On March 13, 2012, the Chinese government approved a request from Japan, to buy U.S.$10 billion worth of bonds.
Japanese officials admitted the move was to help them “diversify” away from U.S. bonds. The move signals the growing influence of the Chinese yuan, as a international currency.
It also comes as BRICS countries prepare to sign an agreement on March 29 that would create a new international banking system that refuses to use the U.S. dollar.
“If you don’t think this is a big issue, think again!”-Andrew Potter, CIBC World Markets
Canada has pumped out so much oil, that it’s losing money. Plus it has to compete with the flood of oil coming out of North Dakota. The result is that Canadian heavy and light oil is now selling for about $10 to $30 under what U.S. West Texas Crude is selling for.
“…we actually have a contraction because there’s just too much of the stuff.”– Peter Tertzakian, ARC Financial Corporation
What it means is that energy industry companies are going to lose Canadian$18 billion every year until at least 2013! Canadian provinces will lose tax revenues of Canadian$5 million per day!
“That hurts…doesn’t include corporate taxes, which will get affected, too.”-Jack Mintz, University of Calgary School of Public Policy
Canadian oil analysts are hoping their situation stabilizes by 2013/2014. But it will be painful, one analysts said cash flow for the energy industry will drop at least 20% in 2012.
“Even now the market is well supplied. New fields are being discovered. There are new areas where sources are being developed. The sources of supply are spreading and this will change the politics of oil.”-Aldo Flores- Quiroga, IEF Secretary General
One more authoritarian voice joins in to say there is not a lack of oil, oil prices are only going up because of those damn speculators!
Well not just because of the speculators. Officials with the International Energy Forum, also said that the oil industry needs new investments, and big profits, in order to exploit the new sources of oil, to the tune of $700 billion every year!
Last week the CEO of Exxon Mobil said the same thing, that there was plenty of oil in the pipeline, but he did directly blame the speculators on the high prices.
The following statements are from John Boehner’s interview with the Wall Street Journal:
“My problem is not with our 89 freshmen, my problem is with a few senior members who—they always want more. They always want more than what you can produce….[Nancy Pelosi] went through the same problem with her side.”
“We got 435 members. It’s just a slice of America, it really is. We got some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of the dumbest. We got some of the best people you’d ever meet, and some of the raunchiest. We’ve got ’em all.“
“I told them they have ocular rectitis. That’s when your eyes get confused with your butt, and it develops into (an unnecessarily fecal) outlook on life.”
When asked what was behind political scandals, money or sex, Boehner replied: “Rarely is money an issue.”
Sales of Japanese beer, and beer based drinks, hit all time lows in February, 2012.
Japanese brewers shipped less than 360,000 kiloliters (95,101,938 U.S. liquid gallons), that’s the lowest amount in February since such record keeping was started in 1992.
Nippon beer makers blame the cold weather! They say demand dropped in the areas of Japan that were hit hard by unusual cold temps and heavy snowfall. They also blame being forced to make more non-alcoholic drinks.
South Korea officials reporting that bird flu has hit their country. 45 chickens died from bird flu, however, they are conducting more thorough tests to determine which strain of bird flu it was.
In Vietnam, officials thought they got things under control after more than 400 poultry died in February, but now, a new outbreak has been reported to the UN’s World Health Organization.
Bangladesh is reporting a fourth case of human H5N1 infection. The man was found to be infected, on February 26, after government mandated testing for live poultry market workers. So far no deaths.
Indonesia has seen another human death from H5N1. A 12 year old boy died on 21 February 2012. He was in contact with poultry, but investigators say none of the birds are showing any sign of H5N1.
As of the beginning of March, farmers in Bhutan have killed off more than 1,300 poultry to stop the spread of H5N1 there.
Officials in Hong Kong are reporting an increase in the number of wild birds dying from H5N1. Normally H5N1 attacks domestic birds. It’s believed that wild birds can get it from eating contaminated chicken feed. However, most of the dead wild birds in Hong Kong were not near any poultry farms.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says H5N1 can be spread by rubbing your eyes after handling sick birds. The CDC said several types of flu viruses can travel through your eye and cause upper respiratory infection.
I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
PALE GREEN HORSE & H1N1: MEXICO HAS 166 DEATHS SO FAR FOR 2012, COSTA RICA SAYS FLU “UNUSUAL” THIS YEAR
“They’re very worried about the consumer. If we go into another recession, a lot of risk officers feel this is where the damage will be done.”-Paul Miller, former Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, currently working for FBR Capital Markets
It appears the Federal Reserve is losing patience with the Too Big To Fail Banks (TBTFB). It’s questioning the TBTFBs’ desire to pay out huge dividends, and buy back their stocks.
“If the Fed fights back and disagrees and is more aggressive in their stance on cards and mortgages, it would mean banks wouldn’t be able to pay out as much.”-Glenn Schorr, Nomura Securities
Schorr says bank investors are almost demanding 50% to 60% earnings this year!
The problem is that the latest bank stress tests are conflicting with the TBTFB’s own financial claims. The stress tests are designed to see if a bank has enough cash on hand to handle a sudden huge drop in the economy.
So far unnamed insiders, involved with analyzing the tests, say things aren’t looking good for banks. When the variable of consumer debt is considered in the stress tests, some banks would suffer almost double the loses than their own in-house projections!
31 TBTFBs are currently undergoing the Federal Reserve stress test.
“We all wish we didn’t have to build such a facility. But we’re in a certain situation due to certain circumstances, and we need a facility to address these needs.”-unnamed Israeli Defense official
According to an article in The Independent, Israel is about to build the World’s largest “detention center”, designed to hold 8,000 Black African “migrants”!
“[it was time]…to stop this growing influx that threatens Israelis’ jobs and changes the character of the state.”-Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
Most of the migrants are actually fleeing the wars in Sudan and Eritrea. Israel has a policy of not returning refugees fleeing wars, so now they’ve decided to put them all in prison!
“People fleeing for their lives… will not stop coming because they face three years in detention.”-Reut Michaeli, Hotline for Migrant Workers
I wounder how many U.S. tax dollars are going to be used to build this World’s largest immigrant detention center?
The 1961 U.S. Foreign Assistance Act states: “No security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violation of internationally recognized human rights.”
Official inquiries and investigations into U.S. military aid to Israel, over the past few decades, have revealed that U.S. taxpayer money, and U.S. weapons have been directly used to kill Palestinians and steal their land!
A new report by US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has revealed that it’s gotten worse since the year 2000.
Between 2000 and 2009 “With this taxpayer money, the United States licensed, paid for and delivered more than 670,903,390 weapons, rounds of ammunition and related equipment to Israel, valued at $18.866 billion.” During that same time period “….the Israeli military killed at least 2,969 Palestinians who took no part in hostilities….Among these fatalities were at least 1,128 Palestinian children less than 18 years of age.”
“These statistics do not include an estimated 1,191 Lebanese who…..were killed by the Israeli military during its July-August 2006 war against Lebanon.”
Peace prize winning Barack Obama said this year he wants to give Israel $3.1 billion! And I thought we were having economic problems, I guess I was wrong.
“From fiscal year 2000 to 2009, the State Department licensed – and U.S. taxpayers funded – the delivery of more than 595,000 tear gas canisters and other ‘riot control’ equipment to the Israeli military, valued at more than $20.5 million!”
It’s not just Palestinians getting hurt by the tear gas: “On March 13, 2009, 37-year-old U.S. citizen Tristan Anderson was critically injured after an Israeli soldier shot him in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister in the West Bank village of Ni’lin while he was observing a nonviolent Palestinian protest. The tear gas canister made a large hole in his forehead, causing brain damage and leaving him largely paralyzed. On May 31, 2010, 21-year-old U.S. citizen Emily Henochowicz was also struck in the face by a high-velocity tear gas canister fired by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration against Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla at the Qalandia checkpoint outside of Jerusalem. She lost her left eye as a result.”
Since 1985, no thanks to Ronald Reagan, the United States ended military aid “loans” to Israel, and instead simply gives the taxpayers’ money away!
“Take, for example, a typical mid-size U.S. city like Ft. Wayne, Indiana (population 254,000), whose residents are responsible for paying an estimated $40.9 million of their federal taxes to finance U.S. military aid to Israel from 2009 to 2018 under the terms of the MOU [2007 Memorandum of Understanding, a pledge of 30 billion of your tax dollars from the U.S. government to Israel]. With that same amount of money, the federal government could instead each year: Provide 497 low-income families in Fort Wayne with affordable housing vouchers; or Retrain 697 unemployed workers in Fort Wayne to enter the green jobs economy; or Teach early reading skills to 1,209 disadvantaged Fort Wayne school children; or Provide basic health care to 33,125 Fort Wayne residents without insurance.”
Now remember that Peace prize winner Barack Obama singed into law NDAA 2012. U.S. citizens are the target of that one.
In one city, Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, there are 26 statues. They represent the bodies who could not be identified. 1,555 residents of Rikuzentakata died on March 11, 2011.
Al Jazerra Rikuzentakata report.
Visit Foreign Volunteers Japan.
In Minamisanriku Town, Miyagi Prefecture, relief volunteers are still working there one year later. Before they started yet another day of work, 300 volunteers gave a sunrise prayer for the thousands of missing and dead.
Minamisanriku Town was one of the hardest hit by the tsunami. It’s where Miki Endo stayed at her Disaster Center post blasting evacuation orders over the town’s loudspeaker system, until the tsunami blasted away the three story building she was in. Watch haunting Japanese video report here: Minamisanriku, hometown of Heroine Miki Endo is becoming Atlantis
But Miki was not alone in that Disaster Center, she had dozens of co-workers as well as her boss, all hoping they could help.
One co-worker was at the hill top Evacuation Center, but he couldn’t bear seeing what was happening and returned to the Disaster Center. He led many of his co-workers to the top of the three story building, unfortunately the tsunami was four stories tall, and all were killed.
The skeletal remains of the Disaster Center has become a shrine.
Visit savemiyagi.org.
Don’t forget the eight firefighters of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture. The 57 year old firefighter, Fujio Koshita, rang a warning bell even as the tsunami headed right for him! Seven other firefighters died helping people get to higher ground.
They say Fujio violated his own rule about personal safety: “Don’t die. Rescuers must stay alive.”
Watch the Brian Barnes video of Otsuchi tsunami. In the video you can see that water levels rose even before the tsunami hit, it caught videographers by surprise. At 6:20 into the video they realize the city was already flooding. At 8:00 in the tsunami finally hits, you can hear cracking sounds as buildings break.
Visit otsuchi.org
According to the latest official Japanese government numbers, more than 19,000 people were killed. Many more are still without permanent places to live. 3,000 people are still listed as missing. I’m sure there are many dozens of other heroes and heroines that we will never hear about. But true heroes never die: “…The fireman was brave. I’m proud of him.”-16 year old Kaito Yamasaki