Economy

Video: Max Keiser – GLOBAL BREAKDOWN: Gerald Celente’s latest trends – Video Link Here

Video: Schiff & King Discuss Gold & Silver: Panic Gold buying in Germany – Video Link Here

(L.A.City) – Controller Greuel Releases Audit Showing City Can’t Find 45% of Items Purchased with Taxpayer Funds – Read More Here

(Telegraph) – Hedge funds bet big on the falling euro

Hedge funds that made millions from the implosion of America’s subprime market are betting on a similarly dramatic collapse of the euro. Read More Here

(Infowars) – The 750 Billion Euro Bluff

The Germans recently approved their portion of the €750bn European bailout fund, and I think that’s all the money we will see. It’s highly unlikely that the EU has the capital to pull off the entire thing, unless the ECB starts printing money à la full-blown quantative easing. They are just trying to bluff the speculator vultures, so that they won’t start circling Portugal, Ireland and other weak EMU economies. But I think eventually the vultures will smell blood. Read More Here

(ABC) – Video: Clarke and Dawes ask the million dollar questions

John Clarke and Bryan Dawe calculate the cost of the European debt crisis. – Video Link Here

(BusinessInsider) – Will Trichet Let A Deflationary Depression Happen So He Can’t Be Accused Of Bailing Out Greece? – Read More Here

(Telegraph) – City fears of ‘Great Depression Mark II’

Leading City experts have started raising the prospect of “Great Depression II” amid worries that the European economic crisis could trigger a deeper bout of chaos. Read More Here

(EconomicPolicyJournal) – 32 States Have Borrowed from the Federal Government to Make Unemployment Payments; California Has Borrowed $7 Billion

EconomicPolicyJournal.com has learned that 32 states have run out funds to make unemployment benefit payments and that the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their payments to the unemployed. In some cases, states have borrowed billions. As of May 20, the total balance outstanding by 32 states (and the Virgin Islands) is $37.8 billion. Read More Here

(SFGate) – Courts quash cuts, add to state’s budget woes

Designated cuts to health and human services that were rejected by federal courts alone have resulted in $4.5 billion in lost savings over the past three years, according to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration. Read More Here

(TIME) – Florida Braces for Oil Spill, Impact on Tourism Industry

Like an environmental version of the hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf States in 2005, the epic spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig seems almost certain to foul every coastal corner it can. After paralyzing Louisiana’s commercial fishing industry, it is threatening Florida’s $60 billion tourism business. Read More Here

(WSJ) – AIG Executives Won’t Face Criminal Charges

The decision brings to a close a criminal investigation that, while mostly under wraps, was widely followed. The September 2008 bailout of AIG was one of the biggest and most shocking of the financial crisis, as trading by a noninsurance unit brought down one of the most iconic financial companies world-wide. Read More Here

FLASHBACK – (TIME) – Scandals The Looting of Greece

The plot was an audacious one. To create the pool of crooked money, PASOK leaders had for three years ordered state-managed corporations such as the Post Office, the Organization of Urban Transportation and the State Pharmaceutical Co. to transfer large bank deposits — the country’s money, in effect — out of the big national banks into the Bank of Crete, then the / smallest private bank in the country. There, Koskotas says, he arranged for the government deposits to draw an exceptionally low rate of interest, only 2% or 3%. Bank savings accounts in Greece routinely draw 15% interest. The excess interest earned on the government deposits was siphoned off and went straight to the politicians, he says. In addition, protected and encouraged by Papandreou, Koskotas secretly plowed Bank of Crete funds into his magazines and newspapers. Read More Here

(LewRockwell) – Sell in May and Run Away . . . Fast

Stock markets all over the world are falling. The first market to begin falling was China’s. It peaked in early August of 2009. It struggled back, though not to its August peak, but is now falling. The decline is accelerating. It is down by about 25% in 2010. Read More Here

(MoneyAndMarkets) – Massive Currency and Debt Devaluations Lie Ahead

The run-up in the stock market from March 2009 until last month was sharp and rewarding … for some. But there was one problem, it came with disproportional risk. You see, the stock market rose to an extent that it was pricing in perfection … a V-shaped recovery … a return to normal.

That overly optimistic view on the world can make for an ugly ending Read More Here

(WashingtonsBlog) – The Giant Banks, Federal Reserve and Treasury Have All Blackmailed America

As I wrote last October:

Congressmen Brad Sherman and Paul Kanjorski and Senator James Inhofe all say that the government warned of martial law if Tarp wasn’t passed. And Rahm Emanuel famously said:

Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.

Last year: Read More Here

(RTTNews) – Massive Demonstration In Romania Protesting Austerity Measures

The demonstration by some 20,000 people, who gathered in front of the government headquarters in capital Bucharest to protest planned government wage-cuts, was one of the largest mass protests that the Eastern European country witnessed since the fall of Communism in 1989. Read More Here

(Examiner) – CAFR: US agencies have billions, trillions in investments while crying budget deficits

Gerald Klatt and Walter Burien are unrecognized heroes. These individuals are national leaders who have communicated how government agencies conceal American taxpayers’ money in surplus accounts that collectively total trillions of our dollars. The data is found in government agencies’ Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs). Read More Here

(SofiaEcho) – Greece prepares for massive new strike

Massive general strikes by the Greek public sector will all but paralyse much of the country as Greek trade unions launch another 24-hour general protest against planned additional austerity measures. Read More Here

(GardenHarvest) – Severe Poverty Growing Rapidly

The percentage of Americans living in severe poverty – with incomes less than half of the federal poverty line – has reached a 32-year peak. A recent analysis of 2005 census data by McClatchy Newspapers found nearly 16 million Americans living in deep or severe poverty, defined as a family of four with income of $9,903 a year or less and an individual living on less than $5,080 a year. Read More Here