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Today's Stories March 1, 2007 Laura Carlsen
February 28, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Tao Ruspoli China Hand Marjorie Cohn Sarah Olson Susan Van Haitsma Nicole Colson Harvey Wasserman William S. Lind Nicola Nasser Website of the Day
February 27, 2007 Tariq Ali Tom Barry Uri Avnery Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar Jeff Nygaard Hugh O'Shaughnessy Mitchell Kaidy Carl Finamore Anne McElroy
Dachel Ramzy Baroud Andrew Rouse Website of the Day
February 26, 2007 Franklin Lamb Bill Quigley Greg Moses Col. Dan Smith Ralph Nader Paul Buchheit Jeff Leys Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Michael Dickinson Website of the Day
February 24 / 25, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair R. T. Naylor Gary Leupp Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Jeffrey Blankfort Chris Sands Gary Freeman Larry Portis P. Sainath Lee Sustar Kevin Wehr Ken Couesbouc Soffiyah Elijah Kathlyn Stone Dave Lindorff Jason Kunin Kevin Zeese Remi Kanazi Missy Beattie Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 23, 2007 Franklin Spinney Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Kathy Kelly Chris Dols Evelyn Pringle Stephen Pearcy Dan Brook Yifat Susskind Website of
the Day
February 22, 2007 Robert Fantina Tariq Ali Michael Shank John Ross Christopher Brauchli Cindy Litman Niranjan Ramakrishnan Kevin Zeese Aseem Shrivastava Reza Fiyouzat Illinois Students Against the
War Website of
the Day
February 21, 2007 Maass / St.
Clair Sharon Smith Greg Moses Margaret Kimberly Ralph Nader Nicola Nasser Mike Whitney Tao Ruspoli Byeong Jeongpil Corporate Crime
Reporter Josh Mahan Website of
the Day
February 20, 2007 Sgt. Martin
Smith Werther Corporate Crime Reporter Carl G. Estabrook China Hand Joshua Frank Megan Boler John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Alan Gregory Website of the Day
February 19, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Michael F.
Brown Robert Jensen Roger Burbach Monica Benderman Sonja Karkar John Walsh Talli Nauman Website of the Day
Feburary 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Gary Leupp Jeffrey St.
Clair Roger Morris Uri Avnery James Brooks Sen. Russell
Feingold Linn Washington, Jr. Michele Brand Fred Gardner Mitchel Cohen Mike Ferner David Swanson P. Sainath Mike Stark Missy Beattie Jonathan Franklin Website of the Weekend
Marc Levy Andrew Cockburn Glen Ford Greg Moses Ron Jacobs John W. Farley James Marc Leas Tim Rinne Albert Wan Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Stephen Lendman Evelyn Pringle Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese Dave Lindorff Pete Shanks Peter Rost Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day
February 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Dick J. Reavis Margaret Kimberly Christopher Brauchli Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross Michael F.
Brown Dave Lindorff J.L. Chestunut,
Jr. Don Fitz Michael Donnelly Dr. Susan Block Website of
the Day
February 13, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Col. Douglas
MacGreagor Thomas Power Nicola Nasser David Swanson Columbia Coalition
Against the War Website of the Day
February 12, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts John Walsh Dr. John Carroll,
MD Greg Moses Nicole Colson Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Doug Giebel David Swanson Website of the Day
February
10 /11, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Gabriel Kolko Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair Kevin Alexander Gray M. Shahid Alam Greg Moses Paul Craig
Roberts George Ciccariello-Maher Kevin Zeese Turner / Kim George Duke Walter Brasch Shepherd Bliss Missy Beattie Peter Harley Pat Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Conn Hallinan Gary Leupp Lee Sustar Nikolas Kozloff Newton Garver Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff David Swanson Website of the Day
February 8, 2007 John V. Walsh Marjorie Cohn Trish Schuh Ron Jacobs Laura Carlsen Ramzy Baroud Brenda Norrell Bryan Farrell Judith Scherr Website of
the Day
February 7, 2007 Daniel Wolff Tao Ruspoli Tony Swindell Sharon Smith Ken Couesbouc Jeff Cohen Col. Dan Smith Tom Kerr Joshua Frank Adam Elkus Stephen Fleischman Website of
the Day
February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff William Blum Mike Ferner CP News Service Evelyn Pringle Christopher Brauchli Alan Cabal Website of the Day
Dave Zirin Uri Avnery Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts Newton Garver Bruce Anderson Saul Landau Ralph Nader James T. Phillips Mike Whitney Kenneth Rexroth Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Jeffrey St.
Clair Patrick Cockburn P. Sainath Sen. Russell Feingold Diane Christian Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Timothy J. Freeman Conn Hallinan John Ross Greg Moses Missy Beattie Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Stephen Fleischman Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Chris Kutalik R. Gibson /
E. W. Ross Pam Martens John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Ronald Bruce
St. John Mitchel Cohen Website of
the Day
Diane Farsetta Marjorie Cohn Mark Scaramella Ranni Amiri Christopher Ketcham Winston Warfield Corporate Crime Reporter Thomas P. Healy Website of the Dau
January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Jean Bricmont Tao Ruspoli James T. Phillips William Johnson Tim Wilkinson Evelyn Pringle Joshua Frank Ramzy Baroud Mickey Z. Website of the Day
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March 1, 2007 The Dead Hand of GreenspanMarket MeltdownBy MIKE WHITNEY Tuesday's stock market freefall has Greenspan's bloody fingerprints all over it. And, no, I'm not talking about Sir Alan's crystal ball predictions about the impending recession; that's just more of his same circuitous blather. The real issue is the Fed's lunatic policies of low interest rates and currency deregulation which have paved the way for economic Armageddon. Whether the Chinese stock market contagion persists or not is immaterial; the American economy is headed for the dumpster and it's all because of the wizened former fed-chief, Alan "Great Depression" Greenspan. So, what does the stumbling Chinese stock market have to do with Greenspan? Greenspan was the driving force behind deregulation which keeps the greenback floating freely while the Chinese and Japanese manipulate their currencies. This gives their industries a competitive advantage by allowing them to consistently underbid their foreign rivals. Big business loves this idea, because it offers cheaper sources of labor and allows them to maximize their profits. It's been a disaster for Americans though, who've seen their good paying jobs increasingly outsourced while US manufacturing plants are dismantled and air-mailed to the Far East. Greenspan has been the biggest champion of deregulation; it's another way he pays tribute to the Golden Calf of "free trade", the god of personal accumulation. Yesterday, the Chinese got whacked with their own stick. By keeping the value of their currency down, they spawned a wave of speculation which inflated their stock market by 140% in one year. When the government threatened to tighten up interest rates the stock market went into a nosedive and the overall index got a 9% haircut in a matter of hours. If they had been playing by the "free market" rules, rather than pegging their currency to artificially cheap greenbacks they could have avoided inflating their stock market. As it happens, the rumblings in the Chinese market sent tremors through the global system and triggered a 416 point loss on Wall Street; the biggest one day slide since 9-11. Now the world is watching nervously to see if the markets can recuperate or if this is just the beginning of America's great economic unwinding. Wednesday's revised numbers of GDP are not encouraging. The Commerce Dept revised their original data from a robust 3.5% GDP to a paltry 2.2. The economy is shrinking faster than anyone had anticipated. Also, durable goods plummeted beyond expectations and the real estate market continues to swoon. Troubles in the sub-prime market are spreading to non traditional loans as more and more over-leveraged homeowners are unable to make their monthly mortgage payments. (By the end of December 24 sub-prime mortgage lenders had already gone belly-up) Greenspan's empire of debt is bound to come under greater and greater pressure as volatility increases. On Monday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported a 3% jump in the sales of existing homes, but it was all hogwash. The housing industry has joined the media in trying to conceal what's really going on by showering the public with cheery talk of a recovery. Don't believe it. Go to their website and you'll see that "year over year" January sales were down by a whopping 290,000 homes. Add that tidbit to "new home sales" (announced today) which "fell by 16.6%, the most since 1994" (Bloomberg) and you get bird's-eye-view of an industry teetering on the brink of collapse. Greenspan pumped the housing bubble so full of helium; we'll be feeling the back-draft for a decade or more. Still, the gnomish ex Fed-master had the audacity to stand in front of the cameras and say, "We have not had any major, significant spillover effects on the American economy from the contraction in housing." Really? Apparently, Greenspan hasn't taken note of the skyrocketing rate of foreclosures or the growing number of people on public assistance. It's doubtful that one notices the struggles of the working stiff from their manicured sanctuary in the Aspen foothills. It's not just the housing market that's buckling from the expansion of debt, but the stock market as well. The Associated Press reported last week that, "Investors are borrowing at a record pace to sink into the stock market, and the trend is raising concerns on Wall Street about what might happen if a major correction occurs.The amount of margin debt, which is how brokers define this kind of borrowing, hit a record $285.6 billion in January on the New York Stock Exchange. Such a robust appetite, amid a backdrop of complacent market conditions, could leave investors badly exposed if major indexes are snagged by a market decline. Some could find themselves forced to sell stock or other assets to meet what's known as a margin call, when a broker effectively calls in the loan". That last time margin debt was this high was at the height of the dot.com bubble in March 2000. We all know how that turned out; the bubble burst taking with it $7 trillion in savings and retirement from working class Americans. It all could have been avoided if there were prudent and enforceable regulations on margin debt. Of course, that would have been a violation of the central tenet of free market exploitation: "There shall be no law inhibiting the unscrupulous ripping-off of the American people". Margin debt is a red flag that the market is over-inflated by speculation. When the market hits a speed-bump like yesterday the fall is steeper than normal, because panicky, over-leveraged investors start scampering for the exits. This probably explains much of what happened on Wall Street after the sudden decline in the Chinese market. The problems facing the stock market will soon play out whether or not we recover from this "dress rehearsal"for disaster. America's huge account imbalances and the massive expansion of personal (mortgage) debt ensure that there's more trouble ahead. The real problem is deep, systemic and difficult to understand. It relates to basic monetary policy which has been tragically mishandled by the Federal Reserve. A healthy economy requires that money supply not exceed the growth of real GDP; otherwise inflation will ensue. The Fed has been cranking up the money supply at a rate of over 11% for the last 6 years ensuring that we will eventually face a cycle of agonizing hyper-inflation. More worrisome is the fact that the world is about to face a global liquidity crisis for which there is no easy solution. See, the Fed loans money to the banks by buying government debt. Then, the banks, through the magic of "fractional banking", are then able to multiply the amount of money they loan out to their customers. In other words, the loans exceed the amount of the reserves by a considerable margin. Grasping the magnitude of this phenomenon is the only way to appreciate the storm that lies ahead. This excerpt may shed some light on the issue: "In the 1970s the reserve requirements on deposits started to fall with the emergence of money market funds, which require no reserves. Then in the early 1990s, reserve requirements were dropped to zero on savings deposits, CDs, and Eurocurrency deposits. At present, reserve requirements apply only to "transactions deposits" - essentially checking accounts. THE VAST MAJORITY OF FUNDING SOURCES USED BT PRIVATE BANKS TO CREATE LOANS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH BANK RESERVES AND IN EFFECT CREATE WHAT IS KNOWN AS "MORAL HAZARD" AND SPECULATIVE BUBBLE ECONOMIES. Consumer loans are made using savings deposits which are not subject to reserve requirements. These loans can be bunched into securities and sold to somebody else, taking them off of the bank's books.
That's why we should not be surprised when we discover that, although there are currently $3.5 trillion in bank deposits in the USA, the actual reserves are about $40 billion. This system works fairly well unless there's a major market meltdown or a run on the banks, in which case people will quickly find that there are, in fact, no reserves. Even this would not be a concern if the Fed had not increased the money supply by leaps and bounds while, at the same time, fueling the housing bubble through obscenely low interest rates. Now, millions of homeowners will be facing default on their loans, the banks will be stretched to the max, and the stock market will begin to falter. Something's gotta give. Last week, in Davos, Switzerland, German banker, Max Weber, warned the G-8 Summit, "If you misprice risk, don't come looking to us for liquidity assistance. The longer this goes on and the more risky positions are built up over time, the more luck you need It is time for financial market to move back to more adequate risk pricing and maybe forego a deal even if it looks tempting Global liquidity will dry up and when that point comes some of this underpricing of risk will normalize. If there is much less liquidity around, people will not go into such high risk." It is unlikely that Weber's advice will be heeded. The United States has grown addicted to "cheap money" and ever-expanding debt. The Federal Reserve will keep greasing the printing presses and diddling the interest rates until someone takes away the punch bowl and the party comes to an end. There've been plenty of warnings, but they've all been brushed aside with equal disdain. In a recent article on Counterpunch.org, ("Lame Duck") Alexander Cockburn refers to a report published by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) "a body set up under the purview of the British Treasury to monitor financial markets and protect the public interest by raising the alarm about shady practices and any dangerous slides towards instability." The report "Private Equity: A Discussion of Risk and Regulatory Engagement" states clearly:
The problem is even worse in the US where personal and mortgage debt has increased by over $7 trillion in the last 6 years! This is not an issue that can be resolved by a meager 10% correction in the stock market. The reaction on Wall Street to the sudden downturn in China demonstrates the fragility of the market and presages greater volatility and retrenchment. We should expect to see bigger and more destructive market-fluctuations as investors get increasingly skittish over bad economic news and weakness in the dollar. Yesterday's 400 point somersault is just the first sign that Greenspan's Goldilocks' economy is going kaput. Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can
be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com |
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