By Mike Whitney 31/01/08 “ICH” — – Somebody goofed. When Fed chairman Ben Bernanke cut interest rates to 3% yesterday, the price of a new mortgage went up. How does that help the flagging housing industry? About an hour after Bernanke made the announcement that the Fed Funds rate would be cut by 50 basis points […]
Monthly Archives: January 2008
U.S. central banks may have less than half the gold they claim to possess in their vaults, charges a watchdog group in an ad scheduled for publication in the Wall Street Journal this week.As WND reported, the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, or GATA, claims the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury are surreptitiously manipulating the […]
Quess who will be paying and no it’s not the rich. By Sean O’Grady, Economics Editor Thursday, 31 January 2008 A devastating verdict on the public finances was delivered yesterday by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). In its latest “Green Budget”, the IFS argues that the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, would need to announce […]
Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk, This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Thursday January 31 2008. It was last updated at 09:50 on January 31 2008. Shell petrol pump. Photograph: David Sillitoe Shell was today accused of making “obscene” profits at a time when pensioners, motorists and industry are struggling with higher energy prices when it […]
War—after all, what is it that the people get? Why—widows, taxes, wooden legs and debt. Samuel B. Pettengill “Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. James Madison, 4th U.S. President (April 20, 1795) “Let me issue and control a nation’s currency and I […]
By Robert Reich 30/01/08 “FT” — – 28/01/08 — It is an election year and the US economy is in peril of falling into recession or worse. Not surprisingly, Washington is abuzz with plans to prevent it. President George W. Bush has proposed a $150bn stimulus package and all the main presidential candidates are offering […]
By Glenn Somerville WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A slump in U.S. homebuilding that slowed growth at the end of 2007 will help wring out excesses and the Bush administration is not trying to ward it off, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Wednesday. “After years of unsustainable home price appreciation, this is a necessary correction,” […]
By Steven C. Johnson NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The dollar sank to a fresh two-month low against a basket of major currencies on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve cut benchmark U.S. interest rates by a half percentage point and warned that more would likely be needed to support the faltering economy. The move […]
The FBI is investigating 14 corporations for possible accounting fraud and other crimes related to the sub-prime lending crisis. Neil Power, chief of the bureau’s economic crimes unit, would not identify the companies, though he said the cases involved “valuation-type stuff”. The probes included reviews of sub-prime lenders, housing developers and Wall St banks that […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut a key interest rate for the second time in just over a week, reducing the federal funds rate by a half point. It signaled that further rate cuts were possible. Ben Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve, which Wednesday cut its key rate for the […]
March 14 -16 at the POWERHOUSE MUSEUM http://www.powerhousemuseum.com Darling Harbour Sydney, Australia Advanced Booking Price: AUD $128 To book a seat » click here Confirmed Speakers: Prof Steven Jones – Physicist, Co-founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice Lt Col Bob Bowman – Former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development (USA) G. Edward Griffin […]
CALABASAS, Calif. (AP) — Countrywide Financial (CFC), the nation’s largest mortgage lender, said Tuesday that it posted a loss in the fourth quarter because of rising loss provisions and impairment charges. Countrywide lost $422 million, or 79 cents a share, during the fourth quarter, compared with earnings of $622 million, or $1.01 a share, during […]
WASHINGTON – Sales of new homes plunged a record amount in 2007, although prices edged up slightly in the weakest showing in 16 years. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that sales of new homes dropped 26.4 percent last year to 774,000. That marked the worst sales year on record, surpassing the old mark of a […]
The intensifying credit crunch is so severe that lower interest rates alone will not be enough “to get out of the turmoil we are in”, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned at the weekend. In a dramatic volte face for an international body that as recently as the autumn called […]
Ideologues use times of crisis as an opportunity to foist their economic policies on desperate societies. By Naomi Klein January 27, 2008 Moody’s, the credit-rating agency, claims the key to solving the United States’ economic woes is slashing spending on Social Security. The National Assn. of Manufacturers says the fix is for the federal government […]
No judge or jury required. Just a knife and a 50 year old bully will do the job. No sympathy for dead teen tagger. By CHARLIE GATES – The Press | Wednesday, 30 January 2008 A 50-year-old man charged with the murder of a teenage tagger in Manukau should be allowed to “get away with […]
Corporate executives are poised to start making substantial cutbacks in their staffing, according to a new forecast by employment consulting and legal firm Career Protection. In fact, the firm is predicting a 37% increase in layoffs this year over last, based on a survey of more than 1,300 corporate executives and senior level officials that […]
A trillion here…a trillion there…pretty soon you’re talking real money. U.S. stocks are down about 10% so far this year…that’s about $1.5 trillion lost. U.S. housing stock is said to be down about $2 trillion. And losses from subprime, credit cards, home equity lines, rogue traders…and hanky panky…probably add up to another trillion or so. […]
A full-blown, prolonged recession in America is now inescapable, with the rest of the world set to be dragged into a severe global slowdown despite yesterday’s emergency US interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve, leading economists said in Davos this morning. A darkening outlook for the global economy looked set to dominate the week-long […]
Interest rate ‘freeze’ – the real story is fraud Bankers pay lip service to families while scurrying to avert suits, prison Sean OlenderNew proposals to ease our great mortgage meltdown keep rolling in. First the Treasury Department urged the creation of a new fund that would buy risky mortgage bonds as a tactic to hide […]
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his Latin American allies on Saturday to begin withdrawing billions of dollars in international reserves from U.S. banks, warning of a looming U.S. economic crisis.Chavez made the suggestion as he hosted a summit aimed at boosting Latin American integration and rolling back U.S. influence. “We should start to bring our […]
Dear Editor: I am out of a job because The Capital Times and other mainstream media outlets refuse to report the news. As a scholar, my job is to seek and report the truth, no matter where it leads. That is also the job of the media. Along with hundreds of other scholars, engineers, architects, […]
A big increase in support for the Greens has knocked National hopes that it could govern alone, the first Herald DigiPoll in election year shows. National retains a lead in the poll registering 47.5 per cent support, down 3.8 per cent from its highest-ever Herald-DigiPoll rating of 51.3 per cent in November. Labour is relatively […]
By Elliot Cohen Amid the controversy brewing in the Senate over Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform, the Bush administration appears to have changed its strategy and is devising a bold new plan that would strip away FISA protections in favor of a system of wholesale government monitoring of every American’s Internet activities. Now the […]
A debate over city growth has emerged after a housing affordability survey released this week recommended freeing up more land for houses. Demographia’s fourth annual survey found New Zealand houses more unaffordable than those in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Britain and Australia. The residential construction sector is now calling for more sections to be […]
In 24 years as president and chief executive officer of Sacramento’s Safe Credit Union, Henry Wirz said he’s never seen such “widespread credit problems in the Sacramento region.” It began last September with rising delinquencies on car loans. By December, the late payments spread to real estate loans. Now, increasingly, borrowers have maxed out their […]
As banks, money markets and stock exchanges convulse over a sinking American economy, we see the folks sprawled at the bottom of the smoking rubble — debt-crushed American consumers. It is they whose reckless or trusting natures enriched so many, at least for a while, and whose troubled loans have sent markets into panic. But […]
Placing this article does not mean I endorse labour. But I do think that the fiscal conservancy of labor has placed this country relatively better placed to weather the coming storm than other countries like the US and Australia. Thursday, 24 January 2008, 10:14 am Opinion: New Zealand Government Hon Dr Michael Cullen Minister of […]
Dear Helen Clark, Perhaps it would be a good idea to borrow from the New bank of the South. We are on the southern Hemisphere after all and than we could get out of debt and build a better life for all the Kiwi’s, and no more compulsary visits to the fascist cabal that runs […]
Aotearoa: A Wider Perspective 