Comcast Is Hiring an Internet Spy for the Feds
If you haven’t fashioned your tinfoil hat already, now is the time to get started.
From: Wired.com
Wanna tap e-mail, voice and Web traffic for the government? Well, here’s your chance. Comcast, the country’s second-largest Internet provider, is looking for an engineer to handle “reconnaissance” and “analysis” of “subscriber intelligence” for the company’s “National Security Operations.”Day-to-day tasks, the company says in an online job listing, will include “deploy[ing], installing] and remov[ing] strategic and tactical data intercept equipment on a nationwide basis to meet Comcast and Government lawful intercept needs.” The person in this “intercept engineering” position will help collect and process traffic on the company’s “CDV [Comcast Digital Voice], HSI [High Speed Internet] and Video” services.
Since May 2007, all Internet providers have been required to install gear for easy wiretapping under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Anyone taking this position, Comcast says, will have to be “knowledgeable with … standards such as CALEA.” (The company is all too happy to “intercept its customers’ communications” for a fee of a thousand dollars, Secrecy News revealed last year.)
Big stores start to ration rice purchases
From: FT.com
Supermarket chains have begun rationing rice as the effects of rising prices and disruptions to supply spill over from specialist grocers and suppliers to larger stores.Netto, the Danish-owned discount store, has been restricting sales of larger bags of rice to one per person in all stores in recent weeks across the UK.
Mike Hinchcliffe, marketing manager for Netto UK, said: “We’re temporarily limiting our larger 10 kg bags of rice to one per customer because, like most other UK supermarkets, we are having to manage and minimise the impact the global rice shortage is having on our suppliers.
“We are experiencing a high demand for rice and have introduced this measure across our 184 UK stores to ensure that all of our customers have a fair opportunity to make their regular rice purchases. Our smaller 1kg packs remain on free sale with no restrictions planned at this time.” It expects the restriction to continue “indefinitely”.
Chertoff keen on using Israeli type airport security technologies
From: Reuters
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday he will seek to adopt novel Israeli methods, like behaviour-detection technologies, to better secure America’s airports.“That’s a scenario where Israel has a lot of experience,” Chertoff said in an interview with Reuters. “I think that it is of interest to us to see if there is any adaptation there.”
Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, known for its strict security measures, relies heavily on techniques that detect suspicious behaviour among travellers.
Chertoff said such methods, as well as Israeli technologies that detect explosives, are some of the things that may help protect U.S. airports and other public places against attacks.
Chertoff, at a conference in Jerusalem for public and homeland security ministers from around the world, signed an agreement with Israel to share technology and information on methods to improve homeland security.
One of the new systems presented at the conference, developed by the Israeli technology company WeCU, uses behavioural science, together with biometric sensors, to detect sinister intentions among travellers.
The U.S. homeland security chief said that not all methods developed and used in Israel, such as questioning every passenger, are practical in larger U.S. airports.
D Telekom raided over spying allegation
Via: FT.com
Prosecutors raided the Bonn headquarters of Deutsche Telekom on Thursday as part of a probe into possible criminal actions by former executives during an alleged spying campaign targeting directors and journalists three years ago.Public prosecutor Friedrich Apostel said former chairman Klaus Zumwinkel, ex-chief executive Kai-Uwe Ricke, and six employees past and present were “within the scope” of an inquiry to establish if charges will follow.
Mr Ricke, chief executive until late 2006, could not be reached. But he has in recent days repeatedly denied any knowledge of wrongdoing in various German media. He has admitted leaks were an issue for management.
Mr Zumwinkel’s spokesman on Thursday referred to a statement issued on Tuesday in which Mr Zumwinkel, chairman until the start of this year, said that “any alleged data gathering happened without [his] agreement”.
US banks likely to fail as bad loans soar
Bad news, from: FT.com
US banks set aside a record $37.1bn to cover losses on real estate loans and other credits during the first quarter in a sign of the growing economic pain being caused by the global credit crisis, regulators said on Thursday.Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said it was likely loan-loss provisions and bank failures would rise in coming quarters as the fallout from market turmoil hits the real economy.
“While we may be past the worst of the turmoil in financial markets, we’re still in the early stages of the traditional credit crisis you typically see during an economic downturn,” she said, adding: “What we really need to focus on is the uncertainty surrounding the economy . . . and again it is all about housing.”
Ms Bair spoke as the FDIC released its quarterly banking profile, which showed loan-loss provisions in the first quarter were more than four times higher than last year’s level. That was the main reason bank earnings fell 46 per cent to $19.3bn from the first quarter in 2007 for the commercial banks and savings institutions where the FDIC insures customer deposits.
U.K. Home Values Drop Most on Record, Nationwide Says
U.K. house prices fell in May by the most since at least 1991 as the shortage of credit starved the property market of buyers, Nationwide Building Society said.The price of an average home dropped 2.5 percent from April to 173,583 pounds ($344,000), Britain’s fourth-biggest mortgage lender said today in a statement. That’s the largest decline since the index started in January 1991. From a year earlier, prices fell 4.4 percent.
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King predicted this month that property values are “likely to fall further” and said there is a risk that the U.K. economy may contract. Mortgage approvals dropped in April by 39 percent from a year earlier, the British Bankers’ Association said this week.
“With demand weakening, we’re not expecting prices to be picking up for some time,” Nationwide Chief Economist Fionnuala Earley said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “It would take more than one interest-rate cut to change the trend. We do expect there to be further house-price falls this year.”
Recession still likely in US, says Greenspan
The US is still more likely than not to have a recession in spite of the relative stabilisation in the economy in recent weeks, Alan Greenspan has told the Financial Times.The former chairman of the Federal Reserve said: “I still believe there is a greater than 50 per cent probability of recession.” But, he said, “that probability has receded a little and I think the probability of a severe recession has come down markedly”.
His comments, in an interview with the FT, come as a counter to the increasing optimism in some quarters. In the past six weeks, most economists have scaled back their estimates of the likelihood of a US recession following a better-than-expected jobs report and stronger business activity surveys. Many now think the US will narrowly dodge outright economic contraction.
The former Fed chief also said that it was “too soon to tell” whether the worst of the financial crisis was over, as this would depend on what happened to house prices.
Mr Greenspan estimates that house prices will fall by another 10 per cent from their February levels, for a total peak-to-trough decline of roughly 25 per cent.
If the economy is weak and the market overshoots, house prices could decline by another 5 per cent, he says.
Steepest decrease in driving ever recorded
As gas goes up, driving goes down - CNN.com
At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate.The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded.
Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less — that’s 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it “the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.” Records have been kept since 1942.
According to AAA, for the first time since 2002, Americans said they were planning to drive less over the Memorial Day weekend than they did the year before.
Tracy and Adam Crews posted on iReport that their annual Memorial Day weekend has traditionally involved camping and fishing.
“Well, due to the continual rise in gas, we felt our only recourse was to nix the idea this year and stay home” in Jacksonville, Florida, they wrote.
Is the government compiling a secret list of citizens to detain under martial law?
From: Radar Online
In the spring of 2007, a retired senior official in the U.S. Justice Department sat before Congress and told a story so odd and ominous, it could have sprung from the pages of a pulp political thriller. It was about a principled bureaucrat struggling to protect his country from a highly classified program with sinister implications. Rife with high drama, it included a car chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., and a tense meeting at the White House, where the president’s henchmen made the bureaucrat so nervous that he demanded a neutral witness be present.The bureaucrat was James Comey, John Ashcroft’s second-in-command at the Department of Justice during Bush’s first term. Comey had been a loyal political foot soldier of the Republican Party for many years. Yet in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he described how he had grown increasingly uneasy reviewing the Bush administration’s various domestic surveillance and spying programs. Much of his testimony centered on an operation so clandestine he wasn’t allowed to name it or even describe what it did. He did say, however, that he and Ashcroft had discussed the program in March 2004, trying to decide whether it was legal under federal statutes. Shortly before the certification deadline, Ashcroft fell ill with pancreatitis, making Comey acting attorney general, and Comey opted not to certify the program. When he communicated his decision to the White House, Bush’s men told him, in so many words, to take his concerns and stuff them in an undisclosed location.
Energy fears looming, new survivalists prepare
A few years ago, Kathleen Breault was just another suburban
grandma, driving countless hours every week, stopping for lunch at
McDonald’s, buying clothes at the mall, watching TV in the evenings.
That was before Breault heard an author talk about the bleak
future of the world’s oil supply. Now, she’s preparing for the world as
we know it to disappear.
Breault cut her driving time in half. She switched to a diet of
locally grown foods near her upstate New York home and lost 70 pounds.
She sliced up her credit cards, banished her television and swore off
plane travel. She began relying on a wood-burning stove.
“I was panic-stricken,” the 50-year-old recalled, her voice
shaking. “Devastated. Depressed. Afraid. Vulnerable. Weak. Alone. Just
terrible.”
Convinced the planet’s oil supply is dwindling and the world’s
economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are
moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving
fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to
defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people
who didn’t prepare.
The exact number of people taking such steps is impossible to
determine, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the movement has been
gaining momentum in the last few years.
These energy survivalists are not leading some sort of green
revolution meant to save the planet. Many of them believe it is too
late for that, seeing signs in soaring fuel and food prices and a
faltering U.S. economy, and are largely focused on saving themselves.
Some are doing it quietly, giving few details of their
preparations — afraid that revealing such information as the location
of their supplies will endanger themselves and their loved ones. They
envision a future in which the nation’s cities will be filled with
hungry, desperate refugees forced to go looking for food, shelter and
water.
“There’s going to be things that happen when people can’t get
things that they need for themselves and their families,” said
Lynn-Marie, who believes cities could see a rise in violence as early
as 2012.
Lynn-Marie asked to be identified by her first name to protect
her homestead in rural western Idaho. Many of these survivalists
declined to speak to The Associated Press for similar reasons.
These survivalists believe in “peak oil,” the idea that world
oil production is set to hit a high point and then decline. Scientists
who support idea say the amount of oil produced in the world each year
has already or will soon begin a downward slide, even amid increased
demand. But many scientists say such a scenario will be avoided as
other sources of energy come in to fill the void.
On the PeakOil.com Web site, where upward of 800 people gathered
on recent evenings, believers engage in a debate about what kind of
world awaits.
Some members argue there will be no financial crash, but a slow
slide into harder times. Some believe the federal government will
respond to the loss of energy security with a clampdown on personal
freedoms. Others simply don’t trust that the government can maintain
basic services in the face of an energy crisis.
The powers that be, they’ve determined, will be largely powerless to stop what is to come.
Determined to guard themselves from potentially harsh times
ahead, Lynn-Marie and her husband have already planted an orchard of
about 40 trees and built a greenhouse on their 7 1/2 acres. They have
built their own irrigation system. They’ve begun to raise chickens and
pigs, and they’ve learned to slaughter them.
The couple have gotten rid of their TV and instead have been
reading dusty old books published in their grandparents’ era, books
that explain the simpler lifestyle they are trying to revive.
Lynn-Marie has been teaching herself how to make soap. Her husband,
concerned about one day being unable to get medications, has been
training to become an herbalist.
By 2012, they expect to power their property with solar panels,
and produce their own meat, milk and vegetables. When things start to
fall apart, they expect their children and grandchildren will come back
home and help them work the land. She envisions a day when the family
may have to decide whether to turn needy people away from their door.
“People will be unprepared,” she said. “And we can imagine marauding hordes.”
So can Peter Laskowski. Living in a woodsy area outside of
Montpelier, Vt., the 57-year-old retiree has become the local constable
and a deputy sheriff for his county, as well as an emergency medical
technician.
“I decided there was nothing like getting the training myself to
deal with insurrections, if that’s a possibility,” said the former
executive recruiter.
Laskowski is taking steps similar to environmentalists:
conserving fuel, consuming less, studying global warming, and relying
on local produce and craftsmen. Laskowski is powering his home with
solar panels and is raising fish, geese, ducks and sheep. He has
planted apple and pear trees and is growing lettuce, spinach and corn.
Whenever possible, he uses his bicycle to get into town.
“I remember the oil crisis in ‘73; I remember waiting in line
for gas,” Laskowski said. “If there is a disruption in the oil supply
it will be very quickly elevated into a disaster.”
Breault said she hopes to someday band together with her
neighbors to form a self-sufficient community. Women will always be
having babies, she notes, and she imagines her skills as a midwife will
always be in demand.
For now, she is readying for the more immediate work ahead:
There’s a root cellar to dig, fruit trees and vegetable plots to plant.
She has put a bicycle on layaway, and soon she’ll be able to bike to
visit her grandkids even if there is no oil at the pump.
Whatever the shape of things yet to come, she said, she’s done what she can to prepare.
Be careful about what you download- Research into Islamic terrorism led to police response
A masters student at the University of Nottingham who was arrested under the Terrorism Act under suspicion of possessing extremist material was studying terrorism for his dissertation, Times Higher Education can reveal.…
Rizwaan Sabir, a 22-year-old who was studying in the politics department, was arrested along with a 30-year-old member of staff. Both were released without charge on 20 May after having been held in custody for six days.
Mr Sabir’s lawyer, Tayab Ali of McCormacks solicitors in London, told Times Higher Education that as preparation for a PhD on radical Islamic groups, Mr Sabir had downloaded an edited version of the al-Qaeda handbook from a US government website. It is understood that Mr Sabir sent the 1,500-page document to the staff member - who was subsequently arrested - because he had access to a printer. Mr Ali said: “The two members of the university were treated as though they were part of an al-Qaeda cell. They were detained for 48 hours, and a warrant for further detention was granted on the basis that the police had mobile phones and evidence taken from computers to justify this.”
…
Academics at Nottingham have expressed deep concerns about the arrest’s implications for academic freedom. Bettina Rentz, a lecturer in international security and Mr Sabir’s personal tutor, said: “This case is very worrying. The student downloaded publicly accessible information and provoked this very harsh reaction. Nobody tried to speak to him or to his tutors before police were sent in. The whole push from the Government is on policy relevance of research, and in this case the student’s research could not be more policy relevant.”
…
Dr Nilsen added: “I perceive the current incident at Nottingham to be occurring in tandem with several other attempts by UK authorities to increase surveillance of the academy and, in particular, non-Western students and staff, and moreover as an episode that is symptomatic of a more general curtailment of civil liberties in UK society, which seems to particularly affect and victimise non-Western citizens.”
Students at Nottingham are circulating a petition asking for the university to guarantee that the freedom of academics and students will be protected. It asks the university to acknowledge its “disproportionate response” to the possession of legitimate research materials.
A spokesman for Nottingham confirmed that the police had been called after material was found on the computer used by a junior clerical member of staff. “There was no reasonable rationale for this person to have that information,” he said. “The police were called in on the basis of reasonable anxiety and concern. In response to that, the police made a connection with a student who, we understand, was impeding the investigation and arrested that person.”
U.S. Economy: Home Resales Decline, Inventories Jump
Via: Bloomberg.com
Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. fell in April and the supply of unsold properties reached a record, signaling no let-up in the 27-month housing slump.Purchases declined 1 percent to an annual rate of 4.89 million, higher than forecast, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median price fell 8 percent from April last year, the second-biggest drop.
“There is no indication that things are improving,” said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York, who forecast sales would drop to a 4.9 million pace. “Inventories will stay out of balance at least until the end of 2009 and prices will keep falling.”
Defaults on subprime mortgages have prompted lenders to restrict credit, while falling property values have given buyers who are still able to get financing reason to delay purchases. The slide in home values may hurt consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy.
Military Draft considered again
In an exchange sure to send ripples of anxiety through the all-volunteer military, the Senate’s senior defense spending member asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen if it is time to “consider reinstituting the draft.”Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, asked Gates and Mullen the question he said no one wants to ask: “Is the cost of maintaining an all-volunteer force becoming unsustainable and, secondly, do we need to consider reinstituting the draft.”
Inouye cited the ever-increasing pay and benefits paid to active and reserve service members, noting that it now costs an estimated $126,000 per service member.
Gates and Mullen both said they thought the current volunteer force was the finest the U.S. has ever fielded. Gates said he “personally” believes that “it is worth the cost.”
Fall in US crude stocks sends oil to $135
Well, there are about 10 vehicles on my road that have for sale signs in the window…..a symptom of unemployment perhaps, rather than prudent thinking.
From: FT.com
The price of oil rose above $135 a barrel for the first time on Thursday, driven by an unexpected fall in US stocks of crude.In morning trading in Asia, US oil reached a high of $135.04 a barrel, before falling back to about $134.40.
The rise followed data from the US government on Wednesday showing a sharp fall in inventories of crude oil and gasoline. The Energy Information Administration said crude stocks fell the previous week by 5.4m barrels, leaving total crude oil stocks 6.5 per cent lower than last year. Analysts had expected a small rise.
The figures for inventories are particularly sensitive as they come just before the start of the US driving season, when Americans go on holiday and petrol consumption rises. The season begins next Monday, Memorial Day.
Warren Buffett sees U.S. downturn longer, more painful
The U.S. economy will feel more pain from the global financial crisis and for longer than many people think, U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett said on Wednesday.The effect of the downturn on financial institutions is the worst since World War Two, he said, but for banks at least, the worst is probably behind them after the U.S. Federal Reserve staved off “really contagious financial panic” with its intervention to prop up investment bank Bear Stearns
Fed sees both unemployment, prices on rise, slower growth
Times will get harder over the next few years. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will be well into their preparations now.
Via: CNN
The Federal Reserve sees worse economic problems ahead, according to new forecasts from the central bank released Wednesday.But even so, the Fed may be reluctant to cut interest rates any further than it already has, the minutes from its last meeting show. (The minutes were also released Wednesday.)
The Fed lowered its economic growth forecast for the year. At the same time, it raised its projections for inflation and unemployment. The combination of slowing growth and rising prices created a difficult situation that made the Fed’s latest decision to cut rates on April 30 a “close call.”
Mom forced to live in car with dogs
Wow, this is rather sad, but unfortunately I suspect it will become all the more common as time goes on…to the point where many neighborhoods will have a program for people who sleep in their cars.
Wherever this womans children are, they need to come get their mother, and take care of their own!
From: CNN.com
Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver’s seat.A former loan processor, the 67-year-old mother of three grown children said she never thought she’d spend her golden years sleeping in her car in a parking lot.
“This is my bed, my dogs,” she said. “This is my life in this car right now.”
Harvey was forced into homelessness earlier this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic, oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.
“It went to hell in a handbasket,” she said. “I didn’t think this would happen to me. It’s just something that I don’t think that people think is going to happen to them is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too.”
Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament.
‘Big Brother’ database for phones and e-mails
A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials.The information would be held for at least 12 months and the police and security services would be able to access it if given permission from the courts.
The proposal will raise further alarm about a “Big Brother” society, as it follows plans for vast databases for the ID cards scheme and NHS patients. There will also be concern about the ability of the Government to manage a system holding billions of records. About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated 3 billion e-mails are sent every day.
US, Russia among least peaceful nations on planet
This comes as no great surprise, does it.
Via: FT.com
China is put in 67th place, the US is 97th and Russia is at 131.
The Global Peace Index is drawn up by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an independent think-tank, together with the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit. It tests each nation against 24 “peacefulness” criteria, including a nation’s relations with its neighbours, arms sales and foreign troop deployments.
It also takes into account data on a nation’s crime rate, its prison population and the potential for terrorism within its borders.
The low ranking of the US, which comes below Syria, Rwanda and Mongolia, reflects its high level of military expenditure and engagement. It also has proportionally more citizens in jail than any other state.
4 ‘executed’ bodies found in Baja California
Authorities in the Mexican state of Baja California are investigating the deaths of four people, including at least one American, whose bodies were found in a canyon over the weekend, a police spokesman said Monday.The decomposed bodies of three men and one woman were found Sunday evening near Rosarito, about 20 miles south of the U.S. border, Baja California state police spokesman Rogelio Contreras said. Two of the bodies were found in a car with California license plates, and all the victims appear to have been “executed,” he said.
Economists see credit crisis nearing end, but unemployment/inflation will rise
So the issues are with housing, credit, high energy costs, soaring food and commodity prices, and out of those four areas the guys with the crystal balls are predicting that housing and credit problems are expected to get better by the end of this year. That still leaves most people with higher expenses and higher inflation just in order to survive.
Via: money.cnn.com
First the good news: The worst of the painful housing slump and the credit crunch might come to an end this year. Now the bad: The economy will weaken further and unemployment will rise.…
A growing number of economists believe the country is on the brink of a recession or in one already, dragged down by all the problems in housing, credit and financial markets. Now 56% of the economists think the economy has started or will enter a recession this year. That’s up from 45% in a survey in February. If there is a recession, it probably will be short and shallow, economists said.
…“Although housing and credit markets will gradually loosen their grip, U.S. economic growth is expected to only slowly return to health,” said Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, president of NABE and chief economist at Ford Motor Co.
Given the outlook for sluggish overall economic activity, companies are likely to remain cautious in their spending and hiring.
The unemployment rate, which averaged 4.6% last year, will move higher. Forecasters predict the jobless rate will hit 5.3% this year and 5.6% next year.
With food prices marching upward, gasoline prices closing in on $4 a gallon nationwide and oil hitting a record high near $128 a barrel, inflation should rise. Consumer prices will increase 3.6% this year, up from a previous forecast of a 3% rise. Next year, prices should calm down a bit, with the inflation rate clocking in at 2.4%.
Survival Foods harder to get
Nitro-Pak, so I’ve heard is not accepting orders for #10 cans of food. Due to high demand (procrastinators) orders are taking longer to fill also. This was to be expected.
Due to EXTREMELY high customer demand and market volatility, our order processing time for most orders is currently taking 10-18 business days to ship. Orders with food or food units will take longer. Some food items may temporarily be backordered. Thanks for your patience!
And according to Survival Acres:
Mountain House Has Suspended #10 Can SalesI have just received notice (with no warning) that Mountain House (Oregon Freeze Dry) has suspended all FUTURE sales of #10 freeze dried products, effective immediately. This is not a joke - this is not a “future post” - NOBODY PANIC.
All existing orders already received will be filled. Let me say this again — all existing orders already received will be filled. Mountain House expects to fill all of their existing orders by mid-July (for the most recent orders, older orders will undoubtedly ship sooner).
Mountain House says maybe they will offer their #10 cans this fall — we’ll see. Pouch products were NOT mentioned, so I assume they are still available and I’ve left these up on the site.
3,000 evacuated after train cars leak acid
Source: CNN.com
More than 3,000 people were evacuated in Lafayette, Louisiana, on Saturday after two of six derailed train cars containing highly corrosive hydrochloric acid began leaking, authorities said Saturday.The cars jumped the track about 2:30 a.m. CT.
Homes, businesses and a nursing home were evacuated in a one-mile radius after toxic fumes rose above the site.
US consumer confidence at lowest since 1980
Well, I don’t relish the idea of a return to the 80’s…let’s take it back a bit further, to at least the horse and buggy days.
Via FT.com
US consumer confidence sank to its lowest level in 28 years this month as anxious shoppers grappled with surging food and fuel costs, according to a new survey published on Friday.The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence index plunged from 62.6 to 59.5 in May, the lowest reading since June 1980. Meanwhile, one-year inflation expectations rose to 5.2 per cent, the most since February 1982, and up from 4.8 per cent in April.
A separate report revealed new construction of single-family homes dropped to the lowest level in 17 years. Although the headline rate of housing starts increased, economists attributed the improvement to a big spike in a volatile gauge of multi-family home construction.
Waning consumer confidence and the sliding US housing market have compelled the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates by 325 basis points since last September to try to prevent the US economy tipping into a deep recession.Policymakers fear that US consumers will rein in spending as the labour market weakens and credit conditions tighten, causing the economy to slow more quickly.
“There is not so much as a sniff of a hint of recovery here; the data continue to deteriorate,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics.
FBI: Global intelligence and law enforcement agency
Oh, I was under the impression that the FBI was “a federal criminal investigative body and a domestic intelligence agency. .”
http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/mueller051608.htm
Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
May 16, 2008
If we in the FBI safeguard our civil liberties but leave our country vulnerable to terrorist attack, we have lost. If we protect America from terrorism but sacrifice our civil liberties, we have also lost. Every day, the men and women of the Bureau must strike this balance.
We recognize that if we are to be successful as a global intelligence and law enforcement agency, we must be as transparent as possible. We welcome scrutiny from Congress, the American public, and the press. Yes, this scrutiny is sometimes painful. But in the long run it does make us better, because we understand that our ability to protect the American people depends in large part on the people’s trust in the FBI.
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Katadyn Water Filters
