Why the euro is headed for dollar parity
Jay-Z famously rapped about the euro's strength just two years ago. Here's why it's headed for dollar parity now. If you're walking past a high rise bank today make sure you have a trampoline on your head.
#2
I guess the copy writer was too young to remember when the Euro traded at $.85. So oil and BMWs get cheaper, Boeing exports fewer aircraft.
Posted by: ed ||
05/18/2010 18:06 Comments ||
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#3
It's back to the 1950s to 70s when governments fixed their debt problems by so called 'competitive devaluations' and inflating their debts away.
The main thing keeping a lid on inflation right now is declining oil prices. Get a spike in oil prices and the inflation genei will be out of the bottle and away.
#4
"I guess the copy writer was too young to remember lazy and stupid to research when the Euro traded at $.85."
FTFY, phil. No charge.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/18/2010 22:12 Comments ||
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#5
'tis all about relativity.
The Euro is being slaughtered in plain view and no one is helping. Cross currencies are dropping like a rock as all flee to the safe haven of the $US. Billion dollar margin calls are the order of the day. The only thing to do do is see Fr Ryan and beg him to say a prayer for the dying. Don't ask what's happening here Down Under. Too
brutal and graphic for a family rated site.
Back to Europe: Market chaos warning after German ban on shorting
Traders are predicting chaos on the world's second-largest government bond market after the German authorities on Tuesday announced a ban on all naked short-selling in European public debt, as well as shares in the country's 10 largest financial institutions.
Today, current Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and Congressman Joe Sestak face off in the state's Democratic primary. Polls show the candidates in a dead heat. The number of undecideds is still in the double digits, meaning that roughly one third of eligible voters have yet to make up their minds. With momentum clearly with Sestak, today could be the day that Pennsylvanians send their longest serving Senator packing. Here's what that outcome would mean.
1. This cycle is anti-incumbent and anti-liberal.
Many are claiming that both Democrats and Republicans are feeling the pressure of an anti-Washington sentiment, and while that's true, it should be noted that “incumbent' isn't the only dirty word this election cycle. Fiscally liberal members – be they Republicans (look at Bennett of Utah and Crist's troubles in Florida) or Democrats (Corzine and Scott Brown challenger Martha Coakley) face real challenges to stay alive. Case in point: fiscally conservative Democrats aren't facing the same troubles as a David Obey would be.
Specter is evidence of this anti-liberal incumbent revolt. Voters in the Keystone State are exhausted with his embrace of big government, from the stimulus to the healthcare bill -- a decision that's causing him troubles with seniors. Pennsylvania has the second oldest population and Specter's embrace of the takeover, which cuts billions from Medicare and will ultimately lead to rationing, has them petrified.
Watch the liberal media continue to chalk up any Democratic losses tonight and til Election Day up to an anti-incumbent movement when the focus is more about a repudiation of their agenda, and thus President Obama.
2. The White House is out of juice, even in a state they won handily.
A Specter loss would be a devastating blow to the White House and the President, just like Democratic defeats in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia – especially in a state the President won easily.
Though Obama is officially backing Specter, he's only offered his support in absentia. The President has been featured prominently by the Specter campaign in ads but he hasn't visited the state to help rally support and turn out votes, which speaks volumes. When asked about the state of play, The White House is claiming it's not paying attention to the showdown. A laughable response considering media reports surfaced that the Administration is so worried it allegedly tried to bribe Sestak to drop out with a high level government appointment to Secretary of the Navy. And though the charge isn't confirmed, it's hardly believable that Obama will be more concerned with the results of Dancing with the Stars tomorrow evening and not the fate of a critical seat in the Senate.
If Specter loses, expect the Obama machine to spin like crazy, even though the message will be clear: the President (and his base), besides helping to raise cash, is no good to anyone but himself.
3. Party affiliation aside, Pennsylvanians are tired of Arlen Specter. Period.
After five long terms in Washington, a loss for the Senator would demonstrate that political opportunism doesn't pay. Specter could have never beaten Pat Toomey in the GOP primary. Moreover, the fact that Sestak, an anti-gun pro-choice Democrat is beating him when most voters in the state don't share those two values, proves today's finale is really a referendum on his flip flops and his record. What Specter clearly belived would save him – a switch to the Democratic Party after purple Pennsylvania propelled Obama into office, very well might be the move that killed his candidacy.
No matter what today's results are, Specter should have bowed out gracefully and on his own terms. He's had his chance to serve the people of Pennsylvania; the writing is on the wall and now it's time to step down.
The ad that best sums up the race shows a picture of Specter with a narrative explaining that "Specter switched parties to save one job: his own—not yours." Whether it happens today or in November, here's hoping Pennsylvania voters have the courage to change that and elect someone that puts them first.
#1
So, then, does that mean that Specter's career is, um, ah, giving up the ghost?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/18/2010 16:51 Comments ||
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#2
....nope. You have to go to the movies to see what you really have to do to stop zombies. Dudes like this have as many lives as Hollyweird sequels. Bad sequels.
#4
APee just called it for Sestak. Wanna bet specter's on the phone to charlie crist? Tonight? I hope he does try to run as an independent. The "independents are smarter than every other voter" myth will die on the shoals of clowns like specter and crist...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/18/2010 22:21 Comments ||
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#5
F*ck you Arlen, you back-stabbing, turncoat mealy-mouthed piece of shit. Your "scottish law" quoting lack of principle or ethics should find a hole to crawl in and comfortably and fade away, like a hemorrhoid fades away. Bye asshole
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2010 23:10 Comments ||
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#3
He is not even a good lawyer. He's a political hack. Before he starts nosing around into an area that requires rational thought, research, logic, dissernment and years of experience, he might want to apply those traits to his own work.
Can we impeach an Attorney General?
Posted by: James Carville ||
05/18/2010 11:47 Comments ||
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#6
I kept asking myself, "why is the Attorney General involved in national intelligence?" The article answers that: Holder, with Obama's permission, seized a role.
He has no role. He's not supposed to have a role. We're supposed to keep domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence separate to ensure that we don't have one person grabbing too much power. Yes, yes, the two sides have to cooperate (9/11 results when they don't) but one person is not supposed to be in charge of both sides.
This is a naked power grab, pure and simple.
We have to get these guys out of power in 2012.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2010 14:32 Comments ||
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#7
Dr. White, Isn't this the way everything is done in Chicago? I thought that's why they called it the Chicago way.
#1
Believe it or not, police in my community advised that the fairly large bomb factory, oops, I mean mosque, was halted by the planners when the city issued a permit to a third party who wanted to establish a dog grooming shop.
#6
Spray the ground with pig fat and then mix ground up pig entrails with the uncompacted soil.
Mix pig blood with large quantities of water and wash down everything on the site with it.
What on earth are these morons thinking? Building a mosque at ground zero? That like doing an exhibit of Nazi propoganda art at the Holocaust museum.
Personally, the planner, the architect and the morons that dreamed up this idea should be stripped of their credentials and barred from practicing their craft FOREVER.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day. It read:
"I learned everything I ever wanted to know about Islam on 9/11"
Posted by: James Carville ||
05/18/2010 11:44 Comments ||
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#7
Wouldn't mind having that bronze boar sitting on my front porch. It's quite an impressive piece.
#9
This is a message to those of us still paying attention: "We have more influence over your country and society than you do. Your countrymen prefer the company and rule of us, who flew airliners into their buildings, than they do you."
#10
Just in case you didn't realize that the whole "Everything Not Forbidden Is Compulsory! Tremblingly Fear And Obey!" bull&&&^ is a mechanism of foreign conquest.
And frankly, I don't think the United States will work trying to combine the regions that Tremblingly Fear And Obey with those that don't.
In a fresh fatwa, Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deboand has said that Islam does not permit celebrating birthdays.
Responding to a query posed by a woman, the country's biggest Islamic seminary observed that the tradition to celebrate birthdays was started by the Jews and Christians, but Islam does not permit this practice.
The Darul Uloom Deoband has in recent days issued edicts declaring that working in banks and opting for an insurance policy was against the tenets of Islam, sparking a debate. The seminary had also decreed that it was illegal according to the Sharia or Islamic law for a woman to work and for a family to accept a woman's earnings.
Leading Islamic body Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind's spokesman Abdul Hameed Nomani had maintained that fatwas should not be generalised and should be seen in the context in which they have been issued.
#1
He is wrong about the history but he is correct about Islam and birthdays.
The ancient Jews knew about birthday, there is one mentioned in the bible for a non jewish king but there is no record in the bible that Jews celebrated it. Even today religious Jews have trouble celebrating it.
Claudia Rosett gets the scoop the MSM can't be bothered to get, internal reports that document lots of fraud and abuse by the UN. But you already knew what they did, the rest is details. Does she ever get the details ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2010 00:00 ||
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Ahmadinejad and Lula expose Obama's hapless diplomacy. I called it ...
What a fiasco. That's the first word that comes to mind watching Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raise his arms yesterday with the leaders of Turkey and Brazil to celebrate a new atomic pact that instantly made irrelevant 16 months of President Obama's "diplomacy." The deal is a political coup for Tehran and possibly delivers the coup de grace to the West's half-hearted efforts to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
Full credit for this debacle goes to the Obama Administration and its hapless diplomatic strategy. Last October, nine months into its engagement with Tehran, the White House concocted a plan to transfer some of Iran's uranium stock abroad for enrichment. If the West couldn't stop Iran's program, the thinking was that maybe this scheme would delay it. The Iranians played coy, then refused to accept the offer.
But Mr. Obama doesn't take no for an answer from rogue regimes, and so he kept the offer on the table. As the U.S. finally seemed ready to go to the U.N. Security Council for more sanctions, the Iranians chose yesterday to accept the deal on their own limited terms while enlisting the Brazilians and Turks as enablers and political shields. "Diplomacy emerged victorious today," declared Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, turning Mr. Obama's own most important foreign-policy principle against him.
The double embarrassment is that the U.S. had encouraged Lula's diplomacy as a step toward winning his support for U.N. sanctions. Brazil is currently one of the nonpermanent, rotating members of the Security Council, and the U.S. has wanted a unanimous U.N. vote. Instead, Lula used the opening to triangulate his own diplomatic solution. In her first game of high-stakes diplomatic poker, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leaving the table dressed only in a barrel.
So instead of the U.S. and Europe backing Iran into a corner this spring, Mr. Ahmadinejad has backed Mr. Obama into one. America's discomfort is obvious. In its statement yesterday, the White House strained to "acknowledge the efforts" by Turkey and Brazil while noting "Iran's repeated failure to live up to its own commitments." The White House also sought to point out differences between yesterday's pact and the original October agreements on uranium transfers.
Good luck drawing those distinctions with the Chinese or Russians, who will now be less likely to agree even to weak sanctions. Having played so prominent a role in last October's talks with Iran, the U.S. can't easily disassociate itself from something broadly in line with that framework.
Under the terms unveiled yesterday, Iran said it would send 1,200 kilograms (2,646 lbs.) of low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month, and no more than a year later get back 120 kilograms enriched from somewhere else abroad. This makes even less sense than the flawed October deal. In the intervening seven months, Iran has kicked its enrichment activities into higher gear. Its estimated total stock has gone to 2,300 kilograms from 1,500 kilograms last autumn, and its stated enrichment goal has gone to 20% from 3.5%.
If the West accepts this deal, Iran would be allowed to keep enriching uranium in contravention of previous U.N. resolutions. Removing 1,200 kilograms will leave Iran with still enough low-enriched stock to make a bomb, and once uranium is enriched up to 20% it is technically easier to get to bomb-capable enrichment levels.
Only last week, diplomats at the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges it is using to enrich uranium. According to Western intelligence estimates, Iran continues to acquire key nuclear components, such as trigger mechanisms for bombs. Tehran says it wants to build additional uranium enrichment plants. The CIA recently reported that Iran tripled its stockpile of uranium last year and moved "toward self-sufficiency in the production of nuclear missiles." Yesterday's deal will have no impact on these illicit activities.
The deal will, however, make it nearly impossible to disrupt Iran's nuclear program short of military action. The U.N. is certainly a dead end. After 16 months of his extended hand and after downplaying support for Iran's democratic opposition, Mr. Obama now faces an Iran much closer to a bomb and less diplomatically isolated than when President Bush left office.
Israel will have to seriously consider its military options. Such a confrontation is far more likely thanks to the diplomatic double-cross of Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazil's Lula, and especially to a U.S. President whose diplomacy has succeeded mainly in persuading the world's rogues that he lacks the determination to stop their destructive ambitions.
#1
Is there any hope that the CIA and the Israeli Intelligence (I know they have agencies far more secretive than the Mossad) could arrange a little old "training accident" in Iran, like those car bombs that go bad in the West Bank or those tunnels that collapse in Gaza?
HOWEVER, when you look at the prevailing wind patterns, the circumference of the blast area and the amount of fallout from even a low grade nuke, If Iran lit one off in Tel Aviv, the fall out plume would render large areas of Jordan, Iraq and Iran uninhabitable for a minimum of 50 years. If the hot westerlies are blowing, you could get fall out in Northern Saudi Arabia and the UAE, maybe even Pakastain....Which tells me all I need to know. They are either completely illogical and fanatical about destroying Israel for some 13th Imam revival belief or they are going to package these things up for a major event in a western city near you...are you listing Paris, Bonn, Rome, Moscow, Madrid, London? Washington DC, LA, Chicago and NY for sure. Is Russia really going to go along with this when the Czechnians would love to park one of these at Putin's Dacha.
The fact that they talk about using one of these on Israel tells me they are so fanatical in their ideas that this is doubly dangerous.
Posted by: James Carville ||
05/18/2010 11:57 Comments ||
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#3
They firmly believe that it will bring the 12th Iman from his hidey-hole in the bottom of a well someplace to bring about the Islamic Goals....
The cost to themselves, not to mention other muslims or their own citizens is acceptable to them. This is why they are much, much, more dangerous than the Soviets ever were.
#4
Bringing forth the 12th Imam would force their god to institute their judgement day and end times. Which would mean that any physical damage to the pious would be fixed by their god in the process, according to their understanding of their scriptures, and so is of no moment anyhow.
That's the real issue -- these people are not operating in the same reality as the rest of us. I think that's an adequate description of "batshit crazy", yes?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Today, current Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and Congressman Joe Sestak face off in the state's Democratic primary. Polls show the candidates in a dead heat. The number of undecideds is still in the double digits, meaning that roughly one third of eligible voters have yet to make up their minds. With momentum clearly with Sestak, today could be the day that Pennsylvanians send their longest serving Senator packing. Here's what that outcome would mean.
Ahmadinejad and Lula expose Obama's hapless diplomacy.
