Economist Tim Madden: The PIIGS Brief: understanding how oligarchs rig, loot our economies. 3 of 4

Canadian courts use Thomson to turn centuries of civil and criminal law upside down

Rather than submit to its own legal and lawful limitations, however, the Canadian (Ontario) court of appeal in Thomson nominally (and unanimously) protected the solicitors from the financial consequences of their technically illegal/criminal/racketeering actions, by ruling that the Criminal Code does not expressly prohibit the making of agreements to receive interest at a criminal rate, but only provides for severe punishment for those who do so. Accordingly, it concluded, such contracts are "not fundamentally illegal" (emphasis added): (more)

The U.S. Government Is About To Get Hit With 'The Perfect Storm' Of Debt

Hearing President Obama’s economic peptalks, you might be under the impression that the U.S. needs to keep spending for just a little while longer to stimulate the economy – but then will swear off big deficits.

Reinforcing the point, to address concerns stirred by a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast that the U.S. government will accumulate total deficits in excess of $6 trillion over the next decade, in February President Obama issued an executive order to create a bipartisan fiscal commission. The commission’s task is to deliver recommendations to the president by December 1 for limiting future deficits to 3% of GDP. (The FY 2009 deficit approached 10% of GDP. The FY 2010 deficit will probably go even higher.) (more)

Peter Schiff Tuesday May 11, 2010 CNBC Fast Money

Intervention Alert - Here Comes The Bailout Bailout: European Cental Banks Gobbling Up Portuguese, Irish And Greek Government Bonds

And so the European private banks win the overnight battle with the Central Banks again: after shorting the EURUSD all the way to almost 1.25, they have forced the European Central Banks to buy ever more of their worthless Government bond holdings. Reuters reports that overnight CBs have been aggressive buyers of Greek, Portuguese and Irish Sovereign (if there is such a laughable concept as sovereign any more) bonds, which in turn has forced a quick short covering spree in the EURUSD and the EURJPY, which in turn has forced futures to go from 10 handles down to up 4. In other words, Central Banks now are fighting tooth and nail to prevent the market from going down ever again. To all the shorts out there- you are no longer taking on merely the Fed, now you have every money printer against you as they scramble to load up with every worthless asset imaginable. At this rate Dow, Dax and Dung Manure 36,000 is easily reachable. The only way to play this is through gold, which is now the only flight from Central Bank lunacy. ZeroHedge.com

Gold Is Money

The Western financial world is officially in full panic mode. A nearly $1 trillion bailout of Greece confirms that fact. Our very own Federal Reserve is providing billions to the effort, but this is much more than a bailout for Greece. It is a bailout for banks holding Greek debt and the debt of other European nations teetering on default.

This bailout is not a fix or a cure for too much debt. People on both sides of the pond are simply spending more than they earn. The “fix” is a long painful road of consuming less and saving more, but that is not what this bailout represents. What the leaders of the Western World chose was the short painless path of money printing. You have to ask yourself where did they come up with nearly a trillion dollars in such a short amount of time? (more)

What is good for Goldman Sachs is bad for the world

Excuse me, Charlie Wilson, for parodying your 1955 line as chairman of General Motors that “What is good for General Motors is good for America.” Especially since 53 years later GM’s stock is at an all-time low with little prospect of zooming back up.

It seems that dinosaur GM helped extinct itself through a series of errors. They are well documented by financial trader Adam Hewison, co-founder of the MarketClub.com, in his linked article and DVD. The errors include developing an electric car in 1996 when gas was $1.28 a gallon, naming the battery powered car the EV1, then scrapping it in 2002 when prices were climbing to $4 a gallon. Oops! (more)

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