Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Jahn]

There is an answer - the Swedes did it the 1990's - Nationalise the banks.

Now we take it slowly. We haven't nationalised any banks - but we had a Bank emergency office that the Government created where the banks could get "help". The deep crisis that started in the autumn of -92 followed after several years with a overheated economy. In one way our years of depression in the early and mid 1990's were easier to handle than this global one.

I have written about this before and what the government did back then was both to lend money to the banks with low interest rate and to pick out the risk investments. The risk investments were handled by a setup of temporary "companies" that "bought" the risk deals in real estate and then sold these buildings during a period of 5 years. This emergency action didn't cost the tax payer much, in fact it is said that it turned out to be zero.

They (The Riksbank/Central bank) rescued an investment bank lately with the same approach only that this time they took over the bank completely for a period because it was bankrupt. It took a bit more than 3 months to sell the bank and with a small exception of one customer they got all the money in return. We could say that this affair (with The Carnegie investment bank) was our close parallell to the Lehman Brothers.

The policy is to,
- not let any bank go bankrupt
- not own banks in long term, but short term it can be necessary (has only happened once).
- pump money into the system while at the same time keep down the inflation rate
- lower the interest rates
- hang out banks that not lower their interest rates
- encourage employment before unemployment etc.

[Michael]

Thanks Jamir - temporary nationalisation is the option I was referring to, but I am no expert in the options - it is just one, and as you point out, the Swedes adopted a raft of measures.

The point is that the US is dithering on effective options, partially due to their fear of the nationalisation bogey. Brittan is pushing for more government ownership and control, but the US has baulked at any hint of interference with the free market philosophy, even temporarily.

The point is that something has to be done very fast, as the whole large bank's problems have not gone away. Many countries, like Japan, Australia etc, have highly stable and secure banking sector, but that has not stopped them from being dragged into the mire.

It is questionable as to whether any government has the funds to bail out a complete collapse of the debt swap nightmare - we are talking $50-60 trillion. So immediate action to secure the big US banks is critical, lest we slide into an entire inner-banking melt down.

I am watching the Australian Govt doing like the US and many others - pouring funds into their economy. But this disease is like a cancer of the financial heart of the global economy. I am not seeing any signs that sufficiently swift actions are being taken to address the structural and immediate problems in the core of the financial-blood flow.

There have been attempts. Gordon Brown was pushing for action, but being stalled by the US, in many of these recent G20's and Davos meets, which have all been a waste of time. Because the huge end of town is putting enormous pressure on the US Govt to not interfere in the free market system.

These super-top executives are racing around the world, meeting every government official with influence, to stem the movement into bail-out funds with strong ownership conditions.

I expect very soon you will see another massive bank throw up it's arms, like the RBS, but even bigger.

My concern is that Obama's success in cultural change and so much else, will be crippled if his stimulus package is not effective, and it won't be if the big banks are not fixed.

[Michael]

I hate to be right, in this case, but the truth is rolling down the road like a semi out if control.

AIG's problems are not due to it's old style insurance business.
It is deeply entangled in the debt swap scene:
Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

It has actually been insuring these damn things.

Now a large Swiss bank is collapsing - can't recall the name. And other big names are being rumoured.

Hedge Funds are gathering to pull down all the teetering banks like vultures.

The fall out from AIG, for those who don't know, has sent the DOW below 7000.
The US government does not have access to the level of funding needed to prop up this debacle.
There are very clever people in the fray who lets hope will find a solution - but they will need to act quickly.

And like a dying beast gasping for one last erection, Rush Limbaugh looks to be taking over the Republican philosophical podium. Could anything be more sad and pathetic? When will these people get it?

It's over.

[Jahn]

I noticed the huge deficit for AIG and got the feeling that the whole finacial system is like a leaking bucket. The Swedish Riksbank has announced a zero interest rate coming later in this spring. Last year we had a drop in GNP 0f 4,5%, which is about the same drop as one of the crisis year in the 1990's (1994). That year we had a deflation.

One good thing if the wheels stop - the pollution will be considerable lower.
Volvo trucks, which is one of our most successful export industr,y is an indicator of what is going on. The order intake fell to almost zero the last months of 2008 and they have made an notice to reduce their staff with approximately 50%.

Heh, the Australian homepage for Volvio trucks
http://www.volvo.com/trucks/australia-market/en-au/Home.htm

[Michael]

Pakistan:
The attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket team marks a turning point in Pak's inner battle for identity and control.

Up until now, the Taliban consortium has been content to attack US and UN convoys, big wealthy hotels, India, Kashmir, and opponents in the Swat valley. This now is an attack on the Pakistan people themselves - an assault on the culture.

Most Pakistanis tended to see the fight against the Taliban consortium as the US business, and that they had no interest in doing that for them. They have been in denial for many years, while the array of different extreme Islamist groups has not only grown, but critically recently has come together under the leadership of one man.

They have been growing in power, and now they are ready. The attack on the cricketers marks the beginning of their push to take over Pakistan.

These Taliban groups were recently wiped out in the political arena during the elections - they have no popular support. But they have guns, and they have terror. Plus they have friends in high places.

Pakistan is still struggling to come to terms with this reality, and their President is not up to the task. The democratic political parties are in deadly combat with each other, and the time is ripe - expect to see much more. Already the Taliban has escalated their assaults and bombings in the Swat valley, at the same time as the government has given them more concessions to Sharia Law. This all since the cricketers assault. They have also bombed the Sufi shrines - their primary opponents on the moderate side of Islam.

Plus they are winning in Afghanistan.

It will not be long before foreign troops are in Pakistan. Already Zardari has asked the US to use it's drones to bomb Taliban forces in the border regions.

GFC:

The banking crisis is growing. I bet the nationalisation/control issue was exactly what Brown went to see Obama about. The flow of money is dry, and big changes are needed. All these interest rate cuts are no longer doing anything - because the banks get their money from the big US and European banks - only so much can be passed on by way of interest cuts, as the banks simply can't get enough money except at huge expense.

The core financial blood flow has been turned off. We ain't seen nothing yet.

Will Obama go to the next G20 summit? Maybe, maybe not, but if he doesn't the slide will turn into a free fall. And even if he does, the same will happen, because even he doesn't have the power or the money.

There is a big crunch coming not just for the people - but for those who have been running this show behind the scenes for many decades. They do not want to change their beliefs, and lose their power.

Plus their political arm, the right wing parties, still haven't got it - they are playing a dangerous game of spoiling all recovery attempts in the hope that they will fail, and thus allow them to regain political power. I see the same thing in US as in Aust.

We are in for a rough year. Lets hope it will only be one.

[Jahn]

We are in for a rough year. Lets hope it will only be one.

Seven.

[erik]

Carbon cuts 'only give 50/50 chance of saving planet'

As states negotiate Kyoto's successor, simulations show catastrophe just years away

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

Monday, 9 March 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/carbon-cuts-only-give-5050-chance-of-saving-planet-1640154.html

The world's best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office.

The key aim of holding the expected increase to 2C, beyond which damage to the natural world and to human society is likely to be catastrophic, is far from assured, the research suggests, even if all countries engage forthwith in a radical and enormous crash programme to slash greenhouse gas emissions – something which itself is by no means guaranteed.

The chilling forecast from the supercomputer climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research will provide a sobering wake-up call for governments around the world, who will begin formally negotiating three weeks today the new international treaty on tackling global warming, which is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December.

The treaty, which is due to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is widely seen as the Last Chance Saloon for the community of nations to take effective action against the greatest threat the world has ever faced. But the Met Office's new prediction hits directly at the principle guiding all those hoping for an effective agreement, with the European Union in the lead: that of stopping the warming at two degrees Centigrade above the "pre-industrial" level (the level of average world temperature pertaining two hundred years ago).

Today, world average temperatures stand at about 0.75C above the pre-industrial, and many scientists and politicians agree that further increases have to be stopped at 2C if catastrophic impacts from the warming are to be avoided, ranging from widespread agricultural failure and worldwide sea level rise, to countless species extinctions and irreversible melting of the world's great ice sheets.

But the Hadley Centre's simulation indicates that even if global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas causing the warming, were to be slashed at a very high rate the chances of holding the rise at the C threshold are no better than even. The scenario, prepared for Britain's Climate Change Committee, the body recommending the UK's future carbon "budgets", visualises world CO2 emissions peaking in 2015, and then falling at a top rate of 3 per cent a year, to reach emissions of 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

At the moment, global emissions are thought to be rising at nearly 3 per cent a year – so turning that into a 3 per cent annual cut would be a gigantic slashing of what the earth's factories and motor vehicles are pumping into the atmosphere. There is as yet nothing remotely like that on the table for potential agreement in Copenhagen, and if a deal of this ambition were to be done, it would be regarded as a triumph.

Yet even with that, the Hadley Centre research suggests, the chances of keeping the rise down to about 2C by 2100 would be only 50-50. Furthermore, the simulations suggest that there is a worst-case scenario – about a 10 per cent chance – of the rise by the end of the current century reaching, even with these drastic cuts, a level of 2.8C above the pre-industrial, which is well into disaster territory.

With any action that is slower than the scenario above, the likeliest outcome is a much higher eventual temperature – and in fact, the model indicates that each 10 years of delay in halting the rise in global emissions adds another 0.5C to the likeliest end-of-the-century figure. So if emissions do not peak and start to decline until 2025, we can expect a 2.6C rise by 2100, and if the decline only begins in 2035, the figure is likely to be 3.1C – even with 3 per cent annual cuts.

These new figures suggest quite unambiguously that the world is on course for calamity unless rapid action can be taken which is far more drastic than any politicians are so far contemplating – never mind the general public.

If action is sluggish or non-existent, the model suggests that climate change is likely to cause almost unthinkable damage to the world; under a "business-as-usual" scenario, with no action taken at all and emissions increasing by more than 100 per cent by 2050, the end-of-the-century rise in global average temperatures is likely to be 5.5C, with a worst-case outcome of 7.1C – which would make much of life on earth impossible. "Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next 10 years, our results project that there will only be a 50 per cent chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 2C," said Dr Vicky Pope, the Met Office's Head of Climate Change Advice.

"This idealised emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and changing from an increase of 2-3 per cent per year to a decrease of 3 per cent per year. For every 10 years we delay this action another 0.5C will be added to the most likely temperature rise. If the world fails to make the required reductions, it will be faced with adapting not just to a 2C rise in temperature but to 4C or more by the end of the century."

[erik]

Pakistan:
The attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket team marks a turning point in Pak's inner battle for identity and control.

This is not our kind of Islam

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/09/terrorism-islam-sharia-pakistan

Sharia law was introduced to Pakistan undemocratically and without debate – but people are too frightened to protest

Fatima Bhutto
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 March 2009 13.00 GMT

Last week, Pakistan earned another point on its scorecard as the world's most dangerous country. During what was supposed to be the start of a Lahore test match series, masked gunmen attacked the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team, killing five policemen and injuring several players. Not even cricket is safe in Pakistan now. In response, typically, Pakistan's government claimed shock at the violence. There was no mention of the warnings that the government had received of a potential attack, no mention of the violence that has rampaged across Pakistan's cities, and no talk of the almost casual escape the gunmen made, caught by CCTV cameras in the area. Instead, the interior minister, a feckless man with no political experience, declared that Pakistan was "in a state of war". Well, yes. It is. It has been at war for some time now.

In February, the government capitulated to the demands of Islamic militants who have been fighting the state in the Swat Valley for over a year and promised the promulgation of Sharia law in the valley. There was no vote, no referendum, no democracy in the matter. The government, who cannot fight the militants in Swat – it is too busy assisting the flight of Predator drones from internal airbases and making sure they hit their targets in Waziristan – just declared that federal law would be replaced by Sharia. No room for dissent or choice was given. The decision, however, is a redundant one; Pakistan's 1973 constitution stipulates that no law contrary to Islam can be enacted in the land.

It would seem that Pakistan is losing, quite rapidly, the battle against jihadist ideology. We now have our own, home grown, Taliban – the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan Taliban party. And now our country, one that was founded as a safe haven for Muslims, has become synonymous with the frightening prospect of Islamic militancy.

But the Islam I know is absent from Pakistan today. It's an Islam that western pundits might call moderate, but it seems pretty radical to me. It's an Islam that is peaceful and tolerant, a faith that derives its strength from poetic ghazals by Rumi, Hafez, and Iqbal, one that was once questioning and has the limitless power to be so again. That Sufi Islam, which has its roots in the shrines in Sehwan Sharif in the heart of Sindh, has been booted out of Pakistan. Instead, it has been replaced with fundamentalist, Taliban style, Wahhabi-inspired Islam, the kind that thrives on beheadings and fatwas, in short the very scary (Saudi) kind. Nato must be thrilled.

In February, a 42-year-old Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak was beheaded by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. His murder was videotaped and released to the public. Poland reacted with understandably fury: "The Pakistani government doesn't control these terrorists, these murderers" said the nation's foreign minister. That was before Sharia law was forced upon the Swat Valley. The Taliban executioners called it revenge for Poland's troops in Afghanistan. On Thursday, suspected Taliban militants blew up the shrine of a 17th century Sufi poet in Peshawar. Rahman Baba, the Sufi saint, is celebrated as one of the great poets of the Pashto language. He had nothing to do with troops in Afghanistan. But women frequented the shrine, and this, says the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, is an abomination. If we are not careful, girls' schools – over 200 of which have been blown up or destroyed in the North-West Frontier Province since this government took over – music, kite flying, women in the workplace, short-sleeved shirts, chess, teddy bears and poetry are next to go.

However, while millions of Pakistanis have taken umbrage at the depiction of their country's new super-militant status, not enough Pakistanis have taken a stand against the Talibanisation of their country. It has become unpatriotic to speak against Islam in any form in today's Pakistan. In Karachi, responses to the government's declaration of Sharia law in Swat have been muted. No one dares to say the unthinkable – it's a dangerous step. It was taken undemocratically. This is not our kind of Islam. It doesn't represent us, not in Pakistan.

[TIOTIT]

Creepy commercial for Israel's missile sales to India
It's a freak show,look at them dancing between the
missiles.The Israeli arms firm Rafael displayed this
Bollywood dance number-based marketing video at
the recently held Aero India 2009 in Bangalore.
We really are stuffed!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktQOLO4U5iQ

[erik]

From The Times
March 12, 2009
85 per cent of Amazonian rainforest at risk of destruction, researchers warn

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5888846.ece


A houseboat lies on a drying river bed that was once the Parana de Manaquiri River, a tributary of the Amazon River

The Amazonian rainforest is likely to suffer catastrophic damage, even with the lowest temperature rises forecast under climate change, researchers have decided.

The damage will be so severe that it will cause irreversible changes to the world’s weather patterns, which is expected to bring more storms, floods and heat waves to Britain.

Up to 40 per cent of the rainforest will be lost if temperature rises are restricted to 2C, which most climatologists regard as the least that can be expected by 2050.

Climate change researchers issued the assessment of the forest’s fragility after discovering a time-lag in the effects of temperature rises on the forest.

It had previously been thought that the trees and other vegetation, and the vast range of animals living among them, would be safe if temperatures rose no more than 2C. Researchers have now found that even 2C will destroy large tracts of the forest but that the die-back is slow and will take up to a century to have its full effect.

A 3C rise is likely to result in 75 per cent of the forest disappearing and a 4C rise, regarded as the most likely increase this century unless greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced, will kill off 85 per cent of the forest.

Chris Jones, of the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, told a scientific conference in Copenhagen that the time delay had masked the full impact of temperature rises. He led a team of researchers who calculated that 20 to 40 per cent of the forest will be killed off by 2050 if there is a 2C rise.

“We are committed to losing a fair degree of the forest,” Dr Jones told scientists. “Everything above 1C commits us to some forest loss.”

Until Dr Jones presented his findings it had been assumed that the Amazonian rainforest was safe from severe climate-related loss until temperatures rose more than 3C. However, the slowness of forests to respond to change hid the likely real impact.

A 1C temperature rise is expected to be reached in the 2020s. Temperatures have already risen 0.75C above pre-industrial levels and so much greenhouse gas is in the atmosphere that a further 0.6C is already guaranteed.

Vicky Pope, the head of climate change advice at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said the findings showed that the threat to the forest was much higher than expected.

“Impacts could be much worse than previously thought,” Dr Pope said in Copenhagen, where scientists have been meeting to discuss the latest research into climate change and its effects. “Even if temperature rises are limited to 2C above pre-industrial levels, as much as 20 to 40 per cent of the Amazonian rainforest could be lost if this temperature is sustained for 100 years or more.”

Trees will be lost to the rise in temperatures because as forests warm up, evaporation rates increase and they begin to dry out. Over several decades the drier conditions will kill off the trees.

Other research presented at the conference showed that there is a significant chance that even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, temperatures may not start falling for at least a century.

Peter Cox, of the University of Exeter, said of the finding that at least a fifth of the Amazonian rainforest was almost certainly doomed. “Ecologically it would be a catastrophe and it would be taking a huge chance with our own climate. The tropics are drivers of the world’s weather systems and killing the Amazon is likely to change them for ever. We don’t know exactly what would happen but we could expect more extreme weather,” Professor Cox said.

Destroying the Amazonian rainforest would also turn what was now a significant carbon sink into a significant source of carbon, he said. “It would amplify global warming significantly. Just as an example, at the moment deforestation adds about a fifth of the world’s carbon to the atmosphere.”

[Michael]

I expect Pakistan military will take over within days. The political scene is a nightmare - the PM and the head of the military both know how serious the whole thing is, and they have put in sterling efforts over the last few days, but unfortunately Zardari and Sharif are both as corrupt as each other.

The US now sees Pak as the most serious crises threatening world security. Expect action very soon.

[erik]

Leading climate scientist: 'democratic process isn't working'

David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 March 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/nasa-climate-change-james-hansen

Protest and direct action could be the only way to tackle soaring carbon emissions, a leading climate scientist has said.

James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said.

Speaking on the eve of joining a protest against the headquarters of power firm E.ON in Coventry, Hansen said: "The first action that people should take is to use the democratic process. What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.

"The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. So, I'm not surprised that people are getting frustrated. I think that peaceful demonstration is not out of order, because we're running out of time."

Hansen said he was taking part in the Coventry demonstration tomorrow because he wants a worldwide moratorium on new coal power stations. E.ON wants to build such a station at Kingsnorth in Kent, an application that energy and the climate change minister Ed Miliband recently delayed. "I think that peaceful actions that attempt to draw society's attention to the issue are not inappropriate," Hansen said.

He added that a scientific meeting in Copenhagen last week had made clear the "urgency of the science and the inaction taken by governments".

Officials will gather in Bonn later this month to continue talks on a new global climate treaty, which campaigners have called to be signed at a UN meeting in Copenhagen in December. Hansen warned that the new treaty is "guaranteed to fail" to bring down emissions.

Hansen said: "What's being talked about for Copenhagen is a strenghening of Kyoto [protocol] approach, a cap and trade with offsets and escape hatches which will be gauranteed to fail in terms of getting the required rapid reduction in emissions. They talk about goals which sound impressive, but when you see the actions are such that it will be impossible to reach those goals, then I can understand the informed public getting frustrated."

He said he was growing "concerned" over the stance taken by the new US adminstration on global warming. "It's not clear what their intentions are yet, but if they are going to support cap and trade then unfortunately i think that will be another case of greenwash. It's going to take stronger action than that."

[Michael]

Yep, he's not wrong.

Except about one-person-one-vote being Democracy - where do people get these funny ideas?
I'm not being cynical, Democracy is a complex balance of many factors - one-person-one-vote is only one component of that complex, and was never intended to be more that that.

But as for Democracy failing this issue - he is not the first, but he is a major convert to the direct action community.
I would join them myself if I hadn't realised it's all futile - I have just purchased a new pair of Scarpa boots, now all I need is a flint striker.

[Nichi]

This is from 2007, when Howard was still PM, but I don't recall hearing that there were plans to evacuate Australia ... was this true?

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" loading="lazy" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Edlsy8r2FXo/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Edlsy8r2FXo"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Edlsy8r2FXo&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/Edlsy8r2FXo&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1</a>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edlsy8r2FXo&feature=related

[Michael]

Well it did rain, so this is now put on the back burner. However there are Government processes in action to investigate the long term possibility of a major shift of the population from the south to the north. Climate change is making the major cities uninhabitable, due to water shortages.

But it has not received much public discussion - that depends on a wider drought situation, which hasn't happened since 2007. Of course it will, but there is still a large amount of climate change scepticism in Australia.

Nonetheless, the intelligent people with sufficient funds, across the world, are moving to New Zeeland now. The influx of such people has become a public statistic in New Zeeland.