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Oct. 7, 2009 - As confidence in the dollar declines, gold stocks reached a new record high yesterday.
Gold stocks rose more than 5 percent Tuesday and options activity in the issues soared, as the price of the metal climbed to a record high above $1,040 an ounce and sparked predictions of further gains.
Oct. 6, 2009 - A report from the british newspaper, The Independent, says that "secret meetings" between finance minsters and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil
have met to consider a scheme originated by Gulf Arab states to stop using dollars for oil trading.
The proposed change will substitute a combination of currencies including the Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new unified currency for key Arab Gulf states over the course of the next nine years. The Gulf states include Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. France is also allegedly involved in the scheme.
The report says the Americans are aware that these meetings have taken place, but have not discovered the details, and are "sure to fight this international cabal."
Oct. 5, 2009 - Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky says that some of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)one year ago was given to shaky banks that then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said were sound. Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. needed additional money soon after their bailout just to survive. The IG's report called the assurances "less than careful or forthright," and warned, "This loss of public support could damage the government's credibility and have long-term unintended consequences that actually hamper the government's ability to respond to crises."
Sept 8, 2009 - Because of our high budget deficit, a very low savings rate, and a public debt that has been rising over the past years, a recent poll shows that the U.S. has dropped to second place among the world's most competitive economies. Switzerland now holds the top spot.
Sept. 7, 2009 - A new report published by The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said that U.S. dollar should be replaced as the world’s standard reserve currency. This world currency would be managed by an as-yet undetermined financial regulatory organization.
“[The] dominance of the dollar as the main means of international payments [has] played an important role in the build-up of the global imbalances in the run-up to the financial crisis,” the report says.
July 24, 2009 - Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. is health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. His concept of a national health plan is alarming.
Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others."
Emanuel believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. In other words, people with dimentia, Parkinson's or cerebral palsy should not get much care. He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients:
July 22, 2009 -
The latest AP-GfK poll show a decline in confidence in President Obama.
The number of people who think Obama can improve the economy is down a sobering 19 percentage points from the euphoric days just before his inauguration.
President Obama still has a 55 percent approval rating, about the same as George W. Bush six months into his presidency. But people have growing doubts about his ability to accomplish some of the major issues on his to-do list. His health-care plan is the most controversial issue at this time.
June 17, 2009 - Speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, "We have to consolidate the international monetary system, not only through the consolidation of the dollar but the creation of new reserve currencies."
May 24, 2009 - At a recent banquet, Sam Webb, the leader of the Communist Party USA, expressed joy at the Obama agenda - health care, withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, more stimulus payments, and the overhaul of the criminal justice system. He said, "All these – and many other things – are within our reach now!"
Apr. 2, 2009 - After the G20 summit in London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that "a new world order" is emerging from the global financial crisis.
Apr. 1, 2009 - Bloomberg News reports that the Total spending of the federal government and the Federal Reserve have committed $12.8 trillion in spending so far to bailouts and "stimulus" packages. This nearly equals the value of everything produced in U.S. in 2008.
The tally works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation's gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.
Apr. 1, 2009 - Thousands of angry demonstrators in London are protesting the G-20 summit, and trying to storm the Bank of England. They are shouting "Abolish Money!"
Protest marches were planned throughout the day, some led by the "four horsemen of the apocalypse," representing war, climate chaos, financial crimes and homelessness.
Addressing the G-20 summit of leading economic nations, President Obama encouraged nations to work together for regulatory reform, and not fall into the kind of protectionism and other mistakes that helped fuel the Great Depression. He told them, "We can only meet this challenge together."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the gathering, "Never before has the world come together in this way to deal with an economic crisis."
He added, "We are within a few hours, I think, of agreeing a global plan for economic recovery and reform."
Mar. 30, 2009 - President Obama essentially fired General Motors' CEO Rick Wagoner by threatening to withhold bailout money from the company unless he steps down.
Just over a week ago, Wagoner -- who has been lampooned on "Saturday Night Live" for his role in the industry's collapse -- had vowed not to resign.
Mar. 24, 2009 - Details for a government plan to take over up to $1 trillion in sour mortgage securities with the help of private investors, cheered Wall Street yesterday.
Stocks soared, the Dow Jones industrial average shooting up nearly 500 points, thanks to the bank-assets plan and a report showing an unexpected jump in home sales.
Mar. 24, 2009 - Chinese economists, preparing for the economic summit in April, want to strengthen the current dollar-based economic system but are also willing to discuss Russia's proposal of a new reserve currency that is not linked to the dollar.
Mar. 22, 2009 - In a "60 Minutes" interview with President Obama, Steve Kroft, noted that the president was at times laughing or smiling while discussing the global economic crisis. He commented that Obama was laughing about some of the problems. He then said, "How do you deal with -- I mean: explain ... Are you punch-drunk?"
President Obama said, "No, no. There's gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day."
The Federal Reserve sharply stepped up its efforts to bolster the economy on Wednesday, announcing that it would pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities.
Mar. 17, 2009 - At the upcoming meeting of the G20, Russian officials will ask for the creation of a supranational reserve currency to be issued by international institutions.
The Kremlin has persistently criticized the dollar's status as the dominant global reserve currency and has lowered its own dollar holdings in the last few years.
Last week Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed a global currency called the "acmetal" -- a conflation of the words "acme" and "capital."
Mar. 10, 2009 -
according to Haruhiko Kuroda, president of The Asian Development Bank, the global economy has lost $50 trillion. This makes
the current crisis the most serious the world has seen since the Great Depression.
Kuroda said he believes Asia will be one among the first regions to emerge f
rom the crisis and will be stronger than before.
Feb. 27, 2009 - President Obama's proposed 2010 budget, including an ambitious healthcare program, would require nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade. These funds would come from the top-earning 2.6 million Americans.
Feb. 26, 2009 - The President will ask Congress for a budget of nearly $4 trillion in spending resulting in a $1.75 trillion deficit. $750 billion of this will be for additional bank bailout funds this year.
The president's budget will also set aside a $634 billion "reserve fund" as a down payment to cover roughly two-thirds of the anticipated 10-year cost of universal health care coverage -- projected at $1 trillion.
Feb. 17, 2009 - Wall Street is obviously skeptical that the $787 billion stimulus plan will be sucessful. The stock market dropped nearly 300 points on the same day that President Obama signed the bill into law. The market has plunged more than 2,000 points since Obama was elected.
Feb. 9, 2009 - Dow Jones industrials fell 400 points because of investor frustration with the government's latest bank bailout plan. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's explanation was lacking in details.
Feb. 10, 2009 - Commentator Janet Porter warns that the spending bill not only crosses the line of socialism, but according to Sam Webb, the leader of the Communist Party USA, it shows his Communist comrades that "We now have not simply a friend, but a people's advocate in the White House."
Yesterday Bloomberg reported:
"The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government's commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion … enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world.
When Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union in the 50’s and ‘60’s, he predicted that various countries would fall into the lap of socialism like “ripe apples.” It was implied that even the United States would someday succumb to this inevitable destiny. At the time it seemed absurd to nearly every American. But now Newsweek’s cover article exclaims, “We Are All Socialists Now.”
It seemed that no one expected the great economic collapse last year. In a matter of weeks, untold millions of people all over the world lost a large percentage of their savings and investments. Where did that money go? Read full article
Feb. 7, 2009 - Fox news commentator Sean Hannity closed his television show recently by calling the second spending bill the "European Socialist Act of 2009." Newsweek writers Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas claim that socialist legislation started during the last administration.
It was, again, under a conservative GOP administration that we enacted the largest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years: prescription drugs for the elderly.
Congress is about to pass the bigest spending bill in history. This clearly suggests that we are headed toward European-style socialism.
Feb. 7, 2009 - The Senate may have the required votes to pass a slightly revised stimulus package ($780 billion), but Senator John McCain complains that it is not “bipartisan” if only two or three Republicans vote for it!
Jan. 26, 2008 - New data shows that Britain is in recession. Their Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, warns the nation not to retreat from globalism in the face of the crisis.
"Or we could view the threats and challenges we face today as the difficult birth-pangs of a new global order -- and our task now as nothing less than making the transition through a new internationalism to the benefits of an expanding global society."
Jan. 26, 2009 - Because of their escalating economic crisis, the cabinet of the island nation of Iceland has resigned, and the prime minister has called an early general election for 9 May.
Conservative Prime Minister Geir Haarde announced the resignation of his cabinet, after talks with his Social Democratic coalition partners failed.
