Derivatives a $700 Trillion Danger, Pension Funds at Risk, Oil Storage Shortage
Revealing News Articles
March 10, 2009
Dear friends,
Below are key excerpts of important news articles you may have missed. These articles include revealing information on the danger of defaults in the $700 trillion derivatives market, the risk to pension funds due to spiraling bond obligations, the shortage of storage space for oil, and more. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to function, click here. Key sentences are highlighted for those with limited time. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can and will build a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Tod Fletcher and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info
Note: Your financial support to continue this empowering work is extremely valuable to us. Please consider making a contribution by visiting www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk. And for those who haven't heard, Citigroup's stock fell to under $1.00 at one point on Friday, from a high of $57 just over two years ago. Buckle your seatbelts for a wild ride.
The $700 trillion elephant
March 6, 2009, MarketWatch (Wall Street Journal Digital Network)
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/The-700-trillion-elephant-room/story.asp
There's a $700 trillion elephant in the room and it's time we found out how much it really weighs on the economy. Derivative contracts total about three-quarters of a quadrillion dollars in "notional" amounts, according to the Bank for International Settlements. These contracts are tallied in notional values because no one really can say how much they are worth. But valuing them correctly is exactly what we should be doing because these comprise the viral disease that has infected the financial markets and the economies of the world. Try as we might to salvage the residential real estate market, it's at best worth $23 trillion in the U.S. We're struggling to save the stock market, but that's valued at less than $15 trillion. And we hope to keep the entire U.S. economy from collapsing, yet gross domestic product stands at $14.2 trillion. Compare any of these to the derivatives market and you can easily see that we are just closing the windows as a tsunami crashes to shore. The total value of all the stock markets in the world amounts to less than $50 trillion, according to the World Federation of Exchanges. To be sure, the derivatives market is international. But much of the trouble we're in began with contracts "derived" from the values associated with U.S. residential real estate market. These contracts were engineered based on the various assumptions tied to those values. Few know what derivatives are worth. I spoke with one derivatives trader who manages billions of dollars and she said she couldn't even value her portfolio because "no one knows anymore who is on the other side of the trade."
Note: Banks and financial firms deemed "too big to fail" are being bailed out worldwide at taxpayers' expense. But what will happen if losses in the derivatives market skyrocket? No government in the world has the resources to save financial corporations from a collapse in their derivatives trading. For lots more on the realities of the Wall Street bailout, click here.
Wars, Endless Wars
March 3, 2009, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/03herbert.html
The U.S. economy is in free fall, the banking system is in a state of complete collapse and Americans all across the country are downsizing their standards of living. The nation as we've known it is fading before our very eyes, but we're still pouring billions of dollars into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with missions we are still unable to define. Even as the U.S. begins plans to reduce troop commitments in Iraq, it is sending thousands of additional troops into Afghanistan. The strategic purpose of this escalation, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged, is not at all clear. We invaded Afghanistan more than seven years ago. We don't even have an escalation strategy, much less an exit strategy. An honest assessment of the situation ... would lead inexorably to such terms as fiasco and quagmire. Instead of cutting our losses, we appear to be doubling down. As for Iraq, President Obama announced last week that substantial troop withdrawals will take place over the next year and a half and that U.S. combat operations would cease by the end of August 2010. But, he said, a large contingent of American troops, perhaps as many as 50,000, would still remain in Iraq for a "period of transition." That's a large number of troops, and the cost of keeping them there will be huge. I can easily imagine a scenario in which Afghanistan and Iraq both heat up and the U.S., caught in an extended economic disaster at home, undermines its fragile recovery efforts in the same way that societies have undermined themselves since the dawn of time – with endless warfare.
Note: The strategic purpose of keeping the wars going is well known by the bankers and power elite. A top U.S. general revealed it all in a powerful book, of which we have a two-page summary available here. For revealing reports from reliable sources on the realities of the Iraq and Afghan wars, click here.
Hidden Pension Fiasco May Foment Another $1 Trillion Bailout
March 3, 2009, Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=alwTE0Z5.1EA
Public pension funds across the U.S. are hiding the size of a crisis that's been looming for years. Retirement plans play accounting games with numbers, giving the illusion that the funds are healthy. The paper alchemy gives governors and legislators the easy choice to contribute too little or nothing to the funds, year after year. The misleading numbers posted by retirement fund administrators help mask this reality: Public pensions in the U.S. had total liabilities of $2.9 trillion as of Dec. 16, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Their total assets are about 30 percent less than that, at $2 trillion. With stock market losses this year, public pensions in the U.S. are now underfunded by more than $1 trillion. That lack of funds explains why dozens of retirement plans in the U.S. have issued more than $50 billion in pension obligation bonds during the past 25 years -- more than half of them since 1997 -- public records show. The quick fix for pension funds becomes a future albatross for taxpayers. The public gets nothing from pension bonds -- other than a chance to at least temporarily avoid paying for higher pension fund contributions. Pension bonds portend the possibility of steep tax increases. By law, states must guarantee public pension fund debts. "What appears to be a riskless strategy is actually very risky," says David Zion, director of accounting research for New York-based Credit Suisse Holdings USA Inc. "If the returns on the pension bond-financed assets don't exceed the cost of servicing the debt, the taxpayers bear the brunt."
Note: For lots more on the realities of the Wall Street bailout, click here.
Oil producers running out of storage space
March 3, 2009, MSNBC/Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29495753
Supertankers that once raced around the world to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for oil are now parked offshore, fully loaded, anchors down, their crews killing time. In the United States, vast storage farms for oil are almost out of room. As demand for crude has plummeted, the world suddenly finds itself awash in oil that has nowhere to go. It's been less than a year since oil prices hit record highs. But now producers and traders are struggling with the new reality: The world wants less oil, not more. And turning off the spigot is about as easy as turning around one of those tankers. So oil companies and investors are stashing crude, waiting for demand to rise and the bear market to end so they can turn a profit later. Meanwhile, oil-producing countries such as Iran have pumped millions of barrels of their own crude into idle tankers, effectively taking crude off the market to halt declining prices that are devastating their economies. Traders have always played a game of store and sell, bringing oil to market when it can fetch the best price. They say this time is different because of how fast the bottom fell out of the oil market. "Nobody expected this," said Antoine Halff, an analyst with Newedge. "The majority of people out there thought the market would keep rising to $200, even $250, a barrel. They were tripping over each other to pick a higher forecast." Now the strategy is storage. Anyone who can buy cheap oil and store it might be able to sell it at a premium later, when the global economy ramps up again.
Prison Spending Outpaces All but Medicaid
March 3, 2009, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/us/03prison.html
One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study. Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data. Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to [a new report] by the Pew Center on the States, the first breakdown of spending in confinement and supervision in the past seven years. The increases in the number of people in some form of correctional control occurred as crime rates declined by about 25 percent in the past two decades. As states face huge budget shortfalls, prisons, which hold 1.5 million adults, are driving the spending increases. Pew researchers say that as states trim services like education and health care, prison budgets are growing. Those priorities are misguided, the study says. "States are looking to make cuts that will have long-term harmful effects," said Sue Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States. "Corrections is one area they can cut and still have good or better outcomes than what they are doing now." About $9 out of $10 spent on corrections goes to prison financing (that includes money spent to house 780,000 people in local jails). One in 11 African-Americans, or 9.2 percent, are under correctional control, compared with one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent) and one in 45 whites (2.2 percent).
Note: Crime is down 25%, yet prison spending is 400% of what it was 20 years ago. Is there anything strange here? The prison-industrial complex is mighty big and in many ways mighty corrupt.
Secret Bush Anti-Terror Memos Revealed
March 2, 2009, CBS News/Associated Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/02/national/main4839662.shtml
The Obama administration threw open the curtain on years of Bush-era secrets Monday, revealing anti-terror memos that claimed exceptional search-and-seizure powers and divulging that the CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations and other treatment of terror suspects. The Justice Department released nine legal opinions showing that, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration determined that certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within two weeks, government lawyers were already discussing ways to wiretap U.S. conversations without warrants. An October 2001 memo by the Justice Department's John Yoo authorized the use of the U.S. military within the United States in combating terrorists. Yoo defined the 9/11 attacks as "war" and therefore concluded the President could employ the military domestically in a "military action" rather than a police action. Under Posse Comitatus Act, the American armed forces are forbidden from operating domestically. A March 2003 memo gave the President broad powers to transfer captured al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners to third countries. It also stipulated that the torture provisions of the Geneva Convention did not apply, because these prisoners were "non state" enemy combatants and therefore not entitled to Geneva protections. The Obama administration also acknowledged in court documents Monday that the CIA destroyed 92 videos involving terror suspects, including interrogations - far more than had been known.
Note: For key reports from major media sources on the hidden realities of the war on terror, click here.
Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus
February 27, 2009, Toronto Sun (One of Canada's top newspapers)
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/27/8560781.html
The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. And an official of the World Health Organization's European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International's research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria. The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany. The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn't die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses. Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a "serious error" on Baxter's part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event. On Friday, the company's director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected. "It was live," Christopher Bona said in an email. Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.
Note: How on earth did the avian flu virus ever get into vaccines? Could it be that this was planned? For a powerful book by a Harvard-trained dentist suggesting there may be a hidden force behind the spread of deadly infectious diseases, click here. For more revealing reports on bird flu which support this theory, click here.
"Miracle" water a low-cost alternative cleaner to harsh chemicals
February 27, 2009, Seattle Times/Los Angeles Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2008791573_magicwater27.html
It's a kitchen degreaser. It's a window cleaner. It kills athlete's foot. Oh, and you can drink it. The elixir is real. U.S. regulators have approved it. And it's starting to replace the toxic chemicals Americans use at home and on the job. The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water. Some hotel workers are calling it "el liquido milagroso," the miracle liquid. That's as good a name as any for a substance that scientists said is powerful enough to kill anthrax spores without harming people or the environment. Used as a sanitizer for decades in Russia and Japan, it's slowly winning acceptance in the United States. For more than 200 years, scientists have tinkered with electrolysis, the use of an electric current to bring about a chemical reaction. That's how we got metal electroplating and large-scale production of chlorine, used to bleach and sanitize. It turns out that zapping saltwater with low-voltage electricity creates a couple of powerful, nontoxic cleaning agents. Sodium ions are converted into sodium hydroxide, an alkaline liquid that cleans and degreases like detergent, but without the scrubbing bubbles. Chloride ions become hypochlorous acid, a potent disinfectant known as acid water. "It's 10 times more effective than bleach in killing bacteria," said Yen-Con Hung, a professor of food science at the University of Georgia, Griffin, who has been researching electrolyzed water for more than a decade. "And it's safe."
Note: For more on this fascinating product, click here.
Key Articles From Years Past
Gobekli Tepe: The World's First Temple?
November, 2008, Smithsonian Magazine
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html
Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the world's oldest temple. In the [excavation] pits, standing stones, or pillars, are arranged in circles. Beyond, on the hillside, are four other rings of partially excavated pillars. Each ring has a roughly similar layout: in the center are two large stone T-shaped pillars encircled by slightly smaller stones facing inward. The tallest pillars tower 16 feet and, Schmidt says, weigh between seven and ten tons. Some are blank, while others are elaborately carved: foxes, lions, scorpions and vultures abound, twisting and crawling on the pillars' broad sides. Schmidt points to the great stone rings, one of them 65 feet across. "This is the first human-built holy place," he says. Prehistoric people would have gazed upon herds of gazelle and other wild animals; gently flowing rivers, which attracted migrating geese and ducks; fruit and nut trees; and rippling fields of wild barley and wild wheat varieties such as emmer and einkorn. "This area was like a paradise," says Schmidt, a member of the German Archaeological Institute. He believes this was a place of worship on an unprecedented scale–humanity's first "cathedral on a hill."
Note: For more on this fascinating find, see the Daily Mail article available here.
DNA Molecules Display Telepathic Abilities
January 25, 2008, Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325349,00.html
DNA molecules can display what almost seems like telepathy, research now reveals. Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules, scientists find. Previously, under the classic understanding of DNA, scientists had no reason to suspect that double helixes of the molecule could sort themselves by type, let alone seek each other out. Scientists investigated double-stranded DNA tagged with fluorescent compounds. These molecules were placed in salt water that contained no proteins or other material that could interfere with the experiment or help the DNA molecules communicate. Curiously, DNA with identical sequences of bases were roughly twice as likely to gather together as DNA molecules with different sequences. Although it looks as if spooky action or telepathic recognition is going on, DNA operates under the laws of physics, not the supernatural. The bases that make up a strand of DNA each cause the corkscrew to bend one way or the other. Double-stranded DNA with identical sequences each result in corkscrews "whose ridges and grooves match up," said researcher Sergey Leikin, a physical biochemist. Identical DNA double helixes have matching curves, meaning they repel each other the least, Leikin explained. The scientists conjecture such "telepathy" might help DNA molecules line up properly before they get shuffled around. This could help avoid errors in how DNA combines, errors that underpin cancer, aging and other health problems.
Scientists baffled by speed of Sun 'storm'
May 30, 2005, The Telegraph (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1491074/Scientists-baffled-by-speed-of-Sun-storm.html
The sun has dazed and confused scientists by triggering the biggest "proton storm" to bombard the Earth for half a century, challenging many ideas about how to forecast space weather to protect astronauts and satellites. Ejections of material that are often linked to solar flares can also damage ground-based communications systems and power grids. Normally, it takes two or more hours for a dangerous shower of positively charged protons to reach maximum intensity at Earth after a solar flare and between one and four days for ejected solar material to arrive. But the particles from one vast flare earlier this year peaked about 15 minutes after the first signs. "The timing is incredibly fast," said Prof Peter Cargill of Imperial College London. The burst of radiation on Jan 20 accompanied a huge solar flare - the biggest explosions in the solar system. The solar flare tripped radiation monitors worldwide and scrambled detectors on spacecraft, marking "the largest solar radiation signal on the ground in nearly 50 years", said Dr Richard Mewaldt of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, a co-investigator on Nasa's Advanced Composition Explorer spacecraft. "But we were really surprised when we saw how fast the particles reached their peak intensity and arrived at Earth. That's important because it's too fast to respond with much warning to astronauts or spacecraft that might be outside Earth's protective magnetosphere."
Special note: For some fascinating information suggesting that we may be in for serious solar disturbances in the year 2012, click here. And for some good news on Obama's blueprint for America, click here.
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Derivatives a $700 Trillion Danger, Pension Funds at Risk, Oil Storage Shortage