Free Republic

All the US bank runs and panics of the late 19th century — 1857, 1861, 1866, 1873, 1877, 1890, 1893, 1896 and 1907 — are clearly visible in the chart below of the call money rate — the rate for borrowing collateralised against equities. The call money market was the “shadow money” of its day — and lending terms almost always tightened when the underlying collateral was in a bear market, and usually eased remarkably quickly once it was over. The big difference this time round was that we had a wholesale funding run starting in the shadow banking itself,...

Global markets sank sharply at the end of last week on fears that Dubai World, a subsidiary of the government of Dubai, was on the verge of defaulting on approximately $60 billion of the emirate's $80 billion in total debt held by creditors world-wide. The rush of news stories added to the wildfire of panicky speculation, with headlines ranging from "Dubai Default Risk May be Big US Bank Problem," to "Dubai Shows Limits of Government Rescues." The mini-panic, however, has little to do with Dubai and everything to do with the tenuous psychology of global investors still skittish after the...

Stocks down 214 already this morning

Obama bowed to emperor as 'protocol' By: Mike Allen November 14, 2009 11:08 PM EST SINGAPORE – A senior administration official said President Barack Obama was simply observing protocol when he bowed to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko upon arriving at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Saturday. “I think that those who try to politicize those things are just way, way, way off base,” the official said. “He observes protocol. But I don’t think anybody who was in Japan – who saw his speech and the reaction to it, certainly those who witnesses his bilateral meetings there –...

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Health Officials in Ukraine say the death toll from a suspected swine flu outbreak has reached 144. Almost a million people are thought to be infected, mostly in the west of the country. ~ Over a hundred have died since the outbreak of the virus last week. But it's still unclear exactly what killed those Ukranians. Only some are confirmed as a result of AH1N1, the rest are blamed on respiratory diseases. Even so, talks over imposing a state of emergency in the country are surfacing from the highest levels. Should that happen, the upcoming presidential vote could be shifted...

On a chilly morning, President Obama came to the Rose Garden Friday morning to try to offer reassurance in the wake of both the Fort Hood shootings and dismal economic news, suggesting -- regarding the latter issue -- that he was considering even more economic stimulus measures. (snip) Turning to this morning's news that unemployment has risen to 10.2%, the president also announced that he signed into law a bill that he said "will help grow our economy, save and create new jobs, and provide relief to struggling families and businesses," the need for which was "made clear by the...

Here is a video, released today by the Washington State DOT, of a computer simulation of what is expected to happen if a magnitude 7.0 quake hits the area near downtown Seattle..... YouTube video This video focuses on the effects such a quake would have on the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the seawall on the waterfront. Make no mistake about it...this video is designed to scare the heck out of anyone who uses the viaduct. Why release it? According the the WSDOT, a private citizen, name withheld, made a public disclosure request through the FOIA.

According to the CDC, swine flu infections have already peaked, and the pandemic is on its way out. Peak infection time was the middle of October, where one in five U.S. children experienced the flu, says the CDC. Out of nearly 14,000 suspected flu cases tested during the week ending on October 10, 2009, 99.6% of those were influenza A, and the vast majority of those were confirmed as H1N1 swine flu infections. Even though the H1N1 pandemic appears to have peaked out, U.S. President Barack Obama has now declared a national emergency over swine flu infections. The reasoning behind...

Central banks flush with record reserves are increasingly snubbing dollars in favor of euros and yen. Policy makers boosted foreign currency holdings by $413 billion last quarter, the most since at least 2003, to $7.3 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Nations reporting currency breakdowns put 63 percent of the new cash into euros and yen in April, May and June, the latest Barclays Capital data show. This doesn't put the same pressure on the dollar as panic selling out of the dollar, but it is not a positive. The big question is how will Treasury find funding for...

Health ministers around the globe were sent a warning that “unless we receive £900 million by next Friday millions will die.” The message from a group calling itself the WHO, was composed of letters cut out of a newspaper (likely the New York Times, experts say), and specified that the money “must be in small, unmarked, non-consecutively numbered bills.” The message directed the ministers to await further instructions regarding the “drop location” and warned that “any attempt to contact the police will have dire consequences.” The surprisingly sparse media coverage of the incident was explained by former US UN Ambassador...

Panic over syringe stabbings spreads to Beijing Jane Macartney, China Correspondent The Chinese authorities are anxious that mysterious syringe stabbings that have caused panic in the restive far west have now reached the capital. The threat of such needle attacks comes as an enormous security blanket has been thrown across Beijing to ensure that a huge military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule passes off without a hitch on October 1. Indications that the bizarre attacks may have extended from the mostly Muslim, riot-torn region of Xinjiang to Beijing came in the form of directives from...

The Democratic Party is panicking, lashing out like a cornered animal, all because its effort to take over the health care industry is coming apart like so much wet toilet paper. Nancy Pelosi, who will get her own bound volume in the annals of asininity, has outdone herself. When asked by a reporter whether the protests at various town hall meetings represented legitimate grassroots opposition or were manufactured "Astroturf" stunts, she replied, "I think they're Astroturf. You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care." Now this is a pas de...

Southport firearm maker Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. said new gun models helped nearly double sales in the fiscal second-quarter, contributing to a 700 percent gain in net profits.

That’s the only reason I can think of for her unleashing her inner socialist for all the world to see in this rant to reporters at Capitol Hill: “It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure,” she said, adding, “They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening.” Emphasis added. And if you think I’m exaggerating...

While some forecasters believe a rising jobless rate and more housing foreclosures could kill off a nascent recovery, we believe the panic is over and a V-shaped economic recovery is under way. It is in its earliest stages, which means plenty of economic indicators have yet to turn positive, but the signs of a strong bounce off the panic-induced lows are all around us. Since bottoming in February, consumer confidence has had the fastest three-month increase on record. The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index, which fell to historic lows over the winter, has risen to signal that the overall...

Mere days after an Air Force One backup buzzed Lower Manhattan, panicking thousands and reviving memories of 9/11, VP Biden scared the bejabbers out of straphangers...."I would not be . . . suggesting [my family] ride the subway." Biden is famous for his dumb utterances.......but there's a real cost to fomenting panic -- if the consequence further depress NY's economy. Time to zip it joe.

U.S. health authorities are lining up vaccine makers to develop a defense against virus posing global perilFederal health authorities, busily assessing the scope of the swine flu outbreak, are preparing in case a vaccine is needed to stem the spread of the disease that has sickened more than 100 in the United States and killed a 22-month-old boy in Texas. The development of a vaccine is a long, painstaking, fairly crude process that typically involves growing the virus in millions of chicken eggs. It would be months before the first person could be inoculated. Still, scientists with the Centers for...

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Officials tried to quell growing panic over swine flu on Thursday as governments braced for a global pandemic and US Vice President Joe Biden recommended a boycott of planes and subways. A day after upping its pandemic alert level, the World Health Organisation said there was no evidence to suggest it should be raised to the maximum of six, but warned of fresh outbreaks during the southern hemisphere's winter. European ministers meanwhile rejected an EU-wide ban on travel to Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak where citizens have been told to stay at home for five...

Our Vice-President is proving once again that he is a couple of bottles short of a full six pack. On the Today Show this morning, he did what he could to ramp up the swine flu Panic. He was asked what would he tell his family to do about the swine flu. That is when he launched into a discourse about staying off any airplanes, buses or trains. Because if someone sneezes on a plane it goes all over the plane the same with buses and trains. Gee flu or not I don't think I ever want to take a...

Biden: Don't Ride The Subway! (VIDEO) Joe Weisenthal|Apr. 30, 2009, 8:22 AM| Tags: Economy, Health, The Way We Live Now, New York swineflusubway.jpgHey New Yorkers, take a cab to work today. Or walk. Your Vice President Joe Biden says you should avoid both planes and subways. NBC New York: "I would not be at this point ... [be] suggesting they ride the subway," Biden said when asked whether he would advise family members to use public transportation. Biden made his comments during a brief interview on NBC's "Today" show during an interview with Matt Lauer. The vice president said if...

There seems to be a general depression (emotional, not economic) pervading the Republican Party recently. Everyone seems to think the Republican Party dead, as the Democrats have the Presidency, the House, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. I know this is not the case, because I lived through 1994. An unpopular Bush had just lost the presidential election of 1992, and the Democrats had just 4 fewer House Seats and 2 fewer Senate Seats than they have now. The economy was rapidly improving, and the press was extatic about the accomplishments of the Democratic Majority. Pundits predicted the demise...

It is hypocritical in the extreme to profess concern about interrogation of a small number of enemies who want to kill us, but then to show no concern whatever for the fear, anxiety and emotional damage caused to thousands of our own citizens for a photo op.

Threatened Federal Sanctions Against NYPD, Secret Service, FBI & Mayor's Office If Secret Ever Got Out Furious Obama Apologizes: "It Will Never Happen Again" A furious President Barack Obama ordered an internal review of Monday's low-flying photo op over the Statue of Liberty. CBS 2 HD has discovered the feds will have plenty to question. Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public. In a memo obtained by CBS...

As reports of a unique form of swine flu erupt around the world, the inevitable question arises: Is this the big one? Is this the next big global flu epidemic that public health experts have long anticipated and worried about? Is this the novel virus that will kill millions around the world, as pandemics did in 1918, 1957 and 1968? The short answer is it's too soon to tell. "What makes this so difficult is we may be somewhere between an important but yet still uneventful public health occurrence here — with something that could literally die out over the...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The swine flu epidemic crossed new borders Tuesday with the first cases confirmed in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, as world health officials said they suspect American patients may have transmitted the virus to others in the U.S. Most people confirmed with the new swine flu were infected in Mexico, where the number of deaths blamed on the virus has surpassed 150. But confirmation that people had become infected outside Mexico would indicate that the disease was spreading beyond travelers returning from the country, World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl told reporters on Tuesday...

We were all supposed to be in the graveyard by now, done in by AIDS, SARS, bird flu, poisoned peanut butter, Hong Kong flu, killer tomatoes, global warming and strangulation by kudzu. But here we are, proof that there really is life after death. Now we learn that we might freeze before the pigs get us. (The chickens failed.) NASA scientists have observed that the solar wind is the weakest since we began keeping such records, that the magnetic axis of the sun is tilted to an unusual degree, and Ol' Sol is the quietest he has been in a...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Eyewitness News has learned of Orlando's first confirmed case of swine flu. According to the chief medical officer for Adventist Health System, Loran Hauck, the case was diagnosed Tuesday morning. "A case was diagnosed here in Orlando today on a tourist from Mexico who came to Disney attractions two days ago to visit," Hauck wrote in an email obtained by Eyewitness News. No further details have been released, but Eyewitness News is working to learn specifically what days the tourist was at the parks and which park the tourist went to. Details about the tourist, beyond being...

Well, someone in the Obama White House had a nifty idea: wouldn’t Air Force One (well, technically, one of the planes that serves as Air Force One; that name is reserved for the specific aircraft that is carrying the president at the moment) flying around and over New York City, near landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, be a sensational bit of imagery? Wouldn’t video of such flyovers be pure visual splendor?

Travel and hotel groups are braced for a turbulent ride today as stock markets react to fears over the strain of swine flu that was reported to have killed up to 71 people and closed much of public life in Mexico at the weekend. Analysts said that the news would revive memories of the 2002-03 severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak. Although the disease, first noticed in southern China in November 2002, was short-lived, it caused the deaths of 774 people worldwide and had a devastating impact on the Asian economy — particularly in Hong Kong — and on the...

Earlier today, the U.S. declared a public health emergency over the Swine Flu, after confirming 20 cases of the flu spreading to humans in New York, Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California. More than 80 people have died in Mexico from the disease, which has potentially spread to other countries, including Canada and France. Although Federal officials are urging Americans not to panic about the disease, fear of contracting the potentially deadly flu is quickly spreading over Twitter, Google, and blogs across the web. Swine Flu is the top trending topic on Twitter at the moment, with users rapidly tweeting about...

RICHMOND — Ammunition was running out so fast at a gun show late last year in Richmond that one man tried to grab a big can of .223-caliber bullets just as another guy was trying to pay for it. There was an argument. “One guy’s coming over his shoulder trying to grab” his can of 500 rounds of ammo, recalled Josh Golden, a gun and ammo dealer who was selling items at the Richmond Gun Show that day on Nov. 15. “They were his, and he was going to let him know that they were his.” In November, firearms transactions...

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., criticizes mainstream media for not reporting loads of pork in proposed legislation. Is the new Obama administration taking cues from the Bush administration to get Congress to act? It certainly seemed that way to, South Carolina’s junior Republican senator, Jim DeMint. DeMint, speaking Jan. 27 at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., explained the Obama administration will “create crisis and widespread panic” just like its predecessor in order to get Congress to act expeditiously. “I’ve been around long enough to know whenever someone tells me I have to make a decision right now, my response is...

Global aging, combined with plummeting birth rates, is a catastrophically dangerous menace that only a few people seem to be waking up to. You may not be familiar with terms like “global aging� and “demographic winter,� but you will be soon. I've been giving public lectures on the problem of global aging for the past 7 years or so, and my audiences are always shocked and dumbfounded as I explain how the West's ever expanding population of old people (due, thank God, to the ever-improving capabilities of bio-medical science), while a good thing in itself, will soon become a prime...

Methinks the bureaucrats in the Dallas PD need some retraining in common sense: Jill Frederick lives alone. She’s been burglarized twice. So when a stranger banged on her door at 11 p.m., she hit the panic button on her alarm. Sounds reasonable to me. If my daughter lived alone, had been burglarized twice and someone starts beating down her door at 11 p.m., I’d want her to do the same thing. And it obviously worked, as the Dallas PD was there within six minutes and arrested a drunken dude. So, you ask, what is Jill Frederick’s complaint? The panic button...

UPDATED - ALERT - Frightening Text Messages Being Forwarded Around NY Jews January 2, 2009 3:00PM EST: [UPDATE BELOW] With the situation in Gaza deteriorating by the day, and anti-semitism rampant around the world, thousands of NY Jews were frightened upon receiving the following text message which has been going around on Friday afternoon: “A Jewish woman gave a tip to a Muslim taxi driver and out of appreciation he warned her not to go to Manhattan next week Wednesday.” YWN has reached out to high-ranking members of the NYPD, and have stated that although they received the same text...

AGI - Rome, 28 Oct - ''Our nightmare is that in the end the huge consensus that Obama has gained will not transform into votes''. In an interview with DNews a few days before the US presidential elections, David Axelrod, strategist in Barack Obama's campaign said he feared a comeback by Republican McCain. '

/begin my translation N. Korea Incessantly Repeating Kim Jong-il Footage & his Communiqué Two Days in a Row A few dozen radio broadcasts, and on the newspaper headline (Seoul, Yonhap news) Ham Bo-hyun: N. Korean media continues to re-broadcast the report on Kim Jong-il's tour on a military unit and his Communiqué on both Oct. 11 and 12. His health has been the subject of speculation over a month. (The state news agency) KCNA first reported Kim Jong-il's inspection of all-female anti-aircraft company under KPA Unit 821 on early morning of Oct. 11. Since then they had been re-broadcasting it...

London shares dropped more than 400 points in early trading this morning after a seventh day of devastating falls on Wall Street triggered panic selling across Europe and Asia. Within minutes of opening, the FTSE 100 index fell almost 10 per cent to its worst level since 2002, but within 30 minutes shares staged a mild rally which left the index of Britain's leading companies off 253 points at 4050. Bank shares took the brunt of the pain as markets gyrated with Barclays off 15.6 per cent, and HSBC down 4.3 per cent. BP fell 8 per cent and Royal...

October 6, 2008 Markets tumble as banking fears spread across Europe Philippe Naughton Britain's blue chip companies lost £60 billion in value in just a few minutes today as investor confidence crumbled and political leaders battled to avert the threat of recession. The FTSE 100 index of leading shares fell by some 250 points in the first six minutes of trade, following sharp losses across Asia, and drifted down to reach a four-year low of 4,670.9 by late morning, 6 per cent down on Friday's close. For policymakers and central bankers, it was a nightmare start to the week –...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Barack Obama's allies warn that John McCain's attacks on the Democrat'a character will lead to the political equivalent of mutual assured destruction: fire your big weapon at your own peril.

Not everyone gets the Wall Street-Main Street connection. But they should, because both streets intersect on every block in America. “In the sense that if the credit market dries up on Wall Street, capital will be unavailable on Main Street,” said University of Arizona political science professor Robert Maranto. “So no car loans, house loans, business loans and the like.” In the short run, Maranto explains, there is no reason to panic, but over two years it would lead to higher unemployment. Maranto also reminds that most of Middle America's savings are plowed into the stock markets, “so if the...

Preface. In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first. We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as...

so how many more banks will fry

The financial world breathed easier Friday, as the full force of the U.S. government was employed to stop what had become a full-fledged global panic. Now comes the equally crucial job of protecting taxpayers -- and restoring markets -- after a historic federal intervention. There's little doubt that this week we were watching the modern equivalent of a 1930s bank run. Instead of lining up at bank windows, investors were unloading financial assets on their PCs. Credit markets had seized up, to the point that even routine daily settlements had stopped until banks had the actual securities or cash in...

Much has been written and millions of words expended on the current financial panic, most of it utterly wrong because it's made by people who don't have a clue about the workings of the financial markets. And, yes, that especially includes people in the media. Todd Zywicki, at Volokh posts: Did Eliot Spitzer Contribute to AIG's Demise? to which we get the predictable response for the invincibly ignorant: [Responding to a comment made by someone who works for an AIG insurance subsidiary] Poor you. Maybe if your industry had a few less greedy crooks, you wouldn't have to be so...

Seldom has there been a larger contrast between the style of a candidate and the strategy of his campaign. Barack Obama is cool, firm and permanently unruffled. It is precisely this quality of steadiness that has made him seem a credible prospective president with the thinnest of résumés. But Obama's campaign is rootless, reactive and panicky. At every stage since securing the nomination, it has seemed fearful of missteps and unsure of its own organizing principle. So it has invariably adopted the Democratic conventional wisdom of the moment. Obama's first major decision was his running mate. He could have reinforced...

The retooling of the Obama message is the focus of this Washington Post story: "After a string of tactical successes by McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, over the past two weeks, the Obama campaign sought to regain its footing on Monday. The shift followed a series of internal meetings, including a rare Sunday evening session at the campaign's Chicago headquarters that Obama attended. Advisers reinforced the division of labor in the days ahead: Obama will articulate the campaign's broader message of ‘change’ and outline how the Democratic ticket will govern, while Biden will deliver attacks against...

Derivative traders open session to reduce Lehman risk Sun Sep 14, 4:04 pm ET NEW YORK (Reuters) – A rare emergency trading session opened Sunday afternoon to allow Wall Street dealers in the $455 trillion derivatives market reduce their exposure to a potential bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers. U.S. regulators and bankers were making last-ditch efforts on Sunday to prevent toxic assets from ailing Lehman Brothers (LEH.N) spilling into global markets and rupturing investor faith in the international financial system. "This is an extremely, and I stress extremely, rare event. It also speaks to the more general notion that, in...

Bloomberg is link only. Emerging-Market `Panic' May End as Profits Spur 20% Stock Gain There is a bright side to the dismal market, if you have some money to spend.