One in four worldwide pays bribes: study
• RawStory.comOne person in four worldwide paid a bribe during the past year, according to a study released Thursday to mark International Anti-Corruption Day.
Contents Pages by Subject
Government Debt & Financing
Jerry Brown Says California Budget Deficit May Hit $28 Billion
• GlobalEconomicAnalysis.blogspot.comWasn't it just a few short months ago California balanced its budget, plugging a $19 billion hole? Indeed it was. Nonetheless, Jerry Brown now warns of a $28 billion hole for the next fiscal year and the state controller warns of more IOUs.
Mounting Debts by States Stoke Fears of Crisis
• NYtimes.com/While next year could be even worse, there are bigger, longer-term risks, financial analysts say. Their fear is that even when the economy recovers, the shortfalls will not disappear, because many state and local governments have so much debt...
Bruce Krasting: The "Fixes"
• ZeroHedge.comIt’s not just the Bush tax cuts that expire at the end of the year. The maximum lending limits at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA were set to expire. The Build America Bond (“BAB”) program is another. They both have been “fixed”. We kicked the can..
Fiscal Mess At Local Governments Will Be The Front Page Story Of 2011
• BusinessInsider.com/David Rosenberg: The fiscal mess at the state and local level will very likely be the front page story in 2011 and the retrenchment in this sector poses the greatest headwind regarding the economic outlook.
Meredith Whitney: "We Believe That The Municipals Will Default"
• FinancialTimesThe entire multi-trillion dollar sector is going down. You will not want to own any municipal bonds after watching this video. (Editor Note: What Meredith Whitney has to say about muni bonds and housing is terrifying.)
Bond Explosion: 16 Reasons Why California Is The Next Greece
• BusinessInsider.com/The first step in filling that gap involves a major bond auction today. But investors have started fleeing muni-bond ETFs in anticipation of a tepid auction.
R. Rubin: Raising Debt Ceiling In Early 2011 May Implode Bond Market
• BusinessInsider.com/Rubin, who issued a similar warning about the bond market at The FT's "Future of Finance" conference in October, said Congress' vote on raising the deficit ceiling next spring could be the "trigger" for a rout in the Treasury market.
California's Horrifying Budget Report That Caused Everyone To Freak Out
• BusinessInsider.com/The nut is that the state has a $25 billion imminent budget problem.
Debt Grows Exponentially, While the Economy Only Grows In An S-Curve
• washingtonsblog.com/Mesopotamian economic thought c. 2000 BC rested on a more realistic mathematical foundation than does today’s orthodoxy. At least the Babylonians appear to have recognized that over time the debt overhead became more and more...
Actual U.S. Government Debt is $200-Trillion – 840 Percent of Current GDP
• TheGlobeAndMail.com/Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff says U.S. government debt is not $13.5-trillion (U.S.), which is 60 per cent of current gross domestic product, as global investors and American taxpayers think, but rather 14-fold higher: $200-trillion.
Murdoch Son Also Rises as Shareholders Study CEO Succession
• bloomberg.comNews Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch was stepping onto an elevator at the Allen & Co. media gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, last year, when he was asked about a $1.1 million settlement his company had just paid.
Federal Deficit Hits Near-Record $1.3 Trillion In 2010
• NPR.org/That means the government had to borrow 37 cents out of every dollar it spent as tax revenues continued to lag while spending on food stamps and unemployment benefits went up...
Government Prepares To Seize Private Pensions
• prisonplanet.comMassive wealth confiscation program would replace 401(k) system with Social Security-run ponzi scheme
Cost of War Since 2001; Federal outlays and revenues, 1940-2015
• GlobalEconomicAnalysis.blogspot.comThose costs do not include the future medical costs of injured soldiers, the countless wrecked lives of US soldiers and the lives of millions of innocent civilians killed in the needless war in Iraq.
Jefferson To Greenspan: The History Of People Freaking Out About Deficits
• Businessinsider.com/People have been freaking out about the national debt since 1790, when Alexander Hamilton proposed incorporating $75-million in war debt into the first national bank.
Queen tried to use state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace
• www.independent.co.ukMinisters were asked if money earmarked for schools, hospitals and low-income families could be used to meet soaring fuel bills
Department of Labor begins hearings today: How to confiscate your retirement savings and make you th
• The PPJ GazetteThe Labor Department begins the faux hearings today in advance of the confiscation fo 401(k), IRA and private pension accounts. The 11 trillion in these acounts will be converted to treasuries and bonds and sold to creditors of the corporate US gove
Treasury Continues To Issue 50% More Debt Than Needed To Fund Deficit
• ZeroHedge.comWhat received less fanfare was that the comparable increase in debt in the month of August 2010 was $212 billion, compared to $143.6 billion a year earlier. In other words, more than twice the the deficit had to be issued in the month of August.
Our Debt Is More Than All the Money in the World
• National Review OnlineFor perspective: At the time that 2008 article was written, the entire supply of money in the world (“broad money,” i.e., global M3, meaning cash, consumer-account deposits, checkable accounts, CDs, long-term deposits, travelers’ checks, money-market
Chairman Of Joint Chiefs Of Staff: National Debt Is Biggest Threat To Security
• ZeroHedge.comNot China, not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran, not terrorists...According to Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the "single biggest threat" to American national security is the US national debt...
US Government Matches Every Dollar In Tax Revenue With Dollar In New Debt
• ZeroHedge.comSince Sept. 2008, or the month when capitalism collapsed, the US government has undertaken the most peculiar matching program: for every dollar of individual tax revenue, the government has issued just over one dollar of incremental debt.
Forget Debt To GDP: Debt To Revenue Matters More, And U.S. Is The Worst
• Businessinsider.com/Morgan Stanley have published a report, and while it makes some interesting points about who is going to get hit when sovereigns begin to exact "Financial Oppression" on creditors what we're most interested in is the discussion of debt to GDP ratios.
America is Bankrupt: U.S. Deficit Really $202 Trillion, Kotlikoff Says
• finance.yahoo.com/tech-tickerForget the official debt,” he tells Aaron in this clip. The “real” deficit - including non-budgetary items like unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the defense budget - is actually $202 trillion, or 15 times the “official"
$13.3 Trillion in Debt: What It Means to Your Standard of Living
• EconomicPolicyJournal.comIt boggles the mind to think what research could be conducted and products produced and created if that money was available for the business sector.
Britain taking "radical" step of reducing government by 25% - are you listening, Obama?
• The EconomistWhen Cameron failed to win the election outright in May and had to share power with Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, many feared a government as underwhelming as his election campaign. Yet, it has emerged as a radical force.
Schwarzenegger orders government worker furloughs
• Judy Lin via Associated PressGov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday brought back furloughs for thousands of state workers until California passes a budget that addresses a $19 billion deficit.
Repudiate Government Debt: A Modest Solution
• Butler Shaffer via LewRockwell.com"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."
Post office announces 2-cent rate increase
• Randolph E. Schmid via Associated Press WriterCash-strapped post office announces plans for 2-cent rate increase in January
John Boehner: Raise Retirement Age To 70; Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war
• Nick WingHouse Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) . . . that the Social Security retirement age should be raised to 70. . .Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said
