Evolving Economic Crisis: Review of Market Trends


by Bob Chapman
Global Research, July 9, 2009
The International Forecaster



The Obama administration may start its program to spur purchases of mortgage-backed securities from banks with about $20 billion in public and private money, down from as much as $100 billion when the effort was announced in March, sources said. The Treasury Department will pro vide about $1.1 billion in capital to eight to 10 money managers it will select for its Public-Private Investment Program.

[It is interesting that no mention is made of the fact that the Fed is creating (monetization) $3 trillion to purchase US Treasuries, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds and CDO toxic waste from banks. The Fed will not tell us what they are paying for the CDOs and part of the game is that the banks rotate the money into Treasuries, a sweet little daisy chain. As you can see, the Treasury might get an additional $20 billion into CDOs. We don’t see it happening. The private interests don’t want to get involved. Bob]

US consumers made 675,351 bankruptcy filings in the first half of 2009, a 36.5 percent increase from a year ago, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. June filings by consumers totaled 116,365, up 40.6 percent from the same period in 2008, the ABI said.

Oracle plans to cut as many as 1,000 jobs in Europe, the CFDT labor union said on its Internet site. Of the total, about 250 jobs will be lost in France, equivalent to 16 percent of the company's workforce there.

British authorities have started an investigation into millions of dollars of payments from the operations of the convicted money manager Bernard L. Madoff to companies linked to the Austrian banker Sonja Kohn, an Austrian official confirmed yesterday.

The Serious Fraud Office had asked Austrian prosecutors in May for help in investigating payments made by Madoff’s London office for research reports by Bank Medici, which was majority-owned by Kohn, who also served as its chairman.

“We’re closely cooperating with the SFO and the US Justice Department in that case,’’ the official, Gerhard Jarosch, a senior public prosecutor in Austria, said yesterday. A separate investigation by the Austrian prosecutor into whether Kohn and Bank Medici were involved with Madoff is continuing, he said.

Prosecutors are looking into whether Madoff paid more than $40 million to Kohn in exchange for turning three Bank Medici funds into feeder funds for his business, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing affidavits filed by prosecutors in the United States and Britain. The Austrian daily Der Standard reported last week that Kohn received about $11.5 million, for research reports for which prosecutors were unable to find receipts.

U.S. service industries from retailers to homebuilders contracted last month at the slowest pace in nine months, as measures of new orders and employment improved.

The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non- manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the economy, rose to 47 -- higher than forecast -- from 44 in May, according to data from the Tempe, Arizona-based group. Readings less than 50 signal contraction.

Our President favors torture just like his predecessor did. He threatens other governments if they expose what his administration is up too. He blocks any and all exposure of government activities, a culture of non-disclosure. In addition, there is a large list of dissidents, such as myself and other publishers and radio personalities of every political persuasion. Anyone who exposes what the Illuminists are up too is an enemy of the state. We wish George Orwell were here to see this.

Last week we filled you in on the scandal that could envelope and crush the administration. That is the illegal arbitrary dismissal of Investigator General Gerald Walpin who tried to get criminal charges brought against Barry’s close friend and Mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson who misappropriated some $500,000. The AG later layed a $73,000 payback on Johnson. As you can see, crime pays. More blatant corruption. We have done scores of programs on the mainline media regarding the scandal, something the kept media themselves refuses to do.

Sir Alan Greenspan was a disaster for America. His latest lying, idiotic comment was, “I don’t think it is an economic problem – it is a political problem.â€