Melidan's weekly SGO

[Melidan]

Shit goin' on. Mostly economic shit.

Since I have no time and rather then posting a hundred news articles, I figured id condense it for those interested in reading it. Assorted articles, videos I come across and snippets from the newsletters I subscribe to.

Enjoy.

Bolded represents the current price or level and the % increase;

Two years ago, Barack Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States.
The following is a summary of prices of various goods and the impact of the current
administration and the policies of the federal reserve.

Item January 2009 TODAY % chg Source
Avg. retail price/gallon gas in U.S. (regular conventional) $1.83 $3.104 69.6%
Commodities:
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel) $43.48 $99.02 127.7%
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel) $38.74 $91.38 135.9%
Natural gas, Henry Hub, $ per MMbtu $4.85 $4.48 -7.6%
Gold: London (per troy oz.) $853.25 $1,369.50 60.5%
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL $3.56 $6.33 78.1%
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL $9.66 $13.75 42.3%
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. fob $13.37 $35.39 164.7%
Producer Price Index: all commodities 171.0 189.9 11.1%
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall 7.6% 9.4% 23.7%
Unemployment rate, blacks 12.6% 15.8% 25.4%
Number of unemployed 11,616,000 14,485,000 24.7%
Number of fed. Employees, ex. uniformed military (curr = 12/10 prelim) 2,779,000
2,840,000 2.2%
Real median household income (2008 vs 2009) $50,112 $49,777 -0.7%
Number of food stamp recipients (curr = 10/10) 31,983,716 43,200,878 35.1%
Number of unemployment benefit recipients (curr = 12/10) 7,526,598 9,193,838 22.2%
Number of long-term unemployed, in millions 2.6 6.4 146.2%
Poverty rate, individuals (2008 vs 2009) 13.2% 14.3% 8.3%
People in poverty in U.S., in millions (2008 vs 2009) 39.8 43.6 9.5%
House price index (current = Q3 2010) 198.7 192.7 -3.0%
S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index: 20 city composite (curr =10/10) 146.4 145.3 -0.8%

Number of properties subject of foreclosurefilings, in millions 2.82 2.87 1.7%
Consumer Confidence Index (curr = 12/10) 37.7 52.5 39.3%
Present Situation Index (curr = 12/10) 29.9 23.5 -21.4%
Failed banks (curr = 2010 + 2011 to date) 140 164 17.1%
U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate 89.76 82.03 -8.6%
U.S. money supply, M1, in billions (curr = 12/10 preliminary) 1,575.1 1,865.7 18.4%
U.S. money supply, M2, in billions (curr = 12/10 preliminary) 8,310.9 8,852.3 6.5%
National debt, in trillions $10.627 $14.052 32.2%

In the last two years we have accumulated (national) debt at a rate more then 27 times as fast as during the rest of our history.

When is a Crime Not Considered Criminal? Answer: When it’s Hatched on Wall Street. Clip from article;

Even guru of the right Ayn Rand had warned in Atlas Shrugged about greed destroying her beloved free market: “When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed.”

Federal Reserve Passes China, Now Biggest Holder of U.S. Debt

Fed Holdings of U.S. Treasuries Surpass China's
February 06, 2011

A bit of recent news that hasn't gotten enough press is the fact that the Federal Reserve has surpassed China in total U.S. Treasury holdings and is now the largest holder of Treasuries in the world. As of last week, China held $896 billion of Treasuries while Japan held $877 billion. The Fed now holds $1.108 trillion and it has not even passed the halfway mark of its second round of money printing, which they call Quantitative Easing.

By June the Fed could own $1.6 trillion of Treasury bonds. The experiment that the Fed has embarked upon is simply unprecedented in this country. So far it has been an abysmal failure. Ten year treasury yields are nearly 120 basis points higher since the Fed announced their second round of Quantitative Easing just three months ago. Food inflation is raging throughout the world, even though Ben Bernanke denies any responsibility for it. Speculation is running rampant as to how much inflation the U.S. will export.

Global food prices rose for the seventh month in a row to a historic record
in January, the United Nations said Thursday. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture
Organization's Food Price Index a commodity basket that tracks monthly changes in
food prices around the world surged 3.4% from December, the highest since FAO
started measuring food prices in 1990. The only item that did not show a significant
increase was meat. "The new figures clearly show that the upward pressure on world
food prices is not abating," said Abdolreza Abbassian, an FAO economist and grains
expert. "These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come. High food prices
are of major concern especially for low-income food deficit countries that may face
problems in financing food imports and for poor households which spend a large share
of their income on food," he added

Look at those food price % increases above.

Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan,” said the “first thing” investors
should avoid is U.S. Treasuries and the second is the dollar.
Taleb, a principal at Universa Investments LP whose 2007 bestselling book
argued that history is littered with rare events that can’t be predicted by trends, also said
he would rather hold euros than dollars, even as the region’s sovereign- debt crisis
persists. “Euros have Germany, the dollar has nothing,” he said at a conference in
Moscow. Taleb made similar comments at the same forum last year, saying “every single
human being” should bet Treasuries will decline because of the policies of Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and President Barack Obama. Bernanke has pledged
to inject dollars into the U.S. financial system and cut borrowing costs by buying $2.3
trillion of Treasuries and other assets, a tactic known as quantitative easing.
“As skeptical as I am about Europe, I prefer it by far to the United States,” said
Taleb at the conference, hosted by Troika Dialog, Russia’s oldest investment bank.
The U.S. is just like Greece, only without the International Monetary Fund to enforce
discipline, Taleb said today. Greece came close to defaulting on its sovereign debt last
year before receiving a bailout from the European Union.
“We have a very dire situation in the United States, and every day that goes by it gets
worse,” Taleb said. “Every day that goes by, we’re spending money. We’re increasing
that cumulative debt.”

The net notional amount of derivatives used to hedge or speculate against
a default on U.S. government debt rose 12% in late January, according to Depository
Trust & Clearing Corp. figures.
The increase suggests investors are becoming more nervous about the quality of
U.S. debt. It also threatens to cast a pall over the notion that Treasurys are risk-free
assets investors should run to for haven from other instruments.
The net notional of credit default swaps bought and sold on U.S. debt rose from $2.67
billion to just over $3 billion between Jan. 14 and Jan. 21.

Copper HG-FT sprinted to a record peak at the key psychological level of
$10,000 (U.S.) a tonne on Thursday as investors bet that supply shortages and buoyant
demand growth this year would keep fuelling a rally.
Copper, a benchmark industrial metal used in power and construction, has already
surged more than 60 per cent since last June when financial and commodity markets
tumbled on fears of sovereign default in euro zone countries such as Greece.

All pennies minted in 1981 or earlier are 100% copper. 154 pennies is one pound of fine copper. 1 cent is now worth 3 cents because of the copper content.

11 LC 21 0912
House Bill 3
By: Representative Franklin of the 43rd
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
To amend Title 7 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to banking and finance, so as provide a short title; to provide legislative findings; to define certain terms; to require any bank or lending institution serving as a depository for the state or any department or agency of the state to offer and to accept gold and silver coin for deposit; to amend Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to state government, so as to provide legislative findings; to define certain terms; to require the exclusive use of gold and silver coin as tender in payment of debts by or to the state; to provide for related matters; to provide an effective date; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITMEZImvNio[/ame]
Link if vid doesnt work, must watch;

http://www.youtube.com/user/SchiffReport#p/a/u/0/ITMEZImvNio

Social Security is a BS ponzi scheme and is nothing but a wealth transfer from the young to the old. End Social Security for everyone but the destitute.

[Watcher]

Going to be another tight year argh.

[tom the pit leader]

I didn't read all of it, but the line I saw was about SS. SS works if they had continued to raise the entrance age as life expectancy went up. It worked great when people retired at 65 and died at 68. Doesn't go so well when people started living into their 90's.

SS is a tool. A tool that's being asked to perform a job it wasn't designed to do. It was designed for the last few years of your life, not few decades.

[Melidan]

Originally Posted by tom the pit leader

I didn't read all of it, but the line I saw was about SS. SS works if they had continued to raise the entrance age as life expectancy went up. It worked great when people retired at 65 and died at 68. Doesn't go so well when people started living into their 90's.

SS is a tool. A tool that's being asked to perform a job it wasn't designed to do. It was designed for the last few years of your life, not few decades.

Listen to the interview, its great.

[Kinofp]

great interview, keep 'em coming.