![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
Dear CIGAs,
Today the dollar made the Chairman look bad.
The Exchange Stabilization Fund will go to hell for that.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Let’s have a big round of applause for the OTC derivative dealers and the Dark Side which has remade America into what it is today.
Report: More Americans going hungry
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 16, 2009; 3:14 PM
The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track, according to a federal report released Monday that shows particularly steep increases in food scarcity among families with children.
In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children — more than one in five across the United States — were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million youngsters the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.
Among people of all ages, nearly 15 percent last year did not consistently have adequate food, compared with about 11 percent in 2007, the greatest deterioration in access to food during a single year in the history of the report.
Taken together, the findings provide the latest glimpse into the toll that the weak economy has taken on the well-being of the nation’s residents. The findings are from a snapshot of food in America that the U.S. Agriculture Department has issued every year since 1995, based on Census Bureau surveys. It documents both Americans who are scrounging for adequate food — people living with some amount of "food insecurity" in the lexicon of experts — and those whose food shortages are so severe that they are hungry.
"These numbers are a wake-up call . . . for us to get very serious about food security and hunger, about nutrition and food safety in this country," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said during a briefing of reporters.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This important video speaks for itself.
Court Orders Fed to Disclose Emergency Bank Loans (Update2)
By Mark Pittman
Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve must for the first time identify the companies in its emergency lending programs after losing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled against the central bank yesterday, rejecting the argument that loan records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions.
The Fed has refused to name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under 11 programs, most put in place during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, saying that doing so might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders. Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued on Nov. 7 on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit.
“The Federal Reserve has to be accountable for the decisions that it makes,” said U.S. Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, after Preska’s ruling. “It’s one thing to say that the Federal Reserve is an independent institution. It’s another thing to say that it can keep us all in the dark.”
- Reported October Retail Sales Boosted by Revisions and Inflation
- Third-Quarter GDP Growth May See Some Downward Revision
BY subscription
"No. 258: October Retail Sales "
http://www.shadowstats.com/
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
No way will they be able to repay in the foreseeable future.
This is more MOPE nonsense.
Does Anyone Really Expect G.M. And Chrysler To Repay Billions In Loans?
November 15, 2009
Analysis by: Jack Sayer
Summary
Top executives at General Motors and Chrysler have gone out of their way in the past week to say their once-bankrupt companies are positioning themselves to pay back the billions of dollars loaned to them by the federal government. Experts, however, say that billions of dollars are likely to be lost on the automotive bailout.
Analysis
GM is expected to report its third quarter financial results on Monday, giving the first comprehensive look at its balance sheet since it emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year. Regardless of how GM did in Q3, don’t expect a speedy payback of government loans.
Executives at GM and Chrysler have both gone out of their way in the past week to say their once-bankrupt companies are positioning themselves to pay back the tens of billions of dollars loaned to them by the federal government.
Others, however, including the special investigator, Neil Barofsky, assigned to act as watchdog for the $700 billion TARP loans, said that while the companies may pay back some of the $65 billion extended to them, the U.S. probably won’t ever see full payback. Tens of billions of dollars are expected to be lost on the automotive bailout.
Earlier this month, a candid report from the GAO also threw cold water on the prospects of GM and Chrysler repaying the billions loaned to them.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The US dollar has immense problems. Now that the bailout box is open, it cannot be closed.
How A Government Bailout Created Today’s Commercial Real Estate Catastrophe
John Carney | Nov. 16, 2009, 9:40 AM | 19,526
By now we all now that “the next shoe to drop” as a result of the bursting of the credit bubble is commercial real estate.
In a pattern familiar from the housing crisis, the value of commercial real estate has been plunging while the volume of distressed commercial real-estate loans is rapidly rising. The problems in commercial real estate could slam financial institutions, especially smaller regional and community banks, with billions of dollars in new losses. That, in turn, could snuff out whatever chances we have of a sustained economic recovery.
In some ways, this shoe has already dropped.
The MIT Real Estate Center said that commercial property prices has dropped almost 42% over the past 2 years.
As a result of that drop, about fifty-five percent the $1.4 trillion commercial mortgages that will mature in the next five years are underwater.
The delinquency rate for commercial mortgages climbed to 5% in October. A year ago the delinquency rate was just 0.77%.
About half of all commercial mortgages sit on the balance sheets of smaller banks. So the massive number of bank failures this year is significantly attributable to losses from commercial real estate.
Late last month, one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the world filed for bankruptcy.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Farmers have been the backbone of the Americas.
Since government has demanded the surrender of constitutional rights in exchange for assumed security, I am surprised it took this long to get around to my farming neighbors.
These guys are not sheeple.
Farmers, Ranchers Fighting Back Against FDA Tyranny Over Animal Farms
Monday, November 16, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) A bill that would grant the FDA expanded authority to inspect farms has come under fire from ranchers and farmers concerned about increased government interference in their operations.
In response to a recent series of food-borne illness outbreaks, a bill has been approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that would allocate more money and authority to the FDA to fulfill its current food safety duties. Although technically the bill would not expand the FDA’s authority to foods currently supervised by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) – meat, poultry and some egg products – many farmers and their advocates are concerned that the language of the bill is too vague to ensure against this.
"Live animals are not ‘food’ until the point of processing, which is why this bill needs to clarify that the FDA does not have regulatory authority on our farms, ranches and feedlots," said Sam Ives of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
Even though the USDA has been involved in several recent recalls of beef products, its inspection procedures are usually considered stricter than the FDA’s, and the agency’s inspection program is also better funded. This has spared the USDA the criticism the FDA has faced after recent recalls of peanut butter, hot peppers and spinach.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The Secretary of the Treasury takes a licking but keeps on ticking.
The dollar takes a licking and will soon stop ticking.
China says Fed policy threatens global recovery
By Geoff Dyer in Beijing and Kevin Brown in Singapore
Published: November 15 2009 16:02 | Last updated: November 16 2009 02:14
The US Federal Reserve is fuelling “speculative investments” and endangering global recovery through loose monetary policy, a senior Chinese official warned on Sunday just hours before President Barack Obama arrived in China for his first visit.
Liu Mingkang, China’s chief banking regulator, said that the combination of a weak dollar and low interest rates had encouraged a “huge carry trade”that was having a “massive impact on global asset prices”.
The comments came as China and the US sparred at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Singapore over exchange rate policies amid rising international criticism that China’s currency is undervalued.
Mr Liu’s unusually blunt remarks underscore how China – the largest US creditor because of its massive holdings of Treasury bonds – has become a trenchant critic of monetary and fiscal policy in the US.
Since the start of the financial crisis, Chinese officials have issued a number of warnings that the US should not inflate away its mounting debt burden. Before these latest comments, however, Beijing had generally been most critical of US fiscal policy, urging Washington to spend less.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Saturday in Pakistan.
Suicide Car Bomb Kills 11 In Pakistan
November 15, 2009 9:45 a.m. EST
David Goodhue – AHN Reporter
Washington, DC (AHN) – Eleven people were killed and at least 26 were wounded when a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a police check point in Peshawar, Pakistan Saturday.
Among the dead are three women and three children, CNN reported. Shafi Ullah, deputy superintendent of police, said about 110 to 132 pounds of explosives were used to make the bomb.
Pakistani intelligence officials said the bomb was likely in response to Peshawar police operations to rout militants from the North West Frontier Province.
Peshawar was also the scene of a suicide bombing on Friday, which along with another in nearby Bannu, killed at least 17 people.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for those attacks.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Pakistan today.
Power struggle threatens Pakistan’s leader
Zardari attempting to fend off maneuvers by military, intelligence
By Robert Windrem
Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders are tangling in a series of political confrontations that could lead to a constitutional crisis or worse after the New Year, officials in both Islamabad and Washington tell NBC News.
With the tenor and volume of debate rising over America’s commitment to Afghanistan, that struggle is complicating U.S. strategy to stabilize the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
