Search for ET Put on Hold

The Allen Telescope Array, a major instrument designed to speed up our hunt for intelligent beings elsewhere in the galaxy, has been turned off.

On April 15, this phalanx of small antennas, built to eavesdrop on signals that might reach us from civilizations hundreds of trillions of miles distant, was put into park, and its multimillion channel receivers powered down. It's as if Columbus's armada of ships, having barely cleared Cadiz, were suddenly ordered back to Spain.

The reason for the shutdown is both prosaic and lamentable. Money. The Array was built as a joint project between the SETI Institute (my employer) and the University of California at Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Laboratory. The former raised the funds to construct the instrument, and UC Berkeley was responsible for operations. But the grievous financial situation of the State of California and reduced funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) have sharply curtailed the university's research budget, and private donations haven't yet been adequate to keep the Array in operation.

In tough economic times, a lot of folks who hear this story will dismiss its importance. After all, with problems like expensive health care, a weakened education system, and pervasive joblessness, it's unlikely that people are going to march in the streets to get the hunt for ET back on track. They're more likely to shake their heads, and profess that this sort of exploration is superfluous. ...

via Seth Shostak: Search for ET Put on Hold.

Federal and state funding cutbacks for operations of U.C. Berkeley’s Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO) force hibernation of Allen Telescope Array – In an April 22, 2011 email (PDF) to Allen Telescope Array stakeholder level donors, SETI Institute CEO Tom Pierson described in detail the recent decision by U.C. Berkeley, our partner in the Array, to reduce operations of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory (and thus the Allen Telescope Array) to a hibernation state effective this month. NSF University Radio Observatory funding to Berkeley for HCRO operations has been reduced to approximately one-tenth of its former level and, concurrently, growing State of California budget shortfalls have severely reduced the amount of state funds available for support of the HCRO site. ...

Public help is needed – Donate now – Help return the ATA to operations and support the exciting SETI exploration of the Kepler planets over the next two years.

via seti.org

Amazon seller lists book at $23,698,655.93 -- plus shipping

Lots of normal people would pay $23 for a book. But $23.7 million plus $3.99 shipping for a scientific book about flies!? This unthinkable sticker price for "The Making of a Fly" on Amazon.com was spotted on April 18 by Michael Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and blogger. The market-blind book listing was not the result of uncontrollable demand for Peter Lawrence's "classic work in developmental biology," Eisen writes. Instead, it appears it was sparked by a robot price war. "What's fascinating about all this is both the seemingly endless possibilities for both chaos and mischief," writes Eisen, who works at the University of California at Berkeley and blogs at a site called "it is NOT junk." "It seems impossible that we stumbled onto the only example of this kind of upward pricing spiral. "Eisen watched the robot price war from April 8 to 18 and calculated that two booksellers were automatically adjusting their prices against each other. One equation kept setting the price of the first book at 1.27059 times the price of the second book, according to Eisen's analysis, which is posted in detail on his blog. The other equation automatically set its price at 0.9983 times the price of the other book. So the prices of the two books escalated in tandem into the millions, with the second book always selling for slightly less than the first. Not that that matters much when you're selling a book about flies for millions of dollars. The incident highlights a little-known fact about e-commerce sites such as Amazon: Often, people don't create and update prices; computer algorithms do. Individual booksellers on Amazon and other sites pay third-party companies for algorithm services that automatically update prices. Some of these computer programs purportedly work very well, getting sellers up to 60% more sales because they underbid the competition automatically and repeatedly.

via Amazon seller lists book at $23,698,655.93 -- plus shipping - CNN.

Why gold could hit $5,000

With turmoil overseas and energy prices on the rise, investors are worried. They're worried about geopolitical risk. They're worried about a falling dollar. And they're worried about inflation becoming entrenched as the Federal Reserve continues to administer its cheap-money medicine despite signs of inflation.

As a result, gold is on the move again. For much of last year, gold moved higher over worries about Europe's debt crisis and a "double dip" recession in the United States. Prices fell into a funk in the fall, though.

Now, a new set of concerns has gripped the hearts and minds of investors. Fear has returned.

And the yellow metal again set new highs this week, closing on April 21 at $1,503.80 an ounce.

So how high can it go?

Believe it or not, some analysts are calling for prices to move close to $5,000 -- not immediately, but sooner than you may think. ...

This is because, according to the folks at Standard Chartered Bank, gold is moving into a new "super-cycle" as a number of structural factors -- including consumer demand from Asia and tepid growth in supply -- combine to push prices higher. The team, led by Dan Smith, is looking for prices of $2,107 an ounce in 2014 as its base forecast.

The team's members see the potential for much more. In their words, "statistical modeling suggests a possible 'super-bull' scenario of gold prices rallying up to $4,869 in nominal terms by 2020." ...

via Why gold could hit $5,000 - 1 - precious metals - MSN Money.

I'm interested in people who are using actual gold coins as payment for personal transactions. How do you verify that the coin is genuine? If it was verified, would you trade a $2,000 used car today for a 1 oz gold coin if you didn't need the money right away?

Democratic senator wants Internet sales taxes

A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping.

The proposal--expected to be made public soon after Tax Day--would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second most senior Senate Democrat, will introduce the bill after the Easter recess, a Democratic aide told CNET.

"Why should out-of-state companies that sell their products online have an unfair advantage over Main Street bricks-and-mortar businesses?" Durbin said in a speech in Collinsville, Ill., in February. "Out-of-state companies that aren't paying their fair share of taxes are sticking Illinois residents and businesses with the tab."

At the moment, Americans who shop over the Internet from out-of-state vendors aren't always required to pay sales taxes at the time of purchase. Californians buying books from Amazon.com or cameras from Manhattan's B&H Photo, for example, won't pay the sales taxes at checkout time that they would if shopping at a local mall--which is what Durbin means by giving online retailers an "unfair advantage."

On the other hand, there are some 7,500 different taxing jurisdictions in the United States, each with a set of very precise rules describing what can and can't be taxed and at what rate. That makes it challenging terrain for retailers to navigate.  ...

via Democratic senator wants Internet sales taxes | Privacy Inc. - CNET News.

Oh hell no. Let this be the last straw.  Politicians have taken our money and they have squandered it. Year after year they have wasted billions in useless brutal overseas oil and opium wars. They've bailed out big banks on the backs of the broke, just to create another bubble. Enough! No more taxes! Get your light saber and rise up, goddamnit!

Men who lose their jobs at greater risk of dying prematurely

Research by McGill Sociology Professor Eran Shor, working in collaboration with researchers from Stony Brook University, has revealed that unemployment increases the risk of premature mortality by 63 per cent. Shor reached these conclusions by surveying existing research covering 20 million people in 15 (mainly western) countries, over the last 40 years.

One surprising finding was that, in spite of expectations that a better health-care system might contribute to lower mortality rates, the correlation between unemployment and a higher risk of death was the same in all the countries covered by the study.

The truly groundbreaking aspect of the research is that it suggests that there is a causal relationship between unemployment and a higher risk of death.

"Until now, one of the big questions in the literature has been about whether pre-existing health conditions, such as diabetes or heart problems, or behaviours such as smoking, drinking or drug use, lead to both unemployment and a greater risk of death," Shor said. "What's interesting about our work is that we found that preexisting health conditions had no effect, suggesting that the unemployment-mortality relationship is quite likely a causal one. This probably has to do with unemployment causing stress and negatively affecting one's socioeconomic status, which in turn leads to poorer health and higher mortality rates."

The research also showed that unemployment increases men's mortality risk more than it does women's mortality risk (78 per cent vs. 37 per cent respectively).The research also showed that there is a much higher correlation between unemployment and mortality for men than for women (78 per cent vs. 37 per cent). The risk of death is particularly high for those who are under the age of 50.

"We suspect that even today, not having a job is more stressful for men than for women." Shor said. "When a man loses his job, it still often means that the family will become poorer and suffer in various ways, which in turn can have a huge impact on a man's health by leading to both increased smoking, drinking or eating and by reducing the availability of healthy nutrition and health care services." ...

via Men who lose their jobs at greater risk of dying prematurely.

Real estate: It's time to buy again

... Of course, home prices are low and home construction is weak for a reason: incredibly low demand. For our scenario to play out, America will need a decent economy, with job creation and consumer confidence continuing to claw their way back to normal.

One big fear is that today's tight credit standards will chill the market. But we're really returning to the standards that prevailed before the craze, and those requirements didn't stop prices and homebuilding from rising in a good economy. "The credit standards are now at about historical levels, excluding the bubble period," says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics. "We saw prices rising with fundamentals in those periods, and it will happen again."

To see why, let's examine the remarkable shift in home affordability. A new study by Deutsche Bank measures affordability in two ways: first, the share of income Americans are paying to own a home. And second, the cost of owning vs. renting. On the first metric, the analysis finds that homeowners now pay just 9.8% of their income in after-tax mortgage, tax, and insurance payments. That's down from 17.2% at the bubble's peak in 2007, and by far the lowest number in the Deutsche Bank database, going back to 1999. The second measure, the cost of owning compared with renting, should also inspire potential buyers. In 28 out of 54 major markets, it's now cheaper to pay a mortgage and other major costs than to rent the same house. What's most compelling is that in all of the distressed markets, owning now wins by a wide margin -- a stunning reversal from four years ago. It now costs 34% less than renting in Atlanta. In Miami the average rent is now $1,031 a month, vs. the $856 it costs to carry a ranch house or stucco cottage as an owner. ...

via Real estate: It's time to buy again - Fortune Finance.

Are the wealthiest countries the smartest countries?

Tiffany Harrington - It's not just how free the market is. Some economists are looking at another factor that determines how much a country's economy flourishes: how smart its people are. For a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, researchers analyzed test scores from 90 countries and found that the intelligence of the people, particularly the smartest 5 percent, made a big contribution to the strength of their economies.

In the last 50 years or so, economists have started taking an interest in the value of human capital. That means all of the qualities of the people who make up the workforce. Heiner Rindermann, of the Chemnitz University of Technology, wanted to look more closely at human capital, and particularly the factor that psychologists call cognitive ability. "In other words, it's the ability of a person to solve a problem in the most efficient way—not with violence, but by thinking," Rindermann says. He wrote the new study with James Thompson of University College London.

The researchers collected information on 90 countries, including far-off lands from the U.S. to New Zealand and Colombia to Kazakhstan. They also collected data on the country's excellence in science and technology—the number of patents granted per person and how many Nobel Prizes the country's people had won in science, for example.

They found that intelligence made a difference in gross domestic product. For each one-point increase in a country's average IQ, the per capita GDP was $229 higher. It made an even bigger difference if the smartest 5 percent of the population got smarter; for every additional IQ point in that group, a country's per capita GDP was $468 higher.

"Within a society, the level of the most intelligent people is important for economic productivity," Rindermann says. He thinks that's because "they are relevant for technological progress, for innovation, for leading a nation, for leading organizations, as entrepreneurs, and so on." Since Adam Smith, many economists have assumed that the main thing you need for a strong economy is a government that stays out of the way. "I think in the modern economy, human capital and cognitive ability are more important than economic freedom," Rindermann says.

via Are the wealthiest countries the smartest countries?.

'Field of money': Police find thousands of dollars lying on Ohio highway

The police officers couldn't believe their eyes - thousands and thousands of dollars blowing in the breeze in the middle of a busy highway.

There was so much cash, one deputy told Ohio police Chief Russ Martin that it looked like 'the field was growing money'.

Now the authorities are trying to figure out how the bills - over $10,000 - were left north of Columbus on the median of U.S. Route 23 on Monday.

Officers spent hours collecting them after a surprised motorist had raised the alarm when he saw the money floating past his window.

Martin, of Delaware police, won't reveal the exact total, but he said: 'We'd like to leave that a secret now, but I can tell you it was five figures.'

Police have checked with the FBI, an armoured car company and bank couriers, but no one has reported any missing money.

Police did not release any more details about where the money was found because they are hoping the owner will provide vital details to prove it is his fortune.

Martin is fairly confident officers have recovered all the money, so he says drivers shouldn't stop in the hope of finding anymore cash floating about.

via 'Field of money': Police find thousands of dollars lying on Ohio highway | Mail Online.

Sacramento makes Forbes most miserable cities in the U.S. list

Five California cities have made Forbes Magazine's top ten list of most miserable cities: Vallejo, Sacramento, Modesto, Merced and Stockton.

via Most miserable city in the U.S.? Stockton resident begs to differ : KALW.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the governor of California at the end of 2003 amid a wave of optimism that his independent thinking and fresh ideas would revive a state stumbling after the recall of Gov. Gray Davis.

The good vibes are a distant memory: The Governator exited office last month with the state facing a crippling checklist of problems including massive budget deficits, high unemployment, plunging home prices, rampant crime and sky-high taxes. Schwarzenegger's approval ratings hit 22% last year, a record low for any sitting California governor.

California's troubles helped it land eight of the 20 spots on our annual list of America's Most Miserable Cities, with Stockton ranking first for the second time in three years.  ...

We ranked each area on 10 factors, including unemployment over three years, tax rates (both sales and income), commute times, violent crime and how its pro sports teams have fared over the past three years. We added two housing metrics this year: the change in median home prices over three years, and foreclosure rates in 2010, as compiled by RealtyTrac. We also considered corruption based on convictions of public officials in each region, as tracked by the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Lastly, we factored in an index put together by Portland, Ore., researcher Bert Sperling that rates weather in each metro on factors relating to temperature, precipitation and humidity. ...

No. 5 Sacramento, Calif.

No state taxes $50,000 of income like California, with a rate of 9.55% on incomes above that level for singles. Sacramento is a one-team sports town, and that team has been awful in recent years. The NBA's Kings have won just 26% of their games the past two-plus seasons.

via Forbes

Don't care about the Kings winning or not, but no jobs, high taxes, violent crime and bad weather ... well, it is still a beautiful city, with live music, art and plenty of happy people.

 

California superstorm would be costliest ever US disaster

Merrill Balassone - A hurricane-like superstorm expected to hit California once every 200 years would cause devastation to the state's businesses unheard of even in the Great Recession, a USC economist warns.

Researchers estimate the total property damage and business interruption costs of the massive rainstorm would be nearly $1 trillion.

USC research professor Adam Rose calculated that the lost production of goods and services alone would be $627 billion of the total over five years. Rose, a professor with the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, also is the coordinator for economics at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at USC.

That number would make the severe storm scenario "the costliest disaster in the history of the United States̶, Rose said, more than six times greater than the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and Hurricane Katrina, which each caused $100 billion in business interruption.

The storm simulation U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists termed "ARkStorm - or "atmospheric river storm" - is patterned after the U.S. West Coast storms that devastated California in 1861-62.

The storms lasted for 45 days, forming lakes in the Mojave Desert and the Los Angeles Basin. California was left bankrupt after the storms wiped out nearly a third of the state's taxable land, according to the USGS.

But those storms were no freak event, said USGS scientists, who called the ARkStorm model "plausible, perhaps inevitable."

The ARkStorm areas include Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay area. The megastorm likely would require the evacuation of 1.5 million people.

According to the USGS, the ARkStorm would:

• create hurricane-force winds of up to 125 miles per hour in some areas and flood thousands of square miles of urban and agricultural land to depths of 10 to 20 feet.


• set off hundreds of landslides that would damage roads, highways and homes.


• disrupt lifelines such as power, water and sewers that would take weeks or months to repair.

Rose estimated the ARkStorm would cause the state's unemployment rate to jump six percentage points in the first year, a further blow to the California economy that currently has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation at 12.4 percent.

Rose called the severe storm scenario "much more imaginable" after Los Angeles was hit with 9.42 inches of rain in December. It was the wettest December in downtown Los Angeles in more than a century.

Climate scientists said global warming is a major factor behind the increasingly destructive power of hurricanes and other storms.

The sea level is rising as oceans warm and glaciers melt, which can create higher storm surges and more disastrous flooding in coastal areas.

"Climate change affects how the whole ecosystem works," said Mark Bernstein, managing director of The USC Energy Institute.

"Storms form based on how warm the oceans are and how the jet stream changes," Bernstein said. "The consequence is [the rain] will come in shorter and more intense bursts."

Businesses and local governments can minimize the long-term impacts of such a disaster, Rose said, by creating emergency plans, increasing inventories of critical materials, backing up information systems, and diversifying supply chains and routes.

via USC California superstorm would be costliest US disaster.

A group of more than 100 scientists and experts say in a new report that California faces the risk of a massive "superstorm" that could flood a quarter of the state's homes and cause $300 billion to $400 billion in damage. Researchers point out that the potential scale of destruction in this storm scenario is four or five times the amount of damage that could be wrought by a major earthquake.

It sounds like the plot of an apocalyptic action movie, but scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey warned federal and state emergency officials that California's geological history shows such "superstorms" have happened in the past, and should be added to the long list of natural disasters to worry about in the Golden State.

via Yahoo

World's most expensive painting goes on show in UK

The world's most expensive painting ever sold at auction is going on show in the UK for the first time on Monday.

The work, called Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, was painted in 1932 by Pablo Picasso and is based on his muse, Marie-Therese Walter.

The painting, which was sold in New York last year for $106.5m (£65.5m), will go on display at the Tate Modern in London.

Tate director Nicholas Serota: "This is an outstanding painting by Picasso."

"I am delighted that through the generosity of the lender we are able to bring it to the British public for the first time."

Mr Serota said: "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is one of the sequence of paintings of Picasso's muse, Marie-Therese Walter, made by the artist at Boisgeloup, Normandy, in the early months of 1932. ...

via BBC News - World's most expensive painting goes on show in UK.

How to Best Spend $4,838,592

I decided to get into ...uh... business. I've got over 100 people working for me doing jobs in the Brox, Queens and Staten Island. We have plans to move into Brooklyn, but all in due time.

A long time ago, there was some shoplifting and then ... street mugging, breaking and entering, grand theft auto, and even a liquor store robbery. Perhaps more than one. It seems years ago. We started a protection racket and then did a museum heist followed by an electronic store robbery. You can't pin any of this on me. I was miles away from the action, just pushing buttons on an iPhone. I nod to cops with a clear conscience. No trouble sleeping.

In Queens, we got there from the Brox, the business moved into liquor smuggling, and then prison breaks. I recall a jewelry store robbery and then we infiltrated a mob base. I figure by that time I had 50 people and I heard that the only way to grow was to knock off a mob member. Well, I'm not saying who pulled the trigger, but I do know an HK PSG1 sniper rifle, and armored suit and a BMW 335 were used for that "mission".

This was followed by bank robbery and hiding illegal goods. Were things getting out of hand? Our ranks kept growing. Was it 75 when we took out the snitch? That is the last thing I recall as I focused on Staten Island. My missions were different, bigger: steal weapons from the mob, sell arms underground, extort local businesses. That burning of the police station may have been an accident, but I'll cop to planting evidence on the mob. Did we bribe police before we manufactured fake money? The payout from bombing the mob's shipment was up to $560,000.

Of course, there was upkeep ($128,900 every hour to run this show) not to mention losing over $1 mil in attacks by other mobs. Do you realize that the upkeep on a flamethrower is $2000, and a chain gun is worse, $3,000 for every 50 minutes of operation. Oh and my two Lamborghini's (which cost $1 mil each), are costing me $10,000 every 50 minutes of operation. How could that be? And how could I be paying $40,000 every 50 minutes to operate an armored limousine? Forget about it.

What I do now is buy real estate. I have 86 street vendors, 55 shacks (don't ask), 43 convenience stores, 16 restaurants, 9 night clubs, 6 luxury condos, and 2 shopping malls. Should I spent $10 mil on a resort hotel? Wait until I have $20 mil for an office tower? $40 mill for a casino? Or even save up $55 mil for an Amusement Park?

I need advice. Do I spend $4,838,592 or put it in the bank? If I do spend it, what should I purchase to get the best return on investment? Here are a few sites that help you figure out your maximum ROI (that's return on investment.):

Real Estate Calculator. Advice: Buy a night club. It will give you $10,000 additional income.


Another Calculator Advice: Buy a night club for $950,000. With my current real estate, I'm missing out on $19,950 income.

I should have been consulting these people all along.

UPDATE: The ROI changes constantly. I purchased the night club and now the advice is to get a shopping mall for $4.8 mil next. Well, I only have $4.2 mil in the bank and not much energy right now. The godfather would do me a favor, but I've had some god advice not to accept any favors from the godfather ... until the end.

The better off sleep better

The employed and self-employed enjoy much better sleep than those out of work, according to Understanding Society, the world’s largest longitudinal household study. Those who are unemployed are over 40 per cent more likely to report difficulty staying asleep than those in employment (having controlled for age and gender differences). However, job satisfaction affects the quality of sleep with 33 per cent of the most dissatisfied employees report poor sleep quality compared to only 18 per cent of the most satisfied.

Analysis of the early data from Understanding Society based on 14,000 UK households found that overall the best sleep was reported by people with higher levels of education and by married people. The type of work a person does also impacts on sleep, with those in routine occupations reporting worse sleep than those in professional occupations.

Professor Sara Arber at the University of Surrey who analysed the findings said: "Given the links between sleep, social and economic circumstances and poor health found in this and other surveys, health promotion campaigns should be open to the possibility that the increased incidence of sleep problems among the disadvantaged in society may be one factor leading to their poorer health."

via ESRC | The Economic and Social Research Council | The better off sleep better.

 

Married people sleep better?

Mexican tycoon opens his art

THE world's richest man, telecom tycoon Carlos Slim, is opening a museum in Mexico City where he plans to share his vast collection of fine art and collectables with the public without charging visitors an admission fee.

The billionaire, whose fortune was estimated at $US53.5 billion by Forbes magazine last year, topping Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett, has named the Soumaya Museum after his late wife.

It will open on March 29 and display a rotating selection of Mr Slim's 66,000 artworks, including pieces by Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo, as well as European masters.

Mr Slim is said to especially admire Auguste Rodin, and his collection of the French sculptor's work is one of the largest outside France.

Designed by Mr Slim's architect son-in-law, Fernando Romero, the six-storey, anvil-shaped building cuts a dramatic arc through the skyline of the capital's upmarket Polanco district. About 16,000 aluminium panels make up the museum's bending exterior, reflecting sunlight on to broad stairs leading to the entrance.

Inside, the Soumaya features 117,000 square metres of exhibition space in six halls.

One hall will house Mr Slim's collection of coins, bills, gold and silver, displayed for the first time. ...

Mr Slim, 71, is the son of a Lebanese-born merchant whose retail, telecom, manufacturing and construction companies dominate Mexico's commercial landscape.

via Mexican tycoon opens his art.

Pentagon reveal financial terrorists may have triggered economic crash

Terrorists and other 'financial enemies' were likely responsible for the near collapse of the U.S. financial system in 2008, a new Pentagon report has concluded.

The 2009 report, Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses, said financial terrorism by Jihadists or countries such as China may have cost the global economy $50 trillion in a series of co-ordinated strikes against the U.S. economy.

In an astonishing conclusion, the report claims two unidentified traders deliberately devalued trillions of dollars' worth of stocks at the height of the crisis.

The report also concludes that untraceable actors undertook a three-tiered attack beginning in 2007, and that 'Phase III [of the attack] may be under way right now.'

'In addition, these same actors have clearly demonstrated the means to carry out such an attack.

'There is sufficient justification to question whether outside forces triggered, capitalised upon or magnified the economic difficulties of 2008.'

The report concluded that: 'Without question, there were actors who had the motive to harm the U.S. economy.

The report was commissioned in early 2009 by the Pentagon's Irregular Warfare Support Program - which prepares U.S. government and military agencies for emerging non-traditional threats.

Its author, economic analyst Kevin Freeman, published it in June 2009 before passing it on to investigators at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in November 2010.

Although never classified, sources indicated that the report emerged only after concerned Congressmen and Defence Department officials highlighted its existence to media sources.

Speaking to MailOnline, a source close to the report added: 'It is my understanding that people in the DoD and government officials thought this should be brought to public attention.'

Speaking to the Washington Post, Mr Freeman said that American security forces needed to address vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.

He said: 'We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems each year.

'But a relatively small amount of money focused against our financial markets through leveraged derivatives or cyber efforts can result in trillions of dollars in losses.

'This is the equivalent of box cutters on an air plane.'

When asked who he thought may be responsible for the attacks, Mr. Freeman added: 'Unfortunately, the two major strategic threats, radical jihadists and the Chinese, are among the best positioned in the economic battle space.' ...

via Pentagon reveal financial terrorists may have triggered economic crash | Mail Online.

I thought the housing crash caused it.

 

Ten Things Americans Waste the Most Money On - 24/7 Wall St.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed how Americans spend money. One of the conclusions of this analysis is that consumer spending is relatively alive and well, despite the recession. This may mean that Americans continue to be over-leveraged. US citizens have, in general, brought down their indebtedness. However, holiday spending rose substantially from last year, and the extent to which Americans feel poor has declined now that the recession has ended. Americans spend about 15% of their household incomes on things that they do not need to satisfy their vices or to keep themselves amused. ...

Paraphrased:

[% of Total Annual Expenses:]

1. Apparel Products and Services: 0.5%


2. Tobacco: 0.8%


3. Entertainment Equipment,  Nonessential Services: 0.8%


4. Alcohol:0.9%


5. Fees and Admissions: 1.3%


6. Lodging, Vacation Homes and Hotels: 1.4%


7. Pets, Toys, Hobbies, and Playground Equipment: 1.4%


8. Television, Radio, and Sound Equipment: 2%


9. Gifts: 2.2%


10. Food Away From Home: 5.3%

via Ten Things Americans Waste the Most Money On - 24/7 Wall St..

Aren't you glad to know the recession has ended? I recently found a good free app for my iPhone (CalcNoteLE) to do a quick budget. This made me realize I need to shuffle some things around, pay off my one remaining debt (my car loan) asap, and that my biggest expense after rent is eating out. I'm still working out how to spend the least on the healthiest and most tasty foods. I'm definitely ahead of the game since I don't have pets, don't smoke and don't drink.

There are times when some debt can't be helped, such as when you are in school or if  you lose your job, but the trick is, for most of your life, to spend less than you make, save and invest wisely. The items above are only "wasting" money, in my view, when the people spending money on them can't afford them.  If you work hard and live within your means, you should be able to spend on things that make you happy. Life is short. Enjoy it.

So do the economy a favor: pay an admission fee to get yourself non-essentially serviced, then buy some new clothes and eat away from home while giving a gift of a TV to your pet who is staying in a hotel smoking and drinking.

CHART SHOCK: The REAL Unemployment Rate Is 22%

It remains above 22% with the February update. Details from John William's Shadow Gov't. Stats.

* Shadow Stats

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment. ...

via CHART SHOCK: The REAL Unemployment Rate Is 22% - Home - The Daily Bail.

Get rid of the blood sucking leeches and there will be money to hire people again and the economy will recover. Look at where the money is going (2009):

Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion
MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion
NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion

White House pushes Congress to avert shutdown

The White House on Friday warned that a looming US government shutdown "would be bad for the economy" as it urged feuding lawmakers to reach a budget compromise by a March 4 deadline.

"All of us agree that a government shutdown would be bad for the economy," said spokesman Jay Carney, who told reporters "we believe that a compromise can be reached" in hard-fought congressional negotiations.

His comments came as US President Barack Obama's Republican foes, who control the House of Representatives, unveiled a two-week stopgap spending measure that would cut $4 billion dollars by reducing or scrapping programs.

Senate Democrats were reportedly working on their own version, a seven-month extension that would accelerate some $33 billion in spending cuts and program terminations included in Obama's proposed budget for next year. ...

via Activist Post: White House pushes Congress to avert shutdown.

Market Crash 2011: It will hit by Christmas Paul B. Farrell

Paul B. Farrell - Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff, get rich.

We want to believe they’re telling us the truth. Silly, huh? Both trapped in this eternal “dance of death” controlled by programs hidden deep in our brains, telling us what to do, telling us to ignore facts to the contrary — till it’s too late, till a new crisis crushes all of us.

Psychology offers us a powerful lesson: Our collective brain is destined to trigger a crash before Christmas 2011. Why? We’re gullible, keep searching for a truth-teller in a world of liars. And they’re so clever, we let them manipulate us into acting against our best interests.

In fact, behavioral science tells us that bankers and politicians are lying to us 93% of the time. It’s 13 times more likely Wall Street is telling you a lie than the truth. That’s why they win. Why we lose. Because our brains are preprogrammed to cooperate in their con game. Yes, we believe most of their lies. ...

if you really want to know how Wall Street’s con game works on you, Barry Ritholtz, the financial genius behind “Bailout Nation,” recently summarized it in the Washington Post: “Humans make all the same mistakes, over and over again. It’s how we are wired, the net result of evolution. That flight-or-fight response might have helped your ancestors deal with hungry saber-toothed tigers and territorial Cro Magnons, but it drives investors to make costly emotional decisions.”

Humans have something “akin to brain damage,” says Ritholtz. “To neurophysiologists, who research cognitive functions, the emotionally driven appear to suffer from cognitive deficits that mimic certain types of brain injuries. … Anyone with an intense emotional interest in a subject loses the ability to observe it objectively: You selectively perceive events. You ignore data and facts that disagree with your main philosophy. Even your memory works to fool you, as you selectively retain what you believe in, and subtly mask any memories that might conflict.”

Worse, there’s no cure. ...

Translation: Get the heck out of Wall Street’s stock market casino soon, maybe as early as July 4th, and definitely get out by Christmas, because soon all the lies, lying and liars will stop working.

via Market Crash 2011: It will hit by Christmas Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch.

Who can say, but remember when I told you to buy Palladium? That still seems like a good idea to me.  If the market crashes, metals go up.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Matt Taibbi - ... Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling.

What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars. ...

Instead, federal regulators and prosecutors have let the banks and finance companies that tried to burn the world economy to the ground get off with carefully orchestrated settlements — whitewash jobs that involve the firms paying pathetically small fines without even being required to admit wrongdoing. To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice. "If the allegations in these settlements are true," says Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, "it's management buying its way off cheap, from the pockets of their victims." ...

Read more:  Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics.