Global Articles on what is going on...posted daily

[sandi66]

Meet Mr. Soros


More food for thought! Every U.S. citizen should know about this man.

Meet Mr. Soros ......


This just might explain a whole lot of what is happening in today's world. If you want to be informed, take the time to read about one of the most corrupt men of our generation, or should we say "the godfather of evil".

Most of us have heard of him. Few really know who he is or what he's got planned for us (or the rest of the world). Apparently, Obama knows him well. Here is some information to sink your teeth into.

PS: this CBS writer, Steve Kroft, certainly likes to live on the edge...

Some time ago I wrote an article questioning who might be the power or puppet master behind Barack Hussein Obama. It has to be someone because of his meteoric rise to power, with experience at virtually nothing, with questionable wisdom, and with a mysterious past that has been carefully erased and hidden where no one can check it. This puppet master, whomever he is, apparently paid for Obama's education and his travels to Pakistan for some mysterious purpose, and promoted him into Illinois then national politics.

I once suggested it might be billionaire George Soros. I now believe that to be the case more than ever.

George Soros might be the most evil man in the world, with intent to destroy America and every value we have held dear. Obama seems to be in lockstep with Soros' philosophies and simply a tool in Soros' world-changing strategies. Both must be stopped.

Read the below article and judge for yourself. It is from www.resistne t.com/profiles/ blogs/George- soros-obamas- puppet .

"Who is behind Barak Obama? Who is pulling the strings?"

Here is what (CBS') Mr. (Steve) Kroft's research has turned up.........bit of a read, but it took 4 months to put it together...

GEORGE SOROS TEA PARTY ENEMY #1

"The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States ." George Soros

"George Soros is an evil man. He's anti-God, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-good." Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson

Is it possible to lay the global financial meltdown, the radicalizing of the Democratic Party, and America 's moral decline, at the feet of one man?

YES, It is indeed possible.

If George Soros isn't the world's preeminent "malignant messianic narcissist," he'll do until Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot are reincarnated.

What we have in Soros, is a multi-billionaire atheist, with skewed moral values, and a sociopath's lack of conscience. He considers himself to be an elitist world class philosopher, despises the American Way and just loves to do social engineering (change cultures).

Soros is the power behind the throne of Obama. I accuse George Soros of being the PUPPET MASTER that is pulling Obama's strings.

Gyargy Schwartz, better known to the world as George Soros, was born August 12, 1930 in Hungary. Soros' father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of Esperanto , a language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first global language, free of any national identity.

The Schwartz's, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the gentile population, as the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s.

When Hitler's henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary , to oversee the murder of that country's Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him on his rounds.

Soros has repeatedly called 1944 "the best year of his life."

"70% of Mr. Soros's fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect."

During an interview with "Sixty Minute's" Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his "best year:"

KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

SOROS: Yes. Yes.

KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from your fellow Jews, friends and neighbors.

SOROS: Yes. That's right. Yes.

KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

SOROS: Not, not at all. Not at all, I rather enjoyed it….

KROFT: No No feeling of guilt?

SOROS: No., only feelings of absolute power.

In his article, Muravchik describes how Soros has admitted to having "carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble."

Be that as it may. After WWII, Soros attended the London School of Economics, where he fell under the thrall of fellow atheist and Hungarian, Karl Popper, one of his professors. Popper was a mentor to Soros until Popper's death in 1994. Two of Popper's most influential teachings concerned "the open society," and Fallibilism.

Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. Then again, I could be wrong about that.

The "open society" basically refers to a "test and evaluate" approach to social engineering. Regarding "open society" Roy Childs writes, "Since the Second World War, most of the Western democracies have followed Popper's advice about piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, and it has gotten them into a grand mess.

In 1956 Soros moved to New York City ,where he worked on Wall Street, and started amassing his fortune. He specialized in hedge funds and currency speculation.

Soros is absolutely ruthless, amoral, and clever in his business dealings, and quickly made his fortune. By the 1980s he was well on his way to becoming the global powerhouse that he is today.

In an article Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote for "The American Thinker" she says, "Soros made his first billion in 1992 by shorting the British pound with leveraged billions in financial bets, and became known as the man who broke the Bank of England. He broke it on the backs of hard-working British citizens who immediately saw their homes severely devalued and their life savings cut drastically…almost overnight."

In 1994 Soros crowed in "The New Republic" that "the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire." The Russia-gate scandal in 1999, which almost collapsed the Russian economy, was labeled by Rep. Jim Leach, then head of the House Banking Committee, to be "one of the greatest social robberies in human history." The "Soros Empire" indeed.

In 1997 Soros almost destroyed the economies of Thailand and Malaysia . At the time, Malaysia 's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, called Soros "a villain, and a moron." Thai activist Weng Tojirakarn said, "We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people."

The website Greek national Pride reports, "[Soros] was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia and caused trouble in Georgia , Ukraine and Myanmar [ Burma ]. Calling himself a philanthropist, Soros' role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. He is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality."

France has upheld an earlier conviction against Soros, for felony insider trading. Soros was fined 2.9 million dollars.

Recently, his native Hungary fined Soros 2.2 million dollars for "illegal market manipulation." Elizabeth Crum writes that "The Hungarian economy has been in a state of transition as the country seeks to become more financially stable and westernized. [Soros'] deliberately driving down the share price of its largest bank put Hungary 's economy into a wicked tailspin, one from which it is still trying to recover.

My point here is that Soros is a planetary parasite. His grasp, greed, and gluttony have a global reach.

But what about America ? Soros told Australia 's national newspaper "The Australian":

"America , as the centre of the globalised financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. This is now over. The game is out," he said, adding that the time has come for "a very serious adjustment" in American's consumption habits. He implied that he was the one with the power to bring this about….

Soros: "World financial crisis was" stimulating" and "in a way, the culmination of my life's work."

Obama has recently promised 10 billion of our tax dollars to Brazil , in order to give them a leg-up in expanding their offshore oil fields. Obama's largesse towards Brazil , came shortly after his financial backer George Soros invested heavily in Brazilian oil (Petrobras).

Tait Trussel writes, "The Petrobras loan may be a windfall for Soros and Brazil , but it is a bad deal for the U.S. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that oil exploration in the U.S. could create 160,000 new, well-paying jobs, as well as $1.7 trillion in revenues to federal, state, and local governments, all while fostering greater energy security and independance."

A blog you might want to keep an eye on is SorosWatch.com. Their mission: "This blog is dedicated to all…who have suffered due to the ruthless financial pursuits off…George Soros. Your stories are many and varied, but the theme is tthe same: the destructive power of greed without conscience. We pledge to tirelessly watch Soros wherever he goes and to print the truth in the hope that he will one day be made to stop preying upon the world's poor…that justice will be served."

Back to America . Soros has been actively working to destroy America from the inside out for some years now. People have been warning us. Two years ago Bill O'Reilly said on "The O'Reilly Factor" that "Soros [is] an extremist who wants open borders, a one-world foreign policy, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and on and on. This is off-the-chart dangerous…."

In 1997 Rachel Ehrrenfeld wrote, "Soros uses his philanthropy to change or more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people. His "open society" is not about freedom; it is about license. His vision rejects the notion of ordered liberty, in favor of an PROGRESSIVE ideology of rights and entitlements."

Perhaps the most important of these "whistle blowers" are David Horowitz and Richard Poe. Their book "The Shadow Party" outlines in detail how Soros hijacked the Democratic Party, and now owns it lock, stock, and barrel.

Soros has been packing the Democratic Party with radicals, and ousting moderate Democrats for years.

The Shadow Party became the Shadow Government, which became the Obama Administration.

DiscoverTheNetworks.org (another good source) writes, "By his [Soros'] own admission, he helped engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia, Georgia, and Yugoslavia . When Soros targets a country for "regime change," he begins by creating a shadow government a fully formed government-in-exile, ready to assume power when the opportunity arises. The Shadow Party he has built in America greatly resembles those he has created in other countries prior to instigating a coup."

November 2008 edition of the German magazine "Der Spiegel," in which Soros gives his opinion on what the next POTUS (President of the U.S. ) should do after taking office. "I think we need a large stimulus package….." Soros thought that around 600 billion would be about right.

Soros also said that "I think Obama presents us a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U.S. needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights."

Although Soros doesn't (yet) own the Republican Party, like he does the Democrats, make no mistake, his tentacles are spread throughout the Republican Party as well.

Soros is a partner in the Carlyle Group where he has invested more than 100 million dollars. According to an article by "The Baltimore Chronicle's" Alice Cherbonnier, the Carlye Group is run by "a veritable who's who of former Republican leaders," from CIA man Frank Carlucci, to CIA head [and ex-President] George Bush, Sr.

In late 2006, Soros bought about 2 million shares of Halliburton , Dick Cheney's old stomping grounds.

When the Democrats and Republicans held their conventions in 2000, Soros held Shadow Party conventions in the same cities, at the same time.

Soros has dirtied both sides of the aisle, trust me. And if that weren't bad enough, he has long held connections with the CIA.

And I mustn't forget to mention Soros' involvement with the MSM (Main Stream Media), the entertainment industry (e.g. he owns 2.6 million shares of Time Warner), and the various political advertising organizations he funnels millions to. In short, George Soros controls or influence most of the MSM. Little wonder they ignore the TEA PARTY, Soro's NEMESIS.

As Matthew Vadum writes, "The liberal billionaire- turned-philanthropist has been buying up media properties for years in order to drive home his message to the American public that they are too materialistic, too wasteful, too selfish, and too stupid to decide for themselves how to run their own lives."

Richard Poe writes, "Soros' private philanthropy, totaling nearly $5 billion, continues undermining America 's traditional Western values. His giving has provided funding of abortion rights, atheism, drug legalization, sex education, euthanasia, feminism, gun control, globalization, mass immigration, gay marriage and other radical experiments in social engineering."

Some of the many NGOs (None Government Organizations) that Soros funds with his billions are: MoveOn.org, the Apollo Alliance, Media Matters for America , the Tides Foundation, the ACLU, ACORN, PDIA (Project on Death In America), La Raza, and many more. For a more complete list, with brief descriptions of the NGOs, go to DiscoverTheNetworks .org.

Poe continues, "Through his global web of Open Society Institutes and Open Society Foundations, Soros has spent 25 years recruiting, training, indoctrinating and installing a network of loyal operatives in 50 countries, placing them in positions of influence and power in media, government, finance and academia."

Without Soro's money, would the Saul Alinsky's Chicago machine still be rolling? Would SEIU, ACORN, and La Raza still be pursuing their nefarious activities? Would Big Money and lobbyists still be corrupting government? Would our college campuses still be retirement homes for 1960s radicals? Yes, yes, yes, and yes

America stands at the brink of an abyss, and that fact is directly attributable to Soros. Soros has vigorously, cleverly, and insidiously planned the ruination of America and his puppet, Barak Obama is leading the way.

The words of Patrick Henry are apropos: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

These days, Patrick Henry's sentiment is more than just some quaint hyperbole from long ago it's a slow burning, but intense, glow that fires our courage and heart.

TEA PARTY BEWARE……

End

Sometimes evil wilts and dies when exposed to direct sunlight. Let’s try to shine as much light as possible on this.

I have suspected O’bummer was a Manchurian Candidate. Maybe he is, maybe not.

Soros was the original funding behind the Global Warming Hoax. For every 10 million Gore makes, Soros makes a billion.

What a cleaver plan to trick us into destroying our economy with a CO2 hoax and get us to pay trillions to a select few who will control the planet.

I have spent the last couple of hours jumping about and following and reading the links embedded in the articles. It is enough to turn your stomach as the total (big picture) story unfolds.

www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=589

ty jostan

[sandi66]

Exclusive: Banks Outline Taskforce In Osborne Letter

August 8, 2010


Britain's banking industry is mounting a fightback against Government criticism by committing the bosses of the big banks to sit on a new taskforce set up to address stagnant business lending.

I have learned that in a letter sent to George Osborne on Friday, Stephen Green, chairman of the British Bankers' Association (BBA) and HSBC, stressed the industry's desire to assist Britain's economic recovery through a series of new studies aimed at supporting the financing of viable businesses.

I've obtained a copy of the letter, which details for the first time the banking industry's response to attacks on lending practices which the likes of Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, have called "heartbreaking".

The letter outlines a string of measures pledged by the BBA to "make sure that viable businesses are able to obtain the finance they need to support the recovery of the UK economy".

Green says the taskforce will report back to the Chancellor by early October. The chief executives of the six major banks (including Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland) will sit on a steering group chaired by Green that will oversee the taskforce's work.

According to the letter, the remit of the taskforce will examine two principal areas: "to assess the demand for business finance and the scale of the market challenges on each side and assess appropriate schemes both existing and new to meet those challenges; and to examine and make recommendations on those areas which relate to the liquidity and the funding of the banking system which are directly material to the provision of business finance."

The BBA's intervention follows the publication of a Green Paper on business finance published last week, and half-year results from British banks which reported about £15bn in total profits and continued subdued demand for new loans from small and medium-sized companies.

As I've reported several times during the last week, the impasse between ministers and the banks on the issue of lending to SMEs has appeared to be unbridgeable. The banks have argued that net lending has fallen or remained flat because companies have been preoccupied with repaying - rather than taking on new - loans.

This latest initiative (which Green's letter pointedly refers to as the banking industry's idea) seems to me to be significant in the context of that debate. According to the letter, officials from the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills will be involved in a working group that will assess the supply of and demand for business finance.

Crucially, this will take account of new rules governing bank capital and liquidity "as set out in the Basel 3 proposals". That's important because those new rules will have a fundamental impact on how much capital banks are required to set aside to prepare for another economic emergency (and are therefore unable to lend).

The letter also sets out plans for working groups to assess policy measures to restart the moribund securitisation market as a means of addressing funding problems; to examine ways of alleviating mortgage funding constraints; to propose "other wholesale and capital market measures to improve the ability of banks to fund appropriate business".

The BBA's work will be further divided into two areas: recommending actions aimed at supporting mid-market companies (those with a turnover of between £10m and £100m) and SMEs (which have revenues of up to £10m).

The latter point is arguably the most crucial of the banks' fightback given the extent to which they have been hauled over the coals by ministers.

Lastly, the letter I've obtained pledges to examine the issue of trade finance "and make recommendations to support the UK's position as a major trading hub".

Comments made last week by John Varley, chief executive of Barclays, and Peter Sands, boss of Standard Chartered, were interpreted as none-too-veiled threats to quit Britain if the Government's banking commission recommends breaking them up.

The work of the new taskforce will therefore be important in determining the terms of engagement between ministers and the banks during the next year.

The BBA declined to comment further on the letter today.

blogs.news.sky.com/kleinman/Post:4300bec5-707b-4ce4-9783-70becf7750ed

ty nalmann

[sandi66]

Published: August 09, 2010

U.S. Financial Crisis Ignites Demand for Book That 'Controlling Interests' Don't Want Public to Know about or Read

CHICAGO - (BUSINESS WIRE) - The private banks and financial institutions that have plundered the U.S. Treasury don't want the public to read it. Ditto with the Federal Reserve, which "privately" controls the U.S. money supply and most aspects of the economy. Few members of the U.S. Congress are willing to talk about it. And, if anyone else in Washington, D.C. has a copy, it's likely buried in a drawer.

But the devastating impact of the unprecedented financial crisis that has ravaged the U.S. economy has ignited a demand for substantive reforms and led to the re-release of a groundbreaking book published by the American Monetary Institute (AMI) before the financial meltdown.

The Lost Science of Money: The Mythology of Money - The Story of Power, dispels the myths and exposes the inherent corruptive influences that have controlled the U.S. economy, notably since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913. It was written by AMI Co-founder and Director Stephen A. Zarlenga.

"The American government was duped into ceding its Constitutional authority and responsibility to private interests almost 100 years ago," says Zarlenga. "That abrogation of duty has created undeserving millionaires and billionaires who continue to profit, regardless of the so-called 'reforms.' It's the system itself that is flawed, creating unbearable debt for millions of Americans and transforming it into unimaginable wealth for a few."

The "financial overhaul" bill recently approved by Congress and signed by President Obama "does little to cure the underlying problem," says Zarlenga. The underlying cause is the special privilege given to banks to privately create the nation's money supply.

The AMI's principal reform focus is the Federal Reserve, which has come under increasing public scrutiny and criticism from Congress and public interest groups demanding more transparency and accountability. Three dozen organizations, liberal and conservative, have formed a coalition demanding a Congressionally supervised audit of the Federal Reserve. The AMI reform proposal goes much further: converting the current private credit system into a governmental money system.

The reforms advocated by AMI, founded in 1996, are embodied in its proposed American Monetary Act, extensively detailed in Zarlenga's book. The Act and related issues will be hot topics at AMI's 6th Annual Monetary Reform Conference in Chicago from Sept. 30 through Oct. 3. The magnitude of the crisis is attracting economists, political leaders, and financial experts from around the world to the event.

The first step in AMI's plan incorporates the Federal Reserve into the U.S. Treasury, where all new money would be created by government as money, not interest-bearing debt, and be spent into circulation by the federal government to promote the general welfare.

Second, it would halt the banks' privilege to create money by ending what is known as the fractional reserve system, which has enabled banks, with the permission and encouragement of the Federal Reserve, to "create money out of thin air."

Third, it would re-empower the federal government to spend new money into circulation on 21st Century eco-friendly infrastructure and energy projects, including the education and healthcare needed for a growing society. That would start with funding $2.2 trillion over the next five years for urgent infrastructure repair.

"Most people think the federal government - the President and the Congress - are in charge of issuing money and controlling our monetary system," says Zarlenga. "That should be true, but it isn't. Making it true is hardly radical or revolutionary."

newsblaze.com/story/2010080900005400001.bw/topstory.html

[sandi66]

FSA asserts new financial stability information-gathering powers

United Kingdom

August 5 2010

On 23 July 2010, the UK’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) published its consultation paper CP 10/18 – Feedback on CP 10/11, final rules and further consultation (“CP 10/18”)1 which incorporates the final text of the new Financial Stability and Market Confidence sourcebook (“FINMAR”)2. The new sourcebook, which forms part of the FSA Handbook, contains the rules relating to the FSA’s new and extended information-gathering powers—including the power to require that persons whose activities the FSA views as relevant to the stability of one or more aspects of the financial system should disclose information and documents to the FSA.

Background

During and after the recent financial crisis and recession, the UK’s Labour government was broadly criticised for permitting the FSA to become a “light-touch” regulator. To address some of these concerns, the outgoing Labour government granted to the FSA a range of new powers under the Financial Services Act 20103 (the “FS Act”), including new powers in connection with short-selling activities4, and powers to require the disclosure of documents or information from any persons that the FSA believes pose a risk to the stability of financial systems—including certain funds, their managers and investors.

FINMAR

FINMAR5 incorporates provisions relating to:

The gathering of financial stability information;
Short selling; and
The UK Banking Act 2009 (new powers for HM Treasury, the Bank of England and the FSA to deal with failing banks).
FSA Financial Stability Information Requirement

The provisions in Chapter 1 of FINMAR6 apply to firms and individuals, whether FSA-authorised or not, including, among others, (a) fund managers and (b) fund investors. However, the relevant provisions will only be applicable to the extent the FSA believes that the activities of such persons pose a risk to the stability of the UK financial system. Such persons may find themselves subject to a financial stability information requirement, meaning that the FSA may use its powers to require such persons to provide whatever information or documents the FSA requests. The FSA notes that the requests may be general (e.g., regarding a trading strategy and its execution), or in a more limited way (e.g., a specific contract documenting a particular trade).

In parallel with the FSA’s UK-orientated powers, the agency may, at the request of an overseas regulator, also require relevant persons to provide such information or documents where the FSA considers that those persons are presenting or may present a risk to the stability of the financial system in the jurisdiction of the relevant overseas regulator.

The FSA will generally provide written notice of any financial stability information requirement7 and invite the recipient of a notice to make representations in writing (although it will consider any request for oral representations). Once the period for making representations has expired, the FSA will determine, within a reasonable period, whether to impose the financial stability information requirement. Only in circumstances where the risk to financial stability appears to be increasing rapidly will the FSA use its powers to impose a financial stability information requirement without first providing written notice.

The FSA already has a general power to require authorised persons to answer questions, provide information, and provide documents and an explanation of such documents in connection with the carrying out of its functions under FSMA8. To a large degree, the new and existing powers overlap. “In deciding which [power(s)] to use,” the FSA stated, “we will consider which has the most appropriate scope, and which best describes the purpose of our request”9.

However, the significance of these new powers is that once FINMAR comes into force, the FSA will have new powers to gather information (i) from non-regulated persons and (ii) on behalf of overseas regulators in connection with the stability of certain non-UK financial systems (even where the stability of the UK financial system is not threatened). Until the FSA exercises these powers, it remains to be seen how, and how extensively, they will be used.

Confidentiality of Information Disclosed to FSA

Although the FSA is required to disclose information specifically requested under the UK’s Freedom of Information Acts10, a prohibition in FSMA generally11 prevents the FSA from disclosing confidential information that it obtains through carrying out its regulatory functions – meaning that information obtained by the FSA under its FINMAR information gathering powers will remain confidential in the hands of the FSA.

Enforcement of Financial Stability Information-Gathering Requirements Overseas

If the FSA were to provide a non-UK person with written notice of a financial stability information-gathering requirement, the FSA would have limited enforcement ability. The FSA’s powers extend only to the UK and, in practice, enforcement of an information requirement against a non-UK person could be difficult. However, the FSA has executed memoranda of understanding with financial regulators in many different countries (including with the US Securities and Exchange Commission) and has a good working relationship with many other regulators, so it may be able to call on the assistance of a local regulator to gather the necessary information or documents.

Timing

The new FINMAR sourcebook comes into force on 6 August 2010.

www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=30380d3b-1f89-4d62-a1e2-f4f4b25e8b78

[sandi66]

Obama security data guarded

12:00 AM CDT on Monday, August 9, 2010

By STEVE THOMPSON /

Traffic in parts of Dallas will halt this evening to clear the way for the leader of the free world as he is whisked through the city for a fundraiser. But President Barack Obama's protectors take pains to make sure that knowing exactly when and where is difficult.

"We work diligently with local law enforcement to ensure a safe environment for any of our protectees," said U.S. Secret Service spokesman Max Milien. "And we try to minimize any footprint that we leave so that we're not inconveniencing the public."

Beyond that – no comment.

Police, federal and city officials declined to offer even the most basic details about how many resources are dedicated to the job, including what it might cost taxpayers for the president to sweep into town for a political event.

Obama will spend about two hours in Dallas, landing at Dallas Love Field and speaking at a fundraising dinner.

When Obama was sworn in, it was under the tightest security in U.S. history. He used an armored Cadillac limousine with doors and windows thick enough to fend off bomb blasts. Behind his vehicle were black vans loaded with counter-assault teams and high-tech electronic devices.

Clearly, times have changed since President John F. Kennedy cruised through Dallas nearly a half-century ago, directing his Secret Service agents to step off the running boards of his Lincoln Continental convertible.

Still, that awful day is not far from the minds of city officials when asked what sort of security measures will be taken for Obama's visit.

"It will be whatever it takes to keep the president of the United States and his trip to Dallas safe," said Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, chairman of the City Council's public safety committee.

Typically, local police tactical units provide backup for the Secret Service. Local motorcycle officers escort the presidential motorcade as it races through town at speeds well over the posted limits.

Such a motorcade is an awesome display of power to view up close. All life freezes ahead of one man, who is zoomed through the corridor of empty streets inside a procession of imposing black sport utility vehicles.

It can also be dangerous duty for the "motor jockeys," requiring each one to overtake the motorcade, slingshot ahead of it, then stop abruptly at an intersection before the caravan charges through.

This is how Dallas police Senior Cpl. Victor Lozada died in 2008. He was one of more than 30 motorcycle officers whose job was to hold traffic for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she passed through during her presidential campaign. Lozada failed to negotiate a curve and slammed into a concrete guardrail.

Many times, before a motorcade rolls through a city or neighborhood, local police must post "no parking" signs and tow hundreds of vehicles from along roads. Vacant automobiles can conceal bombs and snipers. But unsuspecting car owners can find it a frustrating experience to have their vehicles towed with no warning.

It's unclear if this measure will be needed for Obama's trip to Dallas. If police officials know, they're not saying.

"Security around the presidential visit is a highly guarded secret," said Police Chief David Brown. "It's important not to divulge the security planning around his visit."

You get the same response if you go up the chain.

"We're not going to have that kind of detailed conversation about security for dignitaries that come to town," said City Manager Mary Suhm. "Particularly the president."

The president is expected to fly in from Austin after 4 p.m. and attend a fundraising dinner in Highland Park. So if you hope to avoid a traffic jam this afternoon and evening, you may want to steer clear of roads that might connect him to an airport.

www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-security_09met.ART0.State.Edition1.358cff1.html

ty nalmann

[sandi66]

PRECIOUS-Gold firms as dollar softens ahead of Fed

Published August 09, 2010
| Reuters

LONDON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Gold firmed in Europe on Monday, rising back towards the last session's three-week high, as the dollar eased after lacklustre U.S. jobs data, and on uncertainty ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve policy meeting this week.

Spot gold was bid at $1,205.90 an ounce at 0938 GMT, against $1,203.30 late in New York on Friday. U.S. gold futures for December delivery rose $3.20 an ounce to $1,208.50.

The metal broke above the $1,200 an ounce level to hit its highest since mid July last week after weaker-than-expected U.S. payrolls data fuelled concerns over the outlook for the U.S. economy, knocking the dollar.

Lingering concerns that economic weakness will feed through into volatility in other asset classes is supporting interest in gold from longer-term investors, analysts said.

"The move up that occurred last week was funds coming into the market," said Peter Hillyard, head of metals sales at ANZ. "Funds were taking the view that all manner of things, including the U.S. economy (would support gold)."

"They were taking a long view, and the long view is that gold is going higher," he added.

Weakness in the dollar, which historically has a close inverse correlation with gold, and expectations for a further decline are also supporting the metal. The dollar edged lower versus a currency basket ahead of the Fed policy meeting.

The soft data sparked speculation that the Fed may announce some kind of additional monetary easing, such as bond purchases, after the meeting. The central bank is expected to renew its vow to keep rates near zero for an extended period.

"In one of the most awaited FOMC meetings for some time, markets generally anticipate either a change in the Fed's language or a move towards additional asset purchases," said UBS analyst Edel Tully in a note, though she added that such a view was not supported by her bank.

She said, however: "Given that gold continues to divorce itself from the dollar, any nod towards QE2 should be positive for the yellow metal."


STOCKS EDGE UP

On the wider markets, European shares climbed on Monday, while world stocks edged up towards last week's three-month peak. Oil prices rose above $81 a barrel, supported by the weaker dollar.

Rising gold prices translated into a fall-off in physical demand from Indian buyers, however. Buying retreated on Monday after a firm two weeks, traders reported.

"Prices will have to come down below $1,200 and rupee will have to appreciate below 46 for demand to pick up again," said a dealer with an Indian private bank.

Among other precious metals, silver was bid at $18.47 an ounce against $18.31, while platinum was at $1,553 an ounce against $1,563.25 and palladium was at $484.53 against $484.05.

The ratio of gold to platinum -- or how many gold ounces are needed to buy an ounce of platinum -- fell to a two-week low of 1.29 on Monday, meaning the yellow metal is becoming increasingly expensive compared to platinum.

Appetite for platinum group metals, which are widely used in car manufacturing, has been tempered by relatively soft auto sales data. Data showed Chinese car sales rose at their slowest in 15 months in July as the world's largest auto market cooled.

"While platinum group metals remain under pressure on a lack of follow-through buying from last month's strength, gold could continue to be supported by a weaker dollar," said Morgan Stanley in a note.

www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2010/08/09/precious-gold-firms-dollar-softens-ahead-fed/


ty gman

[sandi66]

AUGUST 9, 2010, 4:24 P.M. ET

Treasury Prices Drop As Stocks Gain Before Fed Meeting

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Treasury prices weakened Monday as stocks rose, but moves were small as trading slowed ahead of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, moved up Monday from recent lows as market participants took some profits after the recent rally, which was inspired by more weak data. The two-year yield hit a record low of 0.494% Friday; the 10-year fell as low as 2.804% on overnight buying, a level it last hit back in April 2009.

Monday brought no major data, leaving the market to watch equities and consider....


online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100809-714382.html



ty gman

[sandi66]

Knights Templar heirs in legal battle with the Pope

The heirs of the Knights Templar have launched a legal battle in Spain to force the Pope to restore the reputation of the disgraced order which was accused of heresy and dissolved seven centuries ago.

Published: 11:43PM BST 03 Aug 2008

The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth 100 billion euros (£79 billion).

They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307, more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church.

But their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the "good name" of the Knights Templar.

"We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our Order," said a statement issued by the self-proclaimed modern day knights.

The Templars was a powerful secretive group of warrior monks founded by French knight Hugues de Payens after the First Crusade of 1099 to protect pilgrims en route to Jerusalem.

They amassed enormous wealth and helped to finance wars waged by European monarchs, but spectacularly fell from grace after the Muslims reconquered the Holy Land in 1244 and rumours surfaced of their heretic practices.

The Knights were accused of denying Jesus, worshipping icons of the devil in secret initiation ceremonies, and practising sodomy.

Many Templars confessed to their crimes under torture and some, including the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were burned at the stake.

The legal move by the Spanish group comes follows the unprecedented step by the Vatican towards the rehabilitation of the group when last October it released copies of parchments recording the trials of the Knights between 1307 and 1312.

The papers lay hidden for more than three centuries having been "misfiled" within papal archives until they were discovered by an academic in 2001.

The Chinon parchment revealed that, contrary to historic belief, Clement V had declared the Templars were not heretics but disbanded the order anyway to maintain peace with their accuser, King Philip IV of France.

Over the centuries, various groups have claimed to be descended from the Templars and legend abounds over hidden treasures, secret rituals, and their rumoured guardianship of the Holy Grail.

Most recently the knights have fascinated the modern generation after being featured in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.


www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/2495343/Knights-Templar-heirs-in-legal-battle-with-the-Pope.html

[sandi66]

Knights Templar Legends


Legendary headquarters
Many legends surround the location of the Templars' first headquarters on the Temple Mount, which had been assigned to them by King Baldwin II of Jerusalem.[1] They were in operation there for 75 years.

The Temple Mount is sacred ground to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and is believed to be the location of the ruins of Solomon's Temple, and the ancient resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.[2] Pseudo-historical books such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail claim that the Templars discovered documents hidden in the ruins of the Temple, "proving" that Jesus survived the Crucifixion or possibly "proving" Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children by her. Indeed, the supposition that the Templars must have found something under the Temple Mount lies at the heart of most Templar legends and pseudo-historical theories. There is no physical or documentary evidence, however, to support such a supposition. It is true that they are documented as having carried a piece of the True Cross into some battles,[3] but this was likely a portion of a timber that was discovered during the 4th century by Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine.[4]

Relics
Other legends of modern invention say that the Holy Grail, or Sangreal, was found by the Order and taken to Scotland during the suppression of the order in 1307, and that it remains buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel. Other more recent "discoveries" say the Holy Grail was taken to Northern Spain, and protected by the Knights Templar there.[5]

Some sources claim that the Templars discovered secrets of the Masons who had built the original and second temples at the Temple Mount, along with knowledge that the Ark had been moved to Ethiopia before the destruction of the first temple.[6] Allusion to this is made in engravings on the Cathedral at Chartres, great influence over the building of which was had by Bernard of Clairvaux, the Order's patron. Further links to both the search by the order for the Ark and to its discovery of ancient secrets of building are supposedly suggested by the existence of the monolithic Church of St. George in Lalibela, Ethiopia, which stands to this day but whose construction is incorrectly attributed to the Knights Templar.

Some scholars, such as Hugh J. Schonfield, and fringe researchers argue that the Knights Templar may have found the Copper Scroll treasure of the Qumran Essenes in the tunnels beneath the Temple Mount. They suggest that this might explain one of the charges of heresy which were later brought against the knights by the Medieval Inquisition.

Mysterious deaths of the Order's enemies
The last Grand Master of the Templar Order, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake in 1314, by order of King Philip IV of France, who had also pressured Pope Clement V to disband the Order. Legend has it that de Molay issued his dying curse against the King and Pope Clement V, saying that he would meet them before God. Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died later that year in a hunting accident.

Succession to the throne of France passed rapidly through Philip's sons. Louis X the Quarreller lasted for only two years, and died while still a teenager, leaving a pregnant wife who gave birth to the next king, John I the Posthumous, but the baby lived for only five days before succumbing, probably to poison. The throne then went to another of Philip IV's sons, Philip V the Tall, who was crowned at the age of 23, but died at 29. Since he had had no sons, the throne then went to his brother, Charles IV the Fair, who himself died six years later without a male heir, and thereby ended the Capetian Dynasty.

Many believed that the dynasty had been cursed. A series of 20th century novels called Les Rois Maudits (The Accursed Kings) expanded on this story.

Friday the 13th
Many modern stories claim that when King Philip IV had many Templars simultaneously arrested on October 13, 1307, that started the legend of the unlucky Friday the 13th. However, closer examination shows that though the number 13 was indeed considered historically unlucky, the actual association of Friday and 13 seems to be an invention from the early 1900s.[7][8]

Claims of descent and revival
� The lunatic ... doesn't concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all id�e fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars. �
�Umberto Eco , Foucault's Pendulum[9]

Some historians and authors have tried to draw a link from Freemasonry and its many branches to the Templars. This alleged link remains a point of debate. Degrees in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite such as the Knight of Saint Andrew, the Knight of Rose-Croix, and the 32nd Degree in Consistory make reference to a "Masonic Knights Templar" connection, but this is usually dismissed as being ceremonial and not historical fact.

John J. Robinson makes an interesting case for the Templar-Masonic connection in his book Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry, in which he alleges that some French Templars fled to Scotland after the suppression of the Order, fearing persecution from both Church and state. He claims they sought refuge with a lodge of Scottish stone masons within which they began to teach the virtues of chivalry and obedience, using the builders tools as a metaphor; and eventually they began taking in "speculative masons" (men of other professions) in order to ensure the continuation of the Order. According to Robinson, the Order existed in secret in this form until the formation of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1717. An example of Templar-Masonic transitory symbolism can supposedly be found in Rosslyn Chapel owned by the first Earls of Rosslyn Sinclair a family with well documented ties to Scottish Freemasonry, however Rosslyn Chapel itself dates from at least 100 years after the suppression of the Templars.

The case is also made in Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh's book The Temple and the Lodge.

However, historians Mark Oxbrow, Ian Robertson,[10] Karen Ralls and Louise Yeoman [11] have each made it clear that the Sinclair family had no connection with the Mediaeval Knights Templar. The Sinclairs' testimony against the Knights at their 1309 trial is not consistent with any alleged support or membership. In "The Templars and the Grail"[12] Karen Ralls states that among some 50 who testified against the Templars were Henry and William Sinclair.

The Order of the Solar Temple is one infamous example of a "neo-Templar" group, founded in 1984, that claimed descent from the original Knights Templar; there are several other self-styled orders that also claim to be descended from, or revivals of, the Templar Order. One such organization is the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem (SMOTJ), an ecumenical Christian society based on the traditions of the medieval Knights Templar and principles of chivalry. However, the order is not a genuine order of chivalry, having neither official state recognition nor a head of state as sovereign. SMOTJ was created in 1804 and is dedicated to the preservation of the holy sites in and around Jerusalem, charitable works, and antiquarian research. In 2001, the most prominent faction of the SMOTJ was recognized by the United Nations as a non-governmental organization.

Some people point out a few assumed similarities between Knights Templar and Switzerland.[13] This is mainly because of the similar flags, the Knights, a square cross flared at the ends, and the modern Flag of Switzerland, a square cross, without flared ends. Also, the Knights were known for their banking.

Ultimately, throughout history and to this day, various organizations have tried to claim links to the original Templar order. To date, none of these claims is historically verifiable nor widely accepted in academia.

Knights Templar in Scotland
During the late 13th, early 14th century, England under King Edward I was at war with Scotland. In 1314 his son, Edward II, engaged the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn. According to legend, the Scots won the battle largely due to the intervention of the Knights Templar on the side of their King Robert the Bruce.[14] In reality, none of the contemporary or near contemporary accounts of the battle at Bannockburn mention the Knights Templar at all, and the excommunicated King Robert the Bruce had very good reason to have nothing to do with the Templars, since he was desperate to keep on the right side of the Pope and of the King of France. It is also worth noting that the Knights Templar had fought for Edward I at the battle of Falkirk in 1297. Militarily he managed very well without them from 1307-1314 and from 1314-1328 and the story could only be seen as a sop to English pride - the 'real' reason for their loss isn't because they were fighting against the Scots but against an elite force of knights. This legend is the basis for degrees in the invitational Masonic Order known as the Royal Order of Scotland.[15]

Discoverers of the New World
Though the Knights Templar were officially disbanded in the early 1300s, some believe that the Templars, who were known to possess a sizable fleet of ships, may have fled to the New World by following old Viking routes, making one of the pre-Columbian voyages to America.[14] In Portugal, the Knights Templar did not disband, but simply changed their name to Knights of Christ. In 1492, this group provided the navigators for Christopher Columbus' journey, and the Order's cross was featured prominently on the sails of his ships.

Legendary associations with other Orders


'Well of Initiation': architecture based in Templar, Rosicrucian and Masonic symbolism at the "Quinta da Regaleira" (1892-1910), Sintra, Portugal.
Further speculation revolves around the Templar's association with other Orders. This matter is additionally confused because some Orders, such as the Freemasons, started adopting Templar symbols and traditions in the 1700s. (See: Knights Templar (Freemason degree)) Another modern (but much smaller) order that claims Templar ancestry is the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Revisionist historians and conspiracy theorists claim that the Knights Templar stored secret knowledge, linking them to myriad other subjects: the Rosicrucians, the Cathars, the Priory of Sion, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Hermetics, the Ebionites, the Rex Deus, lost relics or gospels of James the Just, Mary Magdalene or Jesus (such as a "Judas Testament"), King Solomon, Moses, and, ultimately, Hiram Abif and the mysteries of ancient Egypt. This, in turn, has contributed to the Knights Templar having several influences on popular culture.

Skull and crossbones
A Masonic legend speaks of three Templars searching the site of Jacques de Molay's burning and finding only his skull and femurs. These they took with them and allegedly were used as the impetus to create the first Jolly Roger flag of Piracy, so that they would never forget.[citation needed] This same symbol is used today by the Yale Skull and Bones society as well as the Bohemian Grove.

Rumored locations


The floor plan of Temple of Jerusalem and some construction lines; possible source of inspiration for Templar constructions
Many locations claim various links with the Templars with varying degrees of reliability. One commonly-cited speculation has to do with a painting that was in the roof of a Templar building in Templecombe, England. Now on display in St Mary's Church in the village, some people believe that it is a Templar-commissioned image of either Christ or the disembodied head of John the Baptist.[16]

The following is a list of some of the places that have been associated with the Knights Templar, either in fiction or legend, but which have not yet been proven to have a factual association.

Well of Souls in Jerusalem
Oak Island, Nova Scotia (fabled western outpost)[14]
Church at Laon in France
Round Church of Lanleff in Brittany, France
The castle of Barber� in Spain
The castle of Ponferrada, a village in Le�n, Spain
Chapel Chwarszczany in Poland
Bannockburn, site of the Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland
Rosslyn Chapel and Orphir Church in Scotland
Hertford, England the Guardian
Holy Sepulchre in Cambridge, England Round Church
St Sepulchre's in Northampton, England
La chapelle saint-Georges d'Ydes in France
Church of San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini, in Florence Italy
Castle of Almourol, Portugal
Temple Bruer, Lincolnshire
The Trinity Church on Wall Street in New York City
See also
Larmenius Charter
Westford Knight
Royal Order of Scotland
Grey Griffins Books
Notes and references
^ Dent, JD. Baldwin II. History Bookshop. Retrieved on 2007-07-17.
^ McCall, Thomas S. Where is the Ark of the Covenant? www.levitt.com/essays/ark.html Zola Levitt Ministries. Retrieved on 2007-07-17
^ Piers Paul Read, The Templars, p. 159
^ Read, p. 27
^ The knights Templar in Spain
^ Hancock, G: The Sign and The Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, Toronto: Doubleday, ISBN 0-671-86541-2
^ "Friday the 13th. snopes.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-26.
^ "Why Friday the 13th is unlucky". urbanlegends.about.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-26.
^ Umberto Eco, (1989) Foucault's Pendulum, New York: Ballantine Books, pp. 57-8
^ "The Da Vinci Connection", Sunday Herald, 14 November 2004
^ "Historian attacks Rosslyn Chapel for 'cashing in on Da Vinci Code'", Scotsman.com, 03-May-06
^ Ralls, Karen, The Templars and the Grail. Quest Books; 1st Quest edition (May 25, 2003), ISBN 0-8356-0807-7 (see p.110 - quoting "The Knights Templar in England" p.200-1)
^ "Did The Templars Form Switzerland?: An Interview with Alan Butler"
^ a b c The History Channel, The Templar Code, May 17, 2006
^ www.yorkrite.com/roos/info.html
^ The History Channel, Lost Worlds: Knights Templar, July 10, 2006 video documentary. Directed and written by Stuart Elliott
Other links
The hidden treasure of the temple About Templars : hidden treasures and a small village in the south of France : Rennes-le-Ch�teau.
Templar History Magazine Popular history of the Templars
The Crusades Wiki

trepanier83.com/knights_templar.htm

[sandi66]

AUGUST 11, 2010, 10:13 A.M. ET

ShoreBank Managers Explore Buying Some Assets

The management team of ShoreBank Corp., the troubled Chicago community lender with deep ties to the Obama administration, is exploring whether to buy certain assets if the institution is seized by regulators, said people familiar with the situation.

Regulators have ordered the bank to raise its capital levels significantly, and they could close the bank if it fails to do so. Despite more than $135 million in private contributions from the top firms on Wall Street, the prospect of securing enough funds to keep Shore afloat is waning. Management doesn't yet have backers for any potential bid, a person familiar with the matter said.

ShoreBank officials were hoping for an additional $75 million in federal support via the Troubled Asset Relief Program. That option has faded in the wake of a Federal Reserve analysis showing that Shore would be insufficiently capitalized even with a new capital injection of roughly $200 million, said people familiar with the situation. The bank lost $39.5 million in the second quarter, according to documents filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
A ShoreBank spokesman and the FDIC, Shore's primary regulator, declined to comment.

Shore serves low- and moderate-income communities and got into trouble by making bad loans to borrowers in neighborhoods away from its historical roots on Chicago's South Side.

The company installed a new management team to deal with the regulatory demands and raise new funds, appointing George Surgeon as chief executive and David Vitale as executive chairman.

Among the banks that agreed this year to new ShoreBank investments were Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp and Morgan Stanley.

A potential rescue of Shore has been complicated by calls for inquiries into the assistance offered by the nation's largest banks. Republican lawmakers have questioned whether the Obama administration pressured the big banks for help. The White House has said it didn't pressure the lenders.

—Robin Sidel
contributed to this article.
Write to Dan Fitzpatrick at [e-mail]

online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748703435104575421924091799884.html

[sandi66]

* VIDEO: “Fractional Banking” (A Must Watch If You Wish To Understand)
August 11, 2010 · Posted in CASH-IN, CHATS / POSTS, TIDBIT, WEALTH
All,


If you want to know what is BEHIND all of this, and WHY the IQD RV is so critical to our nation and the world, then simply watch this video.

We are so far behind in our debt as a nation that there is only one way out whereby we can “renew” our own currency and debt situation. It is through the revaluation of the IQD and other major currencies throughout the world.

Yes, it is my opinion that we the U.S. are going to be using other nations’ natural resources to justify their revaluation for the purpose of helping us slow the almost insurmountable tide of our nation’s compounding debt. One might ask why would the world care about this? It’s this simple… as the U.S. goes, so does the world. They are inextricably tied together.

This will ultimately assist us as a nation to “get under control” that which never should have been out of control, our Country’s debt. Through this singular event, our nation should be able to regain literally generations of debt through the simple act of revaluing the currency of Iraq against the U.S. Dollar. Through the usage of war, the U.S. is able to “renew” it’s own currency and regain control.

Take it for what it’s worth, but I can assure you this entire opportunity is based off of the necessity for the U.S. to rectify wrongs… the Iraqi War, the U.S. Debt, the world’s economic crisis (caused by the U.S.), and so on. This is the very core of the problem that created the symptoms we are feeling today.

The IQD RV, along with the revaluation of other currencies of major countries throughout the world, in my singular opinion, is the answer. Because one can’t create debt to satisfy existing debt (similar to two wrongs not making a right), one must find an answer elsewhere.

Where do you think they found it?

Where do you think they have gone to cover up the world of excess that created this mess?

Do the ends justify the means? I would never be so bold as to say they do. But, there are those in control of events and situations in this world we will never know or be aware of who have made these decisions to which we are now reacting and speculating. This is the “perfect storm” of opportunities and crisis! As much as we will be blessed for this event, there was equal hardship and disparity that was used to “PAY” for the “Great Realignment” and “Redistribution of Wealth”.


My only reaction is to say this…

Yes, I am grateful to my Heavenly Father, who has created a world wherein there is found… ALL His answers. To have found a blessing in such abundance from a nation that ironically has had so very little to offer in the past, in reality one of the very poorest countries (per capita) in the world, and within the very “cradle of civilization”, is truly a miracle.

- What will you do with your blessing when it unfolds?

- Who will you affect for the positive with your reward?

- Where will you go to thank your God for this harvest?

- When will you go into His storehouse and give Him what is His?

- How will you spend your time when this is all said and done?

- Who will you become as a result of this excess?

I pray each can come to their own answer wherein their maker is both proud and supportive.

- Now is the time of the great harvest!

- Now is the time for you to decide which “side” you are on!

- Now is the time for you to fulfill your purpose and promise here on this earth!

- Now is the time for you to become who you’ve always been!

This is the very core of what I feel and believe about this investment. I pray I can be a wise, humble, and inspiration-driven steward of His will and His purpose.

All my best… And, as always… Go Dinar!

Dinar Daddy

click on the tiny url, to play the video


tinyurl.com/3xgcs2t

[sandi66]

Banks unlikely to rush TruPS redemptions
By Jay Antenen and Bhavna Kaul

Published: August 13 2010 10:59 | Last updated: August 13 2010 10:59


This article is provided to FT.com readers by dealReporter—a news service focused on providing insightful intelligence on event driven situations to investors. www.dealreporter.com

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For economic and regulatory reasons, most banks are unlikely to exercise an option to call back their trust preferred securities (TruPS) in the near term, advisory sources and investors told dealReporter.

Under the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform legislation, which was signed into law this summer, bank holding companies with more than USD 15bn in assets will not be allowed to count TruPS as Tier 1 capital following a three year phase-in period beginning in 2013. Previous rules permitted banks to use the hybrid debt-equity securities for as much as 25% of their Tier 1 capital.

The new TruPS policy, known informally as the Collins Amendment, has contributed to the ongoing confusion banks face as they try to prepare for stricter capital adequacy standards that have yet to be finalized by US and international regulatory bodies. The Dodd-Frank bill leaves it at the discretion of regulators to set the three year phase-in schedule.

TruPS typically gives issuers the right to call the securities back within 90 days of a regulatory change that impacts the securities’ status as Tier 1 capital. In many offering documents, this option is referred to as a “capital treatment event.”

Despite some claims that banks can only exercise the regulatory call option within 90 days of the Dodd-Frank law becoming law, there is a growing consensus that banks will be able to wait until 2013, the first source said.

Any dispute on the timing to exercise the regulatory call option is further mitigated by language that is found in many TruPS offering documents, said Chip MacDonald, partner at Jones Day who advises banks on regulatory matters.

MacDonald explained that beyond the regulatory trigger, the offering documents of TruPS typically give issuers multiple opportunities to call back the securities. Many TruPS securities allow an issuer to call back a security five years after it was issued, MacDonald said. Assuming a 2013 phase-in starting line, TruPS issued before 2008 would be callable.

Until the TruPS ban starts in 2013, the sources advising banks on the matter argued that financial institutions have an incentive to hold on to the securities because many of them are a cheap source of funding. Some TruPS issued through retail channels before the financial crisis cost banks a mere LIBOR +25bps, according to the first source.

Another reason for banks to keep their TruPS is that the Federal Reserve may require them to replace the securities with another form of Tier 1 capital like common equity, convertible preferred or perpetual preferred shares, the same sources said. Credit rating agency policies and covenants attached to some TruPS have similar capital replacement requirements, added MacDonald.

Replacement Tier 1 capital will likely be more expensive than TruPS that continue to count fully as Tier 1 capital until 2013, the sources said.

A TruPS investor predicted banks will issue about USD 0.33 of preferred and USD 0.33 of common equity shares for every USD 1 in redeemed TruPS. However, he estimated that, at the earliest, banks are likely to start redeeming TruPS in 2011. Right now, he noted, financial institutions are busy addressing other changes brought about by the Dodd-Frank legislation.

In the meantime, there are some expensive TruPS issued by banks that traders are examining to see if banks will call them before 2013. Banks that hold TruPS with coupons of 8% or higher will likely be the first to redeem the securities, the first investor said.

Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB) issued USD 350m in 8.875% TruPS in 2008. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based bank has USD 2.6bn in total TruPS. Capital One Financial (NYSE:COF) issued USD 1bn in 10.25% fixed rate TruPS in July 2009 and another USD 1bn in 8.875% fixed-rate TruPS that November. At the end of 1Q10, the McLean, Virginia-based bank reported USD 3.5bn in TruPS count towards its USD 11.5bn in Tier 1 capital.

The July 2009 TruPS issued by Capital One states the credit card lender may call back the security if it makes a “reasonable determination” that there is a change or proposed change to laws or an administrative interpretation of the laws that creates more than an “insubstantial risk” that the bank will not be able to treat the par value of the TruPS as Tier 1 capital. The language states Capital One can also wait until a change “becomes effective” before exercising the call.

Prior to the Collins Amendment, a second TruPS investor said Capital One’s 10.25% security traded around 109. But after the passage of the Dodd-Frank law, the second investor said it traded down to between 103 and 104 on concern that Capital One could call back the high-rate security. The 10.25% TruPS continues to see active trading, he said, noting that investors continue to debate what Capital One will do.

On its 2Q10 earnings call, Capital One’s CFO, Gary Perlin, said the bank anticipates it will “determine whether to exercise our rights to redeem our trust preferred securities at or near the beginning of the phase-in period.” A spokesperson had no immediate comment.

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For more information or to inquire about a trial please email [e-mail] or call Europe/EEMEA: [phone] Americas: [phone] Asia-Pacific: [phone]

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www.ft.com/cms/s/2/90dce500-a6c0-11df-8d1e-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html

[sandi66]

Outside View: China syndrome: U.S. deflation and China’s asset bubble

Published: Aug. 12, 2010 at 8:29 AM

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Aug. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. unemployment is stuck near 10 percent and deflation and a stock market collapse threaten.

The Federal Reserve and U.S. President Barack Obama are out of bullets. Near zero percent federal funds rates, central bank purchases of mortgage backed bonds and other securities and a $1.6 trillion deficit have failed to revive the economy.

This is no mystery.

In a globalized economy, government-controlled exchange rates often render monetary policy ineffective and bigger budget deficits that don't adequately increase purchases of domestic goods and services won't stimulate the economy.

China fixes the value of the yuan against the dollar at an arbitrary low level to make its products much less expensive against U.S. goods. This juices China's exports and limits imports beyond what its low labor costs advantage require.

Beijing prints yuan to purchase dollars in foreign exchange markets -- suppressing the value of the yuan against the dollar by about 40 percent. It uses those dollars to purchase U.S. Treasuries and other Western debt and buy oil and other mineral deposits around the world.

The net effect is to suppress medium- and longer-term U.S. interest rates. For example, when the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate from 1.25 to 5.25 percent from 2004-07, bond rates didn't much rise and mortgage money remained cheap and easy, helping finance the U.S. real estate bubble. Similarly, easy credit helped the U.S. and European governments dig into their present fiscal messes.

China buys so much U.S. debt that it effectively caps U.S. medium- and long-term lending rates. And in a recession, efforts by the Federal Reserve to spur economic activity by cutting overnight lending rates to near zero or purchasing government bonds or mortgage-back securities do little to lower medium- and longer-term lending rates and encourage business spending or new home purchases.

Obama has countered with massive stimulus spending but temporary tax cuts generate a lot of savings and his spending on real goods have too often gone into Chinese imports or projects that only displace private investments. For example, the amount of commercial space built over the next several years depends on anticipated demand and subsidies for green buildings only change the character of what gets built but not very much the absolute amount of space that gets constructed.

The combination of a huge trade deficit with China and credit bubble bursting has left U.S. housing and other asset prices deflated, unemployment near 10 percent and the U.S. economy laboring under deflationary pressures.

Deflationary pressures play out in high unemployment or falling prices and so far we have gotten a lot more of the former than the latter.

China has enjoyed breakneck growth but all those yuan printed to buy dollars have returned to China, through export sales and foreign investment and have created Chinese inflation and asset speculation.

Now, China's high property and stock prices look as though they could be ready to collapse and take down China's miracle.

Just as the Federal Reserve cannot resuscitate the U.S. economy by slashing the federal funds rate to zero, the Peoples Bank of China can't cool Chinese inflation and speculation by raising interest rates or regulating bank lending.

In 2009, China printed about $450 billion in yuan to purchase foreign currency that has mostly returned home through export sales. That came to about 10 percent of China's gross domestic product. If a bank won't lend money to an entrepreneur or home buyer, surely a Chinese merchant with a shoebox full of cash can accommodate.

China can't unwind inflation, asset speculation and a threatened collapse in housing and stock prices without unwinding its currency market intervention and letting the yuan rise to its market value against the dollar.

The United States and Europe can't solve their growth, unemployment and budget problems without China revaluing the yuan. More taxes will only drive down Western growth and increase unemployment, no matter how much Obama believes high taxes on upper classes are a moral imperative.

China could revalue its currency in steps or the United States and European Union could impose gradually increasing taxes on dollar-yuan and dollar-euro conversions to simulate the effects of a stronger yuan on western and Chinese economies.

No other fiscal policy or monetary scheme will work as long China's currency is so undervalued.

www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/2010/08/12/Outside-View-China-syndrome-US-deflation-and-Chinas-asset-bubble/UPI-64801281616190/?pvn=1

[sandi66]

Cobell settlement agreement extended for last time
Story Published: Aug 16, 2010

Story Updated: Aug 13, 2010

This is the 13th letter in a series of open letters that I’m sending to Indian country. The purpose of this letter is to update you about the Cobell settlement.

Since my last Ask Elouise letter, I have been monitoring the Senate and its consideration of the supplemental bill funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to which we were attached by the House some time ago. Unfortunately, Senate leadership stripped our authorizing legislation from the war appropriations bill for political reasons unrelated to the merits of our settlement.

It is a difficult political environment on Capitol Hill, with a number of members focused on re-election politics, not our much needed legislation. Our legislation efforts are complicated by record deficits, a weak national economy, and the requirement that $2 billion of our settlement be paid for through spending or revenue off-sets.

This year, most legislation, excluding emergency spending legislation, has designated off-sets which have become very controversial because each political party has its own views on the acceptable off-sets. Unfortunately, Congress has repeatedly taken our identified off-sets that were deemed widely acceptable to support other bills that were more important to Senate leadership and the administration.

And, unfortunately, the administration has been unwilling to designate any of the billions of dollars of unspent economic stimulus funds to ensure passage of our settlement bill. This has forced us to start over repeatedly as our congressional allies have to work even harder to identify other possible acceptable off-sets.

Throughout the session which ended Aug. 5, our attorneys and I continued to work with our allies in the Senate to get attached to a bill the Senate would pass. Before the Senate recessed, leadership brought our case to a vote through a procedure called unanimous consent. This simply means the Senate could pass the bill so long as no senator objects; if anyone objects, the bill does not pass. This measure did not pass as a result of Sen. Barrassos’, R-Wyo., ongoing objection to the settlement. As I reported in an earlier Ask Elouise letter, Sen. Barrasso hasn’t made a secret of his desire to kill the settlement, going against the will of the tribes in his own state and all but a handful of disgruntled critics.

It is becoming more likely that Congress will not pass settlement legislation. Indeed, it is unusual for any settlement or judgment to be conditioned on political acceptance by Congress. The Judgment Fund, a permanently appropriated fund, was created decades ago by Congress to pay for all settlements and judgments against the United States.

It has two purposes: First, to exclude final judgments and settlements against the United States from the uncertainties of the political process, and second, to restore the reputation of the United States, which had become a deadbeat nation. Simply put, politics routinely blocked payment of the government’s debt obligations.

Sadly, we seem to be heading that way again. Our settlement agreement was executed Dec. 7, 2009, more than eight months ago, and I know of no reason to believe that our prospects will improve as we get closer to the mid-term elections. In fact, they are likely to get worse.

Nevertheless, after endless hearings and debates in Congress about our case and its settlement, we have gathered a massive amount of support from members of Congress. I am informed that if we ever come to a vote in the Senate that we have sufficient votes to safely beat any filibuster.

For this reason, I have carefully considered our options, consulted with scores of beneficiaries, listened to their concerns, and talked to our attorneys before making a decision to extend the agreement for what is likely to be the last time. I’m especially mindful of the fact that the vast majority of beneficiaries want this settlement to work because it is a fair deal. For these reasons, I’ve decided to extend the settlement agreement through Oct. 15, 2010.

If you have a question, send an e-mail to: [e-mail]. Thank you and keep your questions coming.


– Elouise Cobell
Browning, Mont.



ty nalmann

[sandi66]

Consensus Emerging for Future of Housing Finance
By Donna Borak, American Banker
August 18, 2010

WASHINGTON — Although there were sharp disagreements at a Treasury Department conference Tuesday about what kind of role the government should take in the future of housing finance, one idea in particular seems to be gaining momentum: creating an insurance fund to back mortgage-backed securities.
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Under a plan advanced by several participants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be replaced by privately capitalized, federally chartered companies that buy mortgages from the primary market and deliver them into a federally guaranteed mortgage-backed security.

The new companies would pay a risk-based fee used to establish an insurance fund, similar to that of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which would cover catastrophic losses on MBS.



Although details of the plan vary, the idea has won considerable support.



"Any guarantee should be explicit and the government should charge a fee to create a reserve fund to cover potential losses," said Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and co-director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.



To be sure, others offered differing visions of the GSEs' future, with Bill Gross of Pimco calling for full nationalization and Alex Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute suggesting a more private-market-oriented approach.



But amid the various ideas, the insurance fund was the subject of a surprising consensus.

The basic thrust of the plan involves an explicit, narrowly targeted government guarantee that would be used to cover "catastrophic" losses on certain kinds of MBS. For example, the government would give a guarantee only to 30-year fixed mortgages with significant down payments.



"Public participation should be limited to providing only a layer of guarantee and setting credit standards for tightly defined conventional mortgages behind the borrower down payment, private mortgage insurance, and layers of reserves and capital at whatever future entities play this limited role," said S.A. Ibrahim, chief executive of the private mortgage insurer Radian Group Inc. "Public participation can be paid for through fees and further protect taxpayers through sound underwriting and appraisals, while additionally limiting the government guarantees to a historically safer catastrophic loan-to-value gap of, say, 70% or lower."



The idea has already been endorsed by several groups and companies, including the Housing Policy Council, the Mortgage Bankers Association and Wells Fargo & Co.

Speaking at the conference Tuesday, Mike Heid, president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, said a government guarantee is "required to ensure that there's a reliable flow of mortgage credit across the whole wide range of economic cycles we will experience in the future."



"I want to emphasize that the guarantee itself should only apply to the performance of the mortgage security itself," he said. "It should not apply in any shape or form to the particular entity that's involved in the securitization process itself."



Susan Wachter, Richard B. Worley Professor of Financial Management, professor of Real Estate, Finance and City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, agreed. "There is a role for a government guarantee that is very limited in successor entities such as Fannie and Freddie," Wachter said. "There should be perhaps successors not solely, in my mind, in the government, but outside the government, with a limited role for a government guarantee with private capital in the first-loss position."

She, too, said the government should not guarantee debt of any new entities, but only the security.



Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Loans, said the government's role in housing finance needs to be cleared up. Fannie and Freddie were considered implicitly backed by the government, a role that allowed them to sell their debt for cheaper because of a perceived government guarantee but not technically be on the government's books. "The future role for the government must be transparent and clear," Desoer said.



"Institutions or products will either need to be explicitly guaranteed or not guaranteed at all."



Although Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner moderated the panel, which included in-depth discussion of the insurance fund idea, he did not take a position on it. Instead, he said he favored some type of government role in housing finance. The administration is due to unveil its own plan in January.



"The question is really about whether the government — in order to make sure that Americans can borrow at reasonable interest rates to buy a house even in a deep recession — has to provide a form of guarantee or insurance against losses," Geithner said. "I believe there is a strong case to be made for a carefully designed guarantee in a reformed system, with the objective of providing a measure of stability in access to mortgages, even in future economic downturns."



The challenge is "to make sure that any government guarantee is priced to cover the risk of losses, and structured to minimize taxpayer exposure," Geithner said.

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One participant pushed for a much more substantial role for the government. Gross, a co-founder and co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., said all government programs should be combined into Ginnie Mae. "We should consolidate all of the agencies into one true Ginnie Mae, a government national mortgage association — one agency," he said. "We are skeptical of other public-private models currently being considered, discussed today, because they're more expensive primarily, resulting in higher mortgage rates and therefore favoring Wall Street as opposed to Main Street."

Gross said several options would essentially create "clones" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.



"Private mortgage insurance, for instance, is untrustworthy and comes at a very expensive costs going forward," Gross said. "We need one national agency with sufficient backing, down payments and guarantees going forward."



He was balanced out by Pollock, who said Fannie and Freddie should be split into three parts: a private company that provides a guarantee, a government agency that provides housing subsidies and a liquidating trust to run off continuing losses from the existing GSEs.



One option that does not appear to be on the table: returning Fannie and Freddie to the structure they had before they were seized by the government two years ago. In his remarks, Geithner specifically rejected the idea.



"We will not support returning Fannie and Freddie to the role they played before conservatorship, where they fought to take market share from private competitors while enjoying the privilege of government support," he said. We will not support a return to the system where private gains are subsidized by taxpayer losses."



www.bankinvestmentconsultant.com/news/future-of-housing-finance-2668330-1.html?pg=2

[sandi66]

Debate on taxes affects the savers: Wealthier hold on to dividends

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 7:53 AM

The Washington Times
Aug. 18--The nation's highest income groups predictably did better during the recession and socked away their money, new government figures show, but wealthier Americans' newfound penchant for savings is already driving Democratic calls to raise taxes on them this fall.

Figures recently published by the Commerce Department show the mostly upper-income households that hold stocks earned $169 billion more in dividends since 2007 than previously estimated. Much of that money was stowed away in savings, helping drive the personal savings rate to 6.25 percent earlier this year -- the highest level in decades.

"This detail will probably play an important role in the current debate about the extension of the Bush tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000 a year," said Harm Bandholz, an economist at Unicredit Markets.

The Obama administration -- despite its calls for people to save -- has seized on the number, with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner stressing that extending Bush-era tax cuts for the top 2 percent of earners would not be a good way to provide stimulus to the economy.

"The top 2 percent are the least likely to spend those tax cuts, certainly not in comparison to the 98 percent of Americans who make less than $250,000 per year," he said. "While they would surely welcome extended tax cuts, its not likely to change their spending habits."

His opponents in the Bush tax-cut debate were quick to seize on the economic maxim that, all else being equal, taxing a thing results in less of that thing, including savings.

Martin Regalia, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said on ABC's "This Week" that private-sector investment remains slow because "I think our tax laws and our other regulatory structure in Washington don't foster that. We tax savings multiple times."

"And when you don't have the kind of laws and the kind of tax structure that facilitate and encourage investment, you get a lot less of it," he said Sunday.

President Obama wants to let the tax cuts for top earners expire, reverting to levels set during the Clinton administration, while continuing the tax cuts for everyone else. He also would allow Mr. Bush's lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains to rise from 15 percent to 20 percent. The new figures add fuel to arguments that wealthier people could well afford to pay higher taxes, as they had no need to spend their stock-market gains during the recession.

Lower-income groups for the most part did not benefit from the gusher of dividends earned in the stock market, much of it last year when the market rebounded strongly after collapsing during the 2008 financial crisis.

"It is a measure of the rising inequality of income and wealth in the United States," Mr. Bandholz said, noting that lower-income people almost certainly were not able to sock away as much money for economic emergencies as the so-called investor class.

While the development suggests the wealthier could well afford to pay higher taxes, the Obama administration also has sought to encourage savings and investments to promote a healthier, more balanced economy that is less reliant on "bubbles" and debt. During the recession, it was primarily the wealthier who had the means to save significantly more. If their money is largely taxed away, investment capital will be in shorter supply.

Sen. Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican and member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said the government had "created an air of unpredictability" that was discouraging even the productive investment of the savings and capital that do exist.

"Let's leave tax policy as it is," he said on "This Week." "The best thing we can do in Washington is really just to calm down, to quit making sweeping changes."

Mr. Geithner said Congress, as it decides what to do with the tax cuts, must take into account the contrasting fortunes of diverse groups of Americans.

"We live in one of the richest economies in the world. But one in eight Americans is on food stamps today," he said.

Because of low tax rates and numerous tax loopholes available to wealthier Americans, he said, "the most affluent 400 earners in 2007 -- who earned an average of more than $340 million each that year -- paid only 17 percent of their income in tax, a lower rate than many middle-class families."

Labor unions and other liberal groups that comprise the core of Democratic voters have long pushed for higher taxes on the wealthier, and have largely met with success over the years.

Because of their efforts, and despite fierce Republican resistance, the top 60 percent of earners pay nearly 100 percent of U.S. income taxes today, while the bottom 40 percent of earners pay almost none.

But it is not just liberals who are irked about the seemingly inexorable growth in income of the wealthier. Conservative "tea-party" activist and author Jerome Corsi is just as riled as the AFL-CIO about the growing inequality of incomes in the United States.

"The middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America," he said. Mr. Corsi, who is also a senior managing director at Gilford Securities, authored the book "America for Sale: Fighting the New World Order, Surviving a Global Depression, and Preserving USA Sovereignty."

Mr. Corsi notes that 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people, 61 percent of Americans always or usually live paycheck to paycheck, 68 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1 percent of all Americans, and 38 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

"The current high rate of unemployment and the shrinking of the middle class are not the result of a current recession," he said. "This is what globalism looks like."

Wealthier people are able to escape the economic pressures that prompt businesses to move production of goods overseas because they have high degrees of education and skills.

It is the middle-income workers with less education and skills who are increasingly competing with workers elsewhere in the world who have the same skills but earn less than $1 an hour, he said.

www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewnewspaged/articleid/4418046/pageid/1

[sandi66]

Barclays Follows Citigroup With Court Rejection of U.S. Accord


By William McQuillen and Jesse Westbrook

Aug 18, 2010 12:01 AM ET


A federal judge refused to endorse a settlement between the U.S. and a bank for a third time in a year, calling a proposed $298 million fine of Barclays Plc for trading with Iran, Cuba and Sudan “a sweetheart deal.”


U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington scheduled a hearing for today to address the question he asked prosecutors yesterday: “Why isn’t the government getting tough with the banks?” U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle in Washington on Aug. 16 likewise held up a $75 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup Inc., lawyers in the case said.



The scrutiny of civil and criminal penalties began last August with U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in Manhattan, who rejected the SEC’s proposed $33 million settlement with Bank of America Corp. of two suits alleging the bank made misstatements on its subprime mortgage holdings. In February, Rakoff approved a settlement of $150 million, saying he did so “reluctantly” and calling the accord “inadequate and misguided.”



“It’s very clear that Judge Rakoff’s ruling in Bank of America is resonating in their ears,” said John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia University in New York. “Judges often conducted a simple ritual and they blessed the decision. I don’t think there was searching inquiry. They are adjusting.”



‘Concerns the Court’
In yesterday’s hearing, Sullivan said the Barclays settlement “concerns the court.” Unlike the London-based firm, the average American caught robbing a bank doesn’t get deferred prosecution and the option of returning ill-gotten gains, he said. The judge said he will probe further into the accord at today’s hearing.

Under a deferred-prosecution agreement filed in court Aug. 16, Barclays agreed to pay $149 million to the U.S. and another $149 million to New York state. Barclays was accused of violating U.S. financial sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma from about March 1995 through September 2006.


Barclays is the U.K.’s second-biggest bank with 9.39 billion pounds ($14.8 billion) in net income last year.



A U.S. government lawyer, Frederick Reynolds, argued to Sullivan the settlement is fair and “in excess of what the company earned.” Michael O’Looney, a spokesman for Barclays Capital, declined to comment.



Serious Conduct

“Courts are wrestling with what they see as a disparity between the way in which the conduct is being characterized as serious and the penalties that are being imposed,” said James Doty, former SEC general counsel who is now a partner at Baker Botts LLP in Washington.



U.S. agencies and prosecutors, taking note of the decisions, will begin trying harder to deliver the executives responsible for misconduct, Doty said.

Rakoff had criticized the settlement with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America as penalizing shareholders for what was, “in effect if not in intent, a fraud by management” against them.

He said the bank failed to adequately disclose its agreement to pay Merrill Lynch & Co. executives and others $5.8 billion, or the fact that Merrill, which it was buying, was suffering losses of as much as $15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

With Barclays, since the company profited by the actions, the shareholders shouldn’t be protected, Coffee said. The $298 million settlement seems to be fair as the bank probably took in a small fraction of that amount from the alleged conduct, he said.

‘Over-Reading It’
“They may be over-reading it in some cases,” Coffee said. “Barclays is different.”


Huvelle said on Aug. 16 that she wasn’t satisfied with the written proposal on Citigroup and told attorneys to submit new court filings starting Sept. 8 and scheduled another hearing for Sept. 24, said Mathew Miller, an attorney for a Citigroup shareholder. Shannon Bell, a Citigroup spokeswoman, said the bank “will answer all the judge’s questions concerning this matter.”

SEC spokesman Kevin Callahan said the agency “will provide the court with additional information requested.”



The bank made misstatements on earnings calls and in financial filings about assets tied to subprime loans as the housing crisis unfolded in 2007, the SEC said July 29 in a complaint filed in federal court in Washington. Some disclosures omitted more than $40 billion in investments, the SEC said.

Settling Claims

Former Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden, who left New York-based Citigroup last year, agreed to pay $100,000 to settle claims he didn’t disclose the risk after getting internal briefings. Arthur Tildesley, Citigroup’s former head of investor relations, will pay $80,000 to settle claims that he helped draft disclosures that misled investors, the SEC said. Tildesley now heads cross-marketing at Citigroup, according to the agency.



Citigroup, Crittenden and Tildesley agreed to settle the case without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations.



Judges have almost always rubber-stamped settlements in the past, said David Irwin, a former federal prosecutor in private practice in Towson, Maryland. As distrust of Wall Street grows after the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, they will be more vigilant “watchdogs,” he said.



“It’s a new world,” he said. “With loans, the SEC, the Fed, it’s a new world in the corporate board room.”

The cases are U.S. v. Barclays Bank Plc, 10-cr-218, and Securities and Exchange Commission v. Citigroup Inc., 10cv1277, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).





To contact the reporter for this story: William McQuillen in Washington at [e-mail]; Jesse Westbrook in Washington at [e-mail].


www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-18/barclays-follows-citigroup-as-judge-rejects-a-sweetheart-deal-with-u-s-.html



ty joye

[sandi66]

August 19, 2010 Investing Strategies: How to Protect Yourself if the U.S. Economy Catches the "Japan Disease"
[Editor's Note: Is the United States in the midst of a Japan-like "Lost Decade?" If that's the case, how can investors protect themselves? Money Morning's Martin Hutchinson, a noted commentator, author and longtime international merchant banker, answers both those questions in today's report.]

By Martin Hutchinson, Contributing Editor, Money Morning
Grim unemployment figures, growing worries about crushing debt loads and the apparent absence of any inflation are causing many investors to ask a tough question: Is the U.S. economy catching the "Japan disease," the dreaded and dreadful malaise that has left the onetime Asian powerhouse in a stagnant state since 1990?

It's a crucial question.

And the answer will guide your investment decisions for the next 20 years.

Dire Straits - Japan Style
Although Japan has been in tough straits since that country's stock-and-real-estate bubble burst in January 1990, there are some surprising realities about this two-decade stretch.

First, and perhaps most surprising of all, as tough as its situation has been, Japan didn't actually suffer a true recession until 2008. From 1990 to 2008, the country endured what one economist referred to as "feel-bad" growth, with real gross domestic product (GDP) advancing at an anemic annual rate of 0.7%.

Second - despite what many economists claim - Japan did not experience "devastating deflation." The country's consumer price index (CPI) has increased by about 0.2% per year since 1991, when the 1980s inflation ended (it has fallen in the last five years, but only by 0.3% total).

The upshot: The "Japan disease" is not as severe as the doom-mongers would have us believe. It is certainly not a replica of the U.S. Great Depression, in which real GDP declined by 25% over a four-year period and prices fell by a third.

That's not to say that the last 20 years haven't been deeply depressing for the Japanese themselves. During the 40 years that came before the two-decade malaise - we're essentially talking about a period that stretched from 1950 to 1990 - the people of Japan watched as their standard of living increased at an astonishing rate. Then economic growth came to an almost-complete standstill, and their stock-and-real-estate investments plunged by three quarters.

The Japanese economy of the late 1980s was self-deluding in very much the same way as the U.S. stock market of 1997-2000 or the housing market of 2004-2006. But the awakening from that delusion has been both painful and extraordinarily prolonged.

Japan's policy actions during the last 20-year period do, indeed, bear a considerable resemblance to U.S. policy actions since the September 2008 financial meltdown.

Short-term interest rates were quickly slashed to near zero, and have remained below 1% for more than a decade.

Endless programs of "fiscal stimulus" were attempted, initially devoted to infrastructure programs in Japan's rural areas, but more recently including payments to Japan's poorer families. These achieved nothing useful, but drove Japan's debt burden up above 200% of GDP.

Throughout the 1990s, Japan's banks were propped up by cheap state loans, and were the beneficiaries of all kinds of programs seeking to prevent them from recognizing the growing losses on their real-estate loans and holdings.

The only time the script was changed was during the five-year premiership (2001-2006) of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Banks were forced to write their loans down to realistic levels and state spending was cut back, the budget being moved towards balance. This produced the only semblance of economic recovery in the period.

Regrettably, after Koizumi left office, his policies were first modified and then abandoned.

Current Prime Minister Naoto Kan has a real problem on his hands, and he knows it: At its current rate of progress, Japan is only about two years away from the point at which default on its debt becomes inevitable. Unfortunately, the spending forces in his own Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) party are very powerful and he may not succeed in resisting them.

In summary, Japan's fate over the last 20 years has not been disastrous. But it has been very unpleasant, and it has blighted the careers and prospects of an entire generation of Japanese young people.


Worrisome Parallels
In the United States, the initial impetus for current downturn - the collapse of a gigantic financial bubble - is very similar to the catalyst that set the malaise in motion in Japan.

In the United Sates - as in Japan - the banks have been bailed out and cushioned from recognizing the full extent of their losses. As was also the case in Japan, interest rates in the United States have been reduced to near zero, with U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke carrying out very much the same monetary policy as the Bank of Japan.

Fiscally, the current U.S. "stimulus" (public-spending) policies are akin to those that were pursued in Japan, although the American versions have been much-less-carefully directed than was Japan's infrastructure stimulus of the 1990s.

With global commodity prices rising fast and the United States having cemented its future as a debtor - rather than a creditor - nation, there is some hope that a burst of inflation will arrive to spare us from the worst aspects of the Japanese disease (although that will bring troubles of its own).

However, if current policies remain unchanged, there is still a pretty good chance that inflation won't save us. And that means that U.S. housing and U.S. stocks would likely resume a decline that leaves us with peak-to-trough losses of as much as 75%.

For the U.S. markets to follow that storyline to the letter, we'd have to see an additional slide of about 50% in housing and a sell-off in stocks that would take the closely followed Dow Jones Industrial Average down to about 3,500 - it closed yesterday (Wednesday) at 10,415.54.

Declines of that magnitude in two such crucial markets would, indeed, lead to two decades of economic stagnation - if not something worse.


A High-Probability Fix-It Strategy
Avoiding this outcome is simple, as it should have been in Japan.

Interest rates must increase, favoring savers over borrowers, and rebuilding the pool of U.S. savings that would be available for private-sector investment.

The U.S. budget deficit must be cut - by as much as possible. And this needs to be accomplished by slashing spending - rather than through economy-sapping tax increases.

Housing subsidies must be cut and banks must be forced to recognize their losses.

Finally, the policy of tight money and tight budgets, similar to that of Koizumi, the former Japanese prime minister (though he did not raise interest rates enough), must be carried through wholeheartedly, and not abandoned after five years as it was in Japan.

Your guess is as good as mine as to whether these policy changes will be made in time to avoid further collapses in U.S. stock prices, and to dodge additional erosions in the U.S. housing market.

To guard against them, there is one rule to remember: You may have to live in this lousy economy, but your money doesn't - so invest as much as possible of it overseas, where growth is robust and policies are sensible.


Actions to Take: Closely watch the public policy decisions of the current Congress and the Obama administration. If those decisions run counter to the game plan outlined in this essay, look for investments - including stocks, gold and other commodities - outside U.S. borders.

The bottom line: The wise investor will allocate most of his money internationally.

Modest quantities should go into Europe - particularly Germany and Britain - where valuations are reasonable and growth prospects good. Some should go into Canada, Brazil and Chile - each of which have natural-resource-based economies. Canada and Chile also will benefit from having thoroughly reliable governments.

A large proportion should go into Asia: China is a clear choice here. And don't forget South Korea, which boasts good growth, stability and a capable government.


[Editor's Note: As you reflect upon today's recommendations, keep one fact in mind: Money Morning's Martin Hutchinson has been on a global hot streak.

Here's what we mean. Just a week after Hutchinson recommended Germany, the European keystone reported much stronger-than-expected GDP. He recommended Chile back in December, and three of the stocks he highlighted have posted strong, double-digit returns - and one is up nearly 25%. He again recommended Korea - which analysts were downgrading - only to have the traditionally conservative International Monetary Fund (IMF) come out with an upgraded forecast that projects solid growth for that Asian Tiger for this year and next.

A longtime international merchant banker, Hutchinson has a nose for profits instincts - as evidenced by his unerring ability to paint a picture of what's to come. He's able to show investors the big profit opportunities that are still over the horizon - while also warning us about the potentially ruinous pitfalls hidden just around the corner.

With his "Alpha Bulldog" investing strategy - the crux of his Permanent Wealth Investor advisory service - Hutchinson puts those global-investing instincts to good use. He's managed to combine dividends, gold and growth into a winning, but low-risk formula that has developed eye-popping returns for subscribers.

Take a moment to find out more about "Alpha-Bulldog" stocks and The Permanent Wealth Investor by just clicking here. You'll the time well spent.]

moneymorning.com/2010/08/19/u.s.-economy-5/

[sandi66]

* Iraqi Finance : the budget in 2011 amounts to 90 trillion Iraqi dinars
August 18, 2010 ¡¤ Posted in NEWS
. ¡°

¡öIraqi Finance : the budget in 2011 amounts to 90 trillion Iraqi dinars
Iraqi Finance : the budget in 2011 amounts to 90 trillion Iraqi dinars
18/08/2010
Arbil, 18 August ( Akaniwz ) ¨C The Iraqi Ministry of Finance , prepared for the biggest annual budget for 2011 , amounting to about 90 trillion Iraqi dinars, and it is hoped that exposure to the Council of Ministers.

draw, para, moneyThe agent said Iraqi Minister of Finance Fadel Prophet told Kurdistan News ( Akaniwz ) today, Wednesday, that ¡± the annual budget for 2011 amounts to 90 trillion Iraqi dinars, and given that the financial resources of Iraq derived from oil revenues, has been calculated price of a barrel of oil at 65 U.S. dollars ¡°.

The Prophet , ¡°it was to begin to identify the program budget in accordance with his decree , is scheduled to be completed by the Ministry of Finance on the sixth of September (September ) next, and will be removed 15 of the same month to the Cabinet. ¡±

He explained that ¡± the current Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has all the powers and rights to administer the budget this year (2010), and there are no obstacles to the disbursement . ¡±

With regard to the share of the Kurdistan region , he pointed out that ¡°the region¡¯s share of the state budget for the current year disposal on a monthly basis without any obstacles . ¡±

The annual budget of Iraq for the current year (2010) amounting to 84 trillion Iraqi dinars , having recovered their sovereign expenditure and presidential elections, has allocated 17% share of the Kurdistan region.

The question of the budget and the distribution of Iraqi imports , is one of the outstanding problems between the Government of the province and the federal government.

The delegation of the Kurdistan Alliance bloc negotiator in Baghdad , the project consisted of 19 items on the Iraqi political parties , and one of those items were related to the financial issue in Iraq.

A member of the Finance Committee and the economy in the previous session of the Iraqi parliament , Sami Otroci , for ( Akaniwz ) , ¡°according to Law No. 95 of 2004, the Iraqi government should start preparing for next year¡¯s budget since the sixth month . ¡±

The Otroci ¡°The failure to form a new Iraqi government will not create any problem for the current government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on the disbursement of the annual budget for the year 2010. ¡±

He explained, ¡± should raise the annual budget for the year (2011) to the Council of Ministers for approval , but the government may not be disposed of unless ratified by the Iraqi Council of Representatives . ¡±

www.aknews.com/ar/aknews/2/175013/

www.theiraqidinar.com/iraqi-finance-the-budget-in-2011-amounts-to-90-trillion-iraqi-dinars/

[sandi66]

* Conscious / Coordinating Committee of the Allied Forces in Iraq’s Unanimous Vote on the Nomination of Iyad Allawi as Prime Minister

August 18, 2010 · Posted in NEWS

Conscious / Baghdad / m k
18/8/2010

Confirmed its commitment to the Iraqi List Bmarchaa Iyad Allawi for the post of prime minister, despite the expressed willingness to give up his nomination if required.

A statement issued by the Coordinating Committee of the allied forces in the Iraqi coalition received (and the Iraqi News Agency Information / INA) a copy of the Iraqi coalition members voted Unanimously at a meeting on the nomination of Iyad Allawi, leader of the list for the post of prime minister, although he would give up the job. ”

The statement added that “the Coordinating Committee of the Allied Powers on the list of Iraq at the time valued the position of Iyad Allawi, his willingness to give up his candidacy for the post of prime minister to be someone else from within Iraq and in accordance with the due electoral being the largest bloc in the House of Representatives, but at the same time insisting on Allawi’s nomination as a candidate a single Iraqi to take over this position. ”

He pointed out that “the reason for this insistence comes to privacy on the envelope which passes our beloved Iraq and the need for a national figure able to serve the Iraqi people and the promotion of better acquainted and to maintain their interests.”

www.theiraqidinar.com/conscious-coordinating-committee-of-the-allied-forces-in-iraqs-unanimous-vote-on-the-nomination-of-iyad-allawi-as-prime-minister/

[sandi66]

* Bank of England: Iraq on the verge of an economic recovery
August 18, 2010 · Posted in NEWS


leo(GET TEAM)
■Bank of England: Iraq on the verge of an economic recovery
« on: Today at 12:17:05 PM »
■Quote
Basra / agencies

A shipping source said that oil exports from the port of Basra in southern Iraq rose yesterday to 56.1 million barrels per day after fell to 720 thousand barrels per day before two days because of reforms in the pipeline. While Chief Executive of the Bank (IHS.. Me. C) British Branch argued that Iraq is on the verge of “economic recovery”.

The source, who asked not to be named, said “The rate of flow from the port of Basra to take on the rise after the reforms have achieved in some sectors of the export pipeline yesterday evening.” He stated that three ships being loaded with crude and there are six ships at anchor waiting for the download.

In the meantime, Chief Executive of the Bank of Iraqi unity (IHS.. Me. C) British unit looks forward to opportunities to finance projects in infrastructure and open more branches gradually in light of Iraq’s reconstruction.

“Said James Hogan, Chief Executive Officer (IHS.. Me. C) Iraq,” Iraq on the verge of the next stage of development, we move beyond security considerations and enter the economic recovery. “He added that the Bank of England re-enter Iraq in 2005 when he bought 70% of the bank’s domestic peace.

Owns (IHS.. Me. C) 16 branches across Iraq and plans to open between four to six additional branches among the twelve months to eighteen the next.

The Bank of England working in Iraq since the beginning of the last century, where he began to work through the Imperial Bank of Persia up to Iraqi banks were nationalized in 1964.

Includes the Iraqi banking sector seven state-owned banks and 36 private banks expected to merge gradually, especially after called the organizers of Iraq to remove all the banks minimum capital of 250 billion Iraqi dinars (9.213 million dollars) by 2014.

Hogan said that in the case (IHS.. Me. C) Iraq, the new requirements of capital means that he will raise the current capital of 57 billion dinars, about five-fold in the next five years. “Once a new government takes, it will focus on the most likely to next year’s budget and we will see capital spending, supported by a large new infrastructure projects such as roads and the demand for cement and the establishment of telecommunications infrastructure.”

Hogan said that (IHS.. Me. C) is currently working with an international organization did not identify buy cement factories in Iraq and the bank hopes that by the order of these agreements and funding.

translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ar&u=http://www.uragency.net/index.php%3Faa%3Dnews%26id22%3D10578&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dnahrain%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3D6EN%26sa%3DG&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1

www.theiraqidinar.com/bank-of-england-iraq-on-the-verge-of-an-economic-recovery-2/

[sandi66]

Sadrist MP: Govt will be announced next week

Friday, August 20th 2010 2:46 PM

Karbala, Aug. 20 (AKnews) - An official from the Sadrist Current told AKnews on Friday that the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), the Kurds and al-Iraqiya will form the government next week.
The remarks by the Jawad al-Hasnawi came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition (SLC) appears to have been sidelined after al-Iraqiya, led by former PM Ayad Allawi, decided to break off talks with the SLC over Maliki’s designation of al-Iraqiya as a “Sunni” bloc.
Hasnawi said that the dialogues between the INA and al-Iraqiya were positive and successful, adding that they were done because of the insistence of the SLC on retaining the prime minister’s post for narrow party interests.
The Sadrist Current is part of the INA that came third in March parliamentary elections with 70 seats.
The SLC, a Shia-dominated group, won 89 seats in the elections trailing behind the Sunni-dominated al-Iraqiya which secured 91 seats.
The Kurds have 57 seats in the parliament and constitute the fourth largest parliamentary bloc.
"The meetings between the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) and al-Iraqiya were successful and made significant progress to speed up the formation of the next government.... Our meeting with al-Iraqiya was in the framework of the National Coalition, and not out of it," said Hasnawi.
The National Coalition was a super bloc created by an alliance between the INA and SLC. But after Maliki refused to step down from office, the fate of the alliance has been plunged into uncertainty.
Hasnawi criticized "Maliki's insistence on becoming the next prime minister and rejecting the nomination of other candidates... It is this dictatorship that not only separated him from the INA but has isolated him from the political process as well."
More than five months after parliamentary elections, Iraqi political forces have not been able yet to reach a deal on forming the country’s new government.







also

Common ground between al-Iraqia and Sadr may end governmental crisis
Thursday, August 19th 2010 12:04 PM

Erbil, Aug. 19 (AKnews) – An Iraqi lawmaker reported that the resemblances between the al-Iraqiya bloc and the Sadr Current are positive and may lead to a resolution of the ongoing crisis in Baghdad over the formation of the next Iraqi government.

Speaking to AKnews, Fatah Sheikh, a member of al-Iraqiya bloc headed by the former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, described the recent negotiations between his bloc and the the Sadr current (led by the Shia clergy Muqtada Sadr) as "successful", adding that the bilateral talks would continue because the two sides hold some common views about the constitution of the next cabinet.

The Sadr Current is a substantial element of Ammar al-Hakim's Iraqi National Alliance (INA), which came third in the March 7 elections, gaining 70 seats in the new parliament.

The al-Iraqiya List, headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi came first with 91 seats and the outgoing PM Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law Coalition (SLC) came a close second with 89 seats.

Allawi and Maliki have not made any concessions over their respective claims for the prime minister's post. This ongoing dispute has hindered the formation of the government since the inconclusive elections nearly five months ago.

Sheikh said "al-Iraqiya and Sadr are now looking to each other for a possible alliance. This development came only after the two sides voiced their agreement to the agenda of the Kurdistan Blocs Coalition (KBC)."

As the fourth largest Iraqi bloc, the KBC recently put forward a 16-point agenda which outlined their conditions for any potential coalition with the other Iraqi blocs.

The Kurd's demands include the resolution of issues concerning oil contracts in Kurdistan, the budget for the Peshmarga (Kurdish security forces) as well as a commitment to constitutional article 140 created to settle the territorial disputes between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the central government in Baghdad.

Sheikh continued, "neither the KBC nor the Sadr Current opposes the nomination of Allawi. A joint committee from the INA and al-Iraqiya has been set up to work out an agreement between them."

Al-Iraqiya will do what it takes to rescue Iraq from the current political stalemate but "will not compromise its right to secure the post of prime minister," Sheikh confirmed.

Salah Obeidi, a spokesman for the Sadr Current, told AKnews that a joint committee from his bloc and al-Iraqiya have reviewed certain conditions for a potential alliance.

"There are some common points between the two sides, conducive to shaping the government", Obeidi remarked, "however, we are yet to reach an agreement."

"The only progress made is in al-Iraqiya's acceptation of the Sadrists' agenda. The two parties are committed to holding several more meetings in the coming days."

As for the agenda of the forthcoming meetings, Obeidi said "the program is yet to be specified but the two sides are certainly drawing closer together", adding, "No decisions will be announced until they are officially approved."

Last month the negotiations between the SLC and the INA came to a standstill as the former insisted on nominating Maliki for a second term in office while the INA strongly opposed his candidature, complaining that Maliki has a tendency to "act unilaterally".

The position of the current interim premier Nouri al-Maliki slid further this week, when he described the al-Iraqiya List as a Sunni bloc, provoking Allawi to cease talks with the SLC until Maliki apologizes.

Maliki however defended his ground by saying that his remarks were taken out of context and so left him with no obligation to make an apology.

www.aknews.com/en/aknews/4/175174/

[sandi66]

Iranian president offers friendship to the US

(AP) – 43 minutes ago, 22 Aug 10


CAIRO — Iran's president offered friendship to the United States but also taunted Washington by saying he does not fear an attack by the U.S. because it could not even defeat a small army in Iraq, according to a television interview with the leader aired Sunday.

President Barack Obama has repeatedly offered to start a dialogue with Iran, but his administration says Iran chose international isolation instead. The two countries are at odds over Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S. fears is aimed at producing weapons though Tehran denies it.

U.S. military chief Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this month that the U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran, although he thinks a military strike is probably a bad idea. Still, he said the risk of Iran developing a nuclear weapon is unacceptable and he reiterated that "the military option" remains on the table.

"There are no logical reasons for the United States to carry out such an act," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Arabic satellite television channel Al Jazeera, according to an Arabic translation of the interview in Farsi.

"Do you believe an army that has been defeated by a small army in Iraq can enter into a war with a large and well trained army like the Iranian army?" he asked, referring to the insurgents in Iraq.

He said Washington lacks real motives for attacking Iran and will not benefit from hostility.

"The friendship of Iran is much better than its hostility," he said.

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5goykFnHZsAqRUFl1bXBuWbVNcpkgD9HONR7O0

[sandi66]

Fed Loses Bid for Review of Bailout Disclosure Ruling (Update3)



By Bob Ivry


Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- An appeals court refused to reconsider a decision compelling the Federal Reserve Board to release documents identifying banks that might have failed without the U.S. government bailout.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals in New York, in a docket entry dated Aug. 20, denied a May 4 request by the Fed to review a three-judge panel’s unanimous March 19 decision requiring the agency to release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program begun primarily after the 2008 collapse of Bear Stearns Cos.

Unless the court stays its decision, the Fed will have seven days to disclose the documents. In the event of a stay, the central bank and the Clearing House Association LLC, an organization of 20 commercial banks that joined the Fed in defense of the lawsuit, will have 90 days to petition the Supreme Court to consider their appeal. The Clearing House has already said it will ask the high court to rule on the case.

“We are reviewing the decision and considering our options for appeal,” David Skidmore, a Fed spokesman, said.

At issue are 231 “term sheets” documenting Fed loans to financial firms during 2008. The records, which include the banks’ names, the amounts borrowed and the collateral posted in return, were originally requested by late Bloomberg News reporter Mark Pittman through the Freedom of Information Act, which allows citizens access to government papers.

The March appeals court ruling upheld a decision of a lower-court judge in Manhattan who in August 2009 ordered that the information be released.

‘Competitive Injury’
The Fed argued in the case, which was brought by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, that disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury,” discouraging banks in distress from seeking help. The appeals court panel rejected that argument.

“The decision is of exceptional importance,” the Fed’s lawyers wrote in a legal brief on May 4 in which they asked the circuit court to reconsider the decision. “The real-world consequence of the panel’s decision will be serious, perhaps irreparable harm to the institutional borrowers whose information will be revealed.”

The 157-year-old New York-based Clearing House Payments Co., which processes transactions among banks, is owned by its 20 members. They include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, PNC Financial Services Group Inc., UBS AG, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co.

Clearing House Action
The Clearing House Association, a lobbying group with the same members, joined the lawsuit in September 2009, after the initial ruling against the central bank in federal court in Manhattan.

Iya Davidson, a spokeswoman for the Clearing House, didn’t return calls seeking comment.

The amount the Fed and the U.S. government lent, spent and guaranteed to stem the recession and rescue the banking system peaked in March 2009 at $12.8 trillion, most of it following the September 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Fox News, a unit of New York-based News Corp., also sued the Fed to force the release of loan documents for transactions in 2008 and 2009.

The New York Times Co., the Associated Press and Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, are among media companies that have signed up as friends of the court in support of Bloomberg.

Argument for Disclosure
“The public interest in disclosure in this case could hardly be greater,” the friends of the court said in their letter. Despite the Fed’s “massive outlay, the public knows little about who has received these funds or the terms of their loans. Without this information, it is impossible to monitor the Board’s actions, and FOIA’s core purpose is defeated.”

The case is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 09-04083, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (New York).


To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Ivry in New York at [e-mail].

Last Updated: August 23, 2010 15:30 EDT

noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZ1VjaDY0d04&pos=4


noir.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?N=video&T=Bloomberg%26%2339%3Bs+Bennett+Interview+About+Fed+Disclosure+&clipSRC=mms://media2.bloomberg.com/cache/vlkuFFWrikeM.asf video
ty joye

[sandi66]

Why Small Banks Are the Key to Recovery, Part 2

August 20, 2010

Part 2 of 2 (see Part 1 here)

There are three factors that will hurt bank earnings: weak loan demand, spreads on interest income will narrow because of competition among banks, and it appears that many banks are concealing the true state of their balance sheets because of "extend and pretend" policies.

"Extend and pretend" and "mark-to-make-believe" have been a major factor in dragging out this recession and is a major threat to the economy. This article describes the problem well:



A big push by banks in recent months to modify such loans—by stretching out maturities or allowing below-market interest rates—has slowed a spike in defaults. It also has helped preserve banks' capital, by keeping some dicey loans classified as "performing" and thus minimizing the amount of cash banks must set aside in reserves for future losses.

Restructurings of nonresidential loans stood at $23.9 billion at the end of the first quarter, more than three times the level a year earlier and seven times the level two years earlier. While not all were for commercial real estate, the total makes clear that large numbers of commercial-property borrowers got some leeway.

But the practice is creating uncertainties about the health of both the commercial-property market and some banks. The concern is that rampant modification of souring loans masks the true scope of the commercial property market weakness, as well as the damage ultimately in store for bank balance sheets. ...

More broadly, the failure to get the loans off banks' books tends to deter new lending to others. It's a pattern somewhat reminiscent, although on a lesser scale, of the way Japanese banks' failure to write off souring loans in the 1990s contributed to years of stagnation.

Banks hold some $176 billion of souring commercial-real-estate loans, according to an estimate by research firm Foresight Analytics. About two-thirds of bank commercial real-estate loans maturing between now and 2014 are underwater, meaning the property is worth less than the loan on it, Foresight data show. U.S. commercial-real-estate values remain 42% below their October 2007 peak and only slightly above the low they hit in October 2009, according to Moody's Investors Service. ...

In a large proportion of cases, modifying the terms of loans ultimately isn't enough to save them. At the end of the first quarter, 44.5% of debt restructurings were 30 days or more delinquent or weren't accruing interest, up from 28% the first quarter of 2008. ...



But here is one positive note. It may be that these banks are finally recognizing that the CRE market is not going to get any better and that they need to more aggressively charge-off CRE loans. Also, the Fed has said that their new loan workout guidelines weren't intended to foster "extend and pretend:"



In a May conference call with 1,400 bank executives, regulators sought to clear up confusion. "We don't want banks to pretend and extend," Sabeth Siddique, Federal Reserve assistant director of credit risk, said on the call. "We did hear from investors and some bankers interpreting this guidance as a form of forbearance, and let me assure you it's not."



We can expect these banks to have more problems with federal auditors which will force them to deal with their CRE loan problems.

But the results are a mixed bag so far and it is too early to see a definite trend. What we need to see is more CRE loan charge-offs by lenders. While the trend in Q4 2009 through Q1 2010 showed charge-offs declining, it likely that this is due to "extend and pretend" rather than improving fundamentals.

According to Moody's latest report [Q1], charge-offs declined to 3.3% of all loans versus 3.6% in the prior quarter. Nonperforming loans stood at 5% of total loans. It noted that these percentages are still historically high, even going back to the Great Depression. According to Moody's report:



U.S. rated banks have already charged off or written-down $436 billion of [all] loans in 2008, 2009, and the first quarter of 2010. That leaves another $307 billion to reach the rating agency’s full estimate of $744 billion of loan charge-offs from 2008 through 2011.



But they point out that banks have only charged off 45% of delinquent CRE loans.



According to Moody’s analysts, the decline in aggregate charge-offs was driven by commercial real estate improvement, which “we believe is likely to reverse in coming quarters,” they said in the report. ... “The return to ‘normal’ levels of asset quality will be slow and uneven over the next 12 to 18 months,” said Moody’s SVP Craig Emrick.



I'm not sure where they saw improvement in the CRE market. From my review of Moody's forecasting history, they have been consistently wrong about the direction of the economy. When this report came out in June, 2010, they said:



More severe macroeconomic developments, the probability of which we place at 10 percent to 20 percent, would significantly strain U.S. bank fundamental credit quality.



I suggest that the economy is already slowing down and will get worse over the next few quarters. And, from my analysis of the CRE market that would affect the types of properties which secure most regional and local bank loans, it is not getting better. If you look at the CMBS loans (CRE-backed securities) as kind of a proxy for bank-owned CRE loans, defaults have been increasing:



The percentage of loans backing commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) that have fallen delinquent by 30 days or more increased to 8.7% in July, a new record and an increase from 8.5% in the previous month.

The delinquency rate has increased every month this year and is up from 3.7% in July 2009. However, the increases are beginning to slow. The 12 basis point bump in July came after a 17bps increase in June, which followed a 40bps hike in May. Since September 2009, the increase in delinquencies has averaged 37bps every month.

Lenders and special servicers are moving more commercial loans through the REO process, which is also putting downward pressure on delinquency rates. The amount of loans either 60-plus days delinquent, in foreclosure or in the REO process reached 7.95% in July, up 12bps from June.



According to Trepp, one other reason for slowing defaults is that loan modifications have increased 37% over the 2009 level.

This leaves us with mixed signals, but I believe the data shows that banks are more willing to deal with their CRE loan problems and "extend and pretend" will be less of a refuge for them as new Fed policies require banks to more fairly reflect the true values of the assets securing these loans. I also believe that banks are taking a more realistic view of the economy and realize that the CRE market is a long way off from "recovery." I expect more banks to be added to the "problem bank" list in the near future along with more failures as the economy declines.

The big question is: how long will this process take?

Because of rising competition among banks for customers, it is likely that ailing banks will wish to get their balance sheet in order, recognize and charge off more bad loans, and raise the capital needed to compete for good business borrowers. If they don't they will fail either because of FDIC auditors or because of their inability to compete against more powerful competitors.

It is not as if there will be a rush to charge-off CRE loans, but rather a steady trend. It would be better for the economy if the process was done quickly. In that way capital malinvested in unproductive projects would be freed up and this would allow new lending to be directed toward profitable ventures, paving the way, as it were, to a recovery. While this is just one leg of a recovery, it is an important one. Keeping alive dead projects is what caused Japan to stagnate for so long. That's when the term "zombie banks" was coined and it caused the "Japanese Disease," which is long-term stagnation (average 0.6% GDP growth since 1990) and deflation.

Because of the large amount of CRE debt that is coming due this year and in 2011 (actually through 2014), and because it is likely that the economy will continue to decline for the next several quarters, this process of charge-offs, deleveraging, and more bank failures could last well through 2011. This points to a slow recovery. But at least there will be a recovery.

But...what will the Fed do? This may be the key.

As the unemployment rate creeps upward, the Fed will pursue quantitative easing in order to attempt to stop deflation. I am quite sure that they have not figured out how much QE they will need to do and that they are unsure of its impact on the economy. I doubt that it will have the positive impact the Fed would like. It is unlikely that QE will aid the deleveraging process. All that will happen is that the new money will bid away goods by those who first borrow the new money and cause prices to rise without any increase in real wealth. Printing money doesn't create wealth but it does distort the entrepreneurial process and, as there is no real wealth underlying the fiat money, production will actually fall after the new money is spent. As a result, we will likely experience inflation and a stagnant economy at the same time. It is an experience familiar to those who experienced the late 1970s--stagflation.

If the Fed decides to engage in massive QE, and here I am thinking in terms of $3 to $5 trillion, then we may well see inflation and the start of another boom-bust phase. I believe this scenario is unlikely because Chairman Bernanke, Secretary Geithner, and Mr. Summers, understand that such a policy would lead to hyperinflation and they will not allow that to happen. Think price and wage controls while they raise interest rates and we start over with the deleveraging process. Then you would see a real bust.

seekingalpha.com/article/221481-why-small-banks-are-the-key-to-recovery-part-2

[sandi66]

August 24, 2010 5:05 PM EDT

BankAtlantic Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: BBX) announced today that it is terminating its previously announced cash offers to purchase, and consent solicitations relating to, its twelve series of non-publicly traded trust preferred securities (“TruPS”), with an aggregate principal amount of $230,000,000 (the “Offers”). The Offers were scheduled to expire on September 30, 2010.

The Company also announced that it is dismissing the currently pending lawsuit it filed against The Bank of New York Mellon, as trustee under an indenture of an issuer of collateralized debt obligations which holds $25.2 million principal amount of TruPS. The lawsuit was filed seeking a declaratory judgment and order directing The Bank of New York Mellon, as trustee, to act on the direction received from the beneficial owners of the TruPS subject to the Offer to accept the Offer. As a result of the termination of the Offers, this lawsuit is no longer necessary.

www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/BankAtlantic+Bancorp+%28BBX%29+Terminates+%24230M+TruPS+Offers/5921520.html

[sandi66]

The Federal Reserve Wants To Hide 'Bad Lemon' Banks For Another Three Months

Aug. 26, 2010, 6:18 AM


The Federal Reserve has asked a U.S. appeals court to delay disclosure of emergency lending provided to banks during the crisis...

CNBC:

Wednesday's emergency request for a 90-day delay came after the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 20 denied a motion by the Fed to rehear the case, which had been brought by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, and News Corp's [NWS 13.76 0.02 (+0.15%) ] Fox News Network.

A stay would give the Fed and the Clearing House Association, a group of major U.S. and European banks, until Nov. 18 to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

...

In its Wednesday filing, the Fed said denial of a stay would "force the government to let the cat out of the bag, without any effective way of recapturing it" if the Second Circuit ruling were later reversed.

"The public policy interest identified by the government will be irreversibly lost," it added.

Is the financial system still not strong enough for the market to know the truth? The view seems to be that we're not ready. Thing is, longer-term the markets would probably be better off if they weren't denied this basic information -- Such as which banks received more or less support from the government during the crisis. Some banks would of course appear weaker if we had full transparency, but others would appear stronger. In the current environment, we're merely forced to ponder a giant question mark, which is never helpful since uncertainty usually carries a risk premium. We're also rewarding the weaker players at the expense of the stronger.

This is one of the instances where I do agree that the U.S. is turning 'Japanese', even if I don't agree with the over-arching thesis. In some ways the U.S. has confronted its problems rapidly, unlike Japan during its past crisis, but in other ways it keeps kicking the can further down the road.


www.businessinsider.com/bad-lemon-banks-federal-reserve-support-disclosure-2010-8

[sandi66]

August 25, 2010 · Freedom of information

Federal appeals court won't reconsider bailout records case

A federal appellate court has declined the Federal Reserve's request to reconsider its decision ordering the release of records reflecting bank loans extended by the Fed during the unprecedented taxpayer-funded financial bailout.

On August 20, the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City (2nd Cir.) refused the Fed’s request to reconsider a unanimous three-judge panel’s March 19 ruling in Bloomberg LP's Freedom of Information Act suit for access to records relating to the its $2 trillion emergency lending program.

The March 2010 appellate panel ruling upheld a lower court's decision to release the documents, rejecting the Fed's arguments that the records should be withheld due to a FOIA exemption that protects trade secrets, and that revealing the bailed-out institutions could cause investors to lose confidence in the banks' financial security.

To qualify for a trade-secret exemption, information must satisfy a three-part test that requires it to be confidential, commercial or financial in nature and obtained from an organization or person.

"The court really focused on the requirement in FOIA that the information in question has to be obtained by the government from a private party [to qualify for an exemption]," said Wilkie Farr & Gallagher partner Thomas Golden, who represented Bloomberg in the lawsuit.

Though the requested records were financial in nature, the court said they were considered records of the Fed because Bloomberg requested information on loans that were actually made, not on applications that were received and therefore obtained from a private banking institution.

"The fact that information about an individual can sometimes be inferred from information generated within an agency does not mean that such information was obtained from that person within the meaning of FOIA," the opinion read.

The Fed has seven days to hand over the records to Bloomberg unless the court stays its decision, which would give the Fed 90 days to ask the nation’s high court to review the case.

The Clearing House Association LLC — the nation’s oldest banking association that represents Bank of America, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, among others — joined the suit in September of last year alongside the Fed, and has reportedly told Bloomberg it plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press joined 12 other media organizations in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Bloomberg’s effort to access the documents.

— Miranda Fleschert, 4:25 pm

www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11523

[sandi66]

Iraq: Allawi Begins Choosing New Cabinet Ministers
Al Iraqiya Official to Asharq Al-Awsat: Ministers in the al Maliki government have expressed desire to join us
10/06/2010
By Ma'ad Fayad



Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat - The Iraqiya List led by the former head of the Iraqi interim government, Dr. Iyad Allawi, has begun to form the next government “based on its constitutional right as the list that won the legislative elections (91 seats),” confirmed a source from the Iraqiya List.

The source told Asharq Al-Awsat in Baghdad on Wednesday that “the [Iraqiya] List is determined to uphold its constitutional right to form the next government with Allawi as its candidate to head the government.”

The source indicated that “the leadership of the [Iraqiya] List has begun its internal meetings as well as official dialogue with the rest of the winning coalitions in the elections to select the names of the members of the next government so that it takes less time to announce the names of the new ministers once the head of the list has been charged with forming the next government by the President of the Republic in accordance with the text of the Iraqi constitution.”

The source, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on condition of anonymity, said, “The next government will be a national partnership government so for this reason Iraqiya is keen to select new ministers on the basis of professional competence and in accordance with the dialogue that took place and is still taking place between the Iraqiya List and other blocs, particularly the National Iraqi Alliance headed by Ammar al Hakim, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and the Kurdistan Alliance that includes the two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party headed by Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region.”

The source added that “among those included in the next government are ministers from the State of Law coalition that is headed by Nuri al Maliki, the head of the outgoing government. Those ministers got in touch [with the Iraqiya List] and expressed their willingness to join the new government regardless of whether or not their [State of Law] list will join the next government.”

The source stressed that the “Iraqiya List is continuing to hold serious and formal talks with the rest of the lists including the State of Law coalition and that it will not exclude any person from taking part in the next government, and that it [the Iraqiya List] is informing them of the latest developments in the formation of the new government.” The source also mentioned that President Jalal Talabani had confirmed that he will charge Allawi with forming the next government “being the head of the winning list with the biggest number [of votes] yet.”

The official source from the Iraqiya List revealed that “Rafi al Issawi, a leader in the Iraqiya List, has archive video recordings of the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution, during which Humam Hammoudi, the Chairman of the Iraqi Constitution Drafting Committee and Sami al Askari, a member of the committee, insisted that the interpretation of Article 76 of the Constitution is that the bloc that wins the largest number of seats is the one that forms the government and not the [largest] post-electoral allied bloc as the Kurdistan bloc was claiming at the time.”

www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=21254

ty David

[sandi66]

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release August 30, 2010 Executive Order from the President -- Blocking Property of Certain Persons with Respect to North Korea
EXECUTIVE ORDER

BLOCKING PROPERTY OF CERTAIN PERSONS WITH RESPECT TO NORTH KOREA

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), section 5 of the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 (22 U.S.C. 287c) (UNPA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code; in view of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1718 of October 14, 2006, and UNSCR 1874 of June 12, 2009; and to take additional steps with respect to the situation in North Korea,

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, hereby expand the scope of the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13466 of June 26, 2008, finding that the continued actions and policies of the Government of North Korea, manifested most recently by its unprovoked attack that resulted in the sinking of the Republic of Korea Navy ship Cheonan and the deaths of 46 sailors in March 2010; its announced test of a nuclear device and its missile launches in 2009; its actions in violation of UNSCRs 1718 and 1874, including the procurement of luxury goods; and its illicit and deceptive activities in international markets through which it obtains financial and other support, including money laundering, the counterfeiting of goods and currency, bulk cash smuggling, and narcotics trafficking, destabilize the Korean peninsula and imperil U.S. Armed Forces, allies, and trading partners in the region, and thereby constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.

I hereby order:

Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person, including any overseas branch, of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in:

(i) the persons listed in the Annex to this order; and

(ii) any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State:

(A) to have, directly or indirectly, imported, exported, or reexported to, into, or from North Korea any arms or related materiel;

(B) to have, directly or indirectly, provided training, advice, or other services or assistance, or engaged in financial transactions, related to the manufacture, maintenance, or use of any arms or related materiel to be imported, exported, or reexported to, into, or from North Korea, or following their importation, exportation, or reexportation to, into, or from North Korea;

(C) to have, directly or indirectly, imported, exported, or reexported luxury goods to or into North Korea;

(D) to have, directly or indirectly, engaged in money laundering, the counterfeiting of goods or currency, bulk cash smuggling, narcotics trafficking, or other illicit economic activity that involves or supports the Government of North Korea or any senior official thereof;

(E) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, the activities described in subsections (a)(ii)(A)-(D) of this section or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order;

(F) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(G) to have attempted to engage in any of the activities described in subsections (a)(ii)(A)-(F) of this section.

(b) I hereby determine that, to the extent section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) may apply, the making of donations of the types of articles specified in such section by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13466 and expanded in scope in this order, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by subsection (a) of this section.

(c) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to:

(i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; and

(ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

(d) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section apply except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the effective date of this order.

Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 3. The provisions of Executive Order 13466 remain in effect, and this order does not affect any action taken pursuant to that order.

Sec. 4. For the purposes of this order:

(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;

(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization;

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States;

(d) the term "North Korea" includes the territory of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Government of North Korea;

(e) the term "Government of North Korea" means the Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, its agencies, instrumentalities, and controlled entities; and

(f) the term "luxury goods" includes those items listed in 15 C.F.R. 746.4(b)(l) and Supplement No. 1 to part 746 and similar items.

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13466 and expanded in scope in this order, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA and the UNPA, as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order.

Sec. 7. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to determine that circumstances no longer warrant the blocking of the property and interests in property of a person listed in the Annex to this order, and to take necessary action to give effect to that determination.

Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, agents, or any other person.

Sec. 9. This order is effective at 12:01 p.m., eastern daylight time on August 30, 2010.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,
August 30, 2010.

www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/30/executive-order-president-blocking-property-certain-persons-with-respect