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LOST SOVEREIGNITY

OIL-RICH FUND EYEING FORECLOSED US HOMES


By TERI BUHL


Posted: 4:19 am
August 10, 2008

There's a new land grab starting in America.

Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate - like Barneys New York and the Chrysler Building - is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country.

One sovereign fund, said to have earmarked $29 billion to purchase foreclosed residential real estate, recently hired a West Coast mortgage broker and is starting to search for bargains, The Post has learned.

The search, which is being carried out, in part, by Field Check Group mortgage consultant Mark Hanson, who was retained by the broker, Steve Iversen, is concentrating on single- and multi-family REO (real estate owned) homes, or homes that have already been taken over by the mortgagee.

Neither Iversen nor Hanson would disclose the name of the client, but sources told The Post it's a sovereign fund.

The unidentified fund joins individual US investors, hedge funds and Wall Street banks in kicking the tires of REO homes, which have fallen in value so much that they are now tempting investments.

A sovereign fund would have two distinct advantages over other investors - the depressed value of the US dollar makes the homes a bargain, and sovereign funds have deeper pockets.

The sovereign fund of Abu Dhabi, for example, has a reported $875 billion in assets, while Norway has $391 billion, Singapore has $303 billion and Kuwait has $264 billion in their sovereign funds, which are funded by proceeds from oil sales...

full story: http://www.nypost.com/seven/0810200...nity_123879.htm


...Ausverkauf der Heimat

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Jesse's Café Américain

10 August 2008

The Fog of War Descends on the Oil Rich Caucasus

"Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace." Charles Sumner

The spark for the start of the first World War was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Serbia, although the friction amongst the great colonial empires provided the fuel. One of the precursors to the second World War was the Spanish Civil war in which the fascists and the republicans engaged in some preliminary exercises, although it was the German incursion into Poland that unleashed the dogs of war.

In all these instances the large multinational bankers were actively supporting both sides. It is a shocking fact that both British and American banks continued to do business with the Nazis even after the War was well underway. Banking with Hitler - BBC War can be surprisingly good for business, especially if natural resources are on the table, and big money often knows no sides. From an economic point of view, war is just another means of impoverishing the many in order to enrich the few.
The Russians contend that Georgia has provoked this conflict. Georgia is an ally of the United States, and has been seeking NATO membership, although that has been deferred by a Europe not seeking to provoke Russia. It is the largest contributor of troops to Iraq after Britain. Israel is said by Debka.com to be supporting the Georgians with military advisers.

This incursion was interestingly timed with the start of the Olympics. This appears to be a tactical strike designed by someone to change the profile and balance of the oil resources and pipelines in the region. It would be incredible to assume that Georgia had not informed the US of its intentions beforehand, considering we have troops based there, although anything is possible with regard to who fired first. This may be 'blowback' from a Russia that has been increasingly pressured by the US. On the other hand it may be a last provocation from the neo-cons and Bushco. The 'fog of war' is descending rapidly.

Watch this one closely for signs of escalation and spillover, and any impact on the oil markets. We cannot illuminate the good from the bad, the provacateurs from the responders. But we can see trouble, and this on has heavy implications for oil.Sometimes tactical actions can get out of hand and gain momentum.

Timeline of the Georgian - Ossetian - Russian Tensions

"In war the first casualty is the truth." Aeschylus

"When the rich wage war it is the poor who die." Jean-Paul Sartre

"War hath no fury like a noncombatant." Charles Montague

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." General Dwight Eisenhower

"Battle not with monsters lest ye become one; for when you look into the Abyss, the Abyss looks into you." Friedrich Nietzsche

"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph." Haile Selasssie

How fortunate for leaders that men do not think. Adolf Hitler

Posted by Jesse at 12:18 PM

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...nicht scary - aber

11.08.08, 12:15

US-Soulstar Isaac Hayes im Alter von 65 Jahren gestorben

...

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM...nUEqVcEEzUhHeKQ

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Benson's Economic & Market Trends
How Much Will Government Bailouts Actually Cost the American Taxpayer?

Richard Benson
Aug 12, 2008

Over the last eight years, we have watched in horror as a two-term Republican Administration furthered programs that have effectively thrown lit sticks of dynamite into our American factories. These programs have dismantled entire industries in the United States and encouraged their growth in China and elsewhere in Asia because of cheap labor. Also, during this time the illusion of prosperity was maintained by a Greenspan Fed as interest rates were cut to record lows, and a disastrous housing bubble was created. Americans were so seduced by home ownership that they bought houses in a frenzy that they couldn't afford, and then borrowed against them. In addition, under the Administration's policies, the value of the dollar has been trashed, and commodity inflation has robbed workers lucky enough to still have jobs.

As the unprecedented credit crisis continues into its second year, it's becoming crystal clear that the American economy is slipping into the worst post-WWII recession on record. It's even beginning to dawn on third and fourth generation Wall Street Republicans that if the average American doesn't have a good job (much less any job), they won't be able to pay their mortgage, auto loan or credit card.....

......Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: The FDIC and Controller of the Currency are directly inside the US Treasury. The FDIC has already started mopping up bad banks and merging their deposit-gathering branches into the surviving banks. It's estimated that just the Indy Mac failure alone will cost the FDIC at least $5 billon (or ten percent of its loss reserves of about $50 billion). Even if a large portion of the bad single-family mortgage debt can be pushed back into the FHLB or over to Fannie Freddie, total losses on construction, commercial properties and consumer loans will easily cost the FDIC, and therefore the US taxpayer, $100 billion. What's really scary is that the head of the FDIC has told Indy Mac not to foreclose on delinquent homeowners until the loans are 300 days past due. If the government encourages people not to pay their mortgages and live rent free at our expense, we'll need to increase the expected FDIC bill to the American taxpayer to $150 billion........


......With a record number of homeowners considering whether to live free for 300 days by skipping their mortgage payments, imagine the cash gap that will open up between the cash that comes into Fannie & Freddie from mortgage payments, and the cash that must go out to cover the GSE security payments. For the government, it is more important to spread the losses into the future than to minimize them. Losses on defaulted mortgage loans at the GSEs will be horrible. Put the bailout cost at $300 billion.

Let's tally it up (see table below):

The financial institution bailouts and the government taxpayer bailouts are looking more like socialism every day. I suspect that when we look back at this time in history four years from now, and marvel at the great increase in government ownership and socialism imbedded in the economy, we will have the Bush Administration to thank for sending us down the road to economic serfdom.

Aug 11, 2008 - Richard Benson
full story: http://www.321gold.com/editorials/b...nson081208.html

....scheint uferlos zu sein

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.

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Demeter (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-12-08 07:25 AM
Response to Original message 12. Ha! First Rec and a Great Good Morning to You, Ozy!

Last night I learned in emergency meeting that if you want a mortgage today, you can only expect a 5 year ARM. Evidently, nobody's prepared to go long on a mortgage in Michigan--not even 15 years, not even with 60% down and healthy credit.

If that doesn't speak about the state of the economy, nothing does.

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MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
U.S. guns arm Mexican drug cartels

By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 10, 2008
SIERRA VISTA, ARIZ. -- High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.

The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.

• 

More than 90% of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Last year, 2,455 weapons traces requested by Mexico showed that guns had been purchased in the United States, according to the ATF. Texas, Arizona and California accounted for 1,805 of those traced weapons.....
.....more than 4,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related violence, including 450 police officers, soldiers and prosecutors, as well as innocent bystanders, cartel members and corrupt officials, according to Mexican authorities......
.....More than 6,700 licensed gun dealers have set up shop within a short drive of the 2,000-mile border, from the Gulf Coast of Texas to San Diego -- which amounts to more than three dealers for every mile of border territory. Law enforcement has come to call the region an "iron river of guns.".....

....toller Ami-Export

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Rick Santelli zum US-trade-deficit

".....we get plasma-tvs, cars, PCs and, and, and.....and they get paper"

http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/ticker_home.asp

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Silverbay

.


... for president !

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Silverbay er wäre sicher einer der besseren

***********************************************************

....das ist nur damit es später gecheckt werden kann falls es dann noch gefunden wird (keine Wertung)

kiwi_envoy
Silver Member

Quote:
Originally Posted by marmite
What do you mean by " dark pools " ????

-----------

In other words, there is no rate of destruction of capital (i.e., exchange units) at this point that will ever wipe out the over supply in the system; even if the price of all the trillions of US government exchange unit based dollars and dollar-bonds in circulation went to zero there would still be trillions worth of worthless exchange units left over hiding in the 'dark pools,' back alleys and unreported accounts of the Fed, JP Morgan, Goldman and the rest of the financial alchemists who have incinerated America's economy.


Predictions:

1) The price of gold and the Dow Jones will reach parity between 4,000 and 5,000 (i.e., gold will trade between $4 - 5,000 as does the Dow Jones Industrial Average).

2) America's sovereignty, as defined as percentage ownership of American financial assets, principally U.S. government bonds (soon to no longer be rated AAA), will be mostly in the hands of foreigners.

3) China will buy Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and in so doing become America's biggest land lord.

4) Very few of the current Bush administration, family, and close associates will be living inside U.S. borders within 6 months after leaving office.

5) The Presidential election in November will be delayed due to a global financial crisis.

6) The U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan will start to run out of money and be left to get out on their own resulting in American mercenaries hiring groups like the Taliban to escort them out of the region, with Bin Laden getting a commission on each deal.

7) Russia will emerge as the new power broker in a post-America world restoring financial order between America, the largest debtor in the world and China, the largest creditor in the world.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-ke..._b_114197.html
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Beijing Olympics: Faking scandal over girl who 'sang' in opening ceremony

Chinese officials have admitted deceiving the public over another highlight of the Olympic opening ceremony: the picture-perfect schoolgirl who sang as the Chinese flag entered the stadium was performing to another girl's voice.

By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 1:59PM BST 12 Aug 2008

The girl in the red dress with the pigtails, called Lin Miaoke, 9, and from a Beijing primary school, has become a national sensation since Friday night, giving interviews to all the most popular newspapers.

But the show's musical designer felt forced to set the record straight. He gave an interview to Beijing radio saying the real singer was a seven-year-old girl who had won a gruelling competition to perform the anthem, a patriotic song called "Hymn to the Motherland".

At the last moment a member of the Chinese politburo who was watching a rehearsal pronounced that the winner, a girl called Yang Peiyi, might have a perfect voice but was unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth......

full story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...g-ceremony.html


...beschissen wird ja immer und überall - ich finde es dennoch traurig, dass man so kleine Mädchen "missbraucht" - eines ist begabt und darf wegen einer völlig natürlichen Zahnstellung sein Können nicht zeigen - das andere muss sich mit fremden Federn schmücken Schaden nehmen sicherlich beide

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August 11, 2008

Which Olympic event do you suppose this is?

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Silverbay

.


shooting democrats ... ?

but failed targets.




.

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US-Justiz geht gegen weitere Banken vor

11. August 2008
20:07

New York - Nach milliardenschweren Ausgleichszahlungen von Großbanken an Privatanleger weitet die US-Justiz ihr Vorgehen gegen die Finanzbranche nochmals aus. Der New Yorker Generalstaatsanwalt Andrew Cuomo kündigte am Montag Untersuchungen bei den US-Banken J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley und Wachovia an. Nach massivem Druck der Behörden hatte in der vergangenen Woche die Schweizer Großbank UBS neben anderen Finanzhäusern dem Rückkauf spezieller Auktions-Anleihen für allein 18,6 Mrd. Dollar (12,5 Mrd. Euro) zugestimmt....
http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=1216919080881

...bin gespannt ob GS auch mal in die Mange genommen wird die haben sich ja eine goldenen Nase geholt mit ebenso unfairen Geschäften
oder hält Herr Paulson sein schützendes Händchen drüber

• Goldman Sachs hit by downgrades at FT.com(Tue 3:30pm)

...zumindest sie scheint balls zu haben (...auch wenn ich das Zebra an der Wand nicht so super finde )

http://i.l.cnn.net/money/2008/08/04..._whitney.03.jpg
"I feel like I'm at the epicenter of the worst financial crisis in history," says Meredith Whitney, at home in New York City.

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