Eighteen years ago this evening the the Berlin Wall was cut open by the East German authorities.
The world began anew. History failed to end.
The following — best read aloud! — was generated by passing a five-word window across a passage from Bush’s loathesome chat with the Spanish prime minister in February 2003, weeks before launching the war in Iraq. (I actually deleted one word for euphony — you’ll probably notice.)
I don’t want the war
don’t want the war I
want the war I know
the war I know what
war I know what wars
I know what wars are
know what wars are like
I know the destruction and
know the destruction and death
the destruction and death that
destruction and death that comes
and death that comes with
death that comes with them
I am the one who
am the one who has
the one who has to
one who has to comfort
who has to comfort the
has to comfort the mothers
to comfort the mothers and
comfort the mothers and widows
the mothers and widows of
mothers and widows of the
widows of the dead
Of course for us that
course for us that would
for us that would be
us that would be the
that would be the best
would be the best solution
Besides it would save us
it would save us fifty
would save us fifty billion
Israel and the United States have agreed to appoint two working committees in order to hone a joint strategy against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, public radio reported on Friday.
Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz headed discussions on the matter in the United States this week, it said.
One committee will deal with intelligence on Iran’s nuclear drive and the other with international sanctions, the chief weapon in an effort to convince Tehran to halt uranium enrichment.
The next formal discussions between Israeli and US officials on Iran will be in two months in Israel, the radio station reported.
On Thursday, Mofaz called for Mohamed ElBaradei to be removed as head of UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying he had turned a blind eye to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Public radio quoted unnamed Israeli officials as saying the Mofaz delegation to Washington fed precise intelligence to the United States, alluding to satellite photographs.
Israel and the United States are leading the campaign against Iran’s nuclear programme, believing it to be a cover to develop an atomic bomb.
Tehran insists its activities are aimed solely at producing electricity for a growing population once fossil fuels run out.
Israel considers Iran its chief enemy after repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.
It belongs to the UN nuclear watchdog but is not a signatory to its key Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is widely considered to have the Middle East’s sole – if undeclared – nuclear arsenal.
The celestial one is … can’t quite recall.
Here’s a nice radio show she did this past February in Minnesota while on tour.
She was here in New York in midsummer. A tremendously soulful show.
And check out this video 
for “Falling Up” from the new album.
Then check out her website — full of great stuff.
See a brief review of the new album here.
Then buy the album! The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard.
Her music has helped keep me alive these decades in the wilderness.
Looks like something nasty and long in preparation may be ready to blossom.
China today (overnight in the USA):
“Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, was quoted by wire services as saying China should shift more of its $1.43 trillion of currency reserves into “stronger currencies,” such as the euro, to offset “weak” currencies like the dollar.”
The dollar has tanked overnight — another big step and all time high for the Euro, and nearing the long-standing line in the sand on the yen (110 yen per dollar).
In the past Japan has always defended that 110 line (by buying dollars), to keep its manufacturers healthy (ie to allow them to sell cars and electronics to the US market at attractive prices). Whether they will step in front of this roaring Chinese bus is now a big question.
Here’s a chart of the Dollar Index (measuring it against a small basket of the other major currencies) going back to about the time Bush-Cheney took office.
Gold is up another $19 on top of the $12 it soared yesterday. $842 or so. $875 is the all time record from 1980 (although that’s not an inflation-adjusted figure — taking inflation into account means we are still a ways below the all time high).
Oil up to a new record, $98 and change. People were anticipating a pull back at the momentous $100 figure but if China indeed starts selling dollars in bulk the price of oil (in dollars), in the world Bush-Cheney have set on fire, will veer parabolic.
The U.S. stock market futures are down large. Murdoch (formerly Dow Jones) Industrials down, eg, 180 points (at 8 in the morning).
Recall what shape we were in when Bush-Cheney took office. Oil in the high teens (today near $100). The federal budget in the black or nearly so. The dollar worth about 50% more against the Euro than it is today. The wages of sin in international affairs is economic calamity.
This Doom & Gloom update brought to you by newcombat.net, where the glass is always empty — waiter?!
It’s earnings season and financial companies are reporting their losses and markdowns re structured finance bonds tainted one way or another by the collapse of housing prices and increased mortgage defaults.
Many companies gave estimates of these back in September, when people thought things were stabilizing after an ugly July and panicked August.
Those September estimates are proving to have been much too small. Eg today, a mortgage company:
“IndyMac Bancorp reported a third-quarter loss of $2.77 per share vs. a 50-cent loss expectation that basically was management’s stated best guess from early September.”
Boy, that’s badly written — but means that in September the company said they thought they would lose 50 cents, but in the weeks since things have gone so badly so quickly that the loss increased by a factor of five. In four or six weeks.
The same is showing up in the reports and conference calls of the major banks and brokers. Merrill Lynch wrote down about 11 billion — the first big broker to fess up — and the board promptly fired the boss (who happens to be black).
Then this past weekend Citibank announced writedowns of about the same amount, while firing the chairman and CEO there — Chuck Prince — a funny guy. Just weeks before the summer swoon he amused folks by comparing high finance to musical chairs.
This is what happens when the music stops:
Then in September, when asked what he intended to do about Citi’s problems, Prince replied, “I wanna kick ass!”
So the list of top execs who have been embarassed and released to a life of luxurious retirement grows. The first was our old college friend Warren Spector, the erstwhile president and heir apparent at Bear Stearns.
Meanwhile Goldman Sachs reported stellar earnings, shocking everybody — but something like a third of those “earnings” were related to “Level III” assets that have no market and are reported based on nothing but the opinion of management as to what they are worth.
So this week Goldman has been sinking on rumors that they too soon will be announcing horrendous writedowns.
Another way to look at it — from the good folks at Minyanville.com: equity vs level III assets:
QUOTE
If we look at the major institutions and divide their Level III assets by their equity capital base, we arrive at the following calculations:
END QUOTE
These numbers are astounding — and poor Merrill, taken to the woodshed for fessing up — is actually in much better shape than its peers.
Do you see? Goldman says it has, when all assets and liabilities are accounted for, $39 billion in equity capital underlying its operations and obligations.
But that bottom-line number INCLUDES a management-marked $72 billion in Level III assets (structured finance bonds, for the most part) that cannot be evaluated because no market exists for selling them.
And the big Merrill and Citi markdowns this past week were acknowledgments that management’s prior peg for these illliquid assets was pie in the sky given the mortgage bond failures and attendant problems re ratings methodology (which latter problems affect the entire universe of structured finance instruments, which is measured by trillions).
Here’s a rather comprehensive scan of the Level III business by the great folk at Naked Capitalism.
Another recent sign of disaster is the impending collapse of the bond insurers, which were cruising along until October, when they got cut off at the knees.
Ambac. Ugh …
.
The PMI Group. Ouch …
.
MBIA. Argh …
Why should you care?
Many AAA (top) rated bonds ARE rated so highly because they have “credit enhancement” — which often means they are insured for principal and sometimes interest by these bond insurer companies.
But — you probly see this coming.
But because there have been suddenly so many mortgage bond and related failures, the bond insurers are suddenly having their capital stressed. Jersey Jim Cramer at TheStreet.com this past weekend declared himself certain they will simply fold — that they don’t have the money to meet their obligations by a long shot.
And if the bond insurers fold or merely begin to default — all those AAA bonds that they insure are going to tumble and get downgraded and perhaps default. The widening gyre, you see. The center cannot hold. Sumpin’ wicked dis way comes.
Meanwhile Turkey’s invading Iraq and Pakistan seems about to blow itself up.
And the U.S. is secretly stockpiling oil, in preparation it would seem for the enlarged mideast war that would crack open should Israel or the U.S. or both attack Iran. A business story last week reported that the USG is accepting payment in kind from the oil distributors — ie, accepting barrels of crude rather than cash for taxes and fees. (This story came and went in a day with no followup — ie was blacked out. Good luck finding it now. I didn’t save a copy, unfortunately. Will try to find one somewhere.)
And today oil set an all time record ($97 and change) and gold closed at $825, just $3 under the all time closing price set in 1980.
And yesterday the triumphant Euro set a new high against the American peso.
Call me Chicken Little but the sky is falling down.
Maybe we don’t really need sky though … Going to be living in caves:
You can drag these right off the page here and stick’m wherever you want.
The first three I took from a block called Genius of Insanity:
http://geniusofinsanityworld.blogspot.com/
This one somebody just paid over $33 million for at a Christies auction in New York. Yours free at TNC:
This is the angel sculpted by Thomas Wolfe’s father, to mark a grave, and then brooded upon by the protagonist in Wolfe’s autobiographical first novel, Look Homeward, Angel.
All that took place in Asheville, North Carolina, Wolfe’s hometown.
Today however the statue sits in the first town south along the interstate, Hendersonville, in a historic graveyard atop a knoll.
A little road runs up the knoll, terminating in a little loop at one of the graveyard’s entrances. The road seems to have been part of the cemetery once, — an elegant driveway — but at some point was privatized and populated with small houses.
I bought one such house this past spring. (At the very height of the housing boom, it seems.) It sits on the loop, about forty yards from the graveyard.
Homeward would seem to be heavenward.
As you were.
