Stacy Summary: Some excellent headlines from Danny

Las Vegas Running Out of Water Means Dimming Los Angeles Lights

Thousands Join Army to Escape Recession

Britain Cannot Afford Any Further Fiscal Stimulus, King Warns

US Brothers Found Guilty of Espionage

Amid Central Asian Dysfunction, Astana (Kazakhstan) Becomes Island of Sound Water-Management Policy

Toyota Expects Biggest Losses Ever

China to Issue 15 Billion Yuan T-Bonds Next Week

Stacy Summary:  The taxpayer might not have noticed, what with all the financing of ‘private’ banks and of private expenses for public servants, but they are also now financing the ‘private’ corporations delivering efficiency (to transfer of wealth) to the delivery public infrastructure projects with ‘private’ financing that is now actually, well, public financing.  I will recut our Aljazeera film, Private Finance or Public Swindle? to include unseen footage in which Max asks the MP what will happen if interest rates rise or if there is a liquidity event.

• UK Treasury set to bailout another PFI project

• Russian Central Bank to switch from copper to steel coins

• Shortages stir coffee and sugar prices

• Grameen America thriving during crisis & default rate is only 0.5%

Stacy Summary:  Stock up on all the free sugar you can get at fast food and coffee joints while they are still giving it away!  And, for those not against protecting their wealth,  there are more and more signs of a Chinese tsunami of dollars about to happen.  Running for the hills to protect yourselves will, of course, draw the ire of some people who remain by the sea pointing to the receding seas but all signs point to something major about to happen.   What are you doing, if anything, to prepare for the end of the US dollar as the only reserve currency?  Do you think its role won’t end or that if it does, the impact will be only minimal?

• Economic casualties pile into tent cities (h/t freelearner)

• UK govt demands dominant role in Jaguar Land Rover boardroom (h/t MikeLiverpool)

• Sugar prices soar to 28 year high on plunge in output from India

• China fears bond crisis (must read)

• Banana Republic USA – Police in Texas highway rob citizens of $83 million

Stacy Summary:  The two questions I want comments on today, where do you think oil is going?  What matters more the drop off in demand or the drop off in investment?  And second, who should be responsible for the public debt crises?  The generation just graduating from university today?  Or their parents who voted for government policies without paying for them?  And are these public debts a good argument for some sort of gold standard so that liabilities and debts of such restrictive size are not possible?

• Wasting a good crisis:  the result may be $200 oil

• Brits to have to work until 70 in order to bring public debt under control