By AMY CHOZICK

In just one week on NBC, the detectives on “Law and Order” investigated a cash-for-clunkers scam, a nurse on “Mercy” organized a group bike ride, Al Gore made a guest appearance on “30 Rock,” and “The Office” turned Dwight Schrute into a cape-wearing superhero obsessed with recycling.
Forget product placement, NBC Universal is trying “behavior placement” with some of its shows. Characters from programs such as “30 Rock” and “The Office” are acting out eco-friendly behaviors that advertisers hope will sway viewers. WSJ’s Amy Chozick reports.

Coincidence? Hardly. NBC Universal planted these eco-friendly elements into scripted television shows to influence viewers and help sell ads.

The tactic—General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal calls it “behavior placement”—is designed to sway viewers to adopt actions they see modeled in their favorite shows. And it helps sell ads to marketers who want to associate their brands with a feel-good, socially aware show.

Unlike with product placement, which can seem jarring to savvy viewers, the goal is that viewers won’t really notice that Tina Fey is tossing a plastic bottle into the recycle bin, or that a minor character on “Law and Order: SVU” has switched to energy-saving light bulbs. “People don’t want to be hit over the head with it,” says NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker. “Putting it in programing is what makes it resonate with viewers.”

TV has always had the ability to get millions of people to mimic a beloved character. Ever since Carrie Bradshaw on “Sex and the City” stopped in at the Magnolia Bakery, fans of the show wait in long lines for the once-quiet shop’s $2.75 cupcakes. When Jennifer Aniston as Rachel on “Friends” cut her hair, salons across the country reported requests for the shaggy, highlighted, layered look known as “the Rachel.”

This is the power of persuasion that NBCU hopes to tap. “Subtle messaging woven into shows mainstreams it, and mainstreaming is an effective way to get a message across,” says Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBCU Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, which oversees the effort.

Since fall 2007, network executives have been asking producers of almost every prime-time and daytime show to incorporate a green storyline at least once a year. The effort now takes place for a week in April and November. Starting April 19 this year, 40 NBC Universal outlets will feature some 100 hours of green-themed programming, including an episode of the Bravo reality series “Millionaire Matchmaker” in which a 39-year-old tycoon with an eco-friendly clothing line goes into a rage after his blind date orders red meat.

NBC’s Behavior Placement

30 Rock

NBC

The Message: Small changes can reduce your carbon footprint.

What Viewers Saw: Kenneth, the page, is put in charge of reducing the carbon footprint of fictional late-night show “TGS” by 5%. Liz Lemon, Tina Fey’s character, reluctantly gives up her office mini-fridge.

The Office

NBC

The Message: Get rid of plastic water bottles in the workplace.

What Viewers Saw: Employees complain about metallic-tasting reusable water bottles. “We weren’t on theme, we were just on comedy,” says Paul Lieberstein, an executive producer.

Top Chef

NBC

The Message: Organic, locally grown foods are better for the environment.

What Viewers Saw: Competing chefs prepare a meal for the farm workers at Blue Hill farm using organic, local fruits, vegetables and other ingredients.

In June, NBCU plans a week in which programming will emphasize healthy eating and exercise: The idea is that viewers will watch the shows and then spring into action. “It’s about incorporating a marketer’s message into a thematic environment,” says Mike Pilot, president of sales and marketing at NBC Universal.

While the network says it tries to incorporate green programming throughout the year, the special emphasis twice a year creates an “event” that provides opportunities to advertisers, an NBC spokeswoman says. For instance, a Wal-Mart ad focusing on locally grown produce ran this past November after an episode of the medical drama “Trauma” in which emergency medic Rabbit rescues a window washer dangling precariously from a building; medics are alerted to the situation by a man sitting in his hybrid vehicle.

Behavior placement gives marketers extra incentive to advertise at a time when digital video recorders equip viewers with an unprecedented ability to skip commercials, says Jason Kanefsky, a media buyer at Havas’s MPG. “You’re not forcing your way into a program in any shape or form,” he says. “You’re just nodding your head at a program.” ABC, CBS and FOX have plenty of product placement but haven’t taken the step into behavior placement, network spokesmen say.

TV writers and producers are less enamored with behavior placement. Already on the hook to create holiday-themed episodes and accommodate marketers in other ways, some producers and writers grumble about additional demands. Requests for green-themed storylines come at the start of the year when programming executives sit down with producers and lay out which company-wide themes and holidays they will be working into shows.

Producers do have some leeway. “The Office,” for example, embraces Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Christmas but refuses to incorporate Easter since it isn’t part of office culture.

Angela Bromstad, president of primetime entertainment at NBC, says her only specific request is that writers incorporate something related to the environment into a storyline and not make it a throwaway line of dialogue. “We haven’t had any pushback,” she says.

Paul Lieberstein, an executive producer on “The Office” who also plays the character Toby Flenderson, says he was thinking about making Dwight a superhero called “Recyclops” before network executives ordered up an environmental storyline.

“In this case it fell right into the realm of what we do,” Mr. Lieberstein says. “We’d have to say no if it hurt the integrity of the show.”

“Heroes” creator Tim Kring says behavior placement is easier than incorporating a specific brand, which is what the science-fiction series about ordinary people with superhuman abilities, recently did for sponsor Sprint Nextel Corp. This past fall, members of a carnival loaded a pickup truck with recyclables as Masi Oka, in the role of Hiro Nakamura, talks about giving back to the Earth. “Someone has to pay for our big, expensive television shows,” Mr. Kring says.

Armed with its own data showing consumers are wiling to spend more if a brand seems eco-friendly, NBC in 2007 launched “Green Week,” the programming component of a larger “Green is Universal” corporate campaign. That effort brought in an estimated $20 million in advertising revenue from 20 sponsors, according to industry estimates. Many new clients, including the nutrition bar Soy Joy, came on board, NBC says. In April 2008, the network added another week of green-themed programming, when network logos go green and on-air promos tout NBC’s support for the environment. But there are no obvious cues to alert viewers to the green emphasis in programming.

To court advertisers targeting specific demographics, NBC researchers conduct regular focus groups. Viewers are broken into categories based on their favorite shows and their level of concern about the environment. “Alpha ecos” are mostly women who drive hybrids, eat organic and watch the Bravo channel. “Eco-logicals” are older viewers who have “traditional Midwestern values,” drink Diet Coke, drive domestic cars and love basic-cable channel USA. When PepsiCo Inc.’s Sun Chips brand launched a compostable chip bag, executives wanted to reach young, edgy consumers who watch “30 Rock.” Pepsi purchased a skit starring Kenneth, the show’s lovable page. It will run during a commercial break of an eco-friendly episode this fall. “This audience has a tendency to be a little more cynical about blatant product placement,” says Gannon Jones, vice president of marketing for PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay unit.

View Full Image

NBCKristen Stewart on ‘Late Night With Jimmy Fallon’—where the antique desk sends a recycling message.

Product placement on TV dates back to early soap operas sponsored by Procter & Gamble Co. Programming has been trying to get across messages, like Don’t Smoke or Say No to Drugs, for almost as long. In the 1970s, libraries nationwide saw a spike in interest after the “Happy Days” character Fonzie got a library card. Last year, a character in the top-rated telenovela on NBC Universal’s Telemundo, “Mas Sabe el Diablo” (“The Devil Knows Best”), had a job recruiting Latinos in New York City to participate in the 2010 Census. (Telemundo voluntarily took on the message for a group that is historically undercounted. It ran its efforts by Census authorities to make sure it had the details right.)

The messages NBC gravitates toward tend to be fairly innocuous. For instance, climate change may be controversial, but people can agree that taking care of the environment is a good thing. Same with diet and exercise: It may be controversial to ask people to quit smoking but people don’t argue with taking better care of your body.

Still, do viewers really want their TV sets reminding them to recycle and go to the gym? Executives say the more seamlessly integrated the behavior is, the less it feels like the show is trying to manipulate. “The last thing you want to do is not reach the audience in the right way and make them mad at you,” says NBCU’s Ms. Zalaznick. Viewers don’t mind if “you do a little good in the world, and you’re still making your show.”

For its first televised ad campaign, Vermont-based cleaning product manufacturer Seventh Generation Inc. paid NBCU to use Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott, stars of Oxygen’s reality series “Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood,” in a vignette about organic gardening that will run later this month during a commercial break. The corresponding episode will feature the couple gardening and composting. Dave Kimbell, Seventh Generation’s chief marketing officer, says the company doesn’t use product placement but sees behavior placement as a more effective way to express the brand’s values and “create a dialogue” with consumers.

The trick is to not turn off viewers by being lectury or too obvious, producers say. “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” had a segment that urged viewers to turn off their lights for five seconds to conserve energy. But each time the lights went out in the studio, a Latina janitor screamed “Ay dios mio!” and a gunshot went off killing a member of the Fallon cast. “At that hour people just want to laugh and have fun. They don’t want to be preached at,” the host says.

Write to Amy Chozick at amy.chozick@wsj.com



Eef.org

Technical Analysis by Peter EckersleyToday EFF and the Tor Project are launching a public beta of a new Firefox extension called HTTPS Everywhere.

This Firefox extension was inspired by the launch of Google’s encrypted search option. We wanted a way to ensure that every search our browsers sent was encrypted. At the same time, we were also able to encrypt most or all of the browser’s communications with some other sites:

• Google Search
• Wikipedia
• Twitter and Identi.ca
• Facebook
• EFF and Tor
• Ixquick, DuckDuckGo, Scroogle and other small search engines
• and lots more!

Firefox users can install HTTPS Everywhere by following this link.

As always, even if you’re at an HTTPS page, remember that unless Firefox displays a colored address bar and an unbroken lock icon in the bottom-right corner, the page is not completely encrypted and you may still be vulnerable to various forms of eavesdropping or hacking (in many cases, HTTPS Everywhere can’t prevent this because sites incorporate insecure third-party content).

[Permalink]

Austria
1. Bronner, Oscar – Publisher and Editor, Der Standard
2. Faymann, Werner – Federal Chancellor
3. Scholten, Rudolf – Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
4. Treichl, Andreas – Chairman and CEO, Erste Group Bank AG

Belgium
1. Davignon, Etienne F. – Honorary Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings; Vice Chairman, Suez Tractebel
2. Coene, Luc – Vice Governor, National Bank of Belgium
3. Philippe, H.R.H. – Prince

Canada
1. Kenna, Frank – Former Ambassador to the US
2. Munroe-Blum, Heather – Principal and Vice Chancellor, McGill University
3. Prichard, J. Robert S. – President and CEO, Metrolinx
4. Reisman, Heather M.- Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc
5. Samarasekera, Indira V. – President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Alberta

Denmark
1. Eldrup, Anders – President, DONG Energy A/S
2. Thorning-Schmidt, Helle – Leader of the Social Democratic Party
3. Thune Andersen, Thomas – Partner and CEO, Maersk Oil

Germany
1. Ackermann, Josef – Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG
2. Enders, Thomas – CEO, Airbus SAS
3. Klaeden, Eckart von – Foreign Policy Spokesman, CDU/CSU
4. Koch, Roland – Koch, Roland
5. Löscher, Peter – CEO, Siemens AG
6. Nass, Matthias – Deputy Editor, Die Zeit

Finland
1. Katainen, Jyrki – Minister of Finance
2. Ollila, Jorma – Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc
3. Rajalahti, Hanna – Managing Editor, Talouselämä
4. Vanhanen, Matti – Prime Minister

France
1. Baverez, Nicolas – Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
2. Bompard, Alexandre – CEO, Europe 1
3. Castries, Henri de – Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA
4. Lagarde, Christine – Minister for the Economy, Industry and Employment
5. Olivennes, Denis – CEO and Editor in Chief, Le Nouvel Observateur
6. Oudéa, Frédéric – CEO, Société Générale

Great Britain
1. Kerr, John – Member, House of Lords; Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc
2. Mandelson, Peter – Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
3. Micklethwait, John – Editor-in-Chief, the Economist
4. Osborne, George – Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
5. Taylor, J. Martin – Chairman, Syngenta International AG
6. Wolf, Martin H. – Associate Editor & Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times
7. Bredow, Vendeline von – Business Correspondent, The Economist (Rapporteur)
8. McBride, Edward – Business Editor, The Economist (Rapporteur)

Greece
1. Alogoskoufis, George – Member of Parliament
2. Arapoglou, Takis – Chairman and CEO, National Bank of Greece
3. Bakoyannis, Dora – Minister of Foreign Affairs
4. David, George A – Chairman, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co. (H.B.C.) S.A.
5. Kyriacopoulos, Ulysses – Chairman and Board member of subsidiary companies of the S&B Group
6. Papahelas, Alexis – Journalist, Kathimerini
7. Papalexopoulos, Dimitris – Managing Director, Titan Cement Co. S.A.
8. Papathanasiou, Yannis – Minister of Economy and Finance
9. Stournaras, Yannis – Research Director, Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE)
10. Tsoukalis, Loukas – President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELlAMEP)

Ireland
1. Gleeson, Dermot – Chairman, AIB Group
2. Sutherland, Peter D. – Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs International

Italy
1. Bernabè, Franco – CEO Telecom Italia SpA
2. Draghi, Mario – Governor, Banca d’Italia
3. Elkann, John – Chairman, EXOR S.p.A.; Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A.
4. Monti, Mario – President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
5. Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso – Former Minister of Finance; President of Notre Europe
6. Prodi, Romano – Chairman, Foundation for Worldwide Cooperation
7. Siniscalco, Domenico – Vice Chairman, Morgan Stanley International

Netherlands
1. Halberstadt, Victor – Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings
2. Hirsch Ballin, Ernst M.H. – Minister of Justice
3. Hommen, Jan H.M. – Chairman, ING N.V.
4. Veer, Jeroen van der – Chief Executive, Royal Dutch Shell plc
5. Wellink, Nout – President, De Nederlandsche Bank
6. Wijers, Hans – Chairman, AkzoNobel NV

Norway
1. Baksaas, Jon Fredrik – President and CEO, Telenor Group
2. Myklebust, Egil – Former Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA
3. Reiten, Eivind – President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA

Portugal
1. Balsemão, Francisco Pinto – Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister
2. Leite, Manuela Ferreira – Leader, PSD
3. Pinho, Manuel – Minister of Economy and Innovation

Spain
1. Entrecanales, José Manuel – Chairman, Acciona
2. León Gross, Bernardino – General Director of the Presidency of the Spanish Government
3. Moratinos Cuyaubé, Miguel A. – Minister of Foreign Affairs
4. Nin Génova, Juan Maria – President and CEO, La Caixa
5. Solbes, Pedro – Vice-President of Spanish Government; Minister of Economy and Finance
6. Sophia, H.M. the Queen of Spain

Sweden
1. Bildt, Carl – Minister of Foreign Affairs
2. Björklund, Jan – Minister for Education; Leader of the Lìberal Party
3. Wallenberg, Jacob – Chairman, Investor AB
4. Wallenberg, Marcus – Chairman, SEB

Switzerland
1. Blocher, Christoph – Former Swiss Counselor; Former Chairman and CEO, EMS Group
2. Ringier, Michael – Chairman, Ringier AG
3. Vasella, Daniel L. – Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG
Turkey
1. Babacan, Ali – Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister
2. Koç, Mustafa V. – Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
3. Kohen, Sami – Senior Foreign Affairs Columnist, Milliyet
4. Sabanci Dinçer, Suzan – Chairman, Akbank
5. Ugur, Agah – CEO, Borusan Holding

USA
1. Alexander, Keith B. – Director, National Security Agency
2. Altman, Roger C. – Chairman and CEO, Evermore Partners, Inc.
3. Eberstadt, Nicholas N. – Economy, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
4. Boot, Max – Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
5. Collins, Timothy C. – Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
6. Ferguson, Niall – Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University
7. Graham, Donald E. – Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
8. Holbrooke, Richard C. – US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
9. Johnson, James A. – Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
10. Jordan, Jr., Vernon E. – Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
11. Keane, John M. – Senior Partner, SCP Partners; General, US Army, Retired
12. Kent, Muhtar – President and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company
13. Kleinfeld, Klaus – President and CEO, Alcoa Inc
14. Mundie, Craig J. – Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
15. Munroe-Blum, Heather – Principal and Vice Chancellor, McGill University
16. Perle, Richard N. – Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
17. Rockefeller, David – Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
18. Rubin, Barnett R. – Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, Center for International Cooperation, New York University
19. Sheeran, Josette – Executive Director, UN World Food Programme
20. Steinberg, James B. – Steinberg, James B.
21. Thiel, Peter A. – President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
22. Wolfensohn, James D. – Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC
23. Wolfowitz, Paul – Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research 23.

International

1. Hoop Scheffer, Jaap G. de – Secretary General, NATO
2. Kroes, Neelie – Commissioner, European Commission
3. Lamy, Pascal – Director General, World Trade Organization
4. Maystadt, Philippe – President, European Investment Bank
5. Pisani-Ferry, Jean – Director, Bruegel
6. Stigson, Bjorn – President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
7. Tanaka, Nobuo – Executive Director, IEA
8. Trichet, Jean-Claude – President, European Central Bank
9. Zoellick, Robert B. – President, The World Bank Group
]]> http://aaronrusso.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/2010-bilderberg-meeting-atendees-list/feed/ 0 Anti Oligarch http://aaronrusso.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/secretive-bilderberg-club-ready-for-protests/ http://aaronrusso.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/secretive-bilderberg-club-ready-for-protests/#comments Sat, 05 Jun 2010 03:34:29 +0000 Anti Oligarch http://aaronrusso.wordpress.com/?p=376 ]]> From The Times, June 3, 2010

Splash! Could that be the sound of Lord Mandelson hitting one of the Dolce hotel’s four pools? Or Robert Zoellick of the World Bank? Paul Volcker of the US Economic Recovery Advisory Board? Or merely the euro taking another dive?

That is the thing about the Bilderberg group’s top secret meetings: you never know quite what is going on behind the police checkpoints.

Across the world, secretaries to the rich and the powerful have blocked out the next three days in their bosses’ calendars for their annual gathering, this time at the Dolce in Sitges, one of Spain’s most exclusive resorts.

//

Times Archive, 1977: An exclusive club

On Thursday, 120 people will gather in Torquay. Henry Kissinger will be there, so will Helmut Schmidt, Baron Rothschild and Mrs Thatcher

• Bilderberg talking shop opens in Torquay

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Multimedia

• The Times has a new website

Normally, every minute of their working lives is accounted for but, each year, a couple of hundred of the world’s financial elite and the more business-friendly members of the political class disappear from view; supposedly to save the planet from the dangers of parochialism, the nationalist genie.

It is all terribly confidential — breathe a word about it and you’re out of the club — but the Bilderberg watcher Daniel Estulin claims to have a copy of the agenda. The big question this time around is whether the euro will survive. “They are afraid that the countries in trouble will leave and the euro will fall apart,” said Mr Estulin. “The biggest nightmare is if EU members return to nationally orientated policies.”

That would certainly explain why the keynote address is being given by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. The Piigs — Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain — are of concern to the Bilderbergers. After all, the club was set up in 1954 by a Polish exile, Joseph Retinger, to create a European bulwark against the spread of communism. It provided the germ of the European idea; Franco-German reconciliation, the entry of West Germany into Nato, the Maastricht treaty — all were cooked up in annual fireside chats.

Now, according to Mr Estulin’s information, the Bilderbergers are nervous that the erosion of the euro could nudge the world back into recession while public services cuts could trigger unrest and radicalise the political climate.

Plenty to talk about at the Dolce, then. The Bilderberg protesters, sure that they can smell a good oldfashioned capitalist conspiracy, will be holding fringe meetings in the town. The hunt will be on to find a chambermaid ready to ransack hotel litter bins for evidence that evil work is afoot. It has been easier to get nuggets of information out of Bilderberg since hotel staff started to read Dan Brown and talk about the illuminati.

Could it be, though, that the Bilderbergers are simply having fun, away from their spouses, on their annual jamboree? The secret of Bilderberg could be that there is no secret. Certainly, the hotel offers plenty of distractions for stressed CEOs: qi-gong courses, excellent fish, fine wines and bicycle tours.

Henry Kissinger, 87, the former US Secretary of State, and David Rockefeller, 95, the former chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, are the elder statesmen of Bilderberg — but the leaked invitation list reveals that the gathering is made up primarily of elderly white gents.

Remember Richard Perle, 68, George Bush’s erstwhile Prince of Darkness? He could perhaps form a Prince of Darkness sub-group with Lord Mandelson. Paul Wolfowitz, 66, formerly of the World Bank? Mario Monti, 67, EU commissioner for the single market between 1995 and 1999?

Only the possible attendance of George Osborne, 39, the British Chancellor, will reassure hotel staff that they are not dealing with a Saga Holidays tour. Other members of this clandestine coven include Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Beatrix of Holland. No doubt their views will be sought on the Swedish royal wedding later this month. Is it right, for example, that a young princess should marry her personal trainer? Fortunately, the Dolce has a team of personal trainers on hand ready to chip into the debate.

Last year Bilderberg held its meeting at the Nafsika Astir Palace hotel in Greece and apparently failed to spot how close their host country was to melting down. Watch out, Spain!

The weather forecast is for three days of sunshine — time for the Bilderbergers to slink out of the shadows.

Goldman Sachs will get a hand slap, the Greek Tragedy continues, signs of growth not real, more market manipulation to report on, never incremental news, a broken system of risk-free trade and return.

The DOE reported crude oil inventories up 646,000 barrels, gasoline fell 3.19 m/b and distillates rose 1.52 m/b.

The commercial paper market fell again by $2.6 billion to $1.073 trillion.

Goldman Sachs wants to settle with the SEC exactly as we predicted. They would neither admit nor deny and be fined $1 to $ 2 billion, which is chump change to them.

Lehman is seeking return of $8.6 billion that JPMorgan Chase seized before Lehman filed for bankruptcy. The claim is Morgan had unparalleled inside knowledge. There is no honor among thieves.

Part of the deflationary mode is borrowers are paying down debt and saving at a 3.4% rate. It could be the elitists, as we speculated months ago, want to take down the entire world financial system in the next 1-1/2 to 2 years. Hi Ho stimulus.

The fiat Ponzi scheme is collapsing.

During the past few months the financial world and nations have been consumed with the problems of sovereign debt and so they should be. Debt is a worldwide problem, but that problem has been exacerbated by the ability of banks, brokerage houses and insurance companies to manufacture derivatives.

The Greek tragedy continues as the IMF and others get ready to fund not only Greece, but all the PIIGS as well. That includes Canada, the UK, which has refused to contribute, because they are broke, and the US whose end will be about $60 billion. Greece is rolling their old debt in order to bail out the banks. It won’t be long before Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy will be doing the same thing. The other euro zone members are saying why should we bail out these countries, which in turn are bailing out banks?

These euro zone countries are saying all we did was what everyone else was doing. Governmental debt has hit unprecedented levels worldwide. It is now called a sovereign debt crisis. Any recovery in any of these countries will remain anemic as long as this situation exists. More debt is being created via stimulus in some countries, and in others austerity has begun. In the US real growth is only 1.3%, and that is fading fast having fallen from 6.5% in the fourth quarter.

The top participant was penalized in 1985 at the Plaza Accord and in 1987 at the Louvre Account and as a result entered
depression in 1992. That is Japan. Their debt is now 200% of GDP. Structural impairment still sticks out like a sore thumb. They are trapped in the same quandary, as Europe is, growth via debt. It is interesting to note that if global military spending of $1.5 trillion ended there would be o trouble funding debt. The US spends more than $600 billion a year, or over 40% of the world’s total, so they can bludgeon the world’s inhabitants into doing what the US wants them to do, it is called tyranny.

The foregoing is certainly not growth. Growth has to come from the development of domestic markets, not as it has been or is today via foreign trade and the endless creation of debt. The experiment of free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing hasn’t worked. Look at what it has done to the US economy. It has gutted it. It has been based on the exploitation of what is essentially slave labor and the theory of comparative advantage. This method of impoverishing the US economy has been funded by the workers themselves via their savings and those of their pension plans. Instead of transnational conglomerates working with foreign governments to keep wages low they should be working to increase them. That never occurred to the Illuminists who run these corporations, nor governments such as China. As a result we have had the opposite effect. Slightly higher wages in China and much lower wages in the US. The ultimate result is going to be tariffs on goods and services to level the playing field.

The euro for Greece and others works both ways. The weaker members acquire a stronger currency and as a result a stronger economy based in part on the strength of its fellow members. Thus, Greece surrendered its sovereignty for the ability to create domestic debt. Unfortunately they cannot print euros, so they cannot devalue. Instead they default unless subsidized by other members.

The dollar had been probing lows on the USDX at 74 just several months ago. In order to solve the dollar weakness and sap euro strength a crisis was created. From out of nowhere Greece was exposed for its debt. Before this took place starting in October major NYC banks were accumulating dollars, because they knew what was going to happen, because they planned it that way. Do not forget Goldman Sachs knew all of Greece’s secrets – they created them.

The events in Greece have left many European banks badly exposed and riding to the rescue has been the Fed with a new swap facility. Last time, over 15 months, the Fed says they used $583 billion. The Fed is again printing money from out of thin air to be used by foreign nations to rescue European banks. They, of course, would have us believe it was to save the European financial structure, when the move was to save private banks that should have never made loans to Greece and other PIIGS, nor purchased their bonds. As professionals they knew better. Effectively the American taxpayer is funding these banks and they pay the price for this via inflation and greater debt. The Fed is further debasing the dollar.

As a result of what the public would call hocus-pocus, the price of gold has been rising. There are other factors making gold rise, but this is the latest. Finally professionals are paying attention to these problems, but more importantly, that the “President’s Working Group on Financial Markets” is manipulating all markets, but particularly the gold and silver markets. It won’t be long, within two weeks that a class action lawsuit, one of many by silver owners, will be filed against JPM Morgan Chase for manipulating the silver market. That should get Wall Street’s and Washington’s attention. This kind of suit is very difficult to defend against. Like Barrick Gold not many years ago, they admitted taking direction from the US government for hedging in the gold market, so will Morgan defer to the US government to explain their actions. Irrespective, Morgan will lose and the manipulation of the silver market and probably the gold market will end.

It should also be noted that the CFTC was complicit in this criminal activity. They had all the evidence and had to be forced to investigate. The Justice Department was forced to investigate as well.

This swap being done by the fed on the short-term could be somewhat injurious to gold, because the recipients are very liable to use some of those funds to short gold and silver..

As we explained earlier there is a fight going on between the dollar and gold for currency supremacy. The recent dollar rally was part of the plan to keep the dollar as the preferred asset or currency. It didn’t work all that well because gold rose more than the dollar. The dollar swap will be used to keep European banks from going under and that is inflationary. The Fed is obviously buying their subprime assets. The bank proceeds from the garbage sold to the Fed will in all likelihood be used to purchase US Treasuries. In a late note now that Fitch has lowered Spain’s credit rating from AAA to AA+, they’ll be even more pressure on European banks and government for Fed assistance. Now not only are the banks broke, but so are the governments. That said how could Treasuries be a store of value? They cannot thus; sooner or later professionals will be storming the gold parapets. If you think markets are currently volatile, just wait you haven’t seen anything yet..

There was a spike in purchase applications in April, followed by a decline to a 13 year low last week. As Fratantoni noted last week: “The data continue to suggest that the tax credit pulled sales into April at the expense of the remainder of the spring buying season.”.

Top national GOP recruit Vaughn Ward on Tuesday lost his primary in Idaho after a series of missteps by his campaign, throwing the Republican Party’s chances in doubt against top-targeted Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho)..

Ward was trailing state Rep. Raul Labrador (R) 48 to 39 percent, with 90 percent of precincts reporting. The Associated Press called the race for Labrador early Wednesday..

Ward becomes the latest establishment favorite to go down in defeat, although his loss will more likely be chalked up to his campaign’s myriad gaffes..

He was one of the first 10 candidates named to the final stage of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) Young Guns program for its top 2010 hopefuls this cycle. Over the past month, however, his campaign has fallen victim to multiple charges of plagiarism, revelations that he didn’t vote in the 2008 presidential election and a slip-up in which he said (in front of his Puerto Rican-born opponent) that Puerto Rico is a country (hint: it’s not)..

That opponent, Labrador, moves on to the general election and leaves national Republicans to evaluate where the race fits in their list of priorities this November. Labrador, an immigration attorney, is something of a blank slate to Washington..

He joined the NRCC’s Young Guns program but has yet to reach the goals required to be named to the first stage of the program..

Given the right candidate, the freshman Minnick’s district should be at the top of the GOP’s target list. It went for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) with 62 percent of the vote in 2008, but former Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho) severely underperformed the top of the GOP ticket, losing narrowly to Minnick..

Sali backed Labrador, while Ward was backed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R)..

Minnick has proven a savvy congressman, voting conservative on almost all major pieces of legislation and building a sizeable war chest for 2010. Republicans can’t rely on merely a good environment to take him out..

In other races in Idaho on Tuesday, Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R) both overcame nominal primary opposition, as did Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who faced a reasonably well-funded opponent and was a Troubled Asset Relief Program (a.k.a. bailout) supporter. All will be heavy favorites in the general election..

The federal prosecutors investigating Goldman Sachs are focusing on Timberwolf, the infamous “shitty deal” repeatedly cited in a tense Senate hearing last month, according to people who have been contacted by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office..

The probe raises the possibility of criminal charges against the storied Wall Street firm, which was charged in April by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with civil fraud for allegedly misleading investors about another subprime mortgage-related security called Abacus..

Investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s office have reached out to individuals involved in the deal, including David Mapley, the former independent director of an Australian hedge fund who claims that the firm collapsed shortly after Goldman sold it $100 million of securities in Timberwolf, a $1 billion collateralized debt obligation..

In an interview with the Huffington Post from his office in Geneva, Mapley said that he has been contacted by the U.S. Attorney’s office and that he expects to be interviewed by them soon. Mapley brought his complaints about Goldman’s role in the deal to the SEC in December 2007, met with SEC lawyers several times in 2008 and he says that he continues to talk to them..

“Overall, the whole thing was a fraudulent concoction,” says Mapley, who says that it was one of the most egregious cases he had seen in his decades working in finance. “We examined the whole trade, what led up to the trade, the way it was marketed and everything about it was inaccurate. You think you’re buying one thing and what you see is totally different.”.

Among the most serious allegations, Mapley claims that Goldman sold Timberwolf securities to the fund at marked-up prices — while Goldman’s trading desk was busy shorting such CDOs tied to toxic subprime mortgage securities..

Mapley says that the hedge fund, Basis Yield Alpha Fund, where he was an outside director, ultimately went into liquidation “with Timberwolf tipping the balance.”.

To help us understand exactly what’s going on, and why debt loads that have been growing for years have suddenly become a market-melting issue, I turned this week to Satyajit Das, an independent credit analyst in Australia. Though his vantage point is half a world away, Das is frequently sought out as a consultant by central bankers, government officials and fund managers for his unconflicted insights and his unusually clear explanation of the dense pathways of debt and its derivatives. I started by asking why the sovereign bond crisis reared up to spook investors last week despite the lack of any new news..

“It’s never incremental news — it’s how old news sinks into the people with brains the size of caraway seeds who populate the financial markets,” he said from his office in Sydney. “They always depend on selective information and process it in uneven ways. Even smart people tend to believe what they want to believe, and they right now they’re using the idea that central banks and governments will miraculously prevail as a crutch. This is magical thinking. I have said from the beginning that governments won’t have enough money to bail everyone out.”.

Das believes the central problem is that governments have already spent more than $1 trillion in taxpayer-generated and borrowed funds but are not getting as much bang for their buck as expected. If you strip out government spending and low interest rates, he notes, there’s not a whole lot of activity going on. The government has tried to prime the pump, but the pump is still just dribbling..

He suggests we not be fooled by recent earnings reports or government stats, pointing to U.S. bank earnings as especially inaccurate. JP Morgan has a balance sheet of $1 trillion and can borrow at essentially zero, he notes. So if they just go out and buy 10-year bonds at 3% they should be able to earn $30 billion a year. Yet the bank announced a profit of $3.3 billion last quarter..

“What does that tell you? It says they are losing money on everything else,” Das says. “Strip out the gifts, and it’s big net loss.” And at big industrial concerns like General Electric, he argues, revenue growth is anemic — so earnings growth is solely stemming from cost-cutting and layoffs..

In February, Defense Secretary Robert Gates authorized $150 million in security assistance for Yemen for fiscal 2010, up from $67 million last year..

Officials told Reuters the money would be used in part to bolster Yemen’s special operations forces to lead an offensive targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for a failed plot to blow up a U.S. passenger plane on Christmas Day..

The group has emerged as one of al Qaeda’s most active affiliates, and the Obama administration recently took the extraordinary step of authorizing the CIA to kill a leading figure linked to the group — American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki..

The U.S. government’s Aaa bond rating will come under pressure in the future unless additional measures are taken to reduce projected record budget deficits, according to Moody’s Investors Service Inc..

The U.S. retains its top rating for now because of a “high degree of economic and institutional strength,” the New York- based ratings company said in a statement today that was little changed from a credit opinion released in February. The outlook is stable, the statement said..

The government’s finances have been “substantially worsened by the credit crisis, recession, and government spending to address these shocks,” Moody’s analysts lead by Steven A. Hess wrote. “The ratios of general government debt to GDP and to revenue are deteriorating sharply, and after the crisis they are likely to be higher than the ratios of other Aaa-rated countries.”.

Debt to revenue has more than doubled over the past three years and is now over 400 percent, which could lead to “potential stress” on finances, the report said..

“This whole financial crisis in Europe has actually benefited the U.S. government in its access to finance,” Hess said in a
telephone interview. “The U.S. Treasury market has become once again, as it was during the recent financial crisis globally, the safe haven, and therefore lots of money flows into the U.S. Treasury market and that is a very positive.”.

Tuesday morning rumors and a FT story about Germany extending its short-selling ban prevented US stocks from a larger opening decline and generated a rally after the opening onslaught..

One rumor said the ECB would cut its 1.00% benchmark rate by 50bps generated a rally in US stocks after the opening carnage..

Any ECB rate cut would pressure the euro, which in turn would induce traders to sell European sovereign debt, which would exacerbate Europe’s debt-death spiral..

On Tuesday morning, the NYSE invoked Rule 48, which allows the NYSE to suspend the requirement to disseminate price indications at the open. Looks like all that technology isn’t very useful – or does the opaqueness aid and abet the connected few in their desire to operate with ‘an edge’?.

Tuesday’s rally got a second-stage boost during midday when Cong. Barney Frank stated that forcing banks to spin off their derivatives operations “goes too far” in regard to financial reform..

There is a new dynamic that most people cannot cogitate: The current crisis is not the usual crisis of a private sector firm or problem appearing that needs a public sector bailout..

Now, the public sector needs a bailout and there is no private sector entity large enough to bailout the public sector. So government officials and central banks are trying to euchre the markets and people into accepting the notion that the imploding public sector can bailout itself out by increasing its indebtedness..

In the Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century the private sector (i.e. JP Morgan or Europeans) bailed out governments.

Then the Twentieth Century movement of gigantic government that increased its size and control over the private sector produced governments and central banks that would bail out private sector firms. But now, governments and central banks are too large for a private sector bailout..

This of course, destroys the multi-decade concepts of risk-free rate of return, Keynesian economics, freely-traded markets, buying every market dip, central bank omnipotence and child-like belief in a supra entity that stands ready at all times to bailout everyone in order to prevent another depression..

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year. At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs..

The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes [How is this different that Greece or most of Europe?].

A record-low 41.9% of the nation’s personal income came from private wages and salaries in the first quarter, down from 44.6% when the recession began in December 2007..

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-05-24-income-shifts-from-private-sector_N.htm.

US Plays Down European Crisis but China Worried The United States suggested Europe’s debt crisis would have minimal impact on global growth, but China took a more pessimistic view, warning it would impact demand for its exports and other regions would suffer too..

Loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration, the U.S.-owned mortgage insurer, may be involved in more home-purchase transactions than borrowing financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac..

FHA lending last quarter may have topped the combined volume of government-supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a home-lending market that’s still a “government-financed market,” David Stevens, the agency’s head, said today at a conference in New York, citing research by consultant Potomac Partners..

“This is a market purely on life support, sustained by the federal government,” he said at the Mortgage Bankers Association conference. “Having FHA do this much volume is a sign of a very sick system.”.

The Conference Board’s confidence index rose to 63.3 for May, the highest reading in two years. 58.5 was consensus. If you have been playing along at home over the past year, you already are assuming that future expectations once again soared. You are correct..

The Conference Board’s ‘present conditions’ increased to 30.2; but ‘expectations for the next six months’ surged to 85.3, the highest level since August 2007. The stock market peaked in October 2007…

In October of last year http://www.zerohedge.com/article/rare-glimpse-feds-discount-window-courtesy-brewing-lehman-barclays-scandal [1]we wrote an extended piece discussing the conflict between the bankrupt Lehman Brothers estate (i.e., its unsecured creditors) and Barclays, in which JPMorgan played a prominent part, as it was the critical tri-party repo clearing bank on all of Lehman’s collateral that would subsequently go to Barclays. As we summarized, extortion attempts back then by Barclays only had the adverse effect of making Jamie Dimon very, very angry: “Barclays’ attempt to nickel and dime JPM (and the US taxpayers) so infuriated Jamie Dimon that he penned an angry letter to John Varley http://chapter11.epiqsystems.com/viewdocument.asp… [2], Barclays Group CEO (which CC:ed Barclays’ president Bob Diamond), threatening with litigation in case Barclays is intent on sticking JPM with Lehman collateral that it thought was without value and not worth assuming in a time when every single day stock prices were crashing further lower.” As we expected in October, the resolution would most likely involve litigation, as by dint of its collateral clearing position, JPM had unprecedented knowledge about Lehman’s affairs: a special status that would likely be abused in a court of law. Sure enough, here is the lawsuit: the estate of Lehman Brothers, desperate to pick another several bps in recovery on their Lehman General Unsecured Claims, has sued JPMorgan, claiming Jamie Dimon’s bank pushed Lehman into bankruptcy by forcing it to turn over $8.6 billion in collateral.

As Lehman was completely insolvent long before JPM demanded any incremental collateral comfort, claiming that JPM was the catalyst for Lehman’s bankruptcy is absolutely the same as saying that Goldman forced AIG’s bankruptcy by increasing its collateral demands. While both arguments are ludicrous, should the JPM case proceed to court, it is tantamount that AIG immediately seek legal action against Goldman Sachs on identical grounds.

Source: Bob Chapman at the Internationalforecaster.com

On the most important stop of last week’s desperate mission to make the world safe for derivatives, US Treasury Secretary Geithner has been dealt a decisive rebuff. Geithner’s obvious attempt to sabotage the recent prohibition enacted by the German government against naked credit default swaps (among the most toxic of derivatives) was rejected in Berlin on Thursday by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

At their joint press conference, Geithner and Schäuble could hardly hide the atmosphere of tension and hostility, even though both were determined to mask the clash for domestic political reasons. A Handelsblatt blog pointed to the language of mutual dislike, and this newspaper headlined that the transatlantic conflict was escalating. The Washington Post published a photograph on Friday, May 28, 2010 showing the German minister scowling at the feckless featherweight Geithner. Geithner assured the journalists that there was a “broad agreement on regulatory reform,” but in reality there was no such common ground.

Schäuble has now emerged as the strongman in the German cabinet, due precisely to his willingness to take the point in the fight against derivatives. “Ban Bolsters Schäuble’s Sway,” headlined the Wall Street Journal. German officials are reported to be increasingly dismissive of the carping criticism coming from other countries which have failed to act against the world derivatives plague. The Germans know exactly what they are doing, Schäuble stressed: “We have done our national homework,” he added.

It is abundantly clear that Germany is determined to act unilaterally against speculation, especially in the form of derivatives. This means maintaining the current ban on naked credit default swaps, and supplementing this with a ban on naked short sales of German stocks, euro-denominated government bonds, and of the euro itself.

Geithner, as always, is operating behind a mask of duplicity. During the press conference, he did not directly address the German ban on naked credit default swaps which has caused such consternation in the City of London, Wall Street, the US Treasury, and the Federal Reserve, where derivatives are regarded as sacrosanct. Geithner also failed to address the question of a Tobin tax or securities sales tax on speculative financial turnover, which the German government is attempting to push through the ponderous elephantine Brussels bureaucracy of the European Union. Geithner also did not talk about the regulations largely targeting the Anglo-American hedge fund wolfpack which are also being developed in the Byzantine corridors of the eurogarchy.

These are matters of extremely serious strategic conflict. As the Washington Post noted on May 28, “… differences have emerged on the host of issues between the United States and Europe… some European officials – including Schäuble – want to tax all financial transactions for a fund that might be dedicated to crisis resolution or that might go into each government’s general account.” Given the increasing pressure on national budgets, it is of course imperative that the revenue generated by a Tobin tax be kept in-country to prevent the savage dismantling of the social safety net which is increasingly demanded by the financiers and their agents and dupes. Under no circumstances should these funds be kept in a fund which will inevitably be used for further bailouts of bankrupt zombie banks. As the Washington Post further commented: “Europe wants to more strictly clamp down on what it views as speculation, while … US officials speak more frequently about the risk of stifling innovation if regulations become too rigid.” Modern societies need innovation in the area of scientific discoveries that can lead to new technologies, and do not require any more variations of the available brands of derivatives cyanide, arsenic, and strychnine. The world has had enough of toxic derivatives to last us until the end of the century and beyond.

Geithner’s true intentions can be read from his systematic sabotage and gutting of the financial reform bill recently passed by the U.S. Senate. The most important feature of this bill was the ban on derivatives speculation by commercial banks proposed by Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. This would have partially restored the blanket ban on most types of derivatives which was in force under the New Deal from 1936 through 1982 thank to the Commodities Exchange Act signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Geithner has attacked this provision, and is teaming up with Obama handler Rahm Emanuel to remove it during the upcoming House-Senate reconciliation process.

Geithner was also an active participant in the efforts to torpedo the McCain-Cantwell amendment, which would have restored the New Deal era Glass-Steagall law, which rigorously prevented commercial banks from engaging in stock jobbing and related forms of investment banking, including derivatives.

Geithner has also talked about stress tests for European banks. It should be recalled that the stress tests for US banks carried on last year under Geithner’s supervision were worse than useless, since they systematically excluded from consideration the main cause for bank insolvency in the current era – off-balance-sheet toxic derivatives. This blatant mockery should not be repeated in Europe.

As for the hedge fund hyenas, they are adamant about their intention to bring the crisis currently impacting the southern tier of the euro back home to the United States. In his New York Times article “Easy Money, Hard Truths,” David Einhorn, a leading hedge fund operator involved in the infamous February 8, 2010 Manhattan planning session for the current assault on Europe, is categorical in his forecast that the European crisis will happen here as well. To spare the American people endless and useless misery, it is imperative that we mobilize every legal and regulatory tool in the New Deal armory to put the hedge fund predators out of business while banning or taxing derivatives. The goal must be to prevent a needless national bankruptcy of this country and preserve the present constitutional system of representative government from the chaos and anarchy the speculators are eager to visit upon us.

By Luke Salkeld,  23rd April 2010

One of the new SpeedSpike speed cameras which has been installed on the A374 in Cornwall

Speed cameras which communicate with each other by satellite are being secretly tested on British roads.

The hi-tech devices can follow drivers’ progress for miles to calculate whether they have broken speed limits.

Combining number plate recognition technology with global positioning satellites, they can be set up in a network to monitor tens of thousands of cars over huge areas for the smallest breach.

Known as SpeedSpike, the system uses similar methods of recognition as the cameras which enforce the congestion charge in London, and allow two cameras to ‘talk’ to each other if a vehicle appears to have travelled too far in too short a space of time.

After a covert national trial which has not been publicised until now, just days after a report showed motorists have been fined almost £1billion in speeding tickets under Labour, authorities hope the new cameras will enable them to re-create the system used on motorway contraflows.

The Home Office is currently testing them at two sites – one in Southwark in London and another on the A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall.

Details of the secret trials emerged in a House of Commons report and immediately attracted criticism.

Conservative MP Geoffrey Cox, whose Devon constituency is close to the Cornish test site, said fundamental questions had to be addressed before such an ‘alarming’ level of surveillance was extended.

The high-tech devices are an enhanced version of the spy cameras which enforce London’s congestion charge

He said: ‘You always have to ask if it is really necessary to watch over people, to spy on them and film them.

‘We will get to a point where it becomes routine and it should never be a matter of routine that the state spies on its citizens.’

SpeedSpike uses automatic number plate recognition technology, which in 2008 took photos of 64 million of motorists in Britain – ten times more than the previous year.

The new cameras have been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned business with a base in Hampshire.

In the company’s evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee, it boasted of ‘number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day’ as well as pointing out the system’s low cost and ease of installation.

The company believes the cameras can be used for ‘main road enforcement for congestion reduction and speed enforcement’, can help to ‘eliminate rat-runs’ and cut speeds outside schools.

It said: ‘We have an urban test site at Salter Road in Southwark and are working in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police.

‘We also have an inter urban test site located on the A374 from Torpoint to Antony at which we are working with the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary.’

The trial is being carried out in conjunction with the police and the Devon and Cornwall Safety Camera Partnership.

Superintendent Tim Swarbrick, chairman of the partnership and head of roads policing, said it was being tested ‘on a live road system to assess how effective and accurate it is’.

He added: ‘Average speed recorders have proved to be very successful in roadworks on the major trunk roads. They have reduced injury and deaths and we would like to replicate this positive effect on more rural roads.

‘To this end we are assisting the Home Office in piloting a new version of this equipment to gauge both its accuracy and operational effectiveness.

‘The equipment is not being used for enforcement purposes, as it is not Home Office approved at this stage.’

The Home Office said it was unable to comment on the trials because of ‘commercial confidentiality’.

Last week a report showed that motorists have been hit with speeding tickets worth almost £1billion under Labour.

But receipts have fallen since police were stopped from keeping part of the money raised from speed cameras.

It suggested that the explosion in the number of cameras was used as a ‘cash cow’ and that forces no longer have an incentive to install them.

Drivers were clobbered with 1.23million tickets in 2008, of which 1.03million were issued by speed cameras, the Home Office report revealed.

The tickets raised more than £73million for the Treasury that year, or £200,000 a day.

In total, 16million tickets have been issued since 1997, raising £913million.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

The Archive currently includes records disclosed through the American Civil Liberties Union’s successful lawsuits against the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, and almost 20,000 pages of documents produced by the Combatant Status Review Board (CSRT) and the Administrative Review Board (ARB). The latter entities were created by the Defense Department in response to a Supreme Court ruling, and scathing internal and external criticism of detainee policy, to determine whether prisoners were, and continue to be, “enemy combatants” — a term coined by the Bush administration for those judged to have committed or supported hostilities against the United States or its allies.

Information in the Archive can be searched by title; creator, such as the Defense or State Department or the Federal Bureau of Investigation; recipient, such as the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command; individual, such as former secretary of state Colin Powell; organization, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross or the contractor CACI International; date; document type, such as memorandum, court-martial record, email, medical record, or sworn statement); and document, listed by date. As indicated, full-text searching is available. For the records obtained by the ACLU, document descriptions include notes prepared by its lawyers and staff, often summarizing content. The “individual” browse option can be used to retrieve documents on detainees whose cases are discussed in the ARB and CSRT records. Document descriptions for these records also display internment serial numbers (ISN), which were assigned to each prisoner by the Defense Department.

Preliminary work on the Archive was carried out in association with Washington Media Associates, which produced the documentary film Torturing Democracy in 2008. The website project would not have been possible without support from the Open Society Institute, the JEHT Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the staff of the Washington Research Libraries Consortium. The National Security Archive is deeply grateful for their assistance.

A B C D E F G H I J-K L M N O P Q R S T U V-W Y 0-9

Abu Ghraib Detainee Abuse, 2004-05-17

Abu Ghraib Interrogator Notes; Annex 207: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Withheld from Release], 2004-02-01

Abu Ghraib Interrogator Notes; Annex 208: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Withheld from Release], 2004-02-07

Abu Ghraib Medical Screening; Annex 170: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Withheld from Release], 2004-11-08

Abu Ghraib Prison Case, 2004-09-23

Abu Ghruyab Bullet Report, 2004-07-12

Abu Ghurayb Prison (AGP) Matter, 2004-06-03

Abuse at Abu G [Ghraib], 2004-05-14

Abuse at Abu G[hraib], 2004-05-13

Abuse Complaint by Detainee #[Excised], 2002-02-14

Abuse Investigation, 2004-06-25

Abuse of Detainee], 2003-12-22

Abuse of Detainee during Medical Exam], 2002-02-11

Abuse of Detainees at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-17

Abuse of Detainees at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-27

Abuse of Detainees Witnessed at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-11

Abuse of Prisoners at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2005-05-25

ACA GTMO [Guantánamo] EXSUM and Talking Points, 2004-06-08

ACA Operational Assistance Visit JTF-GTMO, 2004-05-27

Accident Claims Form 04-I5A-T040], 2003-07-16

Account of Personnel Behavior toward Detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison; Handwritten; Pages Missing], 2003-05-21

Account of Prisoner Abuse Incident at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility Involving Father and 17-Year-Old Son; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-13

Account of Visits to Abu Ghraib Detention Facility; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-29

Accounts of Prisoner Abuse at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-1

Accounts of Prisoner Abuse at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib; Handwritten; Attached to Rights Warning Procedure/Waiver Certificate], 2004-06-04

ACIL–Pre-meeting for Presenters, 2004-05-17

ACIL–Pre-meeting for Presenters, 2004-05-17

ACIL–Pre-meeting for Presenters, 2004-05-18

Acknowledgement of Receipt for Administrative Reprimand, 2003-07-21

Acknowledgement of Receipt of Diplomatic Note regarding Treatment of Guantánamo Detainee], 2003-12-03

ACLU, et al., v. Department of Defense, et al., 2005-04-06

ACLU, et al., v. Department of Defense, et al., No. 04 Civ. 4151 (AKH), 2005-08-09

ACLU, et al. v. Department of Defense, et al., No. 04-CV-4151 (S.D.N.Y.), 2004-10-15

ACLU Litigation concerning Treatment of Detainees–Deadline, 2004-09-28

ACLU Litigation Matter concerning Treatment of Detainees–Deadline, 2004-09-28

Actions Taken for Attempted Murder Charges; Includes Memoranda, Agent’s Investigation Reports, Document Withdrawal Records, Translation of Statement, Sworn Statements, Agent’s Investigation Summaries, Email Correspondence, and Other Supporting Materials], 2004-09-22

Action Taken for Aggravated Assault and Conspiracy Charges; Includes Other Charges, Criminal Investigative Command Report of Investigation, and Investigative Summary], 2005-03-05

Action Taken for Aggravated Assault and Other Charges; Includes Report of Investigation, Agent’s Investigation Reports, Crime Scene Sketch,
Evidence/Property Custody Document, CID Form 66, Investigative Plan, Agent’s Activity Summaries, Investigative Worksheets, Handwritten Notes, and Email Correspondence], 2004-09-27

Action Taken for Assault Charges; Includes Document Withdrawal Record, Investigative Worksheets, Agent’s Activity Summaries, Initial Investigation Report, Sworn Statements, Agent’s Investigation Reports, and Final Investigation Report], 2004-01-21

Action Taken for Assault, Conspiracy, and Other Charges; Includes Final Investigation Report, Agent’s Investigation Reports, Sworn Statements, CID Form 66, Agent’s Activity Summaries, Investigative Worksheets, Handwritten Notes, and Email Correspondence], 2004-03-31

Action Taken for Burglary, Assault, and Other Charges; Includes Report of Investigation, Agent’s Investigative Report, Sworn Statements, and Crime Scene Sketches], 2004-01-04

Action Taken for Conspiracy, Murder, and Other Charges; Includes Report of Investigation, Agent’s Investigation Reports, Document Withdrawal Records, Sworn Statements, Crime Scene Sketches, Crime Lab Examination Requests, Firearms Division Report, Imaging and Technical Support Division Report, Photographs, Serology/DNA Division Report, Evidence/Property Custody Documents, Agent’s Activity Summaries, Investigative Worksheets, and Other Supporting Materials], 2004-03-08

Action Taken for Failure to Obey Orders, Larceny, Assault, and Other Charges; Includes Agent’s Investigation Reports, Email Correspondence, Investigative Worksheets, Document Withdrawal Records, Agent’s Activity Summaries, Initial Report of Investigation, Sworn Statements, Consent to Search Forms, and Other Supporting Materials], 2004-01-27

Action Taken for Larceny and Other Charges; Includes Detainee Receipt, Document Withdrawal Records, Sworn Statements, Agent’s Activity Summaries, CID Form 66, Initial Report, Agent’s Investigation Reports, and Other Supporting Materials], 2004-02-26

Action Taken for Reckless Endangerment and Other Charges; Includes Sworn Statements, Investigative Worksheets, Agent’s Activity Summaries, Document Withdrawal Records, Sketches, and Other Supporting Materials], 2003-06-10

Action Taken on Charges of Willful Dereliction of Duty, Cruelty and Maltreatment, Assault, Conduct Unbecoming, Obstruction of Justice, and Reckless Endangerment; Includes Initial Report, Agent’s Investigation Report, Sworn Statements, Rights Waivers, Memoranda, and Copies of Photographs], 2004-02-09

Action Taken on Cruelty, Assault, and Other Charges; Includes Final Report of Investigation, Agent’s Investigation Reports, Sworn Statements, and Agent’s Activity Summary], 2004-02-09

Action Taken on Obstruction of Justice Charges], 2004-08-23

Action Taken on Obstruction of Justice Charges], 2004-06-23

Action Taken on Obstruction of Justice, Theft, Assault, and Other Charges], 2005-04-19

Action Taken on Robbery and Malingering Charges; Includes Final Report of Investigation, Agent’s Investigation Reports, Sworn Statements,Initial Report, CID Form 66, Agent’s Activity Summaries, Interview Worksheet, Email Correspondence, and Memoranda], 2004-09-17

Action Taken on Robbery and Obstructing Justice Charges], 2004-05-06

Action Taken on Robbery Charges], 2004-05-06

Activation of the Multi National Corps-Iraq, 2004-05-15

Activists Express Concern over Gitmo [Guantánamo] Transfer, 2003-03-07

Additional Initial Statements of Detainees at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility; Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention], 2004-11-08

Add on 101st Airborne Division; Handwritten], (Date Unknown)

Add on 10th Mountain; Handwritten], (Date Unknown)

Address of Louise Arbour U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Biennial Conference of the International Commission of Jurists (Berlin): Security under the Rule of Law, 2004-08-27

Administrative Reprimand, 2003-07-21

Admin Law Control Sheet, 2003-09-06

Admin. Law Control Sheet, 2003-09-20

Advance Directives, 2005-04-01

Afghan Detainees, 2004-03-12

Afghan Human Rights Chief [Excised], 2004-05-19

Afghan Human Rights Chief [Excised], 2004-05-19

Afghanistan: Abuses by U.S. Forces, 2004-03-08

Afghanistan, 2004-11-09

After Action Report Joint Task Force Guantánamo Bay (JTF-GTMO) Training Evolution, 2003-01-15

ALCID Memorandum 012-04, Chapter 5, CID Regulation 195-1, Criminal Investigation Operational Procedures, 15 January 2004, 2004-06-07

ALCID Memorandum 015-02, Chapter 4 (Administration of Investigations), CID Regulation 195-1, Criminal Investigation Operational Procedures, 1 January 2002, 2002-04-03

ALCITF Memorandum 004-02, Interrogation Procedures, 2002-12-16

Aligning Operations at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility with Guantánamo Bay Procedures; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-19

Allegation of Detainee Abuse, 2004-08-31

Allegation of Detainee Abuse, 2004-06-07

Allegation of Mistreatment, 2003-11-14

Allegations of Abuse at Guantánamo Bay since January 2002 That Have Been Reported through the CSRT Process, 2004-07-07

Allegations of Abuse of Detained Iraqi Family; Annex 224: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention], 2004-10-12

Allegations of Abuse of Detained Iraqi Family; Annex 225: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention], 2004-10-12

Allegations of Abuse of Detained Iraqi Family; Annex 226: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention], 2004-10-12

Allegations of Abuse of Detained Iraqi Family: Annex 228: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention], 2004-10-13

Allegations of Detainee Abuse, 2004-08-02

Allegations of Detainee Abuse; Annex 117: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Attached to Memorandum for Record Dated August 7, 2004], 2004-06-24

Allegations of Detainee Abuse; Annex 222: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention], 2004-10-12

Allegations of Detainee Abuse; Annex 227: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention], 2004-10-12

Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility], 2004-03-18

Allegations of Detainee Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004-04-02

Allegations of Detainee Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004-03-07

Allegations of Mistreatment of Detainees at Abu Ghraib], 2004-06-25

Allegations of “Mock Executions”, 2003-06-23

Allegations of Torture regarding [Excised], 2004-12-11

Alleged Assault of Iraqi Prisoners of War], 2003-10-08

Alleged Detainee Abuse as Reported by Detainee 7400, 2004-06-04

Alleged Detainee Abuse by TF 62-6 Personnel, 2004-06-25

Alleged New Photos of Detainee Abuse (Iraq), 2004-05-19

All Posts Cable, 2004-02-19

Al Thayiar Fedayeen Cell Raid on 27 Apr. 04, 2004-04-27

Ambassador Engages Arab Military Officers, 2003-07-19

Ambassador Prosper Discusses Iraqi War Crimes, Guantánamo, 2003-09-11

Ambassador’s Jan. 22 Discussion of Detainees with MFA State Secretary Pleuger, 2002-01-24

Amended Petition for Relief under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, and, in the Alternative, for Writ of Habeas Corpus, 2008-02-21

American Bar Association, Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, Report to the House of Delegates, 2003-04-26

Amnesty International Member’s Concern about Abu Ghraib Detainee Mohammad Jassem ‘Abd al-Issawi], 2004-06-09

AMS-ASIL HR & IHL & [GTMO], 2004-07-16

Anal Fissure: Medline Plus Encyclopedia Entry; Annex 181: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Includes Page 2 of 2 Only], 2004-06-18

Anna Lindh on GTMO [Guantánamo] Detainee, 2002-10-31

Annex 183: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Withheld from Release], 2004-11-08

Annex 187: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Heavily Excised], 2004-11-08

Annex 89: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Completely Excised], 2004-11-08

Annexes to the Taguba Report; Taguba Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade], 2004-03-13

Annex: Summary of Allegations, 2002-09-02

Another Status Update (18JUL), 2004-07-18

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, A. Howard Matz, District Judge, Presiding, Argued and Submitted August 11, 2003, San Francisco, California, Filed December 18, 2003, 2003-12-18

Appendix 1 to Annex E: Enemy Prisoners of War, Civilian Internees, and Other Detained Persons, 2004-04-01

Appendix 2: Excerpts from ICRC Press Statements on USG Detention Policies, 2004-05-13

Appendix 4 to Annex C to Combined Joint Task Force 7 Operation Order 04-01; Annex 9: Formica Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP and 5th SF Group Detention; Withheld from Release], 2004-11-08

Appendix: Annex List, 2004-11-08

Application of 18 USC 2340-2340A to Certain Techniques That May Be Used in the Interrogation of a High Value al Qaeda Detainee, 2005-05-10

Application of 18 USC 2340-2340A to the Combined Use of Certain Techniques in the Interrogation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees, 2005-05-10

Application of Geneva Conventions in Iraq Conflict and in the War on Terrorism, 2003-03-27

Application of Geneva Conventions, 2003-03-25

Application of Geneva Conventions, 2003-03-25

Application of Interrogation Methods Used at Guantánamo Bay Detention Center to Abu Ghraib Detention Facility Operations; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-21

Application of Interrogation Methods Used at Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility to Abu Ghraib Detention Facility Operations; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-05-24

Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees, 2002-01-09

Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees, 2002-01-22

Application of United States Obligations under Article 16 of the Convention against Torture to Certain Techniques That May Be Used in the Interrogation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees, 2005-05-30

Appointment as a 15-6 Investigating Officer, 2003-08-25

Appointment as Investigating Officer, 2004-06-08

Appointment of Investigating Officer, 2004-12-29

Appointment of Investigating Officer, 2003-09-22

Appointment of Investigating Officer, 2003-08-16

Appointment of Investigating Officer, 2004-01-14

Appointment of Investigating Officer, 2003-08-01

Appointment of Senior Investigating Officer, 2005-02-28

Appointment of Senior Investigating Officer–Supplemental Instruction #2, 2005-06-02

Appointment of Senior Investigating Officer–Supplemental Instructions, 2005-05-05

Appointment Order, 2004-05-06

Appointment Request: Mr. Jakob Kellenberger, President, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), between January 12-16, 2003-12-11

Appointment Request: Mr. Jakob Kellenberger, President, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), between January 12-16, 2003-12-11

Appointment Request: Mr. Jakob Kellenberger, President, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on May 27 or May 28, 2003-05-08

Apprehension of Mother Deception Memorandum; Enclosure 72: Schmidt-Furlow Report–Investigation into Federal Bureau of Investigation Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantánamo Bay Detention Center; Withheld from Release], 2005-04-01

Approval for Interrogation of Naked Detainee; Annex to Fay/Jones/Kern
Report: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib], 2004-06-10

AR 15-6 Investigation and Reprimand; Attachments Not Included], 2004-05-19

AR 15-6 Investigation, 2004-06-20

AR 15-6 Investigation into the Death of Abu Malik Kenami, 2003-12-28

AR 15-6 Investigation–Legal Review, 2003-09-14

AR 15-6 Investigation–Legal Review, 2003-09-06

AR 15-6 Investigation–Legal Review, 2003-09-07

AR 15-6 Investigation Legal Review, 2004-02-26

AR 15-6 Investigation Legal Review, 2003-10-08

AR 15-6 Investigation–Legal Review, 2003-09-05

AR 15-6 Investigation–Legal Review, 2003-07-26

AR 15-6: Procedures for Investigating Officers and Boards of Officers–Cover Page and Table of Contents; Enclosure 9: Schmidt-Furlow Report–Investigation into Federal Bureau of Investigation Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantánamo Bay Detention Center; Document Not Included], 2006-10-02

AR 15-6 Report: GTMO [Guantánamo] Investigation–FBI Allegations of Abuse, 2005-04-01

Arbitrary Detention Inquiry, 2003-01-22

ARCENT CAT [Army Central Command Combined Arms Assessment Team] Initial Impressions Report (IIR), 2002-02-26

Army Accident Investigation and Reporting, 1994-11-01

Army CID [Criminal Investigation Command] Request for Interview, 2004-08-06

Army CID [Criminal Investigation Command] Request for Interview, 2004-07-01

Army CID [Criminal Investigation Command] Request for Interview, 2004-07-01

The Army Corrections System, 2004-04-05

Army Court-Martial Completed in Case of PFC [Excised], 2004-08-05

Army Detainee Responsibilities.ppt, 2004-05-14

Army Investigations into Abuse of Detainees], (Date Unknown)

Army Regulation 15-6: Final Report–Investigation into FBI Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba Detention Facility, 2005-04-01

Army Reserve 377th MP Company Soldiers–Pending UCMJ Prosecutions/Investigations, 2004-05-05

The Army Reserve Serving with an Army at War: Abu Ghraib Detainee Abuse, 2004-05-17

Article 15-6 Investigation Interview, 2004-02-15

Article 15-6 Investigation of CJSOTF-AP [Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Arabian Peninsula] and 5th SF [Special Forces] Group Detention Operations, 2004-11-08

Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade, 2004-07-07

Article 15 Detainee Data Call, 2004-08-02

Article 15 Scheduling/Counseling, 2003-11-10

Article 32 Findings on Abuse of Detainees at Camp Bucca; Includes Chronological Record of Events and Investigating Officer’s Reports; Annex 35: Taguba Report: Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade], 2003-08-26

Article 78 Board: Report of Decision, 2004-06-25

Article 78 Board: Report of Decision, 2004-06-25

Article 78 Board: Report of Decision, 2004-05-15

Article 78 Board: Report of Decision, 2004-05-15

Article 78 Board: Report of Decision, 2004-06-04

Assault and Battery Charges against Member of 2nd Joint Detention Operations Group, Military Police Company, Joint Task Force-Guantánamo; Includes Request for Soldier Move, Staff Judge Advocate Article 15 Processing Sheet, and Article 15 Supporting Documentation], 2004-10-21

Assault on Detainee, 2004-08-24

Assessment and Recommendations regarding Interviewing, Debriefing, Interrogation of al-Qaeda/Taliban Detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo), 2002-02-13

Assessment of Department of Justice Legal Memorandum on Definition of Torture], 2002-08-01

Assessment of Detainee Collection Point Procedures], 2003-04-22

Assessment of Division and Forward Collection Points, 2003-09-15

Assessment of DOD [Department of Defense] Counterterrorism Interrogation and Detention Operations in Iraq, 2003-09-09

Attachment Entitled “Schlesinger Panel New QAv1.doc” Not Included], 2004-06-04

Attorney for Australian Detainee Writes to Ambassador, 2002-04-29

Attorney’s Letter on French Citizens Detained in Guantánamo, 2002-03-26

August 5 Transfer of Detainees to Guantánamo, 2002-08-09

Australian Nationals Detained in Guantánamo, 2002-05-09

Australian Shadow Foreign Minister on the Alliance, the War on Terror, and Pakistan, 2002-02-06

Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities
within the United States, 2001-10-23

Autopsy Examination Report for Detainee], 2004-07-08

Autopsy Examination Report for Detainee], 2004-06-29

Autopsy Examination Report for Iraqi Male Detainee], 2004-05-19

Today’s Senate hearings, carried on CNBC, Bloomberg, and C-SPAN, represent the first major exposure of the American people to the scandalous frauds of the derivatives casino, including synthetic collateralized debt obligations (synthetic CDOs or CDO²). These are things most people have heard very little about. They begin to open up the shocking reality behind such shopworn euphemisms like “toxic assets,” “exotic instruments,” and “troubled assets.” Reactionaries in general and Republicans in particular have done everything possible to hide the role of derivatives, which must be considered the main cause of the financial panic of September 2008 which brought down Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG, after felling Bear Stearns in March of the same year. The reactionary legend, repeated yesterday on the Senate floor by financier minion GOP Sen. Gregg of New Hampshire, is that the crisis was caused by poor people taking out subprime mortgages and then defaulting, bringing down the entire Anglo-American banking system and triggering the bailouts. Either that, or too much government spending was too blame.

A mass of kited derivatives blew up in September 2008

This Big Lie has come from such propaganda sources as the Limbaugh Institute of Retarded Reactionary Ranting. But the $1.5 trillion in subprime mortgages were dwarfed by the $15 trillion US residential real estate market, to say nothing of the $1.5 thousand trillion world derivatives bubble. But, starting with Bush-Goldman Sachs Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the talk has been of a “housing correction,” not a derivatives panic. It must be pointed out that derivatives are nothing but wagers, bets placed from a distance on securities which themselves are often not mortgages, but rather other derivatives. The bettor buying a synthetic CDO or CDO² does not own the underlying mortgages or mortgage-backed securities, any more than someone who bets on a racehorse owns part of the horse. Blankfein and others tried to portray derivatives as a service to hedgers and end-users, but it’s clear that the vast majority of derivatives involve neither hedgers nor users, but only bettors on both side of the transaction. It is in any case this mass of kited derivatives which blew up in 2008, bringing on the present world economic depression.

Goldman Sachs executives are babbling cretins

The mystique of Goldman Sachs is based in large part on their reputation as the smartest financiers on Wall Street. After today’s hearings, this mystique has permanently dissipated. The Goldman executives babbled. They sounded dumb. They stalled and stammered and went into contortions to avoid giving straight answers to simple questions. They were mendacious and evasive when they did speak. Financial powers around the world will note carefully the refusal of three out of four Goldman executives on one panel to state that they had a duty to defend the interests of their clients. Who will want to do business with such a gang? Goldman Sachs got $10 billion of taxpayer money in low-interest loans under the Bush-Paulson TARP. Part of that money went to pay for obscene bonuses for Goldman executives like the ones on display today. The argument for bonuses is that they must be paid to retain the highly talented personnel, virtual geniuses, who are indispensable for Wall Street speculative success. But these are no geniuses, they are imbeciles. No more bonuses should be paid by banks saved through public money.

Don’t buy any used cars from Lloyd Blankfein

Sleaziest of all was Goldman’s risk-monger in chief, Lloyd Blankfein, who pretended not to know that derivatives are often kept hidden off balance sheet. The morally insane Blankfein testified that his role was to provide the firm’s clients with “the risk they wanted.” Other GS witnesses represented the firm’s role as “distributing risk.” But it turned out that they were manufacturing risk through the very existence and activities of Goldman Sachs, which had the result of pyramiding the total risk of the US financial system into intergalactic space. It is time to regulate much of that unbearable risk out of existence with appropriate regulatory legislation. In the meantime, no sane person would buy a used car from Blankfein. Nor should they believe his assurance that the “recession” has ended.

But when at the end of the day Blankfein finally suggested to Sen. Tester that synthetic CDOs might be outlawed, we should accept his proposal immediately.

Today’s hearings reveal the Goldman Sachs gunslingers and whiz kids as ignorant gangsters and con artists, notable only for their ability to practice massive fraud with impudence. These sleazy mediocrities do not deserve bonuses paid for by taxpayers. Rather, it is time to shut them down and put them in the dock.

If Goldman Sachs had cared about is clients, it would have urgently warned them to unload their subprime risk by late 2006 or thereabouts. Instead, Goldman was busily increasing its clients’ risk by selling them more toxic CDOs out of its own inventory warehouse.

Goldman Sachs: bookies who stack the deck and fix the games

As the philandering Sen. Ensign pointed out, comparing Wall Street to Las Vegas is a slander on the croupiers of Las Vegas, where everyone knows or should know that the game is rigged so that the house always wins. To use the comparison introduced by Sen. McCaskill, Goldman Sachs was operating as the gambling house, or the bookie. At the same time, Goldman was betting for their own account. But much worse was the fact that Goldman was stacking the decks, loading the dice, fixing the games on which the bets were placed, and bribing the umpires.

As Ensign put it in a rare moment of lucidity, the subprime mortgage was bad. But the collapse of subprime would not have had anything like its actual destructive effect on the US economy if it had not been compounded by the mass of synthetic derivatives that were piled on top of subprime.

No national or social purpose served by Goldman Sachs and toxic derivatives bets

The broader issue raised by today’s hearing is: what human purpose is served by the existence of Goldman Sachs, which concocts toxic synthetic CDOs for the purpose of allowing speculators, who are often lied to and duped, to bet for or against them. Goldman Sachs can only be described as a speculative parasite which promotes the activities of other speculative parasites, such as the John Paulson hedge fund at the expense of the public and of its other clients. It was a crime to inject $10 billion of Treasury money into Goldman Sachs. It was another crime for the Fed to lend Goldman untold billions (just how many billions Bernanke still refuses to disclose) to keep them afloat and enable more predatory profits. These crimes must stop, and the public money must be clawed back. Most important, it is time to shut down the derivatives rackets.

Goldman got $12.5 billion from taxpayers for AIG credit default swaps

Useful questions from GOP Sen. Coburn pointed to another kind of derivative: the infamous credit default swap (CDS). These CDS are what brought down AIG, whose London hedge fund had issues $3 trillion in derivatives. When the government bailed out AIG, part of that $180 billion of taxpayer money was used for payouts to the CDS counterparties of AIG, biggest among them Goldman, which got $12.5 billion from the US taxpayer. That was 100 cents on the dollar on a mass of toxic CDS. Coburn wanted to know why Goldman got all their money back, while GM bondholders took a bath as GM went bankrupt. That was, of course, a matter of Goldman’s political clout through GS alum Henry Paulson and Obama Car Czar Steve “The Rat” Rattner, backed up by the historic preponderance of finance capital over industrial capital in this country since Andrew Carnegie sold out to JP Morgan over a century ago.

Derivatives and zombie banks: the toll

Thanks to Goldman Sachs, the other Wall Street zombie banks, and their derivatives, the financial panic of 2008 has turned into a world economic depression of unimaginable proportions. The unemployed and underemployed in the US alone are surely in excess of 20 million. Five to six million home foreclosures are already done or in the pipeline, throwing tens of millions of Americans out of their homes. World trade has been seriously impacted. The budgets of California, New York, Illinois, and many other states are in crisis, with massive layoffs of teachers and other state employees. An entire generation is being destroyed. Now, Greek bonds are trading at junk levels under the attack of speculative predators including Soros, Greenlight Capital, SAC, and the protagonists of today’s hearings – Paulson and Co and Goldman Sachs itself. The attack on Greece and the euro represents the leading edge of the second wave of the depression, which is now arriving in much the same way that the second wave of the 1930s depression was unleashed by the Vienna Kreditanstalt bankruptcy in May of 1931, about 79 years ago and just a year and a half into that depression.

The goal of the Republicans is to portray themselves as stern judges of Wall Street, even as they line up in a unanimous phalanx to protect the finance jackals from any meaningful regulation whatsoever — as seen in yesterday’s vote to block cloture on derivatives re-regulation and reform. The goal of the Democrats is to expose the sociopathic evil of Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street while preening themselves as defenders of the public interest, without however banning credit default swaps, banning synthetic CDOs, and imposing a Wall Street sales tax on all remaining derivatives and asset transactions.

To this degree, today’s hearings are being conducted in bad faith by both major parties. However, the dynamic of the resulting spectacle has the result of educating and mobilizing public opinion against the predatory practices which are the essence of Wall Street, even a year and a half after the banking panic of September 2008 and the monster bailout of zombie banks which soon followed. What is required is a new edition of the anti-banker sentiment set off by the Senate Banking Committee hearings conducted from January 1933 to May 1934 by committee counsel Ferdinand Pecora, which unmasked the corruption of Wall Street. Persons of good will need to get active now to push this process as far as possible while these social dynamics are working. It is time to hit the zombie banks, the hedge funds, and their derivatives as hard as possible, before the second wave of the depression hits. The program necessary to fight the depression and break the strangle-hold of Wall Street on the US economy and political system is given on my web site.

Mitch McConnell on the bailout: “Harry, I think we need to do this, we should try to do this, and we can do this.”

During a break the senators filed out, and the GOP reactionary lockstep once again blocked cloture for a final debate on the Wall Street reform bill, weak as it is. Many activists of the Tea Party naively believe that they have been fighting for a year and a half that they have been fighting to take back the Republican Party. If that is what they believe, today’s second cloture vote proves that they have gotten nowhere in their efforts. Despite their charades, the GOP are the bodyguards of the Wall Street predators. Tea baggers who think they can break the Wall Street grip on the Republicans are pathetic dupes, and they need to wake up, pronto.

When Paulson went to the leaders of Congress to demand a $700 billion bailout for Goldman and his Wall Street cronies, GOP Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was “deeply frightened” by the apocalyptic briefing delivered by Paulson and Bernanke. When Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid started talking about how difficult it would be to get so much money in a hurry, McConnell urged an immediate bailout, saying: “Harry, I think we need to do this, we should try to do this, and we can do this.” (Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail [New York: Viking, 2009], p. 442) The GOP was the original party of the bailout, and they have not repented, as best seen through the continuance of McConnell, one of the key midwives of the bailout, as Republican Senate Majority Leader. This is the same McConnell who went to Wall Street recently to meet with zombie bankers and hedge fund hyenas, pledging to block derivatives reforms in exchange for big bucks contributed to the GOP’s campaign coffers. Tea baggers who think the GOP has changed or is moving to their side are sadly deluded.

Today, the market fetishism of the crackpot Austrian school has taken a severe blow. Now that Blankfein‘s public image has been soiled by Goldman’s scurrilous and scatological emails, the time is ripe for the radical reform of derivatives and the zombie banks. This is a matter of national survival.

Now that Goldman Sachs is masquerading as a bank holding company, it is subject to FDIC rules. If Goldman’s derivative hoard is marked to market, it is bankrupt. The FDIC should therefore seize Goldman and liquidate it under chapter 7 of the US Code. Sheila Bair should not wait for Friday.

As the world faces an ongoing sovereign debt debacle we see an attempt to defuse an oncoming scandal involving Goldman Sachs, Paulson and perhaps others.

The collapse of the fiat money system is underway and each day picks up momentum. The only question is how long it can survive? In the interim we are faced with inflation and perhaps hyperinflation as the privately owned Federal Reserve and other central banks add stimulus and money and credit into their financial systems.

America’s system of finance and economy has been deliberately destroyed via regulation, illegal immigration and free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing. We wrote about these issues and tactics as long ago as 1967. Taxes on both individuals and corporations are still onerous, the exception being the rich who pay far less than their fair share. By the way taxes will increase in the future and government may in the future attempt to take away your retirement plans and replace them with guaranteed annuities. We ask how can a bankrupt government guarantee anything? America and the rest of the world are realizing that you cannot live beyond your means indefinitely. The resultant poverty that eventually results is accompanied by the theft of wealth by inflation, subtly and secretly.

We have witnessed over the past few years a long line of frauds that usually accompany the collapse of a system. They are accompanied by government malfeasance and the arrogance of those who defraud the system with impunity. How can any nation survive if their currency and their bonds are worthless?

Someone’s loss is someone else’s gain and in this turmoil you can do two things. One is to protect your assets and the other is to capitalize on your knowledge. Do not allow the elitists to take your hard earned savings. It is our belief that 60% of sovereign debt will never be repaid.

The government is injecting a minimum of $1.5 trillion into the economy each year, as the Fed is adding at least $1 trillion. We are facing an end to stimulus and further Fed injections. If that happens it will thrust the US economy into a great dark pit a year from now. Then the insolvency of banking, Wall Street and government will become very apparent. What government has done is lie about everything, especially the amount of money they have thrust into the economy, via bailouts of the entire financial sphere and the manipulation of markets.

If they had not done what they did the system would have collapsed long ago. What they have done has only delayed the inevitable. As we look back 50 years all we have seen is one crisis after another. There has never really been a meaningful recovery. The result is that Keynesian economics has had American economy on a roller coaster going nowhere. We have wasted opportunities and have destroyed our financial and economic structure to provide for the enrichment of the elitists who from behind the scenes control our economy and the world economy. G-20 debt is staggering, never mind US debt and worse yet, it is unpayable. The so-called recovery we are having is a sad joke. We have just had an interlude in an inflationary depression. The next phase is higher taxation and even more government control. Need we remind you that fascism is government by regulation and this is what we have in America today. Its evolution is a subtle, secret, strangling process. If only people would read the history of Europe during the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s and 40s, you would truly understand what is in process. You must remember Hitler was created at Versailles. Illuminists in the US, UK and across Europe financed both Hitler and Mussolini. Both did not have a clue they were being set up. This is the same thing that is happening in America today and in other countries as well.

We face one round after another of creative destruction. That is why we have real unemployment of 22-1/8%, almost as bad as during the 1930s. Banks are only selectively lending, so as a result the economy cannot grow. Inflation is 8%; wages are static, so buying power has been crippled. This predicament should be called corporatist fascism or socialism for the elitists and as a result 92% of small business polled said they see no recovery for 14 to 18 months. How can those who hire 80% of workers create new jobs – they cannot and won’t. That means there can be no sustained recovery.

This leads us to the frauds on Wall Street and banking. We have pointed out for some time that Wall Street and banking had turned into a criminal enterprise. They always skated down the edge, but nothing like what we have seen over the past 20 years. Having been in the brokerage industry for 28 years and around it for 50 years we have been in a position to observe it closely. Today it’s massively rife with criminality. The exposure of Lehman’s crimes in hearings has been unprecedented. We wonder how many other firms did the same thing and their actions were covered up by the Fed and the SEC, as well as the CFTC? They are still underestimating debt levels by 40 to 50 percent, which means their focus reports are useless. The spirit of honesty and integrity still doesn’t exist. They are essentially keeping two sets of books and that makes their financial statements useless and fraudulent.

That doesn’t bother the SEC, the BIS, the FASB, the Treasury or the Fed; they supervise the lawbreaking. Debt levels are massively understated by keeping two sets of books and by marking-to-model, fantasy, not to market. All of this is a result of the termination of the Glass Steagal Act. It is all fraud, even if the government sanctions it. They are all acting in concert to screw the investor and the public. These people are all criminals. The excuse is that they are too big to fail. It is all fraud no matter which way you cut it. This is a criminal syndicate that should legally be out of business – bankrupt. They are all being bailed out, but we do not see the public being bailed out. The bailout of banking, Wall Street and insurance is still in process and there is no end in sight. There are two sets of laws. One for the Illuminists/elitist and another for us. Congress won’t do anything about it because most of them have been paid off. That is what campaign contributions and lobbying are all about. We espoused these views in university almost 60 years ago, and the only reason our views were tolerated was that we had two uncles who were professors at the university.

Taxes will rise substantially this year and next year because your representatives and senators know the government is broke. Among other things the medical reform bill is a tax bill as well.

Government is the problem but they are really useful idiots. The real power lies with the Illuminist behind the scenes. The financial sector is broke and it is unfixable. They know that and they are trying to stretch out the problem as far as possible to pick the right date to pull the deflationary plug.

If all this weren’t bad enough the Dodd bill in the Senate would create a permanent bailout mechanism that would create more risky behavior that would lead to perpetual bailouts for the financial industries. This is not financial reform, it is more corporatist fascism. To show you how bought and paid for Senate Banking Committee members are, the bill was voted out in 22 minutes with no amendments and no debate allowed. That is not democracy in action. The bill will now be rushed to the floor and passed.

The bill would also create a $50 billion bailout slush fund controlled by the FDIC and a new FDIC tax would be implemented on banks, which, of course, would be passed onto the public in higher banking costs.

The bill would also bail out creditors of companies. The slush fund would cover that as well. They call this riskless investment for corporate America and any bills would be picked up by the banks and passed on to Americans. We will then have hundreds or thousands of AIGs and GM’s. You ask yourself where does this all end? Read the history of the late1920s and into the 1930s of Italy and Germany and you will find out.

As the Senate and the House do the work of the bankers the bond market is in the process of sinking as yields rise. Higher rates, which we predicted last November, will become reality by the end of the year. A move by the US 10-year note from 3.20% to 4.5% or 5% will be the kiss of death for the mortgage industry. The 10-year yields 3.79% and the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 5.07%. If 10’s go to 4.5%, mortgages will rise to 5.80% and a 5% ten-year note would work out to a 6.3% 30-year.

An increase in rates from 5.07% to 6.07% would add 19% to the total cost of a home, which means that any long-term recovery in housing is out of the question and that residential values would have to fall further as fewer and fewer people could qualify for loans. In fact, all loans would become more expensive, such as for business, credit cards, auto loans, etc. That 1% will increase debt service for the government by about $150 billion a year. This frankly presents the best of all worlds. If foreigners, such as the Chinese, Japanese or Russians became aggressive US bond sellers rates would climb considerably higher, inflicting even more damage to the economy and to US debt.

Most of you do not remember but mortgage rates hit about 18% in 1981, as official inflation hit 14-1/2%. Gold peaked out at $850, some six months earlier. On today’s mortgages that would triple payments on new mortgages and resets. As happened in 1981 the real estate market came to a standstill. Such an event would come when existing household debt is considerably higher. Debt today is already near 90% of GDP. Government debt is colossal, growing every minute and it is unpayable.

The bond market is going down and yields are going up and that is not good. The rise in interest rates has historically brought about higher gold and silver prices, because higher rates bring higher inflation. As we have said over and over again the only safe and profitable place to be is in gold and silver related assets. The storm is now just getting underway.

The MBA Mortgage Purchase Applications Index is 10.1%. The refi index was up to 15.8% versus 9.0% the prior week. The 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 5.04% and the 15’s were 4.34%.

The Treasury will sell $128 billion in notes next week, which is unprecedented. Talk about crowding out.

Governments worldwide will probably issue $4.5 trillion in debt this year, which is triple the 5-year average for industrial nations. Forty-five percent of that debt will be issued by the US.

We are told Russia and China are selling Treasuries and buying gold.

The US commercial paper market rose $1.5 billion to about $1.076 trillion this week.

Our sources within the banking industry tell us that 3-5 bank, First Source, Horizon and several others are in trouble. These are banks that refused TARP money. They have been told to expect an audit and that no further support can ever be expected from the Fed again. Auditors have already hit some of these banks and threatened them. One bank was told they were under capitalized and they were not. They arranged an additional line of credit with another bank and the Fed backed off. This criminal extortion is part of the move to eventual bank nationalization. The industry is hanging by a thread, as huge interest rate increases loom. The system lives on virtual money and that can only end up in real trouble. Again, do not hold CDs, annuities or cash value life policies, especially large balances. Not only banks will go under, but also so will insurance companies.

McClatchy: While Goldman Sachs’ lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman’s chief executive visited the White House at least four times.

White House logs show that Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein traveled to Washington for at least two events with President Barack Obama, whose 2008 presidential campaign received $994,795 in donations from Goldman’s political action committee, its employees and their relatives. He also met twice with Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers.

Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist, said that “almost everything that the White House has done has been haunted by the personnel and the money of Goldman. as well as the suspicion that the White House, particularly early on, was pulling its punches out of deference to Goldman and its war chest.

“There’s now kind of a magnifying glass on the administration for any sign of interference or conversations with the regulators and the judiciary,” Jacobs said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92637/goldmans-connections-to-white.html

Goldman Sachs was both an underwriter and an investor in Lloyds Banking Group’s vast refinancing deal late last year, the FT has learned, highlighting the potential conflicts of interest at the heart of the investment bank’s business model.

According to four people involved in the capital raising, Goldman – a dealer manager on the debt portion of the £23.5bn transaction – demanded last-minute changes to the structure of a deal it was underwriting. This had the effect of benefiting its position as a bond investor.

A Goldman director tipped off Galleon’s Raj Rajaratnam about a $5 billion investment in Goldman by Berkshire Hathaway before a public announcement.

The revelation marks a significant turn in the government’s case against Rajaratnam, the hedge-fund titan at the center of the largest insider-trading case in a generation.

After the SEC tagged Goldman, we opined that Bubblevision, or for that many virtually all pundits and media types, did not mention Buffett’s association with Goldman or how Buffett demanded and got heads after the Salomon-Treasury Auction rigging scandal. Maybe now someone will ask Warren about Goldie.

Buffett spokesman, Thomas Murphy surfaced last night, to say Buffett has ‘great confidence’ in Goldie.

U.S. mortgage applications bounced from three-month lows last week as potential buyers locked in lower borrowing costs before the federal tax credit expires, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

Thirty-year mortgage rates dropped to hover around 5 percent, stoking home loan demand after applications slid for two straight weeks.

Refinancing picked up by 15.8 percent to represent 60 percent of all applications last week. Demand for loans to buy a home increased 10.1 percent to send the industry group’s total applications index up 13.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis.

“Purchase applications continued to increase coming out of the Easter holiday, as we approach the end of the homebuyer tax credit, and are up modestly over last month,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics.

Falling Treasury yields, used as a peg for mortgage rates, helped reduce the average 30-year loan rate by 0.13 percentage point to
5.04 percent.

The rate was up to 5.31 percent two weeks earlier, the highest since August 2009, and remains above the record low of 4.61
percent set in March of last year.

Harsh winter weather sapped housing demand in the first months of the year. The initial wave of the homebuyer tax credit, extended and broadened late last year, were seen having robbed some of this year’s demand.

But some signs have emerged that buyers are surfacing to lock in the credit while they can. If they qualify for the incentives of up to $8,000, they need to have home contracts signed by the end of April and close loans by June 30.

Permits to build houses, for example, in April shot up to the highest level since October 2008.

At best, though, housing is widely seen hovering around current weak levels at least through the year. The market still needs to work through a record stockpile of foreclosed properties, which RealtyTrac forecasts could drag into 2013.

Jack Pritchard, Charlotte, North Carolina-based co-founder of Refinance.com, sees rising mortgage rates later this year and the expiration of the tax credits cutting into home sales and refinancing.

“The spring housing season, even with the tax credit, would be considered stable — but stable at the bottom,” he said.

“You’ve got a consumer trying to time the ultimate bottom in real estate prices and you still have extremely tight credit standards for consumers to qualify,” Pritchard added.

FOX Business Network has expanded its quest for documents from the Federal Reserve in order to shed light on which financial firms borrowed funds during the financial crisis.

The network filed its new suit this afternoon in New York requesting documents from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors that will name each financial institution that borrowed from the various emergency lending facilities from November 1, 2008 through March 1, 2010. FOX Business originally sued the Fed for those documents but for a time period that ended on November 1, 2008.

The network scored a major victory in the original suit when the second circuit court of appeals ruled that the Fed had to turn over the requested documents. The Federal Reserve is expected to ask the court to reconsider the case and has said it is willing to take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary to protect the identity of the firms which received billions in taxpayer-backed guarantees.

The new suit expands the date through 2010 to learn which firms continued to seek emergency lending after the initial crisis had passed. FOX Business is also attempting to learn how much each individual institution received.

The U.S. Federal Reserve said on Wednesday it transferred a record $47.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 2009 as a result of its programs to help the economy and financial firms during the financial crisis.

The increase in income was primarily due to interest earnings on mortgage-backed securities issued by government supported mortgage finance agencies, the Fed said.

Some of the data in the Fed’s 2009 annual financial statement revises estimates released in January.

The 12 Fed regional banks are required to transfer their profits to the Treasury after paying dividends to member banks and retaining some of their surplus.

Fed officials said the U.S. central bank’s payment to the Treasury in 2009 was a $15.7 billion, or 50 percent, increase over 2008. The previous record was $34.6 billion in 2007, and the pre-crisis level was around $20 billion, Fed officials told reporters.

The Fed took unprecedented actions to prop up the economy during the storm but has been under fire from lawmakers on Capitol Hill over financial firm bailouts and regulatory lapses.

The credit risk on the Fed’s balance sheet is down sharply as its loans have decreased and Treasury and government-sponsored mortgage finance agency securities make up a larger share of the central bank’s assets, a Fed official said.

Financial reforms are a top priority for President Barack Obama, and news that the U.S. central bank has been profitable for taxpayers may strengthen the Fed’s hand as lawmakers decide whether to enhance its powers over banks.

A Senate committee on Wednesday approved a bill aimed at reforming the derivatives market, moving the Senate one step closer to passing sweeping regulation over the $450 trillion derivatives market.

The Senate Agriculture Committee approved the legislation by a vote of 13 to 8, with one Republican, Charles Grassley, breaking ranks to vote with Democrats.

The measure, part of the Democrats push to crack down on Wall Street, is expected to be merged into a broader bill from the Senate Banking Committee. A full Senate debate is expected by next week.

Its passage through the committee was a first test of how strongly Democrats are willing to push reform and how easily Republicans may be prepared to play ball.

Regulators charged a Miami Beach, Florida, philanthropist with fraud for allegedly running a $900 million Ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday.

Nevin K. Shapiro, a major donor to the University of Miami’s sports program, sold investors securities that he claimed would fund his Capitol Investments firm’s grocery business and touted returns as high as 26 percent annually, the SEC said.

Instead, Shapiro repurposed funds, making extravagant donations to charities and running a Ponzi scheme where he used funds from new investors to pay the principal and interest to earlier investors, the SEC said.

The 41-year-old Shapiro surrendered to authorities Wednesday morning in New Jersey, his lawyer said. According to the SEC, Shapiro used at least $38 million of investor funds to finance other business activities and a lavish lifestyle, including a $5 million home in Miami Beach, expensive clothes and season tickets to sporting events.

To raise funds, Shapiro attracted investors through word of mouth from friends and business associates, and reassured investors by boasting of his wealth, the SEC said.

When investors questioned Shapiro, he showed them fabricated invoices and purchase orders for nonexistent sales, the SEC said.

Existing home sales increased by 6.8%, good for a total of 5.35 million units, in March, thereby reversing three months of declining sales. This growth beats market forecasts of a more modest 5.6% increase. ??In related data, the US housing price index fell 0.2% in February. This marks the third consecutive month of falling home prices.

The Producer Price Index for the US grew 0.7% in March, beating forecasts of a 0.5% rise over February’s 0.6% decline.

Year-over-year, the PPI increased 6.0% in March compared to February’s annual 4.4% boost. This growth is in line with expectations. ??The PPI excluding food and energy prices rose an expected 0.1% in March, thereby matching February’s rate. ??Year-over-year, the PPI excluding food and energy increased as forecast by 0.9% in March, slightly down from February’s 1.0% growth.

February Housing Price Index declines 0.2% MoM in March vs a 0.6% decline in February

The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell last week as the rebounding economy prompted companies to make fewer job cuts.

Initial jobless applications dropped by 24,000 to 456,000 in the week ended April 17, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance and those getting extended benefits also fell.

Employers enjoying improved sales and profits may be gaining confidence in the economy and retaining staff. A transition from less firing to consistent job growth will ensure the recovery from the deepest recession since the 1930s is sustained.

“The state of the job market is firming,” said John Herrmann, a senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC in Boston, who forecast claims would fall to 458,000. Companies are “actually retaining headcount and growing.”

Economists anticipated claims would fall to 450,000 from a previously reported 484,000 the prior week, according to the median of 47 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 430,000 to 480,000.

Sales of U.S. previously owned homes rose in March for the first time in four months as buyers took advantage of a government tax credit and the weather improved. Purchases climbed 6.8 percent to a 5.35 million annual rate, exceeding the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, data from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. New applications for jobless benefits declined and producer prices rose, Labor Department reports showed.

A homebuyer incentive worth as much as $8,000 for contracts closed by the end of June may provide a short-term boost to the industry that helped trigger the worst recession since the 1930s. Housing’s outlook for the second half of the year will be linked to a rebound in hiring, indicating a recovery will probably take years to develop as foreclosures climb.

Bob Chapman on The International Forecaster.com
Posted: April 24 2010