Survival4Chicks

Greece will eventually default on its debt because the country is highly indebted, Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said on CNBC this morning.

A restructuring of Greek debt could happen as soon as August, when Greece is due to receive another tranche of funds from its lending agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union, according to Weinberg.

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Seriously:

But when shown a seven-page list of derivatives positions held by the Illinois Teachers Retirement System as of March 31, obtained by Medill News Service through a Freedom of Information Act request, the University of Illinois-Chicago assistant professor of finance expressed disbelief.

Yes, derivatives.  In teacher pension funds.  How bad is it?

After losing $4.4 billion on investments in fiscal year 2009, and 5 percent on investments in fiscal 2008, the teachers’ pension is now underfunded by $44.5 billion, or 60.9 percent, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability’s March 2010 report.

They have 40 cents of every dollar they need.

So what does someone who has no accountability – that is, who won’t be jailed if they make it worse rather than better, do?

Why they go to Vegas and bet it all on Red with a crooked croupier in a crooked casino!

Seriously.

The teachers’ fund denies it’s currently losing money on its derivatives, and in a statement said its investment strategy, which has included OTC derivatives for the past 27 years, is up 9.7 percent during that same time period. That’s better than the fund’s 8.5 percent target return rate

Lehman was doing really well too.  Right up until they blew up.

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Barring an economic bailout of mammoth proportions, the economy of Spain is completely and totally doomed. The socialist government of Spain is drowning in debt, unemployment is running rampant and everywhere you turn there are major economic problems. So will Spain be the next Greece? No. When the economy of Spain implodes it is going to be a whole lot worse for the world economy. The economy of Spain is more than four times the size of the economy of Greece. Spain accounts for 11.5 percent of eurozone GDP while Greece only accounts for approximately 2.5 percent. Spain is the 4th largest economy in the 16 nation eurozone and it is the 10th largest economy in the world. If the economy of Spain fails it will cause a shockwave that will be felt in every corner of the globe. In fact, there are quite a few analysts that believe if Spain defaults it would ultimately lead to the breakup of the eurozone.

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What does the state-bank-military complex plan next? As the second stage of the financial crisis hits, says Gerald Celente, we can expect them to start another war to divert people’s attention from the wholesale robbery of the productive. He also fears that WWIII will start when Israel or the US attacks Iran. It could go nuclear, or involve biological WMD. But that won’t prevent the default of the UK, Spain, Ireland, and the rest, and the continued rip-off the people by the “Harvard-Princeton-Yale-Bullets-Bombs-Banks” regime. The result, says Gerald, will be worldwide civil unrest. This is, after all, a bunch that can’t stop an oil leak. He tells us what he is doing to protect himself.

Listen here…

WASHINGTON – Unmanned aircraft have proved their usefulness and reliability in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the pressure’s on to allow them in the skies over the United States.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry out civilian and law-enforcement functions but has been hesitant to act. Officials are worried that they might plow into airliners, cargo planes and corporate jets that zoom around at high altitudes, or helicopters and hot air balloons that fly as low as a few hundred feet off the ground.

On top of that, these pilotless aircraft come in a variety of sizes. Some are as big as a small airliner, others the size of a backpack. The tiniest are small enough to fly through a house window.

The obvious risks have not deterred the civilian demand for pilotless planes. Tornado researchers want to send them into storms to gather data. Energy companies want to use them to monitor pipelines. State police hope to send them up to capture images of speeding cars’ license plates. Local police envision using them to track fleeing suspects.

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National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.

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Imagine going to a house or condo you own and finding a stranger living there who claims the property no longer belongs to you.

It’s happening across Florida and other parts of the country through what authorities say is abuse of a centuries-old concept known as adverse possession.

Dating back to Renaissance England, adverse possession allowed people to take over abandoned cottages and farmland, provided they were willing to live there and pay the taxes. These days, officials say, the legal doctrine is being misused by squatters, trespassers and swindlers to claim ownership of vacant or foreclosed homes.

In Broward and Palm Beach counties alone, adverse possession claims have been filed on some 200 homes in recent months. Three of the four people behind the claims have been arrested, and police are investigating the fourth man, who along with his father, a convicted mobster, tried to take over properties in Hollywood.

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Never one to to allow a “good crisis” to go to waste, Barack Obama is pledging to use the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an opportunity to push the U.S. Congress to pass his controversial climate bill.  In fact, during a recent interview Obama directly compared the current crisis in the Gulf to 9/11, and indicated that he believed that it would fundamentally change the way that we all look at energy issues from now on.  But the truth is that Obama’s climate bill is the same economy killing legislation that it was before the BP oil spill.  It would still drive gas and electricity prices through the roof, it would still cause large numbers of U.S. businesses to flee overseas, it would still be one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history and it would still usher in an unprecedented era of climate fascism.  But now thanks to the BP oil spill there is suddenly a lot more momentum in Congress for doing something about energy and about “climate change”.

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Most Americans know that the U.S. economy is in bad shape, but what most Americans don’t know is how truly desperate the financial situation of the United States really is.  The truth is that what we are experiencing is not simply a “downturn” or a “recession”.  What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end for the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen.  Our greed and our debt are literally eating our economy alive.  Total government, corporate and personal debt has now reached 360 percent of GDP, which is far higher than it ever reached during the Great Depression era.  We have nearly totally dismantled our once colossal manufacturing base, we have shipped millions upon millions of middle class jobs overseas, we have lived far beyond our means for decades and we have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world.  A great day of financial reckoning is fast approaching, and the vast majority of Americans are totally oblivious.

But the truth is that you cannot defy the financial laws of the universe forever.  What goes up must come down.  The borrower is the servant of the lender.  Cutting corners always catches up with you in the end.

Sometimes it takes cold, hard numbers for many of us to fully realize the situation that we are facing.

So, the following are 50 very revealing statistics about the U.S. economy that are almost too crazy to believe….

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