Free Republic

THE U.S. DOLLAR INDEX, which tracks the dollar against other major currencies, fell below its important June low of 78.33 late last week. On Monday morning, it was trading at an 11-month low. The bear trend from March continues with no meaningful support in sight. Roughly two years ago, when the dollar was in its previous bear market run, the dollar index had moved under a multi-decade support level at 80 (see Chart 1).

"6. Pyongyang has announced that it will “never” give up her nuclear weapons’ policy. You might have heard that the word “never” is never to be used in any context. Why does North Korea practice the opposite without much damage? Because we make it pay. Perhaps, as far back as 1953, the Kims had reason to discover that in their case that “never” always works. It does so because they have to do with entities whose moral relativism and crisis management technique is that everything, and really everything, is negotiable at all times. Accordingly, they never say “no, never” to...

Here are the facts: * We witnessed one of the biggest collapses of all time in “open market paper” — mostly short-term credit provided to finance mortgages, auto loans, and other businesses. Instead of growing as it had in almost every prior quarter in history, it collapsed at the annual rate of $662.5 billion. (See line 2.) * Banks lending went into the toilet. Even in the fourth quarter, when the meltdown struck, banks were still growing their loan portfolios at an annual pace of $839.7 billion. But in the first quarter, they did far more than just cut back...

Now remember that the U.S. Treasury needs to sell a couple trillion dollars of new debt every year from now until doomsday. (Forget the fantasy that the economy is going to recover and tax revenues will skyrocket.) Not only that, but the Treasury also has to roll over trillions in old debt which comes due. That's a heap of trillions, and guess what--there is no Plan B except to print off a couple trillion dollars and "monetize" the debt by buying it with newly printed dollars. Nobody knows what will happen if the Federal Reserve and the Treasury try to...

New regulations and bureaucracy are limiting consumer choice and adding to health care costs. Program costs have skyrocketed. Despite tax increases, the program faces huge deficits. The state is considering caps on insurance premiums, cuts in reimbursements to providers, and even the possibility of a "global budget" on health care spending-with its attendant rationing. A shortage of providers, combined with an increased demand, is increasing waiting times to see a physician. When the Massachusetts reforms first became law (2006), they were projected to cost about $1.56 billion per year in total. The entire reform act was projected to cost more...

"Obama is creating a system of government that is beginning to look much like an “Administrator” form of government that will ultimately have no checks and balances, and little need for legislators. This form of government was the fantasy of Colonel Edward Mandell House, the “alter-ego” of President Woodrow Wilson, a designer of the League of Nations, and author of “Philip Dru: Administrator.” House fantasized about a system of government in which a single administrator held all executive power to appoint underlings without interference from elected bodies, and to design, and enforce, rules of behavior for individuals, and organizations –...

Timothy Drew is not a subject of black history month. He has not been the subject of a PBS documentary nor a critical biography. Most history professors, even at prestigious black universities, know little about him. But few African American leaders have cast a larger shadow. Without Drew, there would be no black leaders such as Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm X, Mukasa Dada, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, or Louis Farrakhan; no organizations such as the Black Power Movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Death Angels, or the New Black Panthers; no rap and hip-hop artists such as Public Enemy,...

We are going to spend over $3.5 trillion next year, run up an annual debt of $1.7 trillion, and are on schedule to add another $9 trillion to reach an aggregate debt of $20 trillion in eight years. The Obama administration and the Congress spend days on end fighting over how to spread and spend the borrowed money. But still, no one ties the additional expenditures to additional revenues. Can the President say, “We will borrow $.6 trillion from the Chinese, $.4 from the Japanese, $.2 trillion from the Europeans, and $.5 from American bond holders” in order finance this...

Economy The current insolvent status of state-run oil holding Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) due to falling oil prices and declining income has prevented it from paying its debts to contractors and providers. Payment in arrears also reaches mixed companies –former operators- as they have not been paid for oil sales. Under the agreements prepared by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, and entered into by the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation and domestic and foreign private oil service companies in 2007, upon the conversion of former operational agreements, there is an article which binds mixed companies to sell Pdvsa all their production...

"Who knew the badge, the holster and the iconic dark blue threads worn by Los Angeles police officers could make punching the clock so complicated? A federal judge ruled this week that Los Angeles Police Department officers should be paid for the time it takes them to put on and take off their uniforms and safety equipment, a decision that could cost the city millions of dollars in back pay and higher salaries." "In a 39-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess found that the several minutes it takes an officer to dress for duty is a vital part...

Ship owners are being forced to pay to carry oil from the Middle East to the U.S. for the first time in at least a decade after demand collapsed and the fleet expanded. Supertanker owners make no rental income from the voyages and are paying $3,445 a day toward fuel costs, data from the Baltic Exchange in London show. Rental rates normally cover fuel costs . The journey to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port from Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia’s largest export facility, earned owners as much as $104,663 a day in July. Some owners may be prepared to subsidize voyages...

Nineteen new qualified armed posse volunteers will graduate today, Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 6:30PM from the Sheriff’s Training Academy, 2627 South 35 Avenue. Arpaio says he plans to step up his recruiting methods to attract more men and women to join his volunteer armed posse through more public outreach. “The public has a desire to help local law enforcement when times are tough. I am banking on their generosity of time and energy to help my deputies keep our communities safe,” Arpaio says. Arpaio is seeking primarily those who wish to be trained and qualified to carry and use...

Without such a well-timed swine flu epidemic, herding Americans toward the sty of the public trough would be much more difficult. Under different circumstances, initiating an endeavor of such a grand magnitude might take years to implement. Nevertheless, an opportune Mexican contribution of swine flu has provided a crisis driven opportunity, which very well may become the fulfillment of the Obama socialized health care dream. As crisis after crisis arises, Americans need to be aware that the strategy behind Obama's misuse of hardship is an effort to further an ideological socialist schema. The Cloward-Piven star pupil, Barack Obama, is aware...

Although Americans fell asleep at the wheel, they are slowly coming back to their senses, realizing that Wall Street speculations were not under the scrutiny of watchdogs but Madoff-like people. Gerald Celente, a prominent forecaster, believes that a violent Revolution will start soon. He rightfully argues that Americans are not going to accept seeing their taxes raised as they are losing their jobs, homes and retirement savings as they unwittingly fund the merger of state and corporations - which is called fascism. On a more positive note, if the United States is now pointed at as the main culprit of...

When a good portion of a nation's population no longer takes pride in its traditions and culture, the will to defend the nation slips away. For decades many liberals have taken pride instead in actively undermining what used to be known as the American identity. While many liberals are taking pleasure in smothering the remaining life out of the culture that fed, housed and educated them, Muslims around the world are using pride to advance their way of life. While liberals advance agendas harmful to the survival of the Republic, such as open border policies and abortion on demand, Muslims...

"Perhaps no one explains the ongoing political developments in Iraq better than author and scholar Reidar Visser who in a recent article writes: ”It can be useful to discuss the emerging landscape on the basis of two different ways of looking at Iraqi politics. One is to emphacise ethno-sectarian divisions between Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis (which in turn are seen as internally unified monolithic blocs), and to interpret the Iraqi parliament as a tripartite construction where an alliance of Kurds and Shiites dominate. For a long time this sort of paradigm prevailed in US policy-making circles, where it gave rise...

Keetwonen, 1000 shipping containers from China modified into student housing in Amsterdam, is the largest shipping container housing development in the world. It has been praised for its innovation, cost effectiveness and design. For students, living in modified shipping containers is actually better than it sounds on paper. Each unit addresses many of the common concerns for students living in student housing such as privacy and cleanliness, while retaining the social aspects of living in dorms. Each unit includes amenities such as private bathroom, kitchen, separate sleeping and study room areas, ventilation, heat, hot water heater, large windows and even...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - "but as a matter of law, it's more like the aftermath of a bank robbery gone bad."</p> <p>"Whether a U.S. citizen is taken hostage at a downtown bank branch or on the high seas, federal authorities can claim the authority to capture suspects and prosecute them in U.S. courts."</p>

Several of the nation’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Sun Trust Bank, HSBC Bank USA, plus more than 1,800 regional and smaller institutions are at risk of failure despite government bailouts, according to Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D., president of Weiss Research, Inc., an independent research firm. Five large U.S. banks have credit exposure related to their derivatives trading that exceeds their capital, with four in particular — JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Bank America and Citibank — taking especially large risks. “Equally alarming,” writes Dr. Weiss, “is the fourth quarter OCC data demonstrating that record...

"The fed is planning moves that would more than double its balance-sheet assets by September to $4.5 trillion from $1.9 trillion. Whether expressing approval or concern over the fed’s move, most commentators fail to understand the real magnitude of the projected expansion of the US monetary base because they don’t take into account the amount of dollars circulating abroad......................The fed’s planned balance sheet expansion results in a 15-fold increase in the base money supply. 262 Billion = US monetary base as of September 2008 (minus dollars held abroad) 3,818 Billion = projected US monetary base in September 2009 (minus dollars...