The New World Order Update: May 1, 2011

Sunday, May 1, 2011

WORLD commodity prices have major implications for the Australian economy in ways not adequately recognised in university textbooks, most of which have been written by American authors, including Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board.

These texts pay little attention to international commodity prices, with the exception of oil prices, or to the phenomenon of world inflation, presumably because they are perceived to be of low order importance to the US economy. Yet understanding why international commodity prices have risen steeply, a harbinger of future world inflationary pressures, is of critical importance to most other economies.

Like New Zealand, Australia's exports are concentrated in commodities to an extent unparalleled in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development economies.

Though this specialisation is appropriate from an international trade theory perspective, reflecting the pursuit of the economy's comparative advantage in natural resources, it exposes the economy to external price fluctuations, which have been extraordinary in recent years.

Warren Buffett: There's "No Question" The Dollar Will Keep Falling

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger don't like gold (or silver), and they're not eager to place any FX bets, but Buffett's view on the dollar seems pretty unequivocally negative.

Via Liz Claman, Buffett told the crowd in Omaha: No question that the purchasing power of U.S. dollar will decline over time. Only question is at what rate it will happen.

He says he's had fears that it could happen at a quicker rate.

All that being said, this isn't necessarily a gloomy pronouncement. Buffett noted how much the dollar has depreciated since he was born, and yet economic progress since then has been remarkable in the US. What's more, all currencies will decline over time (vs. real things), it's just a matter of the pace.

And ultimately, even still, Buffett says right now he'd rather be born in the US than anywhere else in the world.

Home prices in 'double dip' - S&P/Case-Shiller

Home prices in 'double dip' - S&P/Case-Shiller - Apr. 26, 2011

Should You Buy A Home In 2011? Check Out These 29 Absolutely Crazy Statistics About The Housing Crisis

#1 During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.

#2 Home prices just keep falling month after month. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city index has fallen for seven months in a row.

#3 U.S. home prices have now declined 32% from the peak of the housing bubble.

#4 In Phoenix, Arizona home prices are now down 56% from the peak of the housing bubble.

#5 Home prices in Las Vegas, Nevada are now down 58% from the peak of the housing bubble.

#6 Nearly 70 percent of all Las Vegas mortgages are now underwater.

#7 Due to the housing crisis, there are now more than 167,000 vacant homes in the state of Nevada.

#8 It is estimated that 25% of all mortgages in Miami-Dade County are "in serious distress and headed for either foreclosure or short sale".

#9 According to a recent census report, 13% of all homes in the United Statesare sitting empty.

#10 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That number is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

#11 In the city of Detroit alone, there are more than 33,000 abandoned homes.

#12 The average home in the city of Merced, California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four years.

#13 U.S. home values have fallen an astounding 6.3 trillion dollars since the housing crisis first began.

#14 California had more foreclosure filings that any other U.S. state during 2010. The 546,669 total foreclosure filings during the year means that over 4 percent of all the housing units in the state of California received a foreclosure filing at some point during 2010.

#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#16 Approximately 26 percent of all renters in the United States spend more than half their pre-tax income on rent.

#17 It is estimated that 49 percent of all American renters are paying out more in rent than they can afford.

#18 In 1996, 89 percent of Americans believed that it was better to own a home than to rent one. Today that number has fallen to 63 percent.

#19 72 percent of the major metropolitan areas in the United States had more foreclosures in 2010 than they did in 2009.

#20 Two years ago, the average U.S. homeowner that was being foreclosed upon had not made a mortgage payment in 11 months. Today, the average U.S. homeowner that is being foreclosed upon has not made a mortgage payment in 17 months.

#21 In September 2008, 33 percent of Americans knew someone who had been foreclosed upon or who was facing the threat of foreclosure. Today that number has risen to 48 percent.

#22 During the month of January, it was estimated that there were 1.8 million distressed homes in the United States that had yet to be listed for sale. Many analysts believe that this "shadow inventory" will extend the housing crisis for several more years.

#23 In February, U.S. housing starts experienced their largest decline in 27 years.

#24 Now home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.

#25 Bank repossessions and short sales now make up approximately 30 percent of all home sales in the United States.

#26 As of the end of 2010, new home sales in the United States had declinedfor five straight years, and they are expected to be lower once again in 2011.

#27 31 percent of the homeowners that responded to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey indicated that they are "underwater" on their mortgages.

#28 Deutsche Bank is projecting that 48 percent of all U.S. mortgages could have negative equity by the end of 2011.

#29 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 8 million Americans are currently at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.

NATO strike kills Gadhafi's son but leader escapes

NATO strike kills Gadhafi's son but leader escapes - Yahoo! News

By KARIN LAUB and BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press – 47 mins ago

TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli that killed one of his sons and three young grandchildren, a government spokesman said early Sunday. Hours later, Gadhafi's forces shelled a besieged rebel port in a sign that the airstrike had not forced a change in regime tactics.

NATO's attack on a Gadhafi family compound in a residential area of Tripoli late Saturday signaled escalating pressure on the Libyan leader who has tried to crush an armed rebellion that erupted in mid-February. Libyan officials denounced the strike as an assassination attempt and a violation of international law.

It also drew criticism from Russia, which accused the alliance of going beyond its U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians by trying to kill Gadhafi. "More and more facts indicate that the aim of the anti-Libyan coalition is the physical destruction of Gadhafi," said Konstantin Kosachyov, a Russian lawmaker who often serves as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin's views on foreign affairs.

Britain loses support for Libya war

PressTV - Britain loses support for Libya war

Britain's already lukewarm popular support for the Libyan war is now suffering growing unease amid a stepped up Western military offensive against the country.

The UK government has played a prominent role in launching an invasion against the embattled North African country since the 19 March outset of UN-sanctioned military intervention, which is now fully supervised by NATO military alliance.

However, rifts have appeared to be developing, in recent weeks within the international community and UN Security Council, with some members claiming the UK and other nations are stretching the mandate's definition.

This comes as Britain dispatched military advisers last week to help the Libyan revolutionary forces to attack Muammar Qaddafi's troops and facilities more decisively.

Britain's lower house of parliament, the House of Commons held a debate on March 21st on how to proceed with the UN Resolution against Libya, a motion which garnered 557 votes in favour of intervention, with only 13 against.

But, British parliamentarians across the political spectrum are increasingly concerned about the future of the invasion, particularly in light of a joint-statement issued by British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and US President Barak Obama on April 15, that said anything less than Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi's ouster would be “unconscionable betrayal”.

“There has been a clear defining of objectives on regime change and on taking one particular side in a civil war,” opposition Labour MP Graham Stringer, who voted for intervention, has told Foreign Secretary William Hague during a debate at the Commons.

During the same House of Commons session, Stringer's colleague Labour MP John McDonnell, who opposed intervention, decried the operation as appearing “a blood-soaked political shambles.”

N.J. town limits chicken hookups

Floridatoday - N.J. town limits chicken hookups

Updated 4/27/2011 10:39 AM ET

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HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey town has adopted an ordinance that regulates when chickens and roosters can hook up in backyard henhouses.

Roosters must show they're disease-free and they better not crow about their conquests.

Hopewell Township residents can have up to a half-dozen hens on half-acre lots. Roosters would be allowed only 10 days a year for fertilization purposes.

Mature roosters are not allowed because they're too noisy. Any roosters that crow too long can be banned from the property for two years.

Mayor Jim Burd told The Times of Trenton the ordinance is a compromise between today's lifestyle and the township's agricultural history.

Facebook accused of removing activists' pages

Facebook accused of removing activists' pages | Technology | The Guardian

Facebook has removed dozens of profiles from its site, causing an outcry from campaigners trying to organise anti-austerity protests this weekend.

The deactivated pages include UK Uncut, and pages created by students during last December's university occupations.

A list posted on the Stop Facebook Purge group says Chesterfield Stop the Cuts, Tower Hamlet Greens, London Student Assembly, Southwark SoS and Bristol Uncut sites are no longer functioning.

Administrators for the profiles say hundreds of links between activists have been broken in the run up to the May Day bank holiday. When users click on URL links the message "the page you requested was not found" now appears.

Guy Aitchison, 26, an administrator for one of the non-functioning pages, said: "I woke up this morning to find that a lot of the groups we'd been using for anti cuts activity had disappeared. The timing of it seems suspicious, given a general political crackdown because of the wedding. It seems that dozens of other groups have also been affected, including some of the local UK Uncut groups."

It is not yet known how many groups have been affected in total. A Facebook spokeswoman explained that the profiles were suspended because they had not been registered correctly and denied that the removal of pages was politically motivated or instigated by law enforcement concerns before the royal wedding.

Facebook accounts that claim to represent individual people but are in fact groups or organisations contravene the company's "statement of rights and responsibilities".

Apple's Chinese workers treated 'inhumanely, like machines'

Apple's Chinese workers treated 'inhumanely, like machines' | Technology | The Observer

An investigation into the conditions of Chinese workers has revealed the shocking human cost of producing the must-have Apple iPhones and iPads that are now ubiquitous in the west.

The research, carried out by two NGOs, has revealed disturbing allegations of excessive working hours and draconian workplace rules at two major plants in southern China. It has also uncovered an "anti-suicide" pledge that workers at the two plants have been urged to sign, after a series of employee deaths last year.

The investigation gives a detailed picture of life for the 500,000 workers at the Shenzhen and Chengdu factories owned by Foxconn, which produces millions of Apple products each year. The report accuses Foxconn of treating workers "inhumanely, like machines".

Among the allegations made by workers interviewed by the NGOs – the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) – are claims that:

■ Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.

■ Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.

■ In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.

■ Crowded workers' dormitories can sleep up to 24 and are subject to strict rules. One worker told the NGO investigators that he was forced to sign a "confession letter" after illicitly using a hairdryer. In the letter he wrote: "It is my fault. I will never blow my hair inside my room. I have done something wrong. I will never do it again."

■ In the wake of a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories last summer, workers were asked to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives".

China, Home to 300 Million Smokers, Starts Public Ban

China, Home to 300 Million Smokers, Starts Public Ban - Businessweek

By Lin Noueihed | Reuters – Sat, 30 Apr, 2011 4:10 PM EDT

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Shattered glass litters the carpet at the Libyan Down's Syndrome Society, and dust covers pictures of grinning children that adorn the hallway, thrown into darkness by a NATO strike early on Saturday.

It was unclear what the target of the strike was, though Libyan officials said it was Muammar Gaddafihimself, who was giving a live television address at the time.

"They maybe wanted to hit the television. This is a non-military, non-governmental building," said Mohammed al-Mehdi, head of the civil societies council, which licenses and oversees civil groups in Libya.

The missile completely destroyed an adjoining office in the compound that houses the government's commission for children.

The force of the blast blew in windows and doors in the parent-funded school for children with Down's Syndrome and officials said it damaged an orphanage on the floor above.

"I felt sad really. I kept thinking, what are we going to do with these children?" said Ismail Seddigh, who set up the school 17 years ago after his own daughter was born with Down's.

"This is not the place we left on Thursday afternoon."

There were no children at the school when the missiles hit early on Saturday morning, since Friday begins the weekend in Libya. Children had been due to come in on Saturday morning.

A mound of rubble was all that remained of one wing of the main building that adjoined the school, though an antenna of some kind protruded from the ruins.

Both Mehdi and Seddigh said they had assumed that the antenna on the building was there to strengthen mobile phone signals and were not aware of any other use.

In the rubble of the main building, a shredding machine packed with sliced up documents lay on its side. A fax and phone were nearby and shelves of files could be seen.

The Libyan government has repeatedly said that NATO airstrikes have hurt and killed civilians but has not responded to requests by journalists to visit the hospitals, making it tough to verify casualty figures.

NATO has hit inside or near Gaddafi's compound before, or struck military or logistical sites. Saturday's government-organized visit was the first to bring journalists -- whom government minders watch closely -- to a civilian site.

Libya disabled children school hit in NATO strike

Libya disabled children school hit in NATO strike - Yahoo! News