Financial Tsunami continues

At the risk of appearing to be a perma-bear, many others more astute than I (you think I make this stuff up?), think world stability hangs by a flimsy financial thread. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. As he surveys the global economy, he remarks: "We are about to find out whether China has made the wrong bet with a development strategy of vast investment in manufacturing plant for mass export at thin margins to the US and Europe." Spreading economic recession in China, massive civil unrest, and all those military age young males without wives thanks to the one-baby policy make a wicked brew.

California is often called a "bell weather" state. Trends start there. So what does it foretell about our future when the state of California goes broke?

These 10 energy myths are interesting.

Pakistani press is doing its best to expose the attempt to blame the Mumbai attacks on the Pakistanis. Sounds like the 9-11 fable about Bin Laden to me. Will the War Party use Mumbai as an additional provocation to shift their war even beyond the projected surge in Afghanistan into Pakistan and India? Will the sheeple swallow another Big Lie and send their children and what's left of their retirement funds off to war? As the US moves toward national bankruptcy, we can scarcely afford the charade of being the "worlds' only superpower."

Mossad-linked Debka File reports "US masses naval-air-marine might in Arabian Sea opposite India, Pakistan, Iran." When will we ever learn?

ObamaWatch: "Obama’s Cabinet: Full of Bill Clinton’s Rotten Fruit." How long will the Obots stay in denial? Others predict that Obama will add to the horrendous legacies of Bush I - Clinton - Bush II specific policies rammed through by a Democrat supermajority or Executive Orders, that will ruin America. Judge for yourself which actions in this list will get this result.

From the LEAP/E2020 group is this summary of things US citizens can do to prepare for the coming US default:

"For all those who are interested, I put in attachment the last issue of the GEAB newsletter (26 pages). Below an excerpt for those who are in the US:

Special US citizens: Getting ready for the US default
The LEAP/E2020 team wishes here to give some specific advice to the US readers of the GEAB as indeed they will find themselves in a very special situation, being at the centre of a collapsing system 41. All in all, the outcome of the crisis – already extensively described by LEAP/E2020 in the past 2 years and now beginning to be clearly visible - can be summed up to 5 processes: 50 percent downgrading of middle-class living standards by 2011, collapse of a significant part of public services (local and federal), nationalization of capital-based pensions (a topic we shall address in the next issue of the GEAB), massive real unemployment (likely to culminate to 20 percent of the active population by the beginning of 2010), and a substantial devaluation of the Dollar (as the result of a determined political decision or because of a staggering plunge of the US currency value). On how to survive economically and financially in such a situation, LEAP/E2020 would like to present the following 7 key-recommendations:

I. Important: Avoid staying liquid in Dollar

II. Liquidate your USD-denominated assets (US T-Bonds included) and invest in assets out of the US and dollar-related zone, in particular assets and currencies secured by solvent states

III. Invest one third in precious metals (gold, silver, platinum,...) and other easy-to-change assets… do not under-estimate the risk of state-confiscation, as it occurred in the 1930s (see previous GEABs)

IV. If you can, open a bank account outside the US (even better, outside the dollar zone)
V. If you decide to keep a stock-portfolio, chose to invest in Asian or European (Eurozone) assets
VI. Reduce spending and investments as much as you can. Get rid (or reduce to the minimum) your debt.

VII. Prepare for the interruption of many services. Due to a near complete dependence (with no equivalent on the planet) of the US social and economic fabric on large retail chains (food, pharmacy, restaurants…) and contingent on the speeding up of large US company bankruptcies, follow closely the course of the economic recession: a bankruptcy (including of entire malls 42) can all of a sudden interrupt part of your community's/region's supply

43. Some regions are already experiencing cuts in direct air connections, delivery of express mail, basic public services (school 44, transport 45, police46,...) or beginning to have problems paying their public employees' pensions47 or unemployment insurances

48. In October 2008, individual bankruptcies rose 40 percent compared to the previous year

49. The States are calling upon Washington for an emergency plan to avoid devastating cutbacks in public services

50. The crisis storming the country is comparable to Katrina hitting full shot New Orleans. Ill-adapted and ill-maintained dikes are caving in one after the other.

41 Among the news illustrating the extent of the crisis hitting the US, there is this information from CNN Money dated 10/24/2008 suggesting that a growing number of students are fleeing their country to escape the impossible refund of their debt.
42Source: CNNMoney, 10/16/200843 In Chicago for instance, the Mayor Richard M. Daley declared that the city has to prepare for mass layoffs, public and private, with no equivalent since the Great Depression. Source: Cbs2Chicago, 11/13/2008"