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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Eradicate the poppy plantation and you eradicate the Afghan farmer, the economy and the Afghan political middle management.
They will not like the West ruining their primary cash crop without replacing it with something of equal value. How about Banga?
US says Afghan poppy eradication ‘failure’
Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:38:38 GMT
The United States admits that its efforts in eradicating opium poppy production in Afghanistan have proven to be of no avail.
Washington’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke said on Sunday that the current measures taken against poppy growers had been "a failure".
"The Western policies against the opium crop, the poppy crop, have been a failure. They did not result in any damage to the Taliban, but they put farmers out of work," Holbrooke said at a G8 meeting in Italy.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
129 dollars on the wall, 129 dollars on the wall, take away 129 and then watch the dollar fall?
No you do not have to wait 129 days as all economic processes start slow only to do their thing in a very short amount of time.
UPDATE 1-BIS-China, Brazil working on trade FX deal-cenbanks
Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:37pm EDT
BASEL, Switzerland, June 28 (Reuters) – China and Brazil are working on a currency arrangement to allow exporters and importers to settle deals in their local currencies, bypassing the U.S. dollar, the countries’ central banks said on Sunday.
China’s central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan and Brazil’s Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles discussed the bilateral deal in a meeting at the Bank for International Settlements on Saturday.
"It is agreed in principle," a spokeswoman for the Brazilian central bank told Reuters. "They will start to study this."
No details were available on the size of the arrangement or the timeline for finalising details.
Zhou said a further step was for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chinese President Hu Jintao to discuss the arrangement, which he said would not necessarily involve a currency swap like those China has in place with other countries.
"What we are discussing is that Brazil’s president Mr Lula and our president Mr Hu talk about the possibility and gradual development to use our local currency for some trade settlement and … investment, that’s the major thing," he told reporters.
"It’s not necessarily to use a currency swap."
The People’s Bank of China has arranged six bilateral currency swaps, totalling 650 billion yuan ($95.12 billion), since December with countries including Malaysia, Argentina and Hong Kong.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Do you really want to pay $5 a gallon for low test gasoline? Well here is a way to.
Remember this – the wing nuts that structured this bill are now running your banks and financial concerns, auto companies and God only knows what else.
We have a government new car Czar and maybe soon a $4500 auto clunker Czar.
Obama Opposes Trade Sanctions in Climate Bill
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: June 28, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Sunday praised the energy bill passed by the House late last week as an “extraordinary first step,” but he spoke out against a provision that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept limits on global warming pollution.
“At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade,” Mr. Obama said, “I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there.”
He added, “I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach.”
The passage of the House bill on Friday night was an important, if tentative, victory for the president, becoming the first time either chamber of Congress had approved a mandatory ceiling on the gases linked to global warming.
Mr. Obama, hoping to build momentum in the Senate after the narrow victory in the House, delayed the start of a Sunday golf game to speak to a small group of reporters in the Oval Office.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
In case you missed it, this is worth a re-read. The rent-an-army Surge was pure Wag the Dog, Pakistan style.
Taliban to return to carry on its fight as Pak Army’s offensive lacks credibility: NYT
2009-06-28 13:20:00
The Pakistan Army has been boasting of success against the Taliban and other extremists, and claims that it has flushed the insurgents out, besides killing scores of them during its offensive in the Swat and Malakand Divisions, but a closer look at the region where the military operation purportedly resulted in death of several militants presents a different picture, casting serious questions over the Army’s claims.
While the military has been claiming being engaged in a stiff battle with the Taliban, no such signs are visible in the region, which clearly suggests that the insurgents have just melted into the local population here, only to remerge and fight another day, The New York Times reports.
Analysts also believe that amid the claims of the military of sanitizing scores of militants, it has failed to provide any proof of it, which raises serious doubts.
The military operation which has rendered over three million people homeless in the region, and has won strong support from the United States, has amazingly failed to destroy the Taliban’s leadership.
The military has also failed to kill or capture even one top Taliban commander, experts pointed out.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
By 2012 Banksters will be an endanger species.
High-Flying Banker Boumeester Found Dead
12:41pm UK, Monday June 29, 2009
A Dutch financier who went missing after leaving his job at troubled banking group ABN Amro has been found dead with gunshot wounds.
Fears grew for the safety of high-flying banker Huibert Boumeester when he missed a business appointment. He had not been seen for a week.
Police said two of his shotguns had also disappeared from his homes in London and Scotland.
The body of the 49-year-old former chief financial officer at ABN Amro was found in woodland in Winkfield near Ascot, Berkshire, on Sunday morning.
A Thames Valley Police spokesman said they could not confirm the identity of the dead man, but added: "He is believed to have died from gunshot wounds.
"At the moment it is being treated as an unexplained death. A definite cause of death has not been established."
Mr Boumeester joined ABN Amro, the 2007 takeover of which plunged the Royal Bank of Scotland into record losses, in 1987
He worked his way up to the post of chief financial officer before leaving early last year.
