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4/15/2006

OIL ABOVE $70 :.

* yawn *

The price of Brent North Sea crude oil broke through $70 a barrel for the first time on Thursday evening, fuelled by simmering tensions between Iran and the international community.

posted by Kevin at 4:19 AM

IMF WARNS ON PETRODOLLAR DESTABILIZATION :.

Petrodollars have returned to the world stage, and could play a potentially destabilizing role in the U.S. and global trade imbalances, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund released Thursday.

posted by Kevin at 4:14 AM

4/13/2006

11 U.S. Banks Sued Over 'Naked' Short Selling :.

If you think about how short selling is supposed to operate, this one seriously boggles the mind. No, this is unbelievable! These banks are making markets for financial instruments that don't even exist.

For about twenty years, I've known that fiat currency systems are just faith based ponzi schemes. But this goes way beyond faith. In this stock racket, the underlying "paper" isn't even there!

I've personally gone to short stocks in the past, and seen a message that says, "No shares available to short." That's what happens when the firm you're using has lent all of the shares it has available for shorting to other traders. I guess I wasn't using a crooked enough broker.

Well, bankers lend made-up money---backed by nothing but debt---to people and charge interest on it. And what, really, have they lent? Some number with a bunch of zeros after it on a computer screen. Why not let people short stock that banks don't control and then charge big fees for the privilege?

Short-selling involves a bet that a company's stock will fall. Typically, an investor sells borrowed stock, and hopes to buy it back at a lower price to replenish the lender.

In a naked short sale, the investor sells stock that has not yet been borrowed. Naked short selling is usually illegal, in part because the stock supposedly underlying the transaction may never be borrowed or may not exist. It can be permitted to promote market stability.

The 32-page complaint claims the broker-dealers charged the plaintiff and others for the cost of securities lending, when in fact the broker-dealers did not "cover" short sales, failed to disclose this, and nevertheless charged inflated fees.

"Defendants dominate the market for prime brokerage services to short sellers and tolerate among themselves chronic failures to deliver by which clients are charged for 'borrowing' when in fact NO BORROWING actually takes place," the complaint said.

"Plaintiffs and class members were charged fees, commissions and/or interest for NOTHING."

posted by Kevin at 3:29 PM

4/12/2006

The Poor Man's Airforce :.

This is an interesting article on the use of car bombs by insurgencies around the world. If you're interested in asymmetric warfare, check it out.

Run of the mill terrorism is a waste of time in the modern era, with all of the shredded limbs and crying mothers on television. It can work, eventually, against a much more powerful enemy, but why bother with such a slow, bloody process? Conventional terrorism, regardless of the amount of carnage, never inflicts strategic damage upon the more powerful enemy. If "the terrorists" were really interested in victory, they would focus their resources on destroying the critical infrastructures that facilitate corporate communications and financial transactions. These strategic targets are undefended.

Why have "the terrorists" not attacked undefended strategic targets?

In answering that question, you might find that you need to change your definition of "the terrorists."

The car bomb... became a semi-strategic weapon that, under certain circumstances, was comparable to air power in its ability to knock out critical urban nodes and headquarters as well as terrorize the populations of entire cities. Indeed, the suicide truck bombs that devastated the US Embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983 prevailed - at least in a geopolitical sense - over the combined firepower of the fighter-bombers and battleships of the US 6th Fleet and forced the administration of president Ronald Reagan to retreat from Lebanon.

Research Credit: MM

posted by Kevin at 1:42 PM

DRUG COMPANIES 'INVENTING DISEASES TO BOOST THEIR PROFITS' :.

Imagine my shock:

PHARMACEUTICAL companies are systematically creating diseases in order to sell more of their products, turning healthy people into patients and placing many at risk of harm, a special edition of a leading medical journal claims today.

The practice of "diseasemongering" by the drug industry is promoting non-existent illnesses or exaggerating minor ones for the sake of profits, according to a set of essays published by the open-access journal Public Library of Science Medicine.

The special issue, edited by David Henry, of Newcastle University in Australia, and Ray Moynihan, an Australian journalist, reports that conditions such as female sexual dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and "restless legs syndrome" have been promoted by companies hoping to sell more of their drugs.

Other minor problems that are a normal part of life, such as symptoms of the menopause, are also becoming increasingly "medicalised", while risk factors such as high cholesterol levels or osteoporosis are being presented as diseases in their own right, according to the editors.

"Disease-mongering turns healthy people into patients, wastes precious resources and causes iatrogenic (medically induced) harm," they say. "Like the marketing strategies that drive it, disease-mongering poses a global challenge to those interested in public health, demanding in turn a global response."

Doctors, patients and support groups need to be more aware that pharmaceutical companies are taking this approach, and more research is needed into the changing ways in which conditions are presented, according to the writers.

posted by Kevin at 1:01 PM

Off Topic: Ripped Off by World Wide Marketing and Shipping

Update: My bank refunded our money and World Wide Marketing and Shipping's website has been taken down. Those filthy b@stards are doomed.

This is a public service announcement:

My wife and I have been ripped off by a company called Worldwide-Marketing and Shipping, Inc.

Worldwide-Marketing and Shipping, Inc.
P.O. Box 408246
Chicago, IL 60640
(877) 878-3227
Tel: (773) 878-3227
Fax: (773) 878-0591
Email: shipping@overseasmarketing.com
http://www.overseasmarketing.com/

We paid them to ship our personal belongings from the U.S. to New Zealand. They took our money and left all of our stuff in a warehouse in Los Angeles.

Yes, it could have been worse. Our stuff could have gone to... who knows where?

I think I'm going to get the money back because this is fraud and I paid them with a credit card. My bank is investigating.

posted by Kevin at 2:49 AM

U.S. Bankers Charged Over Huge Insider Trading Scandal :.

US authorities charged a clutch of hotshot young traders connected to Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch over what they described as one of the biggest insider trading cases ever uncovered.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the "brazen" trading scheme -- which ran the gamut of topless dancers, covert information and stolen magazines -- netted the individuals at least 6.7 million dollars.

The top US market regulator said the masterminds were Eugene Plotkin, 26, a research analyst in the fixed income division of Goldman Sachs, and David Pajcin, a 29-year-old former employee of the premier bank.

Plotkin and Pajcin persuaded a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Merrill Lynch, Stanislav Shpigelman, 23, to provide tips on upcoming mergers in return for a share of the trading profits, the SEC alleged.

It said they also recruited two other young men to obtain jobs at a printing plant in Wisconsin to steal advance copies of Business week magazine, and then traded in companies discussed favourably by the influential publication.

"Plotkin and Pajcin also contemplated various schemes involving exotic dancers, including having them garner information from bankers while dancing, and using them to induce investment bankers to provide Plotkin and Pajcin with information," the SEC further alleged in a statement.

Mark Schoenfeld, director of the SEC's northeast regional office, said: "This fraud is one of the most widespread, varied and premeditated insider trading rings we have ever prosecuted.

"The defendants sought out individuals working in our nation's leading financial institutions hoping to get them to betray their employer, their clients and the investing public," he said.

posted by Kevin at 2:32 AM

4/11/2006

Iran Claims Uranium Enrichment Capability :.

Cheney licks his chops:

Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest to develop nuclear fuel, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday. He insisted, however, that his country does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

In a nationally televised speech, Ahmadinejad called on the West "not to cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians" by trying to force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment.

"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory- scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.

"I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he told an audience that included top military commanders and clerics in the northwestern holy city of Mashhad. The crowd broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" Some stood and thrust their fists in the air.

posted by Kevin at 3:42 PM

4/10/2006

New Zealand Update: Big Nerd, Little Car

Ideally, Becky and I would have bought a used, double cab Toyota Hilux (Hilux = SR5 pickup in the U.S.). Demand for these vehicles in NZ, however, far outstrips supply. Buying one new would be unthinkably expensive. (In case you don't know, New Zealand is where used cars from Japan go to die. That is, when Japanese don't want their cars anymore, the vehicles are auctioned off to brokers who sell them in New Zealand and elsewhere.)

We visited a very reputable used car dealership---that handles lots of Japanese used vehicles---and asked the owner: Why are there so few utes (pickups) available?

The owner of the used car dealership told us:

Well heeled Pakistanis are pretty much outbidding everyone at the used vehicle auctions in Japan. The utes are winding up in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's because of the war.

I never thought about this, but it makes sense. Yep, special operations require ground transportation. And used trucks from Japan, bought by Pakistanis, don't point back to the U.S. in any obvious way. Unfortunately for us, the perfect farm truck is also highly desirable for black ops nonsense in the War on Terror, or whatever it's called now.

Since used utes are stupidly expensive---the cheap ones are rust buckets from the 1980s that have done about 300,000 very hard kilometers---Becky and I decided to buy the smallest, most fuel efficient vehicle; A) that we could afford and B) that I could fit into. We would then be on the lookout for a reasonably priced ute that we will be able to use for the farm.

While gas in New Zealand is cheaper than in Europe, it costs quite a bit more than in the U.S. A gallon of gas in New Zealand, if I've done the math right, currently costs about US$3.65. I don't quite see my life flash in front of my eyes at the gas station when filling up, but this is starting to feel like Peak-Oil-Lite (or Pre-Apocalypse) pricing. And I'm not alone. Guess which other cars are really expensive in New Zealand? That's right, cars that are extremely fuel efficient. People are dumping vehicles that guzzle gas and buying smaller cars in droves.

We wound up getting an incredible deal on a pristine, 1996 Nissan March microcar that had done just over 44,000 kilometers. It has a tiny 1.3 liter engine that, thanks to the 5-speed manual transmission, does the job pretty well! We paid NZ$3500 for this car. That is an almost unbelievable deal. I guess time will tell whether or not we got ripped off. I tend to believe the story that the seller told to me about the car: older people, used in town, kept in a garage, etc. The vehicle background check showed no red flags. The mileage records made sense. Weirdly, everything, and I mean everything works.

Becky's cousin got a similarly excellent deal on a Honda Accord.

So, if you need to buy a used car in New Zealand, I have three words for you: Ellerslie Car Fair. Oh yeah, bring cash.

Cross your fingers for us in our search for a decent/cheap ute!

posted by Kevin at 10:29 PM

GOLD $603

Wheee! Breakout long. Man, I wish TR and I could get that Magic Mystery Dot thing working.

posted by Kevin at 7:40 PM

Most Human Beings 'Natural Born Slaves' :.

If you doubt it, check out the freeways in Southern California at 7am (or 5pm) on weekdays:

IN A counterintuitive paper, Malcolm Heath, of Leeds University, defended AristotleÂs politically incorrect view that some people are natural born slaves.

Aristotle argued that the majority of human beings could and should be enslaved because they are naturally slaves.

Aristotelians usually cough nervously and move on past such passages.

Professor Heath argues that Aristotle was not saying that natural slaves lack the distinctive human capacity for reason. They are not subhuman. Natural slaves may be extremely creative and intelligent. But they simply have a defect that prevents them recognising the way to live a good life.

posted by Kevin at 1:25 PM

4/9/2006

Bush Regime Planning Pre-Emptive Nuclear Strike on Iran :.

Hersh:

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

More: Telegraph

posted by Kevin at 1:48 PM

:. Reading

Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell Readers will come to see that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest" - fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross This is a relatively short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward; the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.

The Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing Helen and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating, timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.

Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd In Silent Theft, David Bollier argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs, software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often, however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps give away our assets. Amazingly, the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed because we have lost our ability to see the commons.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide by John Seymour The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten When Corporations Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their own narrow ends.

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics.

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