Monday

The Daily WAR (07-11)

Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
 
 
 
    A representative of the Orthodox Church who addressed the world Synod of Bishops spoke of the Bishop of Rome as a sign of unity among Christians.
    "Our society demands of us Christians -- Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Anglicans -- a common witness, a unified voice. Here lies our responsibility as pastors of the Churches in the 21st Century.
    "Here is the primary mission of the First Bishop of Christianity, of him who presides in charity, and, above all, of a Pope who is Magister Theologiae: to be the visible and paternal sign of unity and to lead under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and according to Sacred Tradition, with wisdom, humility and dynamism, together with all the bishops of the world, fellow successors of the apostles, all humanity to Christ the redeemer."
 
    Here is the statement Archbishop Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, gave to the 63rd UN General Assembly.
 
 
 
    As the global financial crisis begins to take its toll on the real economy, Germany's export machine has hit a wall. The car industry, still Germany's biggest employer, is the worst hit.
 
    As private banks falter under the financial crisis, state-owned Sparkasse savings banks are enjoying a flood of new business as Germans deposit their money in the institutions based on a traditional bank model.
 
    Two German state savings banks, Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, are considering a possible merger.
    The state of Bavaria had previously been against a merger, but the recent losses of the Christian Social Union party in state elections there have rekindled hopes the 2 banks could join.
 
    The German government was today preparing to endorse a bill to restore liquidity and inject fresh capital in the country's ailing banking and insurance sector potentially worth up to €470bn – the biggest state intervention in the economy since the end of WW2.
 
    The German government has announced a rescue package for its banks which would include $108 billion in fresh capital and 400 billion euros in loan guarantees, the finance ministry said in a statement. But signs were emerging of criticism of the terms of the rescue.
 
    The federal government is to demand that Germany's 16 states shoulder about 1/3 of the end costs of a massive rescue of banks, an associate of Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin today.
    The main party in Bavaria signalled immediate opposition to taking over any part of the burden. The refusal was voiced by Horst Seehofer, designated leader of the Christian Social Union. "This rescue is essentially a job for the federal government," responded Seehofer.
 
    Joerg Haider's car crash on Saturday was an abrupt, dramatic end to a noisy political life.
    Observers felt yesterday that Heinz Christian Strache, who took control of the Freedom Party when Haider left after the 2005 split, may try to take advantage of the leadership vacuum in Haider's newest party, the Alliance for Austria's Future, in order to take over the nationalist arena and unite the 2 radical movements.
    After all, the split stemmed from a personal rivalry between the leaders, not political or ideological differences.
 
 
 
    "Watch Ukraine!", John McCain has said during both debates. Most Americans have no idea where Ukraine is, much less any interest in watching it, but just on the premise that McCain's connections with the War Party give him the inside scoop on where the next phony foreign policy "crisis" is going to erupt, let's take his advice and start watching Ukraine...
 
 
 
    Lebanon's government says it will complain to the UN about Israeli threats to destroy Lebanese villages with "disproportionate force."
 
    An American veteran of the first Gulf War in Iraq claims that the US dropped a 5-kilotonne nuclear bomb in 1991 in a deserted area outside the southern city of Basra on the Iranian border.
    The claim by US war veteran Jim Brown was made during an interview included in a 30-minute current affairs report to be broadcast by Italian state news channel RaiNews24 on Thursday.
    Brown told the Italian news channel that the bombing took place on the last day of the war in Iraq on 27 February 1991. RaiNews24 claims to have conducted its own inquiry and found that a seismic event took place on that day equal to a 5-kilotonne blast.
    Twenty-eight American soldiers died in the attack.
 
    President Karzai has offered Taliban leaders the possibility of positions in his government if they agree to a peace deal which could bring fighting to an end. The offer was made through his brother Qayoun at a secret meeting in Saudi Arabia of which Britain was aware.
    Britain has been encouraging the Kabul government to talk to its Taliban enemies for more than 2 years and the Americans are thought to be coming round to the idea of a deal which would end the costly war in Afghanistan.
 
    Islamist opposition leader Hassan Al-Turabi stigmatised today an initiative launched by the Sudanese president for a national conference on Darfur saying it meant to block the International Criminal Court to prosecute him.
 
    India, the world's most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms.
    The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least 5 other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring.
 
 
 
    The Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, has said that Arab countries should always consider Iran as a friendly country, not an enemy. "We shouldn't take side with any country trying to take military action against Iran," he said adding any country which wants war with Iran is thinking unwisely.
 
    Iran will seek a seat on the council in an election this week that will pit it in a probably hopeless contest against Japan. The 192-member UN General Assembly will stage its annual elections Friday for 5 of the 10 nonpermanent seats on the 15-nation council.
 
    Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix says a US attack on the Islamic Republic would be a 'colossal tragedy' for the entire region. "I hope that they (Washington echelons) are aware that going at Iran with weapons would be a colossal tragedy and danger to the entire region."
 
    Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday warned Iran against considering a surprise attack. "Our new enemy, the arrogant Iranian leadership... should not rely too much on the element of surprise."
 
    Some key decision makers in Israel fear that unless they attack Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities in the next few months, while Bush is still president, there will not be another period when they can rely on the US as being anywhere near as supportive in the aftermath of a unilateral attack.
    In the past 40 years there have been few occasions when I have been more concerned about a specific conflict escalating to involve, economically, the whole world.
    We are watching a disinformation exercise involving a number of intelligence services. Reality is becoming ever harder to disentangle.
 
 
 
    Republican leaders across the country said over the weekend that they were worried that John McCain was headed for defeat unless he brought stability to his presidential candidacy and settled on a clear message to counter Barack Obama.
 
    John McCain has become embroiled in a war of words with racial undertones after clashing with a civil rights icon.
 
    With his electoral prospects fading by the day, John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign.
    McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting "pitbull in lipstick", against Barack Obama. Cries of "terrorist" and "kill him" have accompanied the tirades by Palin against Obama.
 
    "A lot of Europeans wonder: 'Why are Americans so crazy, they keep reelecting this guy?' Well the answer is, we don't! They keep stealing these elections! And they stole it in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and they're all set up to steal it again!" -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
 
    I recently wrote an OpEdnews news piece about the possible connection between apparent insider trading and the mysterious domestic cross-country flight of a B-52 bomber carrying live Nuclear-tipper Cruise Missiles.
    When I assembled all of the relevant facts about the events that occurred within this short period, which is late August of 2007, it occurred to me that I had failed to offer a critical analysis of motive.
    The B-52 Bomber incident put in motion a series of events, possibly pre-planned by the Bush Administration, to bomb, using Nuclear-tipped weapons, targets presumably in Iran.
    However, when all the dots are connected, I see something far more insidious, something on the level of a Sith Lord lusting for power, wealth, and a disdain for sentient life.
 
    Since 9/11, the notion of an October surprise has been around. The idea going something like this. Another real or manufactured terror attack. The dominant media stokes fear. The public is again traumatized.
    The Bush administration pledges all effective measures to protect national security. Formerly seizes total power. Suspends the Constitution and declares martial law.
    Mass detentions follow. Beginning with dissenters and elements of the public considered "dangerous." (This may be coming with the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team back in the US.)
    Early in the month, a different October surprise arrived. Not the expected one. Not yet at least...
 
    Under cover of the "war on terror," driftnet surveillance and moves toward suppressing dissent, most recently on display when protests during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions were criminalized and organizers were charged with "domestic terrorism" under the Patriot Act, are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
    As the historic economic and political crisis gripping capitalism deepens and intensifies, and as stop-gap measures deployed by the US Treasury Department intended to shore-up the crumbling financial sector crash, one by one, "forward thinking" ruling class factions are openly preparing a "Pinochet option" for the American people.
 
    The Pentagon has reportedly proposed a $450 billion increase in the military budget in a move believed to be in preparation for a war.
 
"We are witnessing the collapse of the American Empire"
    America's opponents in the Middle East are gloating at the financial meltdown in the United States, describing it as the divinely inspired collapse of an overstretched empire.
    Hardline clerics across the region as well as representatives of US opponents like Hamas and al-Qaida have described the plummeting stocks and frozen credit markets in the US as a kind of retribution for American misdeeds.
 
 
 
    The International Monetary Fund has warned that the world financial system stands on the "brink of systemic meltdown", despite international efforts to bring the crisis to an end.
    "Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest US-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown."
    The IMF also warned global equities could plunge by a further 20% in the coming days unless governments deliver concrete action to address the crisis.
 
    World stock markets plummeted Friday, ending a week that saw the biggest collapse in share values since 1929. 
    Hedge funds are contributing to the panic sell-off of stocks. Many of these firms are facing redemption demands from clients as well as demands from their bank creditors for more collateral and larger margins on their borrowings, and are dumping stocks to raise cash.
    All of the proposals to deal with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression have one thing in common: They all proceed from the need to maintain and defend the interests of the financial aristocracy. None of the measures address the social tsunami that is about to engulf the working class.
 
    Derivatives at the heart of the crisis, catastrophic losses are inevitable, financial system headed for oblivion, the new world disorder, EU doomed, Credit Default Swaps at the heart of the problem, Plunge Protection Team history, coverups for globalization failures, Bloodbath for the Yen...
    Then there is the one-rate-fits-all plan in the now-doomed European Union. What a freaking blooper that was!
    We have been saying that this conglomerate banking scheme could not work from the inception of this ill-conceived union of what are very diverse and culturally unique nations, but of course no one listened.
    They have so thoroughly destroyed the financial system that there is now no hope of keeping the EU together.
 
The Economist
Europe's great sovereignty-pooling project wasn't designed for this
    It could have been funny if it were not so serious. The excuses came thick and fast all week, as European Union leaders, for all their customary talk of collective action, were forced by the world credit meltdown into a hotch-potch of individual national schemes to guarantee deposits and prop up banks.
    The meltdown — and the speed of reaction required — cruelly exposed the institutional and political limits of the European project.
    Even before the leaders gathered, Germany let it be known that it rejected a French suggestion of a joint European rescue fund. Less than 24 hours after the Paris summit ended in a flurry of platitudes, Germany struck again, this time announcing a state-backed guarantee for personal savings deposits in German banks.
    The Germans have been the most honest in saying why. "We as Germans do not want to pay into a big pot where we do not have control and do not know where German money might be used," the finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, told German radio.
    Actually, German voters have a hunch where their taxpayers' money would be used: in countries such as Britain (home to the City and profit-mad Anglo-Saxon capitalists) or Spain (scene of a housing bubble driven by cheap credit, of a sort to make thrifty German savers shudder).
    The EU's founding fathers thought monetary union would go hand in hand with economic union, and the convergence of fiscal and monetary policies. Many assumed [including all the COG "prophets"] that political union would follow before too long.
    But history took a different turn, and the EU has ended up a strange hybrid: its members have pooled big chunks of sovereignty, and 15 of them share a currency. But it is not a federal state. The European Central Bank controls monetary policy for the euro zone but banking supervision remains under national control.
 
    The European Union is learning a painful lesson: that its cosy consensus world of officialdom, diplomacy and contempt for voters, is not up to the mark when dealing with a full blown crisis.
 
Repost...
    What's clear from the behavior of European financial markets over the past 2 weeks is that the dramatic stories of financial meltdown and panic are deliberately being used by certain influential factions in and outside the EU to shape the future face of global banking.
    The most interesting development in recent days has been the unified and strong position of the German Chancellor, Finance Minister, Bundesbank and coalition Government, all opposing an American-style EU Superfund bank bailout.
    There is serious ground to believe that Goldman Sachs ex-CEO Henry Paulson is actually moving according to a well-thought-out long-term strategy. Events as they are now unfolding in the EU tend to confirm that.
    As one senior European banker put it to me in private discussion, "There is an all-out war going on between the US and the EU to define the future face of European banking."
    Knowing that at a certain juncture the pyramid of trillions of dollars of dubious sub-prime and other high risk home mortgage-based securities would come falling down, they apparently determined to spread the so-called 'toxic waste' ABS securities as globally as possible, in order to seduce the big global banks of the world, most especially of the EU, into their honey trap.
    It now would appear that the Paulson strategy was to use a crisis — a crisis that was pre-programmed and predictable as far back as 2003 — when it exploded, to panic the more conservative EU governments into rushing to the rescue of US toxic waste assets.
    If the allegation of pre-planned panic is accurate, and it is a big if, then the plan worked…up to a point. That point came over the weekend of October 3, coincidentally the national unification holiday of Germany.
    What has emerged are the outlines of 2 opposite approaches to the unfolding crisis. The Paulson plan is now clearly part of a project to create 3 colossal global financial giants: Citigroup, JP MorganChase and, of course, Paulson's own Goldman Sachs, now conveniently enough a bank
    Having successfully used fear and panic to wrestle a $700 billion bailout from the US taxpayers, now the big 3 will try to use their unprecedented muscle to ravage European banks.
    Certain more conservative EU hands are not about to buy the remedy being offered by Washington. By initiating state partial nationalizations across the EU, and rejecting the Berlusconi/Sarkozy bailout scheme, the governments of the EU, interestingly enough this time led by Germany, are laying a more sound foundation to emerge from the crisis.
    Stay tuned, it's far from over. This is a fight for the survival of the American Century which has been bvuilt since 1939 on the twin pillars of American financial dominance and American military dominance.
 
    As shell-shocked central bankers and finance ministers gather in Washington to confront the world's financial meltdown this weekend, that grinding noise in the background is the sound of the global balance of power shifting.
    "In a very bizarre way, roles have been reversed in the global economy," said the head of international economics at Merrill Lynch. "The typical troublemakers of the global economy, the emerging markets, are actually now the world's creditors."
 
    Financial and political leaders held crisis meetings across the globe Sunday, urgently seeking agreement on measures to restore confidence to the teetering financial system before markets open Monday in Asia.
    German officials were working Sunday on the details of a plan to support banks and insurers - including direct capital injections. The government expects to publish some details later in the day, a German official said.
    The turbulence of the past week moved Germany from advocating action on a case-by-case basis to support for a systemic solution for the country's banks. So far Germany has rescued several banks, and guaranteed deposits.
    The shift in Berlin does not extend to kicking into a common fund that would be deployed in support of all European banks, largely because the government fears German taxpayers would end up bankrolling other countries' banks.
 
    Amid signs that EU leaders are moving towards a British-style rescue plan for banks, Gordon Brown will travel to Paris to take part in crisis talks today with the leaders of the 15 eurozone countries.
    President Sarkozy has called the emergency summit of the 15 states signed up to the single currency - despite the fact that EU leaders are already due to gather in Brussels on Wednesday.
 
    The first ever euro area summit produced a plan last night, and the initial market reaction to the sum total of global action plans is mildly positive. And the euro also gained against the dollar.
    The eurozone summit did not pledge any concrete sums, but only provided a framework. Member states will announce their individual plans today.
 
    France and Germany agreed a British-style plan last night to head off financial meltdown by spending billions of euros to guarantee loans and the survival of leading banks.
    The agreement stops well short of a central EU rescue fund that was floated by France 10 days ago. but the accord on broad pan-European guarantees marks a shift from Germany's insistence a week ago that each nation should take care of its own crisis.
 
    But will the banks lend to each other? At the end of a weekend when nearly all of the world's major bankers and finance ministers gathered in Washington to stanch the global credit crisis, there was no assurance that credit would flow when markets reopen this week.
 
The Economist
    At last a glimmer of hope, but more boldness is needed to avert a global economic catastrophe
 
    Behind this outbreak of curiosity in financial esoterica is the growing realisation that the banking system is broken. That means there can be no properly functioning economy.
    Last weekend we witnessed the farce of European cooperation. The consequences of countries doing their own thing in the 1930s led to protectionism and competitive devaluations, which made a bad situation worse. It would be no different today.
 
    What happened to markets around the world last week has been described as "blind panic", "a stampede to the exit" and, more bluntly, "mad". The one thing that it cannot be said to have been is a calm and rational response to the information available.
    There must be very few economists who still believe the traditional orthodoxy that individuals operating in a market always act in a rational fashion. The behaviour of market traders last week was too conspicuous a refutation of that doctrine.
 
    The Federal Reserve led an unprecedented push by central banks to flood the financial system with dollars, backing up government efforts to restore confidence and helping to drive down money-market rates.
    The ECB, the Bank of England and the Swiss central bank will auction unlimited dollar funds with maturities of 7 days, 28 days and 84 days at a fixed interest rate, the Washington-based Fed said today. All of the previous dollar swap arrangements between the Fed and other central banks were capped.
 
    Private investment advisor Martin Hennecke warned this morning that the endless printing of money to bail out collapsing banks would lead to hyperinflation and the Zimbabwe-style destruction of the dollar, euro and sterling.
    "Actually it's interesting to know that the world's leading standard rating agency Standard and Poor has predicted that all the major western governments are heading towards default on their sovereign bonds - that was predicted way before the crisis even started and now with tax revenues drying up and much much more money needed for these bailouts and privatizations of the banks to prevent a bank run, clearly that is likely to be happening earlier (rather) than later."
 
    US shares have risen strongly in early trading as investors welcome fresh efforts by global leaders to end the recent financial turmoil.
 
    Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson signaled a significant shift in the plan to turn over hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street, announcing that the Bush administration will invest funds directly in financial institutions, rather than buying mortgage-backed securities.
    The entire world economy, and the livelihoods of billions of people, are being held hostage to the demands of a handful of Wall Street bankers and speculators to guarantee their gargantuan personal incomes and assets.
 
    We are now entering the financial End Time. Bailout "Plan A" (buy the junk mortgages) has failed, "Plan B" (buy ersatz stocks in the banks to recapitalize them without wiping out current mismanagers) is fizzling, and the debts still can't be paid. That is the reality Wall Street avoids confronting.
    So is it too late for Congress to change its mind and repeal the giveaway?
 
    The General Accounting Office has issued a sobering picture of the future economic condition of the US, a scenario where a full economic collapse is inevitable, with the only remaining questions being "how and when the nation's current imprudent and unsustainable path will end."
 
    Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the last remaining independent investment banks, may receive cash injections from the American government as part of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to buy stakes in financial institutions.
 
 
    The market is heavily manipulated. The driving force behind the meltdown is speculative trade. The system of  "private regulation" serves the interests of the speculators.
    While most individual investors loose when the market falls, the institutional speculator makes money when there is a financial collapse. In fact, triggering market collapse can be a very profitable undertaking.
    There are indications that the downfall of Morgan Stanley was engineered by financial rivals. In contrast, JP Morgan Chase -- controlled by the Rockefeller family -- climbed by almost 12%. JP Morgan Chase and Bank America have consolidated their control over the US banking landscape.
 
    A new anti-Semitic conspiracy theory has been spreading online over the last few days, claiming that on the eve of Lehman Brothers' collapse last month, the firm transferred $400 billion to Israel.
    The theory, which comes in the form of a news report, has already been distributed on dozens of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sites. It alleges that senior Jewish officials at the Lehman Brothers investment bank passed their clients' money on to three Israeli banks, with the intention of then escaping to Israel to enjoy the take without fear of extradition.
    Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which was founded in the US by Jewish immigrants from Germany in 1850, Web forums and comment pages have been flooded with anti-Semitic comments accusing Jews of causing the global economic crisis and branding them the greatest beneficiaries of the disaster.
 
    President Ahmadinejad has warned that Washington's financial meltdown may pave the way for a new era of loot and plunder. He said the national resources of world countries should not serve as Washington's economic savior.
    "The time has come for the nation's of the world to join forces and prevent Washington from depending on their national resourses in times of financial turmoil."
 
    Instead of being the end of the derivatives bloodbath, Lehman was probably just the beginning.
 
The Economist
    The long-feared surge in bankruptcies in America is now under way.
 
    This article responds to a request to explain the recent strength in the dollar, by which I think was meant the dollar index.
 
    The OPEC cartel called Saturday for tougher regulations to reduce the impact of speculative investment in the oil market which it blames for the huge volatility in crude prices.
    "The world oil market has been increasingly affected by financial market shocks from outside the physical oil market. The existing regulatory framework has proved insufficient to properly contain the negative impact of speculative activity ... which highlights the need to consider further measures."
 
The Economist
    One way to make sense of the present financial chaos is to look back at the past.
 
 
[Latest edition of The Religion WAR]
 
How the Jewish book is reaching a wider audience
    The Talmud is the bedrock of traditional Judaism: a repository of law and lore, chaotically interwoven with biblical explanation and legend. Compiled in 5th-century Babylon, it has since enticed, intrigued and exhausted generations of Jews.
 
    In the Hollywood film "A Few Good Men," Jack Nicholson's character famously shouts, "You can't handle the truth!" But in real life, when it comes to a brand-new probe about what the Bible actually contains, it seems readers are declaring they indeed can handle the truth, no matter how startling.
 
    The Feast of Tabernacles begins today at sundown Monday, and continues until Oct. 21.
    [WAR: Well, actually it doesn't start until dawn on "Friday", and continues until dark on the following "Friday."]
 
 
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