angelo Mozilo, the man who rode the housing boom to build Countrywide Financial Corp. into a California colossus of high-risk mortgage le…

By David Weidner

The reality of shareholder enfranchisement is harsh and depressing, a testament to the intractability of the system and the apathy of participants. In America’s corporate proxy conte…

Alas, the official statistics grow ever more suspect. Here are some comments on the real unemployment numbers.

May Employment Report Not Believable

Temp Work Helps Mask Joblessness Among Americans

…

Youtube

As discussed in last night’s Solari Report, the top story of the week is the abrogation of the social contract in America. Bernake alluded to it in his testimony this week, saying:

“The fun…

By Peter Zeihan

The global recession is the biggest development in the global system in the year to date. In the United States, it has become almost dogma that the recession is the worst since the …

Below are the top 20 financial institutions by market capitalization in 1999 and then in 2009.

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View both charts in larger format

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If you want to get an in-depth overview of the many problems facing the American food system, here is a good overview.

Related Links:

Support the Crosby Mint Farm

Food – Where does it really come f…

By Shawn Dady

Tennessee Representative Frank Nicely has been quietly working on a cow-share bill for the state of Tennessee. This is a very good thing. He crafted the bill working with the The West…

By: Kirby Anaylytics Newsletter

QUITO, May 30 (Reuters) – Ecuador’s government-run central bank has ordered private banks to repatriate $1.2 billion in overseas deposits and investments to help jump-start the economy, leftist Pres…

[CAF Note: But are they buying real gold or paper gold?]

By Andrew Frye

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., the third-largest U.S. life insurer by 2008 sales, has bought gold for the first tim…

Credit: John Tenniel

by Greg Palast

They may be crying about General Motors’ bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won’t spoil Jamie Dimon’s day.

Bu…

By Michael McNutt

Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty. Unlike House Joint Resolutio…

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

By Elana Schor

Can these contractors guide the bailout with the public interest in mind while simultaneously courting bailout-related business for themselves? It’s t…

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home…

The co…

Now that a variety of factions have harvested the planet for trillions of dollars in the latest round of financial pump and dumps, the questions remains how to launder the money into real assets quick…

By Andrew Lehman

It was clear to me that in preparation for going public, Google was actually seeding its searches with inefficiencies in order to encourage profits. Regarding commercial searches, i…

By Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Ninety percent of Americans say they pray — for their health, or their love life or their final exams. But does prayer do any good?

For decades, scientists have tried to …

By Chelsea Schilling

As part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Chrysler is terminating one-fourth of its franchises – but some say its catalog of doomed dealerships looks more like a hit list tha…

Paul Albert Bartholome, Crying Girl

By Duncan Gardham and Paul Cruickshank

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the…

Jae-Soon Chang, The Associated Press: “The US and South Korea put their military forces on high alert Thursday after North Korea renounced the truce keeping the peace between the two Koreas since 19…

by Alex Ansary
February 25, 2009

If you were thinking that the only things we have to be concerned about include wars, famines, and economic crashes, think again.

The earth’s climate has been signi…

There are positive ways to align our economic activities with our natural environment, and then there are negative ways. A sales tax is one of the negative ways  — it reduces consumption in ways tha…

Feel like saving the world today? Great ideas to take action to protect independent farmers and healthy food – Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance – Take Action

An interactive map of vanishing employment across the country, updated with the latest figures.

[Click the image to go to the Slate website to view your county’s stats.]

With trial balloons floating regarding the possibility of preventative detention and now government vaccine programs, the control necessary to keep the dollar high and government subsidies flowing gr…

Gold Derivatives: The Tide Turns
By Reg Howe

On May 19, 2009, the Bank for International Settlements released its regular semi-annual report on the over-the-counter derivatives of major banks and de…

The International Space Station as seen from the departing Space Shuttle Discovery during STS-119.
From Wikipedia.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a research facility currently being asse…

The standard insurance amount currently is $250,000 per depositor. The $250,000 limit is permanent for IRAs and other certain retirement accounts. The $250,000 limit is temporary for all other dep…

by Jon Rappoport

I’ve been talking and writing about imagination for a long time. I consider it the key to the whole ballgame. It liberates us from the so-called laws of physics and physical ma…

Credit: Antonio H. Miguel

Jim Wilson integrated two tracks of crickets singing. One was a normal recording. One was slowed down by a divisor that reflects the ratio of a cricket’s lifespan to a huma…

By Patrick McGreevy and Michael Rothfel

Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers scrambled Wednesday to avert a financial meltdown, and public officials across Californ…

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that Iran successfully test-fired a new missile yesterday, the Washington Times reported.

(May. 21) – Iran’s Sajjil 2 missile takes off during a test y…

BankUnited, a newly chartered federal savings bank, acquired the banking operations, including all of the nonbrokered deposits, of BankUnited, FSB, Coral Gables, Florida, in a transaction facilitated …

Feel like a good cry? Check out the new U.S. Debt Clock.

View . . .

President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United Sta…

A project to establish a common currency for the Gulf has been dealt a near-fatal blow with the decision by the United Arab Emirates to abandon monetary union after disagreement with Saudi Arabia o…

Large Chart

Corrected – Update 1-GM Bankruptcy Plan Eyes Quick Sale to Gov’t

Chrysler: Dealership Letters in The Mail

Chrysler Closing 789 Dealerships

GM Whacks 1,100 Dealers

Chrysler Pulls Out of Hundreds …

Master Plan from http://www.indigination.com/farm.htm

The story of Crosby Mint Farm in Michigan is…

a story of why it is essential for farmers to build retail markets — both to sell their prod…

I just voted for the Worst Corporation of 2009. Here were the nominees:

Vote at Corporate Accountability International

Marijuana Production in the United States (2006)
Drugscience.org

Based on a comparison with average production values of other crops from 2003 to 2005 marijuana is the top cash crop in 12 states,…

Wolfram|Alpha (also written WolframAlpha or Wolfram Alpha) is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer f…

He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn’t play for the money he wins
He doesn’t play for the respect
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of c…

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 Part One

Rachel Maddow Interviews Eliot Spitzer Part Two

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�…

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…

See Chart

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…

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…

(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…

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…

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…

Read More

Read more

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…

See Article

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…

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 …

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…

[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…

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
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…

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…

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…

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…

“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.”

 …

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…

Project Camelot Interviews Joseph Farrell

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…

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. …

Obituary 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 nati…

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…

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

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….

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…

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 …

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…

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 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…

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), …