The Economist - August 14th - August 20th 2010

The Economist is a global weekly magazine written for those who share an uncommon interest in being well and broadly informed. Each issue explores the close links between domestic and international issues, business, politics, finance, current affairs, science, technology and the arts.
In addition to regular weekly content, Special Reports are published approximately 20 times a year, spotlighting a specific country, industry, or hot-button topic. The Technology Quarterly, published 4 times a year, highlights and analyzes new technologies that will change the world we live in.

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"Unregulated Greed has Destroyed the Capitalist System": The Big Things That Matter And The Little Things That Annoy

by Paul Craig Roberts,
I write about major problems: the collapsing US economy, wars based on lies and deception, the police state based on “the war on terror” and other fabrications such as those orchestrated by corrupt police and prosecutors, who boost their performance reports by convicting the innocent, and so on. America is a very distressing place. The fact that so many Americans are taken in by the lies told by “their” government makes America all the more depressing.

Often, however, it is small annoyances that waste Americans’ time and drive up blood pressures. One of the worst things that ever happened to Americans was the breakup of the AT&T telephone monopoly. As Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in 1981, if 150 percent of my time and energy had not been required to cure stagflation in the face of opposition from Wall Street and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, I might have been able to prevent the destruction of the best communications service in the world, and one that was very inexpensive to customers. (more)

Why banks aren't paying higher interest rates

So far in 2010, Canadians have opened 20 per cent more chequing and savings accounts than last year at this time.

That amounts to about $100 billion in new deposits and Canada’s major banks have been fighting for a share of it with incentives, including cash rewards for customers opening new accounts.

While consumers can get cash and travel points to open a new account, there is one conspicuous weapon missing in the banks’ marketing arsenal when it comes to attracting new customers.

And that is the lure of higher interest rates, something you won’t find the banks offering on those new savings accounts and products – or old ones for that matter.

On July 20 when the Bank of Canada raised its overnight rate by 0.25 per cent to 0.75 per cent, the increase was immediately passed on to consumers with lines of credit, mortgages and other products that were priced directly off of the prime rate. (more)

The World Financial Report, Aug 13, 2010

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BNN: Rules For Investing in U.S. or Tropical Real Estate

Canadians are currently inundated with sales pitches for vacation and tropical real estate. What are the rules that buyers should know for investing abroad before they dive into a deal? BNN asks Don Campbell, president, Real Estate Investment Network.


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Capital Controls: The Final Phase in the Great Looting of America

Eric Blair
Activist Post

Instituting capital controls seems like the next big event in the government-banking-oligarchy's great looting of America.

First, these vampires designed "free trade" agreements to use slave labor abroad at the expense of American jobs. Next, they moved their investment capital and assets abroad sucking the life-blood out of the U.S. economy. Then, they covertly used America's remaining wealth to prop up their bogus financial instruments like credit default swaps and derivatives, which came crashing down. Finally, they got their taxpayer bailout, and now they want your pension funds and cash deposits to stay under their control.

This last stage of the mass looting requires your wealth to remain in their possession. They seem to be setting up several ways to control the remaining capital. One of the first tactics used by the banksters to control your money was to get the SEC to adopt a proposal to allow money market funds to suspend withdrawals during a financial crisis to prevent bank runs. As reported on ZeroHedge: (more)

Oh, the Humanity! The Hindenburg Omen in the Stock Market

Sometimes technical indicators seem named just to see how much fear they can provoke.

Take the "Hindenburg Omen," an indicator that depends on a number of variables that was triggered on Thursday in the stock market, portending a sharp correction in coming months.

Named after the zeppelin disaster that took place over Lakehurst, N.J., in 1937, the pattern is a "rare but potent" sell signal, said Jay Shartsis, director of option trading at R.F. Lafferty & Co.

For this to be activated, it requires at least 2.2 percent of the market to reach new 52-week highs and 52-week lows on the New York Stock Exchange on the same day, which happened Thursday, suggesting a lack of conviction among investors. (more)

Federal Reserve Debt Monetization Explained.

Expatriate Your Wallet

If everything you own is held in your own name in your own country, then you are not merely exposed, you are vulnerable absolutely, to whatever decisions the government might make about how you should behave and who gets the wealth you’ve earned. Tomorrow's new government measure, which might land out of the blue, could be a law that affects everyone, or it could be a rule devised to deal with people like you. Or, it could be an administrative action aimed at you alone. In any case, with all your assets at home, you'd find out how the lobster feels when his trap is being hauled out of the water. Nothing he can do about it.

The only way to protect yourself against the risk of being boiled in a government pot is to keep some of your assets in another country. Depending on how you go about it, the specific benefits you might achieve are:

• Protection from currency exchange controls
• Protection from the confiscation of precious metals
• A lower profile as a lawsuit target
• Income tax planning advantages
• Estate planning advantages
• Easier access to investments in other countries
• A measure of financial privacy
• Practical readiness to move additional assets quickly
• Psychological readiness to think and act internationally when you need to (more)
  

The Dollar's Third and Final Act

by Jeff Fisher,

The US credit system is in the midst of its third credit crisis since the advent of the Federal Reserve.

The first credit crisis was a deflation that morphed into the Great Depression. (See Rothbard's: America's Great Depression.)

The second credit crisis manifested itself in the stagflation of the 1970s. (See Rothbard's: For a New Liberty Chapter 9.)

This credit crisis began in 2000 and was greatly exacerbated by the housing bubble of 2001 to 2007.

A good discussion is Peter Schiff's: Crash Proof and Crash Proof 2.0.

All three episodes were the inevitable result of the prior credit inflation orchestrated by the Federal Reserve System. (more)

Bloomberg Businessweek - August, 16 2010

* 1st Annual. The Popularity Issue.
America's most popular products
and how they got that way.

* What's next at Hewlett Packard.

* The furious flight attendant.

* Divorce in Dodgertown.

* Crackdown in Dubai.

* Getting creative at the Fed.

* BlackBerry torch review.

* SEC opens the boardroom.

* India's mobile hitmaker. read more here

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