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1/21/2006

U.S. Troops Shop Till They Drop with Combat Pay :.

This just about sums up the whole damn show. If you want to understand U.S. imperalism, why it has worked up until now, and what drives it, this article is all you need:

Several soldiers interviewed estimated they earned an extra $700 to $800 per month while in Iraq, totaling up to an extra $9,600 for some from their year overseas.

"Without the extra money, I couldn't go out and get this stuff," said Spc. Sherrod White, 21, of Fayetteville, N.C., as he picked out a $1,499 desktop computer with a $599 flat screen monitor at Doering's store.

"A lot of people, they just go crazy with it," he said.

At Hinesville Ford, where Strange picked out his Mustang, general manager Fred Mingledorff said he's on track to sell more than 120 cars this month — compared to 80 during a typical month and 40 while the 3rd Infantry was overseas.

And the troops aren't settling for economy cars, he said.

"They've been fighting a war for a year. When they get back, they sure deserve to be able to spend their money," Mingledorff said.

The Hinesville Wal-Mart Supercenter has conspicuous gaps in its wall of large-screen TVs because impatient buyers have taken the display units.

Even the shelves of pots, pans and other mundane household items have been picked practically bare as soldiers furnish homes and apartments.

"This is something that typically we would never have out of stock," said Wal-Mart manager Ted Sells. "As you can see, they've just wiped us out."


1/20/2006

Syngenta Claims Multi-Genome Monopoly :.

If Syngenta is granted this patent, it will make Monsanto look like Santa Claus.
---Kathy Jo Wetter, ETC
I've never heard of Syngenta---probably because it's an undead reanimation of Zeneca/Novartis/Ciba---but after less than an hour of reading, I have to ask: Is Syngenta the most evil corporation of them all?

This leviathan has made an almost comedic attempt to dress itself up as, "sustainable," WHILE AT THE SAME TIME TRYING TO TAKE CONTROL OF ALL MAJOR FOOD CROPS ON THE PLANET:

Syngenta's 323-page application, WO03000904A2/3 claims monopoly control of DNA that regulates flowering development, flower formation, whole plant architecture and flower timing in rice - in up to 115 countries. But the claims are not limited to vital rice gene sequences. According to a study prepared by Dr. Paul Oldham at Lancaster University (UK), the scope of this massive patent application is virtually limitless - extending to flowering plants in general, including those not yet classified by taxonomists. Syngenta's claims extend to key gene sequences of 23 major food crops annexed to the FAO Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.



Iran 'Moves Assets Out of Europe' :.

This news seems to conflict with the story below about the Iranian oil bourse. Or does it? Maybe Iran will have more Euros than it can pack into its vaults when the energy exchange opens? Maybe they're looking to diversify early?

In response to the threat Iranian central bank governor Ebrahim Sheibani revealed earlier in the week that Iran had begun the process of shifting its assets from Europe, the Iranian Students News Agency said on Friday.

"We transfer foreign currency reserves related to all sectors including oil foreign exchanges to wherever it is good for us and we have started this transfer," the agency quoted him saying.

"Iran has started withdrawing money from European banks and transferring it to other banks abroad," a senior Iranian official told the Reuters agency.

It was not immediately clear where the assets were being moved to, although reports have suggested that Iranian funds could be heading out of Europe to Asia.

Iran's assets in the US were frozen after the revolution of 1979, which saw the pro-Western Shah toppled and a clerical regime installed in Tehran.

It is difficult to estimate the amount of assets that Iran has abroad, but the Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic daily said that about $8bn (GBP4.5bn) had already been moved, mainly to Asian markets.

Other sources have put the total value of Iran's foreign assets at somewhere between $30bn and $50bn.



The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse :.

This is the best essay I've read in a LONG time. Pity, I have to sell my gold:

The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate "nuclear" weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire. That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006. It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro. In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam's, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether.



Feds After Google Data :.

It's for the children:

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.


1/18/2006

Peak Copper? :.

Copper is used in everything from automobiles to ordnance. Copper allows electricity to be generated, transported and conducted to the various outlets in a modern home. Copper is also relatively scarce compared to other metals like iron or aluminum that make up a good portion of the earth itself. So copper serves as an excellent metallic bellwether for potential future resource scarcity, according to a group of researchers who compiled data on its extraction, use, recycling and discard to estimate whether there is enough copper available to make a developed standard of living available to all the world's people. The short answer is: no.



Buffett Unfurls: Issues Warning Over Trade Deficit :.

The U.S. trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal budget deficit or consumer debt and could lead to "political turmoil," billionaire investor Warren Buffett warned.

"Right now, the rest of the world owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them," Buffett told business students and faculty Tuesday at the University of Nevada, Reno. "In my view, it will create political turmoil at some point.... Pretty soon, I think there will be a big adjustment," he said without elaborating.



Getting Out

My time in the U.S. is coming to a close and I need to start turning my stuff into cash so Becky and I can pay off our farm in New Zealand and buy some chickens!

This is off topic, but I'm selling my small reserve of hard currency on eBay. Here are some manageable lots of U.S. silver dimes and quarters. Those of you who are making plans don't need any explanations as to why these small denomination silver coins will come in handy at some point. If you don't get it, try to derive a clue from what just happened in Japan.

Have a nice day, and thanks for biddin'!



Japan: "Individual and Foreign Investors Are Selling in a Panic." :.

Just wait until the "banking holidays" start kicking in:

Japan's main stock market nose-dived for a second day Wednesday on growing investor jitters from "Livedoor shock," the widening criminal investigation at an Internet startup that has sparked a sell-off, especially in technology shares. The benchmark for the Tokyo Stock Exchange plunged 2.9 percent Wednesday in a session that had to be shortened by 20 minutes because of a surge in transactions.

The Nikkei 225 index dropped 464.77 points to close at 15,341.18 points, its biggest drop since May 10, 2004.

Share prices extended losses from Tuesday, when the Nikkei fell 2.8 percent, following Japanese newspaper reports that the investigation begun Monday was expanding. The index has fallen nearly 6 percent the last two sessions.

"Individual and foreign investors are selling in a panic," said Satoru Otsuka, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo. "The problem is that we have no idea how the Livedoor problem will unfold."


1/17/2006

TRADING HALTED ON NIKKEI :.

[IFR Forex Watch]
[SQUAWK BOX]
[04:20 Nikkei Down Over 4%, TOPIX Over 5%, TSE Announcement Scare] Tokyo, Jan 18. The TSE announcement that it will suspend trading due to capacity limits has thrown a scare into the market, and many players are seen rushing to pare down positions ahead of any such event.

- - - - -

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Nikkei share average fell 2.94 percent on Wednesday before the Tokyo Stock Exchange halted trade 20 minutes earlier than usual, as a flood of orders on world's second-largest stock market taxed its computer system.

More than $300 billion in shareholder value has been wiped out of the market this week -- equal to about the gross domestic product of Sweden -- much of it from the fall-out from an investigation into Internet portal company Livedoor Co.

Internet firms and other companies popular with individual investors were among the hardest hit, with Softbank Corp. ending the day down by its daily limit of 500 yen, or 13 percent.



Japanese Market Erases Over $300 Billion This Week :.

A rout in Japanese stocks deepened today, helping to wipe away more than $300 billion in value from the world's second-largest equity market this week.

Technology shares including Tokyo Electron Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. dropped after earnings from Intel Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. fell short of estimates and heightened expectations profits in the industry will disappoint.

Internet-related shares including Softbank Corp. and Yahoo Japan Corp. fell for a second day. The Yomiuri newspaper said today that Livedoor Co. falsified earnings to show a profit instead of a loss in the year ended September 2004.


1/16/2006

Bush's Unlikely Co-Conspirators :.

I don't laugh at Democrats anymore. I pity them:

President Bush deserves plenty of blame for secretly authorizing domestic spying by the National Security Agency. But some of the president's fiercest critics in Congress gave him the political cover to do so. The question why they did so says much about the nation's brittle democracy and how Democrats have covertly joined with Republicans to restore the imperial presidency and effectively remove any checks on the executive branch of the U.S. government.


1/15/2006

Iran Issues Stark Warning on Oil Price :.

Iran stepped up its defiance of international pressure over its nuclear programme yesterday by warning of soaring oil prices if it is subjected to economic sanctions. As diplomats from the US, Europe, Russia, and China prepared to meet today in London to discuss referring Tehran to the UN security council, Iran's economy minister, Davoud Danesh-Jafari, said the country's position as the world's fourth-largest oil producer meant such action would have grave consequences.



Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11 :.

Greed is a bottomless pit
Our freedom's a joke, we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free, start running away

Bright Eyes - Landlocked Blues
The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

In its "Transition 2001" report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that "American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist."

"Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says.

However, it adds that "senior leadership must understand that the NSA's mission will demand a 'powerful, permanent presence' on global telecommunications networks that host both 'protected' communications of Americans and the communications of adversaries the agency wants to target."

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.



MI5 Will Get New Powers to Bug MPs :.

Tony Blair is preparing to scrap a 40-year ban on tapping MPs' telephones, despite fierce Cabinet opposition, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

He is expected to formally announce to the Commons within weeks that MPs can no longer be sure that the security services and others will not intercept their communications.

Until now, successive administrations have pledged that there should be no tapping "whatsoever" of MPs' phones, and that they would be told if it was necessary to breach the ban.

But that convention - known as the Wilson Doctrine, after Harold Wilson, the prime minister who introduced it - is to be abandoned in an expansion of MI5 powers following the London bombings.




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