Tag: Financial Crisis

Obama's Economic Saviour Savaged as Keating Lets Rip - By Peter Hartcher (16/3/09)

16 March, 2009 Sydney Morning Herald When Barack Obama announced his champion to rescue the world from economic ruin, it was the first time most Americans had ever heard the name Tim Geithner. The initial impression was good. The stockmarket…
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G20 Finance Ministers’ and Central Bank Governors’ Communiqué (18/3/09)

Published 14 March, 2009 The G-20 nations met on March 14, 2009 in Horsham, Engand to discuss the global economic situation prior to their London Summit in early April. We, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, met today…
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Stop Wall Street Loan-Sharking - By Bernie Sanders (18/3/09)

16 March 2009 OpEdnews.com There is a huge sense of outrage in our country today at what Wall Street has done through greed, recklessness and, likely, illegal behavior.  The “Masters of the Universe” have plunged our nation, and much of…
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The Size of the Derivatives Bubble = $190K Per Person on Planet - The Invisible One Quadrillion Dollar Equation - By DK Matai (19/3/09)

March 16, 2009 Global Research / siliconvalleywatcher.com The Invisible One Quadrillion Dollar Equation -- Asymmetric Leverage and Systemic Risk According to various distinguished sources including the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland -- the central bankers' bank --…
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Mammoth Financial Losses: Credit Default Swaps – Exercises in Surrealism - By Satyajit Das (19/3/09)

March 16, 2009 Global Research / wilmott.com/blogs/satyajitdas At the quantum level, the laws of classical physics alter in intriguing ways. In financial markets, at the derivative level, the rules of finance also operate differently. The derivative industry’s indefatigable advocacy of…
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Caution On Quantitive Easing: Be Warned Ben... - By Karl Denninger (21/3/09)

19 March 2009 Market Ticker The BOE executed their first "QE" operation today. The "bid to cover" was an astonishing 7.35. This means that for every bond purchased 7.35 were tendered, or made available by willing sellers. Back in January…
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Bernanke's Economic Strategy: Trillions Now, Worry Later - By Tom Petruno (21/3/09)

18 March 2009 Los Angeles Times The Federal Reserve made it clearer than ever Wednesday that it's willing to go for short-term gain at the risk of future pain. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his peers at the central bank…
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Federal Reserve Press Release (21/3/09)

For immediate release Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January indicates that the economy continues to contract.  Job losses, declining equity and housing wealth, and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending.  Weaker…
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Dollar Crisis In The Making - Part 3: China Inoculates Itself Against Dollar Collapse - By W Joseph Stroupe (17/3/09)

This article concludes a three-part report. PART 1: Before the stampede PART 2: The not-so-safe haven There is mounting evidence that China's central bank is undertaking the process of divesting itself of longer-dated US Treasuries in favor of shorter-dated ones.…
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Dollar Crisis In The Making - Part 2: The Not-So-Safe Haven - By W Joseph Stroupe (17/3/09)

Official and popular analysis of the predicament facing the US dollar has for the most part been distinctly unwilling to come fully to grips with the stark truth about the real nature of this deepening crisis and the escalating risks…
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Dollar Crisis In The Making - Part 1: Before The Stampede - By W Joseph Stroupe (17/3/09)

March 15, 2009 Asia Times Increasingly ominous clouds are gathering in what could soon be the perfect storm against the United States dollar and against the present dollar-centric global financial order. This is not shaping up to be a storm…
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Defend the Gold Standard - By Robert P. Murphy (18/3/09)

16 March, 2009 Mises Institute For some reason, there are a lot of people out there who can't stand the gold standard. Maybe their hostility is in reaction to the large (and growing) number of gold bugs who think the…
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Sold Out, How Wall Street & Washington Betrayed America - By Consumer Education Foundation (18/3/09)

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The Financial Sector: "A House Burning Down" Ben Bernanke’s False Analogy - By Prof. Michael Hudson (20/3/09)

March 16, 2009 Global Research In the March 15 CBS show "60 Minutes", Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke used a false analogy already popularized by President Obama in his quasi-State of the Union Speech. He likened the financial sector to…
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AIG Larry Summers and the Politics of Deflection - By F. William Engdahl (21/3/09)

18 March  2009 Financialsense Finally US authorities have gotten ‘tough’ with the predator financial institutions. The world has been waiting for such decisive intervention since an unending series of Government bailouts of financial institutions began early in 2008 amounting to…
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Supporters of Capitalism Are Crazy, Says Harvard - By Thomas E. Woods, Jr.(21/3/09)

17 March 2009 Mises Institute Last weekend, Harvard University sponsored a conference called (I am not making this up) "The Free Market Mindset: History, Psychology, and Consequences." Its purpose was to try to figure out why, since everyone knows the…
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The Storm Sweeping South Asia - By Niloufer Bhagwat (21/3/09)

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Gold Buying Opportunity of a Lifetime - By Darryl Robert Schoon (21/3/09)

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MUST-WATCH VIDEO: MARK-TO-MARKET - ALAN GRAYSON QUESTIONS AIG MATH (16/3/09)

There Is A Conclusive Need For Mark-to-Market As Opposed to Mark-to-Model, This Video Spells It Out All Too Clearly. Look out for the Last Speaker's Remarks.  Click Here To Watch Video
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Bailout Money Is Flowing Abroad - Study Casts Doubt On The Effectiveness of Bank of England’s "Quantitative Easing" Policy - By Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor (16/3/09)

14 March, 2009 The Independent UK Much of the new money the Bank of England has "printed" to stimulate the UK economy is ending up abroad where it will be of no benefit to UK households and businesses, according to…
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AIG Discloses $75 Billion in Bailout Payments - Insurer Reveals List of Taxpayer Funds Doled Out to Settle Debts With Companies, Municipalities - By Brady Dennis (17/3/09)

March 16, 2009 Washington Post   In the six months since the government's bailout of insurance giant American International Group, a rescue that has become increasingly costly and contentious, one question has loomed above all others: Where did the money…
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National Debt Hits Record $11 Trillion - By Manu Raju (20/3/09)

March 17, 2009 Politico.com The eye-popping national debt surpassed $11 trillion Monday, the largest in U.S. history. The new Treasury Department figures on the national debt were released as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to project that the…
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U.N. Panel Says World Should Ditch Dollar - By Jeremy Gaunt (22/3/09)

March 19. 2009 Reuters LUXEMBOURG - A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding…
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Singapore May Take Up To Six Years To Recover: Lee Kuan Yew - By AFP (22/3/09)

March 21, 2009 Singapore's recession-hit economy may take up to six years to recover in a worse-case scenario, influential founding father Lee Kuan Yew said. "The optimistic scenario is, two to three years, we're out of this," Lee told an…
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Madoff pleads guilty to vast fraud and is jailed

By Diana B. Henriques and Jack Healy Published: March 12, 2009   NEW YORK: Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to all the charges against him and expressed remorse for a vast Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of billions of…
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Citigroup Inspired Bear Market Suckers' Rally - There Are Still Lots of Gamblers Out There - Until These Manipulators Are Wiped Out, There Will Be No Recovery - By Matthias Chang (12/3/09)

So long as the filthy rich global gamblers are alive and able to manipulate the stock markets, the currency markets, the oil markets and the derivative markets, there can be no genuine recovery for the global economy. The reason is…
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Barack Obama's Economic Recovery Plan - Interview with Prof. Jack Rasmus - By Shamus Cooke (10/3/09)

Global Research, March 8, 2009   The following is an interview with Prof. Jack Rasmus by the Workers Emergency Relief Campaign (WERC). Rasmus is a professor of economics at St. Mary's College and Santa Clara University in Northern California. Below…
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Everyone Is Fleeing The Falling Knives - By Jonathan Davis (11/3/09)

8 March 2009 FT The metaphor that originally seemed to capture the global financial crisis best was Jeremy Grantham’s “slow motion train crash”, in which a world dominated by unsound monetary policies and reckless bankers headed inevitably towards its eventual…
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Hedge Fund Hotel Yields Up Secrets - By Andrew Clark (11/3/09)

7 March 2009 Guardian UK It is Mayfair's house of financial horrors. Owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family, One Curzon Street is among London's flashiest office blocks. But behind the elegant curves, polished white stone, sweeping windows and panoramic…
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Top U.S., European Banks Got $50 Billion in AIG Aid - By Serena Ng and Carrick Mollenkamp (11/3/09)

7 March 2009 WSJ The beneficiaries of the government's bailout of American International Group Inc. include at least two dozen U.S. and foreign financial institutions that have been paid roughly $50 billion since the Federal Reserve first extended aid to…
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Too Big To Fail? 5 Biggest Banks Are "Dead Men Walking" - By Greg Gordon and Kevin G. Hall (11/3/09)

March 9, 2009  McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — America's five largest banks, which already have received $145 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, still face potentially catastrophic losses from exotic investments if economic conditions substantially worsen, their latest financial reports show. Citibank,…
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The U.S. Financial System Is Effectively Insolvent - There Is A Grave Risk of A Global L-shaped Depression - By Nouriel Roubini (9/3/09)

March 5,2009 Forbes For those who argue that the rate of growth of economic activity is turning positive--that economies are contracting but at a slower rate than in the fourth quarter of 2008--the latest data don't confirm this relative optimism.…
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ECB’s Stark Says Rate Cuts Won’t End Crisis, May Backfire - By Simon Kennedy and Stephanie Bodoni

7 March  2009, Bloomberg European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark said cutting interest rates won’t remedy the financial crisis and pushing them too low may backfire. “The financial crisis can’t be solved with rate cuts,” Stark said in…
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Bond King Prepares To Deal With New World Order - By Sophia Grene (11/3/09)

8 March 2009 FT “I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” This was allegedly the ambition of a political adviser to Bill Clinton, overawed by the power of the bond market to influence…
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The Federal Reserve Is Bankrupt - How Did It Happen & The Ugly Consequences - By Matthias Chang (11/3/09)

I woke up this morning at 5.00 am blurry eyed and absolutely tired, because I spent the entire weekend on my feet thinking and thinking and putting the jigsaw puzzle together. I recheck and recheck the data and facts hoping…
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A Ticking Toxic Time Bomb - Who Will Get The Shits When It Explodes? - By Matthias Chang

Anwar’s Pakatan Rakyat and Badawi’s UMNO have one thing in common. They attract toxic waste in the same intensity as cow-dungs attract flies. When the two Pakatan Rakyat State Assemblymen for Perak, Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi and Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu,…
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Johor, The Bastion of UMNO Plunging Into Economic Free Fall By 3rd Quarter 2009 - The Iskandar Project - Johor UMNO’s Millstone - By Matthias Chang (17/2/09, Updated at 8:45 am 18th February 2009)

On the 4th of February 2009, I participated in a closed door forum on the global financial crisis organised by the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (NCCIM). One of the Forum’s objectives was “Mapping A Blueprint For…
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The "Geithner Put": It's Time To Break Up The Big Banks - Dumping $1 Trillion of Toxic Assets onto US Taxpayers - By Mike Whitney (28/2/09)

25 February 2009 Global Research Timothy Geithner is putting the finishing touches on a plan that will dump $1 trillion of toxic assets onto the US taxpayer.  The plan, which goes by the opaque moniker the "Public-Private Investment Fund" (PPIF),…
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James Galbraith: Obama Isn't Doing Enough to Solve the Financial Crisis - By Nick Baumann (28/2/09)

26 February  2009, Mother Jones The financial crisis is even worse than people think (and people already think it's pretty bad), and we aren't doing enough to stop it, economist and Mother Jones contributor James K. Galbraith told the House…
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READ THIS FIRST: Guide To This Weekend's Posting On Financial Issues (28/2/09)

FF Editorial: This week we have adopted an unprecedented procedure in our posting. There has been a rush of statements coming out of the White House and these are all KEY POLICY STATEMENTS FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA. To assist your reading…
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Nationalization Isn't The Worst Fear - By Bill Fleckenstein (4/3/09)

2 March 2009 MSN Money For all the anxiety the idea brings, we accept something similar whenever the FDIC takes over a bank. The real worry is financial Armageddon. Philosophically, I am opposed to government intervention, as longtime readers know.…
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Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address

Saturday, 28th February 2009 Washington, DC Two years ago, we set out on a journey to change the way that Washington works. We sought a government that served not the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few, but the…
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A Week of Big Numbers - By Doug Noland (4/3/09)

Credit Bubble Bulletin “…the U.S. government has pledged more than $11.6 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers over the past 19 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.  Changes from the previous table, published Feb. 9, include a $787 billion…
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B of A Carries Loans $44 billion Above Market Value - By Elinor Comlay (4/3/09)

27 February 2009 Reuters NEW YORK - Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is carrying loans on its balance sheet marked at more than $44 billion above their fair value, the company said in its annual…
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MI5 Alert On Bank Riots - By Geraint Jones (4/3/09)

1 March 2009 Sunday Express TOP secret contingency plans have been drawn up to counter the threat posed by a “summer of discontent” in Britain. [FF Editorial: In the ground breaking book, the Shadow-Money Lenders and the Global Financial Tsunami,…
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GE Treated Like a "Leper" as Investors Punish Shares - By Rachel Layne and Craig Torres (8/3/09)

5 March 2009 Bloomberg Investors are treating the company as though it’s on the verge of failing ahead of a potential cut in its top-level AAA rating. “It’s a leper right now,” said Marilyn Cohen, president of Envision Capital Management…
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JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank America Face Ratings Cuts - By David Mildenberg (8/3/09)

5 March 2009, Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., the three largest U.S. banks by market value, may face credit-rating downgrades by Moody’s Investors Service amid signs they’ll set aside additional cash…
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Ruminations on President Obama's Tenure Thus Far and "Acceptable Punditry" - By Cynthia Mckinney

I have played around with this idea for hours now, on whether or not to write this piece.  But the events of the last few hours, I believe, mandate that I raise my voice once again. I have read and…
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EU Leaders Summary Statement on the Crisis (4/3/09)

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America's Fiscal Collapse - By Michel Chossudovsky (4/3/09)

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A Banana Republic By 2012? - Change for the Worse - By Paul Craig Roberts (4/3/09)

2 March 2009 Information Clearing House President Obama has presented the most irresponsible budget in US history.  His fiscal year 2010 budget projects federal spending of $3.5 trillion and a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion. In other words, 50 percent…
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Jim Rogers Doesn't Mince Words About the Crisis - By Maria Bartiromo (4/3/09)

1 March 2009 Businessweek Maria Bartiromo talks to global investor Jim Rogers In 1970 a young Wall Streeter named Jim Rogers hooked up with George Soros to start the legendary Quantum Fund. The ensuing decades have seen Rogers build an…
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Propping Up a House of Cards - By Joe Nocera (4/3/09)

2 March 2009 NYT Next week, perhaps as early as Monday, the American International Group is going to report the largest quarterly loss in history. Rumors suggest it will be around $60 billion, which will affirm, yet again, A.I.G.’s sorry…
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Gordon Brown Adviser Says City All-Important - And "Rest of the Country Can Be Turned Over To Tourism" - By Gordon Rayner (4/3/09)

2 March 2009, Telegraph UK A senior economic adviser to Gordon Brown said the City of London was all-important to the Government and “the rest of the country can be turned over to tourism”, it is claimed today. A report…
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“Holes in the Ground” - The End of the Commodity Super Cycle - By Satyajit Das (8/3/09)

Super Short Super Cycles The commodity “super cycle” proved super short. The commodity “boom” is now officially a “bust.” Mark Twain once described a mine as “a hole in the ground with a liar standing next to it.’’ The end…
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Once Again Matthias Chang Proven Right 100% - Dow Closed Below 7,000 Today - By Matthias Chang (3/3/09)

In an article dated the 12th December 2008, entitled “Obama’s Last Gamble” which was posted to my website, I forecasted that at the earliest, by the end of December 2008 or at the latest by the end of the first…
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Remarks By President Obama And British Prime Minister Gordon Brown After Meeting (5/3/09)

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 3, 2009 Oval Office, 11:58 A.M. EST PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Good to see you. Where are the Brits? They're over there. PRIME MINISTER BROWN: In fact, they're…
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Fed Says Outlook For Quick Recovery Is Bleak - Survey Shows That Economy Deteriorated In The First Two Months of 2009 - Associated Press (5/3/09)

WASHINGTON - The country spiraled deeper into recession to start 2009, forcing widespread cutbacks and layoffs among everyone from blue-collar workers who once churned out construction equipment to white-collar professionals like business consultants and accountants. The Federal Reserve’s new snapshot…
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"Run On UK" Sees Foreign Investors Pull $1 Trillion Out Of The City - Banking Crisis Undermines Britain's Reputation As A Safe Place To Hold Funds - By Sean O'Grady (8/3/09)

7 March 2009 The Independent UK [FF Editorial: In a confidential Memo to selected people, we warned some weeks ago that there have been major runs on banks, “electronically” in the USA. This news is further proof that similar situations…
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"Outlaw the Shadow Banking System!" - Guess Who Said It? - By Matthias Chang (8/3/09)

When I read the remarks of President Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown after their meeting at the Oval Office on March 3, 2009 and the speech of the latter to the Joint Session of Congress on March 4, 2009,…
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FINANCIAL CRISIS AND BAILOUTS

By Dr. Mahathir Mohamad 1. I was in England recently and the newspapers were full of dismal reports on bank and business failures, the closure of well-known businesses like Woolworths and Baratt, the increases of unemployment rate with some 700,000…
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Doug Casey on 2009: Another Year of Shock and Awe - By Casey Research (LATEST UPDATE - 14/2/09)

11 Feburary, 2009 In their annual forecast edition, the editors of BIG GOLD asked Casey Research Chairman and contrarian investor Doug Casey to provide his predictions and thoughts on issues everyone’s thinking about these days. Read what he has to…
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U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs - By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry (LATEST UPDATE - 14/2/09)

U.9 February 2009 , Bloomberg The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages. The…
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Hmmm... A Trillion Here... A Trillion There...- By Bill Bonner (LATEST UPDATE - 14/2/09)

11 February 2009 The Daily Reckoning The news this morning is as grey and damp as the weather. First, the U.S. stock market did nothing yesterday. The Dow ended down 9 measly points. The Dow is about 10% above its…
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Pelosi Stimulus Casts Shadow Over Obama, America, World - By John Browne (LATEST UPDATE - 14/2/09)

Pe11 February 2009, Euro Pacific Capital In a sign that may reveal much about the current deal-making environment in Washington, House speaker Nancy Pelosi has outmaneuvered the Obama Administration in the design of the massive $827 billion so-called Economic Stimulus…
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Ship of Fools - By Paul Craig Roberts

February 09, 2009 Information Clearinghouse Is there intelligent life in Washington, DC? Not a speck of it. The US economy is imploding, and Obama is being led by his government of neconservatives and Israeli agents into a quagmire in Afghanistan…
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Lives Have Been Destroyed by the Federal Government - By Mark R. Crovelli

February 10, 2009 Lew Rockwell One of the hardest things to deal with in the current economic depression is the disgusting hypocrisy of the U.S. congress, the new president, and the members of the Federal Reserve System. It is one…
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MUST-WATCH VIDEO: Worst Economic Collapse Ever (LATEST UPDATE - 15/2/09)

Click on the link below to watch video: Worst Economic Collapse Ever
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Economic Crisis "Top Threat to US" - Al Jazeera (LATEST UPDATE - 15/2/09)

February 13, 2009 "Al Jazeera" -- The current global economic crisis remains the top security concern for the US, the country's new Director of National Intelligence has said. Dennis Blair said in a report to US congress on security on…
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Asia And The Crisis: Unlucky Numbers - By David Pilling (LATEST UPDATE - 11/2/09)

February 9 2009 FT   Pick a number, any number. For Asia, they are all likely to be bad. Lau Wong-fat, the unfortunate Hong Kong official designated to select a fortune-telling stick on the city’s behalf during recent lunar new…
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The Government Finance Bubble - By Doug Noland (LATEST UPDATE - 10/2/09)

6 February 2009, Credit Bubble Bulletin What are we really dealing with here?  First of all, the system is suffering through the breakdown in contemporary “Wall Street finance.”  As wrenching and destabilizing as it continues to be, this process should…
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For Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, Love Was Blind - By Louise Story and Julie Creswell (LATEST UPDATE - 10/2/09)

7 February 2009,  NYT   In mid-September, as Wall Street unwound and venerable financial institutions were brought to their knees, the mood inside the Manhattan law offices of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was decidedly celebratory. After a weekend of…
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Currency Crisis: First Sterling, Now the Euro, and Then...? - By Adrian Ash (LATEST UPDATE - 8/2/09)

February 5, 2009 BullionVault How to get a jump on the big central banks as interest rates race towards zero worldwide... OF SIX CENTRAL BANKS voting on interest rates this week, only the European Central Bank in Frankfurt failed to…
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MUST-WATCH VIDEO: Rep. Kanjorski: $550 Billion Disappeared in "Electronic Run On the Banks" (LATEST UPDATE - 11/2/09)

Wednesday, 11 February 2009 20:21 Click on the link below to watch video: - MUST-WATCH VIDEO: Rep. Kanjorski: $550 Billion Disappeared in "Electronic Run On the Banks"
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Breaking Down Media Spin on Obama and Stimulus - By Joe Brewer (LATEST UPDATE - 11/2/09)

February 9, 2009 Commondreams The ideological battle continues as progressive leaders seek to save the U.S. economy from collapse. Conservatives in the federal government and beyond have rallied together to challenge the will of the people with the most sophisticated…
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SIGTARP Initial Report to Congress (LATEST UPDATE - 10/2/09)

Tuesday, 10 February 2009 16:43 Download PDF
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Financial Crisis: The Failure of Accounting Reform - By Jesus Huerta de Soto (LATEST UPDATE - 10/2/09)

4 February 2009, Mises Institute The years of "irrational exuberance" that have characterized the current economic cycle have culminated in a profound crisis in both the banking system and financial markets, a crisis that threatens to trigger an acute, global…
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The Road to Bank Nationalization - By John Browne, Senior Market Advisor

February 6, 2009 Euro Pacific Capital This week, seven major corporations announced major layoffs, adding 72,000 to the unemployed. At the same time, lending by the big banks fell. With falling demand for loans, it is little wonder that President…
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The Insolvency of the Fed - By Philipp Bagus and Markus H. Schiml

Saturday, 07 February 2009 14:05 Download PDF
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Galbraith on the Crash... It Has a Familiar Ring - By Pat Regnier

5 February 2009, Fortune Magazine James Galbraith picks up the argument for government intervention where his father left off. His prescription: Spend now, spend a lot, and spend some more. Until about Sept. 20, 2008, the day Henry Paulson asked…
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Breaking Down Media Spin on Obama and Stimulus - By Joe Brewer (LATEST UPDATE - 11/2/09)

February 9, 2009 Commondreams The ideological battle continues as progressive leaders seek to save the U.S. economy from collapse. Conservatives in the federal government and beyond have rallied together to challenge the will of the people with the most sophisticated…
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Obama's Wealth Destruction - By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. (LATEST UPDATE - 11/2/09)

February 9, 2009 Mises Institute President Obama is under the impression that history owes him $1 trillion right now to spend on whatever he wants. His language is strident and full of irritation that anyone would question his right to…
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Secretary Geithner Introduces Financial Stability Plan - By Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (LATEST UPDATE - 11/2/09)

Remarks by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Introducing the Financial Stability Plan 10 February 2009, Tuesday As prepared for delivery As President Obama said in his inaugural address, our economic strength is derived from "the doers, the makers of things." The…
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Fact Sheet - Financial Stability Plan (LATEST UPDATE - 11/2/09)

Wednesday, 11 February 2009 10:47 Download PDF
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A Ticking Toxic Time Bomb - Who Will Get The Shits When It Explodes? - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 9/2/09)

Anwar’s Pakatan Rakyat and Badawi’s UMNO have one thing in common. They attract toxic waste in the same intensity as cow-dungs attract flies. When the two Pakatan Rakyat State Assemblymen for Perak, Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi and Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu,…
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This is Just the Beginning - By Peter Schiff (LATEST UPDATE - 8/2/09)

February 6, 2009 Euro Pacific Capital The intense scrutiny recently paid to my investment strategy in the immediate wake of the financial crisis of the last six months has unfortunately obscured the central element of my larger economic forecast. The…
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D-Day For Gordon Brown As He Says World Is Already In A Depression - By Philip Webster, Political Editor and Gary Duncan (LATEST UPDATE - 8/2/09)

February 5, 2009 Timesonline Gordon Brown described the global economic downturn as a depression for the first time yesterday during a furious Commons clash with David Cameron. The Prime Minister’s remark came as he told MPs that countries “should agree…
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Bernanke's Great Lie - The "Gold Standard" and the Great Depression - By Jake (LATEST UPDATE - 3/2/09)

Jake Download PDF
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It’s Not Going to Be OK - By Chris Hedges (LATEST UPDATE - 3/2/09)

2 February 2009, TruthDig.com The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland…
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Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

Saturday, January 24th, 2009 We begin this year and this Administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action. Just this week, we saw more people file for unemployment than at any time in the last…
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The American Reinvestment and Recovery Plan - By the Numbers (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09

Administrator Saturday, 31 January 2009 18:38 Download PDF
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The World Is Facing The First Truly Global Economic Crisis - By Vladimir Putin (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

January 29, 2009 World Economic Forum / Global Research Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland January 28, 2009 Good afternoon, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the…
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Risk Management or Risk Manipulation - Thomas Tan (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

January 28, 2009 www.investorwalk.com Value at risk (VaR) financial models are the latest game being played by those on Wall Street who profess to manage risk, a troubling trend detailed superbly by Joe Nocera in a January 2nd New York…
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The Economony The Titanic & The life Rafts of Gold & Silver - By Darryl Robert Schoon (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

Darryl Robert Schoon    Saturday, 31 January 2009 18:33 Download PDF  
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OCC's Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities Third Quarter 2008 (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

Comptroller of the Currency Administrator of National Banks    Saturday, 31 January 2009 18:00 Download PDF  
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The financial services rust belt - By Martin Hutchinson (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

26 January  2009, www.greatconservatives.com Those who have visited Michigan recently or the Mahoning Valley of Ohio in the 1980s can recognize the symptoms of a rust belt. A hitherto prosperous industry, paying high wages to its employees, has been overtaken…
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Robert Lucas's Strange Faith in Bernanke - By Robert P. Murphy (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

26 January  2009, Mises Institute Lately the Mises Daily may have given the impression that we just bash Paul Krugman. In the interest of balance, today I will cast aspersions on another Nobel laureate, the Chicago School economist Robert Lucas.…
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Mahathir Mohamad: People Are Laughing at Western Banks’ Collapse

RIYADH — Sitting a few time zones away from the Davos gathering, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad spares a dry chuckle at the fall of the once mighty Western financial giants and masters of the universe. “They were doing…
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Badawi Will Not Retire in March 2009 - Mischievous Rumours Or A Devious Political Gambit? - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 31/1/09)

Many people have asked me whether I have heard that Badawi has indicated that he would not retire as Prime Minister of Malaysia as agreed, when Najib takes over as President of UMNO in March 2009. My reaction has always…
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From Bubble Watch to Bust Watch - By Bill Bonner (LATEST UPDATE - 29/1/09)

23 January 2009, The Daily Reckoning We've been on Bubble Watch for the last ten years. Now, we're on Bust Watch... Tim Geithner, Obama's choice for Treasury Secretary, may not have seen the bust on Wall Street coming... but he…
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Brave New (Financial) World - By Satyajit Das (LATEST UPDATE - 29/1/09)

23 January 2009, Federated Equity Management Company From the Financial to the Real … As the “financial’’ crisis moved into the “real” economy at the end of 2008, the incomprehensible discourse about arcane minutiae of securitized debt and derivatives (toxic…
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Malaysian Voodoo Economics Revisited - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 29/1/09)

Up to the date of President Obama’s inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, the Prime Minister and the Bank Negara, specifically its Governor have been most optimistic about the Malaysian economy and her ability to withstand the…
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Iceland’s Government Collapses

By JUDY DEMPSEY Published: January 26, 2009 BERLIN — Iceland’s coalition government collapsed Monday, the latest fallout from a global financial crisis that has sparked angry demonstrations against governments across Europe. Brynjar Gauti/Associated Press Prime Minister Geir Haarde of Iceland…
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Another Real Estate Crisis Is About To Hit - By Paul Craig Roberts (LATEST UPDATE - 25/1/09)

January 21, 2009 For a picture of the US real estate crisis, imagine New Orleans wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, and before the waters even begin to recede, a second Katrina hits. The 1,120,000 lost US retail jobs in 2008 are…
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Financial Brains “Stimulating” America to Rock Bottom - By Ron Paul (LATEST UPDATE - 25/1/09)

WITH ATTENTION TURNING TO THE NEXT big economic stimulus package, questions are still swirling about our economic troubles. How did we get here? How do we get out? As usual, Washington has all the wrong answers. According to many politicians,…
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Can Fiscal Stimulus Revive the US Economy? - By Frank Shostak (LATEST UPDATE - 25/1/09)

January 22, 2009 Mises Institute On Thursday, January 8, 2009, US President-elect Barack Obama said, I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing…
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Death Agony of Thatcher Deregulated Finance Model - By F. William Engdahl (LATEST UPDATE - 25/1/09)

Global Research, January 22, 2009 During the end of the 1970’s into the 1980’s British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the City of London financial interests who backed her, introduced wholesale measures of privatization, state budget cuts, moves against…
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Obama Inauguration: Slide on Wall Street. Where Have All The Creditors Gone?... "When Will We Ever Learn?" - By Michel Chossudovsky (LATEST UPDATE - 25/1/09)

Global Research, January 20, 2009 Across the land, an atmosphere of hope and optimism prevails. The Bush regime has gone. A new president is in the White House. While America had its eyes riveted on the live TV broadcast of …
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The Economic Pearl Harbour - The Alarm Bells Have Been Sounded - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 22/1/09)

On January 18, 2009, the Associated Press reported that in an interview aired on “Dateline NBC” the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Warren Buffet said that the “US is engaged in an economic Pearl Harbour.” A shiver ran…
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Jim Rogers: "Sell Any Sterling You Might Have. It's Finished." - Investment Guru Issues Grim Warning As Sharp Fall In Inflation Hits Pound - By Sean O'Grady

Thursday, 22 January 2009 22:08 Economics Editor - January 21, 2009 The Independent [FF Editorial: In Part 5 of the book: “The Shadow Money-Lenders and The Global Financial Tsunami, Matthias Chang reproduced an article he wrote dated November 11, 2007…
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The 43 Who Helped Make Bush The Worst Ever - By Progress Report (LATEST UPDATE - 18/1/09)

16 January  2009 Next week, "change is coming to America," as President George W. Bush wraps up his tenure as one of the worst American presidents ever. He wasn't able to accomplish such an ignominious feat all by himself, however;…
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Unless we are decisive Britain faces bankruptcy - By Will Hutton (LATEST UPDATE - 20/1/09)

18 January 2009 The Guardian Our financial institutions are fighting for their lives and the Treasury may not be able to bail them out. The government needs to get serious to avert meltdown It's no wonder that so many Icelanders…
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Global Margin Call - By Brent Budowsky (LATEST UPDATE - 20/1/09)

January 18  2009, Consortium News The world is facing a global margin call. In a margin call, traders must put up a percentage of cash, which is leveraged against the value of assets they trade. When asset value declines, they…
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The End of Banking as We Know It - By Gretchen Morgenson (LATEST UPDATE - 20/1/09)

18 January 2009,NYT The concept of the financial supermarket — the all-things-to-all-people, intergalactic, behemoth banking institution — bit the dust last week. The first death notice came on Tuesday, when Citigroup, Exhibit A for the failure of the soup-to-nuts business…
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Filling the Holes in Krugman's Analysis - By Robert P. Murphy (LATEST UPDATE - 18/1/09)

15 January 2009, Mises Institute Although many free-market economists were aghast that Paul Krugman won the Nobel (Memorial) Prize in Economics, I have come to realize that he is every bit as brilliant as that august award indicates. For some…
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Money Games - By Tom (LATEST UPDATE - 18/1/08)

Dear Friends and Family:   For some years now, I have been saying that the "money changers" and "banksters" in London and New York are setting us up.  They playing a money game in which all of the marbles are…
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Gold & The New Era - By Darryl Robert Schoon (LATEST UPDATE - 16/1/08)

Darryl Robert Schoon Friday, 16 January 2009 10:56 Download PDF
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Inquiry started of financier who invested with Madoff

J. Ezra Merkin, a New York financier, wrote his investors last month that he too was shocked by the news that Bernard Madoff's hedge fund was an elaborate Ponzi scheme. But not everyone sees him as a victim. The New York…
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How To Resolve The Credit Crisis - Credit Where Credit Is Due - By Ellen Brown (LATEST UPDATE - 15/1/09)

January 13, 2009 Information Clearinghouse Letter to the bank – Dear Sirs, In light of recent developments, when you returned my check marked “insufficient funds,” were you referring to my funds or yours? Economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously said, “The…
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Merrill Lynch Says Rich Turning To Gold Bars For Safety - By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (LATEST UPDATE - 15/1/09)

Merrill Lynch has revealed that some of its richest clients are so alarmed by the state of the financial system and signs of political instability around the world that they are now insisting on the purchase of gold bars, shunning…
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Shipping Rates Hit Rock Bottom - I Hope You Understand What This Means - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 15/1/09)

Thursday, 15 January 2009 22:51 Global Trade Has Collapsed Totally Shipping Companies Like MISC and Major Ports Will Be In Deep Shits Revising My Previous Forecast On Growth It Will Be Negative in 2009 For Malaysia In a recent Strategy…
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Investment Outlook: Andrew Mellon vs. Bailout Nation - By Bill Gross (LATEST UPDATE - 14/1/09)

2008 was the year when the United States led the charge of bailout nations, lending and literally guaranteeing trillions of dollars of private liabilities in an effort to avoid the advent of another Great Depression. Nothing, with the possible exception…
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Value of 2008 Bailouts Exceeds Combined Costs of All Major U.S. Wars - By Fred Lucas

CNSNews.com  The total value of the bailouts undertaken by the federal government in 2008 now exceeds the combined cost of every major war the United States has ever engaged in, according to a comparison of war costs calculated by the…
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Government Panic Could Herald Dollar Panic - By John Browne

Government Panic Could Herald Dollar Panic - By John Browne Euro Pacific Capital One of the few things more troubling for an economy than government intervention is government intervention driven by panic. Time and again, history has shown that when…
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A Shocking Revelation - A Massive RM73 Billion Bailout or A Quantum-Leap Stimulus? Prepare For Very Bad News By End of 1st Quarter - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 15/1/09)

When certain financial information which should come from official sources gets announced through a private vested interest, it is an indication that we must prepare for a national security alert, to be precise a FINANCIAL RECKONING that will send a…
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New World Order Will Emerge in 2009, with U.S. plunging - By Paul Kennedy (LATEST UPDATE - 14/1/09)

January 2009 Salt Lake Tribune Every so often in the history of international affairs, a great transnational turbulence shakes the foundations of the world and brings many of its older structures tumbling to the ground, as we witnessed in 1919,…
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The Crisis in 10 Points - By Robert Stewart

Sunday, 04 January 2009 00:12 31 December 2008, Mises Institute The 2007–2008 financial crisis had its genesis in the United States housing markets, but it rapidly spread to other economies, first to the United Kingdom, but then almost everywhere else,…
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The Ponzi Scheme in Every Hedge Fund - By Arri J Officer

5 January  2009, Times Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme continues to rock the financial world. But most hedge funds actually engage in similar — albeit legal — practices in the short run. These practices helped inflate their gains, as…
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Willem Buiter Warns of Massive Dollar Collapse - By Edmund Conway

6 January 2009 ,The Telegraph Americans must prepare themselves for a massive collapse in the dollar as investors around the world dump their US assets, a former Bank of England policymaker has warned. The long-held assumption that US assets -…
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Banks Pare Fed Loans After Increase for Year-End Cash - By Scott Lanman

8 January  2009, Bloomberg Banks pared borrowing from the Federal Reserve during the past week, reducing their dependence on the central bank after stocking up on cash at the end of 2008, the Fed’s consolidated balance sheet showed today. Discount…
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BOE Cuts Rate to Lowest Since Bank’s Creation in 1694 - By Svenja O’Donnell

8 January 2009 Bloomberg The Bank of England cut the benchmark interest rate to the lowest since the central bank was founded in 1694 as policy makers tried to prevent the credit squeeze from deepening Britain’s recession. The bank rate…
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Fed Predicts Economy Will Get Worse - By Chris Isidore

6 January 2009 , CNNMoney.com In the minutes from its last meeting, the central bank said it expects GDP to decline in 2009 and unemployment to rise into 2010. NEW YORK - The U.S. economy is likely to deteriorate further…
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Fiscal Therapy - By David Cay Johnston (LATEST UPDATE - 13/1/09)

11 January  2009, Mother Jones Getting the economy back on its feet, giving taxpayers a break, saving your retirement fund and your kid's college tuition? Done. And it won't cost you a penny. For years now, whenever I've been invited…
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Memo to Obama: How to Convert to A Peace Economy - By Deepak Chopra (LATEST UPDATE - 13/1/09)

11 January  2009 ,Tikkun Magazine You have been elected by the first anti-war constituency since 1952, when Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean War. But ending a war isn't the same as bringing peace. America has been…
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Kemelut automotif di seluruh dunia

Bukanlah sesuatu yang mengejutkan apabila firma penyelidikan dan perunding antarabangsa, Frost & Sullivan meramalkan jualan kenderaan di negara ini menyusut lebih lapan peratus tahun ini ekoran krisis ekonomi dan berkurangnya pelancaran model kenderaan baru. Menurut Kavan Mukhtyar iaitu Rakan Niaga…
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U.S. debt is losing its appeal in China

HONG KONG: China has bought more than $1 trillion in American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home - a shift that could pose some challenges to the…
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Court filing details items sent by Madoff

By Jack Healy and Alex Berenson Published: January 7, 2009 Bernard Madoff, the financier accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, violated his parole by sending his friends and family packages containing 13 watches, 4 diamond brooches, a jade…
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British Regulator Starts Madoff Investigation

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Why Congress Must Stop the Fed's Massive Pumping - By Frank Shostak (LATEST UPDATE - 7/1/09)

January 6, 2009 Mises Institute On Tuesday, December 16, 2008 the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) lowered the federal-funds-rate target from 1% to between 0.25% and 0%. According to the FOMC statement, The Committee anticipates that weak economic conditions are…
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An Unhappy New Year - By Antal E. Fekete

31 December 2008, Gold Standard University Live An unhappy anniversary Another forgotten anniversary that haunts the nation is the re-establishment of the gold standard in the United States by the Roosevelt administration on January 1, 1934. What? -- you may…
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A Letter To Madoff : Measuring the Toll of The Disgraced Financier.- By Rabbi Marc Gellman (LATEST UPDATE - 7/1/09)

Dear Bernie Madoff: I don't think you know what you have done. Life inevitably inflicts upon us different kinds of wounds. Very few people can live connected lives and not occasionally fail those who depend upon them and trust them.…
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In the Globalized Crisis, Everyone Shares the Pain - By Spiegel (LATEST UPDATE - 7/1/09)

6 January 2009 The upheaval in the financial markets has sent shock waves around the globe. Economies in North America, Europe and Asia are closely connected -- for better or for worse. But now the threat of a new protectionism…
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Barack Obama: Gaza crisis will not distract from fixing America's economy

President-elect Barack Obama has signalled that the Gaza crisis will not detract from his new administration's top priority – jump-starting America's economy with a spending spree.   By Phil Sherwell, in New York Last Updated: 12:11AM GMT 04 Jan 2009…
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Rates may sink to lowest since 1694

The Bank of England is this week poised to cut interest rates to the lowest level in its 300-year history, in the latest sign of the severity of the economic crisis. By Edmund Conway Last Updated: 12:20AM GMT 04 Jan…
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U.S. Debt Expected To Soar This Year - $2 Trillion Increase May Test Federal Ability to Borrow

By Lori Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 3, 2009 With President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats considering a massive spending package aimed at pulling the nation out of recession, the national debt is projected to jump by as…
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Part 7 - Obama's Last Gamble Revisited - The Final Suckers’ Rally Before the Great Depression II - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 3/1/09)

Red Alert Recall that on December 12, 2008, in an article entitled “Obama’s Last Gamble” I warned: “The logic of these gamblers is that when they place the trillion dollar bet in the global casino, the markets will surge in…
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Urgent Questions for 2009 - By Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. (LATEST UPDATE - 30/12/08)

Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.    Tuesday, 30 December 2008 23:26 Q: I see disturbing similarities between this crisis and The Great Depression. Both were triggered by the bursting of massive debt bubbles, for instance. But this time, the government is…
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Krugman Still Wrong After All These Years - By Mike Mish Shedlock (LATEST UPDATE - 30/12/08)

Mike Mish Shedlock    Tuesday, 30 December 2008 23: Paul Krugman seems particularly proud of a piece he wrote a decade ago. His new remake, Hangover Theorists, is as wrong now as it was then. Let's take a look. The…
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2008 sees 6 years of market gains slip away

Traders during early activity on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. (Bebeto Matthews/The Associated Press) By Vikas Bajaj Published: December 31, 2008 There was almost no place to hide from the crash of 2008. By the…
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As trade slows, China rethinks its growth strategy

Migrant workers who moved to coastal provinces in China to find jobs are now returning home in large numbers as factories close. (Sean Yong/Reuters ) By Keith Bradsher Published: January 1, 2009 HONG KONG: At Hong Kong docks, the stacks…
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Quake recovery central to Chinese stimulus plan

By Simon Rabinovitch Reuters ANXIAN, China: In 80 seconds of shaking, the devastating Chinese earthquake earlier this year cut a swath of death and destruction through remote hilly towns. In a recovery that will take years, the prosperity of the…
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Economic crisis reverses flood of migrants in China

By Simon Rabinovitch Reuters Published: December 30, 2008 CHENGDU, China: The biggest migration in human history has gone into reverse. The Chinese ocean of blue-collar workers is streaming back to the country's farming hinterland, with thwarted aspirations and rising discontent…
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After dramas of 2008, prepare for unemployment to take centre stage

Richard Fletcher Last Updated: 9:04PM GMT 31 Dec 2008 Sunday, September 14, 2008, symbolises for me the year when the unimaginable happened. Over a few frantic – and I have to admit at time surreal hours on that Sunday –…
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Wall Street's Final '08 Toll: $6.9 Trillion Wiped Out Racked by Crisis, Markets End Year on Slight Upswing

By Renae Merle Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 1, 2009; Page A01 After months of tortuous trading, Wall Street rang out its worst year since the Great Depression yesterday, leaving shareholders $6.9 trillion the poorer. It hardly mattered that…
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Who Is Bernard Madoff? - By Christopher Bollyn (LATEST UPDATE - 29/12/08)

By Christopher Bollyn "It's all just one big lie." - Bernard Madoff to his sons about his $50 billion "Ponzi" scheme Fraudster Bernard L. Madoff was national treasurer of the American Jewish Congress and Yeshiva University. So where did the…
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Part 6 - Common Sense - The Crisis of Common Sense - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 28/12/08)

By Matthias Chang    Thinking & Common Sense God gave us a brain to think, to think naturally and in simple terms, and not in a complicated way. When we think naturally and use common sense to address problems we…
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GERMANY'S FALTERING BANK BAILOUT PROGRAM : The Bottomless Pit - By Beat Balzil, Armin Mahler, Christopher Pauly and Wolfgang Reuter (LATEST UPDATE - 28/12/08)

Beat Balzil, Armin Mahler, Christopher Pauly and Wolfgang Reuter    23 December 2008, Spiegel Online The German government whipped its €480 billion bank bailout package through parliament in record time, but now the program has run into trouble. The banks…
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TARP This: Paulson's Bailout Plan Riddled With Deception : How a Program To Save The Economy Ended Up Enriching Big Banks - By Danny Schechter (LATEST UPDATE - 28/12/08)

Danny Schechter    Published on Tuesday 23 December, 2008 by CommonDreams.org Talk about crazy making. How do we believe anything Hank Paulson says? First, he needed $700 Billion, and fast, to buy up troubled assets or the skies would fall…
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Fact Sheet: Financing Assistance to Facilitate the Restructuring of Auto Manufacturers to Attain Financial Viability - By Office of The Press Secretary (LATEST UPDATE - 28/12/08)

Office of The Press Secretary Sunday, 28 December 2008 00:41 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary 19 December 2008 Conditioned Loans To The Domestic Auto Industry Will Enable Vital Restructuring, While Protecting The American Taxpayer Today, President Bush…
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Liquidity Traps versus Inflation Traps - By D.W. MacKenzie (LATEST UPDATE - 28/12/08)

D.W. MacKenzie    23 December 2008, Mises Institute The Federal Reserve Bank has now undertaken unprecedented measures intended to "stimulate the economy." The federal funds rate is now set at 0.0 to 0.25%. This move by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke…
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Blindsided by crisis, economists rethink profession along with theories - By Drake Bennett (LATEST UPDATE - 28/12/08)

Drake Bennett    (FF Editorial: In the past few weeks, I have been relentless and merciless in my criticisms of economists especially Nobel Laureates who creates mathematical models to forecast volatility and prices for derivative products. No less, a bunch…
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The Coming Capitalist Consensus - By Walden Bello (LATEST UPDATE - 28/12/08)

Walden Bello Sunday, 28 December 2008 00:04 Not surprisingly, the swift unraveling of the global economy combined with the ascent to the U.S. presidency of an African-American liberal has left millions anticipating that the world is on the threshold of…
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Japan Should Scrap U.S. Debt, Dollar May Plummet, Mikuni Says - Bloomberg (LATEST UPDATE - 26/12/08)

By Stanley White and Shigeki Nozawa    December 24, 2008 Bloomberg (FF Editorial: In the article “The Real Significance of The Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy…” Matthias Chang warned that the US will not be able to service its interest payments, what…
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Great expectations

Tariq Ali Barack Obama's victory (mp3) marks a decisive generational and sociological shift in American politics. Its impact is difficult to predict at this stage, but the expectations of the majority of young people who propelled Obama to victory remain…
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A warning for investors in the cozy U.S. Treasury bond market

By John Parry Reuters   Published: December 25, 2008 NEW YORK: The U.S. government bond market, which towers above other assets as the only bastion of strong returns this year, could crumble in 2009. As the Panic of 2008 wreaked havoc…
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Dollar shift: While Americans spent, Chinese saved

The U.S. Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., and President Hu Jintao of China in Beijing this month. (Pool photo by Goh Chai Hin) By Mark Landler Published: December 26, 2008 WASHINGTON: "Usually it's the rich country lending to the poor.…
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Thomas L. Friedman: Time to reboot America

By Thomas L. Friedman Published: December 25, 2008 I had a bad day last Friday, but it was an all-too-typical day for America. It actually started well, on Kau Sai Chau, an island off Hong Kong, where I stood on…
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Recession will 'set British economy back five years'

The 2009 recession could be so severe it sets Britain's economy back five years, according to the most chilling warning yet on the scale of the looming slump. By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor Last Updated: 9:07AM GMT 26 Dec 2008…
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The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff - By Chris Hedges (LATEST UPDATE - 19/12/08)

The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite…
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Why does the UK Retain a Handful of Colonies? To destroy the world’s taxation systems - By George Monbiot (LATEST UPDATE - 21/12/08)

If you want to know why Britain has never completed the process of decolonisation, look at two lists side by side. One is the official register of tax havens, compiled by the OECD(1). The other is the list of British…
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The Real Significance of The Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy (ZIRP) - The Battle To Save The Fiat Money System Has Begun - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 24/12/08)

Global Central Banks Acting In Concert - Disinformation In Financial Dailies To Confuse The People When The Truth Dawns On Hapless People, There Will Be Blood On The Streets. This Is The Warning By IMF! INTRODUCTION The disinformation by the…
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Is There Really a Credit Crunch? An Economists' Debate

By Barbara Kiviat Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Brooks Kraft / Corbis for TIME Back in September, V.V. Chari, an economist at the University of Minnesota and an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis,…
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How I Got Screwed by Bernie Madoff

By Robert Chew Monday, Dec. 15, 2008 Bernard Madoff, founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, on his trading floor in New York in 1999 Ruby Washington / New York Times Of course, I knew this instantly from the look…
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Wall Street's Latest Downfall: Madoff Charged with Fraud

Wall Street's Latest Downfall: Madoff Charged with Fraud By Stephen Gandel Friday, Dec. 12, 2008 Bernard Madoff, founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, on his trading floor in New York in 1999 Ruby Washington / New York Times Bernard…
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Egyptian statues and stenciled wallpaper: A visit to the Madoffs' Manhattan home

By Michael Skakun and Ken Libo, The Forward We arrived, two scribes-for-hire, at the Madoff residence on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "Queens High Baroque," we said sotto voce in unison as we stepped off the elevator and into the vestibule…
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Blindsided by crisis, economists rethink profession along with theories

By Drake Bennett The Boston Globe Published: December 23, 2008 BOSTON: The deepening global economic downturn has been hard on a lot of people, but it has been hard in a particular way for U.S. economists. For most people, pain…
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In Madoff scandal, Jews feel an acute betrayal

By Robin Pogrebin Published: December 24, 2008 There is a teaching in the Talmud that says an individual who comes before God after death will be asked a series of questions, the first one of which is, "Were you honest…
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Madoff dealings tarnish a private Swiss bank

By Nelson D. Schwartz PARIS: For generations, the calling card of Swiss private bankers has been the promise of prudence and discretion. Now, as the links between Bernard Madoff and elite private banks like Geneva-based Union Bancaire Privée emerge, this…
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The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff - By Chris Hedges (LATEST UPDATE - 19/12/08)

The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite…
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Where Have the Bailout Billions Gone? - By Adrianne Appel (LATEST UPDATE - 21/12/08)

BOSTON - A new U.S. investigative panel is demanding answers from the U.S. Treasury about how the agency has spent money from the 700-billion-dollar bailout fund. The Congressional Oversight Panel, a four-person board authorized by Congress and led by consumer…
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Nobel Laureates and the Global Derivative Casino - By Matthias Chang

Monday, 01 December 2008 22:49 I like to call a spade a spade. If a person gambles at the Genting Casino in Malaysia or at the Sand Dunes in Las Vegas, he is a gambler regardless of his stature in…
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THE AMERICAN DREAM - An obituary

The American Revolution was an extraordinary event. The idea that freedom was an inherent right, that tyranny could be successfully opposed, that government could serve the people, not the few, was truly revolutionary in 1776—as it is today. The American…
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London Banker: "The Market Has Failed, And Officialdom Is Perpetuating That Failure." - By Mike Whitney (LATEST UPDATE - 19/12/08)

Ever since the two Bear Stearns hedge funds defaulted 17 months ago triggering a global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has been busy putting out one fire after another. Fed chief Ben Bernanke has slashed interest rates to .25 percent,…
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Comment: Follow the investor's golden rules - and relax

By Liz Dolan, Personal Finance Editor Last Updated: 11:13AM BST 28 Aug 2002 Summertime and the living is easy. The poor old UK investor may beg to differ, having spent this particular summer grappling with badly-holed equity funds, duff savings…
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Bernard Madoff: What is a Ponzi scheme and how does it work?

Bernard Madoff, who has been charged with fraud, allegedly told staff his investment firm was "basically a giant Ponzi scheme" - but how does this particular type of swindle work? By Amy Wilson Last Updated: 2:05PM GMT 15 Dec 2008…
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Bernard Madoff 'fraud': Top regulator SEC admits it failed to act

America's chief financial watchdog has admitted it failed to act on "credible and specific" allegations regarding Bernard Madoff dating back to at least 1999. By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent Last Updated: 12:31PM GMT 17 Dec 2008 Bernard Madoff 'fraud':…
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Reporter raised red flag on Madoff in 2001

Posted By: The Asia File at Dec 23, 2008 at 20:49:09 [General] There's nothing journalists like doing less than praising other journalists. But hats off to Erin E. Arvedlund, an American business journalist who warned about Bernie Madoff's apparently peerless…
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The Ponzi scheme in which we're all involved

Posted By: Emma Hartley at Dec 18, 2008 at 17:20:43 [General] A few months ago it might have made some kind of sense to congratulate the suspected conman Bernard Madoff for showing up the world's bankers as a bunch of financial illiterates. Given everything…
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The biggest Ponzi scheme: Bernard Madoff's or the British Government's?

Just as Bernard Madoff is alleged to have relied on payments in from new investors to pay out returns and promote a $50 billion (£33 billion) fund that scarcely existed, our Government continues to issue promises which it hopes future…
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Bernard Madoff: how did he get away with it for so long?

Investigators have been on Bernard Madoff’s case for nearly a decade. But investors still lost $50 billion in what may be the largest fraud in history. To them this is more than a crime – it’s an 'almost unimaginable tragedy’.…
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Bernard Madoff `fraud': Betrayed by their best friend

Bernard Madoff wooed the jet set, but few knew how much was at stake. James Quinn reports. Last Updated: 10:25AM GMT 20 Dec 2008 The 70-year-old was a pillar of the community Photo: REUTERS He looked after funds for a…
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Bernard Madoff: One of world's biggest charity foundations forced to shut

One of the world's biggest charitable foundations has been forced to shut down in the wake of the alleged $50 billion financial fraud orchestrated by Bernard Madoff. By Louise Armitstead Last Updated: 5:18PM GMT 21 Dec 2008 Bernard Madoff is…
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Bernard Madoff: Santander boss spoke too soon

Emilio Botin spoke too soon. After collecting the gong for Bank of the Year at a recent awards dinner in London, Santander’s chairman delivered a witty speech to the global banking elite. The chance to lord it over a captive…
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Bernard Madoff victims will go after deep pockets

What were funds of funds doing backing Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50bn Ponzi scheme? Didn’t they do due diligence? Didn’t they spot the red flags that might have suggested that something was fishy? These are the questions investors who may have…
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The $50bn hedge fund audited by a one man band and a secretary

That the auditors to Bernie Madoff's $50bn exclusive fund were an unknown firm consisting of a 78-year-old retiree living in Florida, one accountant and a secretary, all technically operating from an 13ft by 8ft office in northern New York state,…
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Bernard Madoff: British financial groups' exposure to US 'fraud' close to £1.4bn

HSBC, the global bank, has potential exposure of almost £670m to Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50bn fraud, taking the total for British financial groups so far to close to £1.4bn. By Jamie Dunkley Last Updated: 5:47AM GMT 16 Dec 2008 ;…
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Madoff creditors braced for write off

Madoff creditors braced for write off Banks and other institutions are preparing to write off every penny tied up in the alleged fraud at disgraced trader Bernard Madoff's investment fund despite readying lawyers for claims against auditors and ratings agencies.…
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Bernard Madoff `fraud': Madoff's web of accounts will take half a year to unravel

The financial records of the alleged $50bn fraudster Bernard Madoff were "utterly unreliable" and will take at least six months to decipher, according to one of the men charged with unravelling the complex web of his accounts. By James Quinn…
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Bernard Madoff 'fraud': Carl Shapiro reported to be biggest victim

A 95-year-old clothing millionaire from Boston is thought to be single biggest victim of Bernard Madoff's alleged $50bn fraud, after losing $545m (£357m), it emerged last night. By Rowena Mason Last Updated: 5:46PM GMT 18 Dec 2008 Carl Shapiro is…
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Bernie Madoff arrested over alleged $50 billion fraud

Bernie Madoff, a former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, has been arrested and charged with running a multi-billion dollar hedge fund swindle in New York. By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent Last Updated: 10:41AM GMT 15 Dec 2008 Bernie…
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Bernie Madoff's alleged $50bn fraud may be just a foretaste of what's to come

First come the losses and the stupidities committed by bankers working for their own self-interest. By Rob Cox, breakingviews.com Last Updated: 10:38AM GMT 15 Dec 2008 Then come the rogue traders, who are unable to 'fess up on market bets…
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Bernie Madoff: Profile of a Wall Street star

Bernard Madoff launched his high-flying career with a few thousands dollars raised from summer jobs as a lifeguard and garden sprinkler installer, and ended it in a pale blue bathrobe and slippers.Last Updated: 10:37AM GMT 15 Dec 2008 Mr Madoff,…
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Bernard Madoff: Wall Street's Wizard of Oz

Tom Leonard explains the background to an alleged $50 billion fraud by a Wall Street wizard, Bernard Madoff. By Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 5:28PM GMT 15 Dec 2008 Bernard L Madoff, chairman of Madoff Investment Securities, is…
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Bernard Madoff 'fraud': Investor commits suicide

A fund manager who lost more than $1 billion of his clients' money to Bernard Madoff has been discovered dead after committing suicide at his Manhattan office. Last Updated: 2:12AM GMT 24 Dec 2008 Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was…
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Another Flip-Flop Again - Badawi's “Clear-Sky” Economic Outlook - By Matthias Chang

  Thursday, 04 December 2008 19:31 A few days ago, our Prime Minister commented that the growth rates achieved by our economy are indicative of clear skies ahead.  The credibility of a political leader and that of a government is…
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Wrong Medicine & Treatment For A Dying Patient - 2nd Finance Minister of Malaysia Has No Reasons To Gloat When The Western Economies Adopted Some of Malaysia’s Medicines To Overcome The 1997 Crisis - By Matthias Chang

  Sunday, 07 December 2008 22:21 Since August 2007, I have been analyzing the various measures adopted by the US FED, the central banks of Europe and the Bank of England. I have also kept track of almost every public…
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The Unbelievable Has Happened! - So Why Is National Default So Hard to Comprehend? - By Matthias Chang

  Wednesday, 10 December 2008 09:09 Way back in 2007 when I declared that the global banks were all bankrupt, many sniggered and laughed.  They are not laughing anymore.  Way bank in 2007, I advised many friends to dump the…
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Part 4 - Wall Street’s Perverse Logic - By Matthias Chang (LATEST UPDATE - 19/12/08)

  Friday, 19 December 2008 14:29 “As more loans are repaid, there is less need for dollars …” I want readers to read the above quote a few times and really ponder on the implications of the statement made by…
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Part 3 - How to Deflate the Superpower of Toilet Papers - By Matthias Chang

  Wednesday, 17 December 2008 19:50 It Is So Stupid To Borrow US Toilet Papers For Trade Finance.  There Can Be Only A Credit Crunch For Dollars If You Are Stupid Enough To Want To Be Paid And To Pay…
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Part 2 - Whose Checkmate - The Head Of The Shadow Money-Lenders Or The Emerging Global Counter-Alliance? - By Matthias Chang

    Recently, I wrote: 1.    “Wrong Medicine & Treatment For A Dying Patient” – 07.12.08 2.    “The Unbelievable Has Happened” – 09.12.08 3.    “Obama’s Gamble –The Ultimate & Final Bet …” – 12.12.08 These articles have been posted to…
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Part 1 - Obama's Gamble - The Ultimate And Final Bet By Obama’s Financial Handlers - The $8.5 Trillion Chip - By Matthias Chang

A few weeks ago, I warned in my website that the Dow would dive below 7,000 at the earliest by end of December 2008 and at the latest by the end of the first quarter 2009. Any responsible central bankers…
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Madoff as Metaphor - By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. (LATEST UPDATE -24/12/08)

The mystery of Bernard Madoff will be storied a hundred years from now. As history's biggest financial criminal, he took a cheap ripoff that you can use at home—the Ponzi scheme—and turned it into a global empire worth some $50…
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