- 3 Months After The MF Global Bankruptcy, We Find That $1.2 Billion (Or More) In Client Money Has "Vaporized"
- Exposing Silver Mythology – Part III
- MF Global – A Despicable State Of Affairs
- MF Global 4-1-9
- Entering The Debt Dimension
- Countrywide Protected Fraudsters By Silencing Whistleblowers, Say Former Employees
- In 2011, Global Spending on Renewable Energy Rose 40 Percent
- Has Petroleum Production Peaked, Ending the Era of Easy Oil?
- Shortage of Rare Metals Could Threaten High-Tech Innovation
- Is a Reduction in Population Numbers the only Sustainable Solution?
Our 'What Should I Do?' guide has steps to cook, see & stay warm in times of power outage
Economy
Many officials now believe certain employees at MF Global dipped into the "customer segregated account" that the New York company was supposed to keep separate from its own assets—and then used the money to meet demands for more collateral or to unfreeze assets at banks and other counterparties as they grew more concerned about their financial exposure to MF Global.
Investigators also are examining other scenarios that have gained traction in recent weeks, such as the possibility that MF Global suffered steep losses on investments made using customer money. Officials investigating the case have looked into whether such investments were appropriate under rules at the time.
Exposing Silver Mythology – Part III (David B.)
Well, we know what the silver-hater who wrote this piece thinks about the silver market. What we don’t know is what planet he is writing about, because it obviously has nothing to do with the planet Earth. The near-total depletion of inventories, and the imminent default-event which that portends, suggest nothing other than that the upward move in the price of silver has just begun.
MF Global – A Despicable State Of Affairs (adam)
What the press apparently has not yet heard or is not reporting is that vulture funds are now contacting the MF Global customers, however they may have obtained their names, and are offering them 85 cents on the dollar for their claims. Most of the claim holders are reported to expect or to have been payed 72 cents on the dollar as things now stand. The Wall Street Journal certainly casts gloom on their prospects for a full recovery and hopes of justice, based on the report from an unnamed source.
MF Global 4-1-9 (Chris M.)
I am Dr. Bakare Tunde Obama III, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Barrister Jon Corzine. He was the first African commodities broker in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo destinated to the good offices of JP Morgan & Co. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time.
He is in good humor, but wants to come home.
Entering The Debt Dimension (Ilene)
In Jesse's view, and we agree, the “yawning gap between productive labor and mere money manipulation” needs to be closed, and hard choices are required to resolve the unsustainable concentration of both power and risk.
Countrywide Protected Fraudsters By Silencing Whistleblowers, Say Former Employees (Chris M.)
By intercepting the documents before they were sliced by the shredder, the investigators were able to uncover what they believed was evidence that branch employees had used scissors, tape and Wite-Out to create fake bank statements, inflated property appraisals and other phony paperwork. Inside the heaps of paper, for example, they found mock-ups that indicated to investigators that workers had, as a matter of routine, literally cut and pasted the address for one home onto an appraisal for a completely different piece of property.
Energy
In 2011, Global Spending on Renewable Energy Rose 40 Percent (James S.)
Fukushima’s hammer-on effect not only blindsided Japan’s traditional reliance on nuclear power but Germany as well, which saw German Chancellor Angela Merkel announce on 30 May 2011 that Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy and Europe's biggest, would shutter all of its 17 nuclear power plants between 2015 and 2022. Indicating the depth of the German commitment to seek alternative sources of power, Germany's Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (German Development Bank) announced its intention to underwrite renewable energy and energy efficiency investments in Germany with $137.3 billion over the next five years,
As the battle heats up between a petroleum-natural gas behemoth seeking to quash its renewable upstart, the issue will devolve down to two issues – cash and access.
Has Petroleum Production Peaked, Ending the Era of Easy Oil? (estatesavr)
To support our modern lifestyles—from cars to plastics—the world has used more than one trillion barrels of oil to date. Another trillion lie underground, waiting to be tapped. But given the locations of the remaining oil, getting the next trillion is likely to cost a lot more than the previous trillion. The "supply of cheap oil has plateaued," argues chemist David King, director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and former chief scientific adviser to the U.K. government. "The global economy is severely knocked by oil prices of $100 per barrel or more, creating economic downturn and preventing economic recovery."
Environment
Shortage of Rare Metals Could Threaten High-Tech Innovation (Jeff B.)
"With respect to metals that are hitchhikers, a higher price isn't going to lead to much more production," said Robert Ayres, a physicist and economist based at the international business school INSEAD in France. "And therefore it's much more important to think in terms of conservation, recycling and substitution."
Is a Reduction in Population Numbers the only Sustainable Solution? (James S.)
Globalization sows the seeds of its own demise because factory workers are effectively forced to compete for wages with workers from around the world. Workers in the Global South can get along with lower wages for a number of reasons, including the fact that they tend to live in warmer areas, so do not need to build as sturdy homes and have less need to heat them. With fewer jobs and less investment in the Global North, demand falls and debt defaults become more of a problem.
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