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Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Supreme Court Rules Fed Must Release All Bailout Data
'The Federal Reserve will disclose details of emergency loans it made to banks in 2008, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an industry appeal that aimed to shield the records from public view.
The justices today left intact a court order that gives the Fed five days to release the records, sought by Bloomberg News’s parent company, Bloomberg LP. The Clearing House Association LLC, a group of the nation’s largest commercial banks, had asked the Supreme Court to intervene.'
Incredibly, the dollar has lost 7.5% of its value in less than 3 months (since January 7th 2011) and more than 17% in just 8 months since August 2010
The U.S. dollar and yen are under pressure again today while gold and silver have taken breathers after yesterday’s gains (see table). Rather than gold and silver rising in price, we are seeing the continual devaluation of the U.S. dollar, the yen and all fiat currencies and thus their prices falling against the precious metals.
Incredibly, the dollar has lost 7.5% of its value in less than 3 months (since January 7th 2011) and more than 17% in just 8 months since August 2010. Hence the nominal record highs in gold and silver. The volatility and sharp falls in the dollar are leading to deepening inflation throughout the world (as seen in the UK inflation rate of 4.4% today).
Thus, the dollar’s safe haven status is being increasingly questioned. Many market participants are worried because the dollar continues to fall despite the real risks of a recurrence of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, a wider military conflict in North Africa and the Middle East and a nuclear catastrophe in Japan.
As the world gradually rejects the dollar as the reserve currency of the world there is the real risk of a dollar crisis. Should the dollar fall to below 71 on the US Dollar Index (see charts), there could be a wholesale liquidation of the dollar. This could feed on itself and lead to a currency crash as was seen with the British pound in 1992.
The monetary and fiscal position of the U.S. today is many times worse than that of the UK in 1992 which makes this risk very real.
Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says
A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team's mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
As BOJ Injects Fresh ¥2 Trillion, Radiation Measured 20 km Away From Fukushima Is 1,600 Times Normal
While Japanese futures briefly flirted with another advance, they subsequently dropped by 1% to 9,450, even despite the BOJ's latest injection of 2 trillion yen, which if it continues at this rate will surpass 100 trillion yen in injections within two weeks: an unprecedented feat, even by the Federal Reserve's standards. Of particular note weighing on the markets has been the news from Kyodo that, in confirmation of our fears that zones "Under Survey" are nothing but hotbeds of unprecedented radiation, reported radiation levels are 1,600 times higher than normal 20 kilometers from the power plant. Recall that the first evacuation radius was just 10 km. Assuming a power rate of declining fall out strength, means that the radiation within the 20 km diameter circle centered on Fukushina is currently hundreds of thousands to millions of time higher than normal.
From Kyodo:
From Kyodo:
Radiation 1,600 times higher than normal levels has been detected in an area about 20 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, International Atomic Energy Agency officials said Monday.We are eagerly awaiting the announcement from the Japanese government that the "new normal" is 1,601 greater than the old one. And that Hydrogen bonds between purines and pyrimidines, contrary to conventional wisdom, are really made of adamantium, and no amount of incremental high energy electromagnetism can possibly break them apart.
Data collected by an IAEA team show that radiation levels of 161 microsievert per hour have been detected in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, the officials said.
The government has set an exclusion zone covering areas within a 20-km radius of the plant and has urged people within 20 to 30 km to stay indoors.
'Repugnant': U.S. army apologises for graphic photos of soldiers with civilian corpses as violence is feared in Afghanistan
- U.S. army forced to issue an apology over 'trophy' photos of soldiers grinning over bloodied Afghan corpses.
- Commanders in Afghanistan bracing themselves for public fury and possible riots
- German newspaper Der Spiegel, who obtained the photographs, said there are thousands more showing other victims
The pictures were published by German news organisation Der Spiegel and were among 4,000 they have obtained.
Meanwhile, commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for a public backlash and possible riots over the 'trophy' photographs, especially since it has been alleged that the Afghan civilians were unarmed and innocent.
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