Tag Archives: u.s.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Israel to stock up on used U.S. military equipment, U.S. can’t afford to ship it all home from Iraq

Israeli media reporting that the Israeli government plans to expand their military equipment inventories by buying used U.S. equipment now in Iraq.

The report says the Israel purchase of U.S. military gear will help out the U.S. Department of Defense, because apparently the U.S. can’t afford to ship all that equipment back home from Iraq.

The equipment includes everything from vehicles to ammo.

It’s not just Israel that the U.S. will sell to, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are customers as well.  This is just another sign the United States is hurting for cash.

 

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Agency deliberately erased human radiation contaminaton data!

The Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission deliberately erased all the data collected regarding the radiation contamination of children in Fukushima Prefecture!

Officials claim that since the date was public it threatened the privacy of the families!

Since the nuclear disaster following the 11 March 2011 quake and tsunami, more than 1,000 children, aged 15 or younger, were being monitored for the effects of radiation on their thyroid.

The problem is that no one else was keeping such data, and now it’s gone!  The decision to delete the data is only justifying the growing lack of trust the Japanese have in their government.

U.S.

United Police States of America: Two U.S. courts say Rumsfeld is NOT immune from being charged with torture, Obama is on Rumsfeld’s side says your rights don’t count

“Plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to show that Secretary Rumsfeld personally established the relevant policies that caused the alleged violations of their constitutional rights during detention.”-Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals

August 8, a Federal appeals court ruled that former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, is not immune from being sued for torture.

Interestingly, the two people suing Rumsfeld are U.S. citizens, and former security agents as well.

The two former private security agents, were detained and tortured, in Iraq by U.S. personnel, with sleep deprivation, and deprived of food and water.  They claim they were detained because they were trying to blow the whistle on the illegal activities of their employer.

The two agents suspected their employer of making improper payments to Iraqi officials, and that fellow employees were engaged in weapons-trafficking.  After providing U.S. officials with information they were suddenly detained.  The two agents were never charged with anything.

In another case, last week a Federal court in Washington DC ruled that Rumsfeld can indeed be sued for torture.

In that case a U.S. military contractor was also tortured by U.S. personnel in Iraq.  Government officials say the contractor was passing information to the enemy, but, for some reason, after torturing him, the government decided not file charges and let him go.

Don’t think President Barack Obama influenced the courts’ decision.  Obama supports Rumsfeld, saying, effectively, that U.S. citizens have no rights when they’re in a combat zone. The U.S. Justice Department is planning to appeal the latest Federal court decisions.

 

 

 

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: Reactor 3 melt down actually breached containment vessel, plutonium contamination!

First Tokyo Electric Power Company said there were no melt downs, as they struggled to cool the Fukushima Daiichi reactors with salty sea water.  Then TEPCo admitted there were melt downs in reactors 1 and 3, but said they were contained by the water at the bottom of the containment vessels.  Now an independent study says not so.

Tanabe Fumiya, an expert in nuclear safety, studied data from Reactor 3.  Reactor 3 uses MOX fuel.  Most of Reactor 3’s mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel might have made it through the containment vessel.  Fumiya says on 21 March 2011 TEPCo was unable to inject water to cool the reactor.  Over the next four days the fuel reheated and melted through.  This explains why plutonium is being found outside the reactors.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? China will stop selling U.S. bonds, and they will stop buying them as well, beginning to realize just how much power they truely have

“In my opinion, at this moment, the best strategy is no buy, no sell. At this moment, it’s very difficult to shift (investment), to change fundamentally, because we hold such a big amount.”-Cheng Siwei, former senior Chinese lawmaker

Cheng Siwei, is advising the Chinese government to take a “no buy, no sell” attitude towards U.S. Treasury bonds.  Cheng is telling the government that it needs to hold off on investing it’s $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

Many European countries have been knocking down China’s door, begging China to bail them out by buying their bonds, instead of more U.S. bonds.

Cheng says the situation for China has become more of a political one, than an economic one.  In other words, with so many countries, including the United States, hoping to be saved by China’s cash, the Chinese are starting to realize just how much power they have.

International, U.S.

Taliban on the Run? Taliban shoot down 2nd U.S. CH-47 since Saturday, a 3rd makes emergency landing

On Saturday, August 6, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, killing all on board, including members of the elite SEAL team.  Now the Taliban claim they’ve shot down a 2nd Chinook.

Monday, August 8, a Chinook with 33 personnel onboard was shot down near Zarmat city, in Paktia Province in eastern Afghanistan.  It’s believed all 33 were killed.  The Taliban say they shot it down.

On Sunday, August 7, another Chinook made a crash landing in the same province.  The area has been secured by NATO troops and an investigation is underway.

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

After being taken over by the U.S. taxpayers, and constantly being bailed out, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finally get downgraded

When the credit crisis hit in 2007/2008 the biggest mortgage lenders in the U.S., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, suddenly became too big to fail and were taken over by the U.S. government.  The move had U.S. taxpayers providing the mortgage giants with almost consistent quarterly bailouts.

Now Standard & Poor’s has downgraded their credit rating, from triple A, to double A+.  ‘Bout time!

The two mortgage companies, along with a third called Ginnie Mae, guarantee 80% of the mortgages in the United States.  Fannie and Freddie have received $141 billion in taxpayer bailouts, so far.

Standard & Poor’s is also downgrading U.S. Federal Home Loan banks.  Federal Home Loan banks support consumer credit by providing money to other banks, in the form of bank to bank loans.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Group of 7 decide to answer the U.S. debt problem by flooding markets with liquidity, won’t that create Hyperinflation?

The European Central Bank, and the Group of 7 top industrialized countries, decided to deal with the credit rating downgrade of the United States by flooding international markets with liquidity.

Liquidity=cash and bank deposits.

One of the problems with this recession is that banks, and other financial institutions as well as big corporations, have been money hording.  Lending has not taken place as President Obama had hoped (at least to small businesses and individuals).  The result is that the ‘big guys’ have a lot of liquidity sitting around doing nothing (by the way something like this happened right before the Great Depression).

Now the international community has decided to flood the international markets with that liquidity.

So far we’ve seen inflation, albeit a mild inflation for most of the world, but get ready to see inflation like you’ve never seen before when all that money hits the markets.  You see, when there is a lot of money available to buy a lot of things, it automatically drives up prices.

Some people might think the stories of Germans using wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a loaf of bread, during their Hyperinflation of the 1920s (which helped lead to the Great Depression in the United States), is just an exaggeration.  It is not.  I’ve read the accounts, and I’ve even seen silent newsreels showing people lining up with wheelbarrows full of worthless Deutschmarks at bakeries.

This happened because the Weimar government thought by printing more money, in essence flooding the public with liquidity, that people would be able to buy the products they needed, products that were already experiencing inflation.  The flooding of money into the German consumer market made the situation worse, creating hyperinflation.

The following is from Wikipedia, on hyperinflation: Hyperinflation becomes visible when there is an unchecked increase in the money supply… also… Hyperinflation is often associated with wars (or their aftermath), currency meltdowns, political or social upheavals, or aggressive bidding on currency exchanges. Mmmm, sound familiar?

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Japanese economist predict negative GDP for Japan, blames the United States

Several private economic research firms, in Japan, are predicting GDP for Japan will go south for the 3rd quarter.

As many as ten research firms say Japan’s GDP could contract by as much 4.7% for the next economic quarter.  They blame the decline on a huge reduction in consumer spending, both in Japan, and in other countries, made worse by the U.S. debt.

A few economist predict positive GDP for Japan, but that is totally dependent upon the debt problems of the United States.  It’s the international concern over the debt of the U.S. that has most Japanese economists warning of a crash in Japan’s economy.

Fukushima, Technology

Corporate Incompetence: Fukushima Daiichi water decontamination system crashes!

Ever since Tokyo Electric Power Company  installed a water decontamination and recirculation system, they’ve had problems after problems.  Now the entire system has crashed.

The system includes filters and pumps designed in the United States and France.  The idea is to decontaminate the massive amount of radioactive water flooding into the basements of the reactor buildings, then re-use that water to cool the unstable reactors.

The most common problem, in the many weeks since it’s installation, has been the fact that the decontamination part is not working well, the radiation levels are not being reduced to a level TEPCo would like (this is another proof that radiation levels coming out of the reactors are much higher than TEPCo would like to admit).

The next most common problem is that pumps keep failing.  This time all the pumps have failed, including the back up pumps.

Beginning Thursday, 04 August 2011, pumps began failing.  By Saturday, 06 August, all the pumps were down.  As usual TEPCo does not know why, and is investigation to find out why!!!

TEPCo is planning on hooking up a Japanese designed filters and pumps to the system, as if that’s the solution.