Our Awful Situation

Ron Paul Statement: “Something Big is Happening”

Posted in Ron Paul by Charlie Kilo on July 13th, 2008

From Dr. Ron Paul:

Madam Speaker, I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America . The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days–growing more frequent all the time–when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.

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Entrepreneurs lug cheap Mexican fuel across border

Posted in Gasoline, Mexico, Oil by Charlie Kilo on July 13th, 2008

Better margins than drugs?

U.S. and Mexican entrepreneurs with an eye for a quick buck are buying subsidized fuel in bulk in Mexico and hauling it across the U.S. border to make big profits, officials say.

With a yawning gap between the cost of Mexico’s state-subsidized fuel and record U.S. pump prices, tanker truck owners and people doing business on the border are filling up tanks or plastic barrels with Mexican fuel and selling it in the United States.

Gasoline in Mexico is around a third cheaper than in the United States. For diesel, prices are more than double — well over $4 a gallon in U.S. border states compared to just over $2 in Mexican border cities.

“It is true tanker trucks are coming from the United States to fill up with supplies in Mexico,” Mario Osuna, the head of Mexico’s consumer watchdog agency Profeco in Baja California state where Tijuana is the capital, said on Thursday.

“There is no way of sanctioning foreigners who come to Tijuana and buy gasoline to sell in their country,” Osuna told Reuters. “Mexico does not have regulations relating to that.”

Border residents who have spotted the price anomaly are jumping on the export bandwagon, taking containers of fuel over the border in pickup trucks to sell.

“We cannot deny that this type of small-scale contraband is going on,” said Joaquin Avina, president of the Association of Gas Stations of Tijuana, Tecate and Rosarito.

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President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran

Posted in Iran, Israel, War by Charlie Kilo on July 13th, 2008

But tells the Israelis not to expect any help from the U.S. Guess where American (and world) anger will be directed when gas hits $6 a gallon after an Israeli strike on Iran. That’s right…at the Jews. Interesting:

President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.

“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the official said. But the Israelis have also been told that they can expect no help from American forces and will not be able to use US military bases in Iraq for logistical support.

Nor is it certain that Bush’s amber light would ever turn to green without irrefutable evidence of lethal Iranian hostility. Tehran’s test launches of medium-range ballistic missiles last week were seen in Washington as provocative and poorly judged, but both the Pentagon and the CIA concluded that they did not represent an immediate threat of attack against Israeli or US targets.

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Granddad, Tell How Capitalism Committed Suicide: Mark Gilbert

Posted in Our Awful Situation by Charlie Kilo on July 12th, 2008

If you’ve read “The Road” you’ll love this. Heck if you haven’t read “The Road” you’ll still think this article is brilliant:

“So when a film came out called `The Road’ about a post- apocalyptic world, people were already scared and angry. They started to form cults worshipping the author of the tale, a reclusive writer called Cormac McCarthy who never gave interviews and never did publicity, and had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007. They decided he was some sort of prophet of doom.”

By the flickering firelight, Granddad could see Joel’s eyelids beginning to droop.

“That’s enough storytelling for one night, Master Bernanke. Go and make yourself warm under the blankets. We’ll be safe in this cave until morning, then we’ll press on toward the coast.”

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Britain urging return to wartime food frugality

Posted in Food Supply by Charlie Kilo on July 12th, 2008

Squirrel-tail soup…yummy!

Evoking an era of World War II austerity, British families are being urged to cut food waste and use leftovers in a nationwide effort to fight sharply rising global food prices.

It’s not back to ration books, “victory gardens” or squirrel-tail soup yet, but warning bells are being rung by experts at all levels of Britain’s government as well as from the World Food Program.

With food and energy prices soaring around the world, a constant supply of high-quality, affordable food is no longer guaranteed, the officials are warning Britons. That could mean an era of scarcity like Britain’s 1940-54 food rationing, during the war and its aftermath.

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Second biggest bank failure…ever

Posted in Banking, Bankruptcy, Economic Depression, Economy by Charlie Kilo on July 11th, 2008

IndyMac Seized by U.S. Regulators Amid Cash Crunch. Who’s next? Wachovia? WAMU?

IndyMac Bancorp Inc. became the second-biggest federally insured financial company to be seized by U.S. regulators after a run by depositors left the California mortgage lender short on cash.

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In the eye of an economic storm

Posted in Economic Depression, Economy by Charlie Kilo on July 11th, 2008

This “Hurricane” analogy makes good sense:

This hurricane season will be quite different than seasons past. While most start with tracking tropical depressions that gain momentum and eventually develop into hurricanes graded on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, this season will be about subprime loan losses developing into a gale-force financial wind that may well destroy everything in it’s path.

Like all hurricanes, this one will have three components: The front wall, the eye and the back wall.

The subprime mortgage mess was the front wall of the hurricane currently rocking our financial system. Once-great investment banks, like Bears Stearn, were destroyed overnight. America’s largest home lender, Countrywide, was sold to Bank of America to avoid bankruptcy. Now the subprime mess may take down a commercial lender like Citigroup or B of A.

This is just the beginning of the devastation to come from this hurricane season.

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Paulson Offers No Hint of Fannie, Freddie Bailout

Posted in Economy, Elitist Punks, Federal Reserve, Housing Crisis by Charlie Kilo on July 11th, 2008

Watch The Fed ride in on their white horse to “save” this one:

Alarm swelled on Friday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might run short of capital, placing the fragile U.S. economy at even greater risk, as the Bush administration offered no hint of a government bailout of the largest U.S. providers of financing for mortgages.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, responding to reports a government takeover was under consideration, said “our primary focus is supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form as they carry out their important mission.”

Worries about Fannie and Freddie grew after The New York Times said the administration was considering a plan to put the companies, thought to have implicit government backing, into a conservatorship if their problems worsen, citing people briefed about the plan.

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End game: Dow dips below 11,000

Posted in Economy, Stock Market by Charlie Kilo on July 11th, 2008

Dow 9,500 and waiting for capitulation:

There’s a joke among news folks that two points make a trend. If it does, and of course it doesn’t, I heard an alarming one this morning: the Dow going down into the 9,500 zone.

It came from Ben Lichtenstein, president of TradersAudio.com, on “Squawk Box” this morning. I listen to it on my satellite radio as I drive in. He suggested if the Dow trips through 11,000 or lower, then 9,500 is a possibility too.

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Iran’s missiles are just for show

Posted in Iran, Israel, War by Charlie Kilo on July 10th, 2008

I’m not sure where to start with this:

Last week, former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul stunned no one in Washington when he said, “I hear members of Congress saying if we could only nuke them” as applied to Iran. According to Sahimi, even though the bipartisan resolutions “are not granting the Bush administration any authorization to stage military attacks on Iran, their language, however, is warlike”.

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