Free Republic

When U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue proclaimed that the Keystone XL pipeline would create 250,000 jobs, he touched a nerve in the environmental community. “That’s just not true,” Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international program, told reporters Friday, calling Donohue’s jobs estimate “wildly inflated.” It’s a familiar refrain from the environmental community, which has been working overtime in recent weeks to counter Republican and industry claims that the 1,700-mile pipeline would create a mini-job boom in the United States. The fight over the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil sands crude from...

22 Signs That We Are On The Verge Of A Devastating Global RecessionJanuary 12, 2012Michael Snyder 2012 is shaping up to be a very tough year for the global economy. All over the world there are signs that economic activity is significantly slowing down. Many of these signs are detailed later on in this article. But most people don't understand what is happening because they don't put all of the pieces together. If you just look at one or two pieces of data, it may not seem that impressive. But when you examine all of the pieces of evidence that...

Chinese stock have been on a 2-day tear as Premier Wen Jiabao has come flat out in support of the stock market. Moreover, money supply in China is up the most since last April and new Chinese loans exceeded the estimates of all 18 Bloomberg economists. M2 rose 13.6 percent, the fastest pace since July. Bloomberg reports China Stocks Rise Most in 3 Months on Loan, Money Data

ROME—Organized crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country's biggest "bank" and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday. Extortionate lending by criminal groups had become a "national emergency," said the report by anti-crime group SOS Impresa. Organized crime now generated annual turnover of about €140 billion ($178.89 billion) and profits of more than €100 billion, it added. "With €65 billion in liquidity, the Mafia is Italy's number one bank," said a statement from the group, which was set up in Palermo...

The end of the federal 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for U.S. oil companies that buy and blend ethanol with gasoline has boosted pump prices by a nickel, but largely drowned out by consumers' grumbling were two valuable civics lessons. The feds require fuel blends that are 10 percent ethanol for most vehicles, and going forward, they have guaranteed greater demand for ethanol with their escalating alternative-fuel mandate. Adopted in the 1980s and twinned with a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, the tax credit transformed grain markets by encouraging farmers to devote more acres to corn. That reduced the production of other...

My second PinocchiObama piece for OMG! For America. See the first one here.

Nikos Gavalas and Alexandra Tricha, both 31 and trained as agriculturalists, were frustrated working on poorly paying, short-term contracts in Athens, where jobs are scarce and the cost of living is high. So last year, they decided to start a new project: growing edible snails for export. As Greece’s blighted economy plunges further into the abyss, the couple are joining with an exodus of Greeks who are fleeing to the countryside and looking to the nation’s rich rural past as a guide to the future. They acknowledge that it is a peculiar undertaking, with more manual labor than they, as...

Anarchists take over Greek radio studio, broadcast message supporting domestic terror groupBy Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, January 10, 9:04 AM ATHENS, Greece — A group of anarchists took over the studio of a local radio station in the Greek capital Tuesday, and broadcast a message in support of a domestic terrorist group. **SNIP** Police said they arrested 20 people who had participated in the occupation. They were to be charged with a felony count of praising terrorism.

MF Global unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of securities to Goldman Sachs in the days leading up to its collapse, according to two former MF Global employees with direct knowledge of the transactions.

LONDON (MarketWatch) — No one ever said gold was an asset for the faint-hearted. Or indeed, for anyone who doesn’t enjoy an argument. To some it is the only true form of money, a king over the water just waiting to be re-installed on its rightful throne once the impostors are cleared out of the way. To others, it remains, as the economist John Maynard Keynes described it, a “barbarous relic,” of no more relevance to the 21st century that the canal or the telegraph. Still, even by its usual standards, it was more contested than ever as 2011 closed...

Unabridged Title:US Closes 2011 With Record $15.22 Trillion In Debt, Officially At 100.3% Debt/GDP, $14 Billion From Breaching Debt Ceiling While not news to Zero Hedge readers who knew about the final debt settlement of US debt about 10 days ahead of schedule, it is now official: according to the US Treasury, America has closed the books on 2011 with debt at an all time record $15,222,940,045,451.09. And, as was observed here first in all of the press, US debt to GDP is now officially over 100%, or 100.3% to be specific, a fact which the US government decided to...

Strong exports of German cars are helping drive employment figures The adjusted jobless rate fell to 6.8% from 6.9% in November, the Federal Labour Office said. This marked a new record low since figures for unified Germany were first published. The seasonally-adjusted total for the number of people out of work in Germany fell 22,000 to 2.88 million in December. The agency said the number of people out of work averaged 2.976 million over the course of last year. News of the figures saw the German Dax stock exchange rise almost 1% by noon on Tuesday. This was equal to...

There are years that are remembered for changing the course of human history:1492. 1776. 1945. Then there are years that were predicted to change the course of history. 1844, when Judgment Day didn't materialize. 1910, when Halley's Comet didn't wipe out humanity. And remember Y2K? But rarely does a year arrive with such a mixture of anticipation and dread as 2012. We speak not of the presidential campaign but of the Maya calendar, and the projection that it — or, more accurately, a cycle within it — will end on Dec. 21, 2012. That date has kicked up a swirl...

Financial markets are in a precarious place, with European banks and sovereign balance sheets in the cross-hairs. Bank regulators are becoming increasingly aggressive, and euro-zone borrowing costs are rising as the debts of years past are coming due. In this environment, policy makers are finding their authority, credibility and firepower being tested. In turn, they are finding it tempting to pursue "financial repression"—suppressing market prices that they don't like. But this is bad policy, not least because it signals diminished faith in the market economy itself. Markets are not always efficient, but the market-clearing prices for stocks, bonds, currencies and...

PARIS (Reuters) - The euro could become the world's leading currency in the next decade if leaders of the single-currency bloc succeed in tightening fiscal integration, European Central Bank policymaker Christian Noyer said in an article to be published in the Journal du Dimanche. European leaders struck a historic deal at an emergency summit in Brussels on December 9 to draft a new treaty for deeper economic union, in an attempt to stem the debt crisis that is threatening to cause the collapse of the single currency. The news temporarily calmed markets. But concerns quickly resurfaced as the final details...

Ring out the new, ring in the old. No, hang on, that should be the other way around, shouldn't it? Not as far as 2011 was concerned. The year began with a tea-powered Republican caucus taking control of the House of Representatives and pledging to rein in spendaholic government. It ended with President Obama making a pro forma request for a mere $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. This will raise government debt to $16.4 trillion — a new world record! If only until he demands the next debt-ceiling increase in three months' time. At the end of 2011,...

The Number One Catastrophic Event That Americans Worry About: Economic CollapseDecember 30, 2011 Can you guess what the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is? There are certainly many to choose from. Many Americans are deathly afraid of a major terrorist attack. Others live in constant fear of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. Still others are incredibly concerned that a massive pandemic will break out at any time or that World War III will erupt in the Middle East. Yes, there are certainly a lot of potential catastrophic events that one can worry about in...

Avoiding The Danger Zones In The Year Ahead By Bill Bonner 12/30/11 Baltimore, Maryland – And here we are at the end of the week…and the end of the year. And we’re no surer of what is going on than we were at the beginning of it. The Dow rose 135 points yesterday. But gold kept going down. It is looking more and more like gold intends to make its big correction now… It’s been down for 6 days in a row. We’ve been waiting for it. We’ve been hoping for it. We’ve been counting on it. Is it here...

In 2012 The Economy Will Be On 'Firmer, Albeit Unsteady, Footing' Peter Demirali, Cumberland Advisors Dec. 28, 2011, 4:51 PM The last twelve months have been quite remarkable in terms of volatility and absolute levels of interest rates. The bond market was whipsawed by events in Europe and Washington. Greece was the poster child for the debt crisis in Europe but it was merely the first country to feel the wrath of the capital markets. Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and ultimately Italy experienced difficulty accessing the cash markets to roll over debt. You can view the spreads on various European sovereign...

The Government is considering plans to restrict the flow of money in and out of Britain to protect the economy in the event of a full-blown euro break-up. The Treasury is working on contingency plans for the disintegration of the single currency that include capital controls. The preparations are being made only for a worst-case scenario and would run alongside similar limited capital controls across Europe, imposed to reduce the economic fall-out of a break-up and to ease the transition to new currencies. Officials fear that if one member state left the euro, investors in both that country and other...