Town Hall Meeting

19 Aug 2010

Hide the Evidence

Filed under: — Al @ 5:17 pm

“The decision to use 1.8 million gallons of dispersants amounted to an environmental trade-off — it meant less oil tainting the surface, where there is noticeable and productive life, but the risk of longer-term problems down below. ”

A major study just published shows that a huge, 22 mile oil plume is just sitting a half mile under the surface of the ocean and not going away. This defies what BP has been saying and top government officials. This is so sick, they claim that the oil is magically gone, but it wasn’t magic, they dispersed it so the surface oil would go away as quick as possible, while the underwater oil would stay a lot longer. But they know that if people can’t see it, then they will more likely believe all is well. Orwell rolls in his grave.

The study was lead by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and you can read their findings here. Or read the AP version of the story here.

14 Aug 2010

Housing Collapse Was a Foreseeable Event

Filed under: — Al @ 12:19 pm

Mike Burry is a doctor who decided to become a hedge fund manager in 2000. He is one of the highlighted characters in Michael Lewis’ new book, The Big Short, who called the housing crash well before it started in June 2007. He recently wrote an article that was published in the NY Times back in April of 2010. For those that say “no one saw this coming,” he proves that not only was this not true, but he was trying to tell anyone who would listen that it was happening. He also lays out Alan Greenspan’s complicity, such as when he said in February 2004, just when the Fed was going to stop lowering interest rates and start RAISING them: “American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.” Wow!

I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn’t the Fed?
By MICHAEL J. BURRY
Published: April 3, 2010

ALAN GREENSPAN, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, proclaimed last month that no one could have predicted the housing bubble. “Everybody missed it,” he said, “academia, the Federal Reserve, all regulators.”

But that is not how I remember it. Back in 2005 and 2006, I argued as forcefully as I could, in letters to clients of my investment firm, Scion Capital, that the mortgage market would melt down in the second half of 2007, causing substantial damage to the economy. My prediction was based on my research into the residential mortgage market and mortgage-backed securities. After studying the regulatory filings related to those securities, I waited for the lenders to offer the most risky mortgages conceivable to the least qualified buyers. I knew that would mark the beginning of the end of the housing bubble; it would mean that prices had risen — with the expansion of easy mortgage lending — as high as they could go.

Read Burry’s entire article here.

04 Aug 2010

Pentagon Denies Embed Request to Reporter Behind McChrystal Story

Filed under: — Al @ 2:47 pm

From DemocracyNow!

The Pentagon has rejected an embed request from the reporter whose recent article in Rolling Stone magazine led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal. The reporter, Michael Hastings, quoted McChrystal and his aides making disparaging remarks about top administration officials. The Pentagon says it’s denied Hastings’ request to embed with US troops in Afghanistan because it can’t trust him to abide by military reporting rules.

Retaliation can come in many ways, and here is a very public and blatant one. If you haven’t read that article, make sure to. It’s still very relevant with that general gone because it lays out how that war is going and probably will go for a long time. You can read it here. It’s very interesting how “Rolling Stone” is doing the best journalism, while rags like “Newsweek” are going bankrupt and being bought by rich-Conrgressional-husbands for $1.

US military retialiates against Michael Hastings

Headlines
Democracy Now!
March 15, 2024

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