Mover Mike

The Right EVIL Place celebrates Halloween and a one year blogiversary. Congrats!

I noticed three pictures on the site of Mr. Right and Stephan Johnson, of the Democratic candidates, Al Gore holding his fingers in a "L" shape for 2000, John F Kerry as he appeared in high school or college, looking like Lurch in the Adams Family for 2004, and this for 2008:

Happy Halloween!

mover mike

What's this! From the WSJ, Refco Creditors Dispute Claim Their Funds Are Unprotected

Refco says it owes creditors, including dozens of companies that traded through those unregulated units, a total of $17 billion.

Those dozens of companies claim their funds should not be in in unregulated accounts that offer few protections in bankruptcy proceedings.

They say they should be considered customers entitled to full access to all of their money — just like any other customer of a regulated brokerage firm.

Among those making that argument are two commodity funds founded by investor Jim Rogers. Those funds have filed a lawsuit to recover more than $360 million they say should have been deposited in Refco's regulated futures arm.

If this Refco bankruptcy escalates to $17 Billion, expect some real financial fireworks!

Refco mover mike

Who is 990N?

According to Money CNN, The Brookings Institute and Virginia Tech urban planning professor Robert Lang, in a new report say

There has been an impressive amount of construction in the United States over the last three centuries: All told, we've built more than 300 billion square feet of homes, offices, factories and other structures.

They predict

it will take just 25 years to erect the next 200 billion square feet, which we'll need to accommodate 70 million more people and to replace homes and offices erased by everything from disasters like Hurricane Katrina to plain old obsolescence.

The report looks at the 10 "Megapolitans" and of interest to us in the Northwest, what they call Cascadia, a Megapolitan that intertwines from Seattle to Eugene!

The topper:

Researchers estimate that the massive buildout will constitute a $25 trillion development market by 2030, more than twice the size of the U.S. economy today.

seattle portland eugene Megapolitan mover mike

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists! is up at Triple Pundit. Mover Mike is represented, and check out Lip-Sticking about marketing to women.

Happy Halloween!

mover mike

On Sept 21, I wrote Who is Pierre Lassonde?
Pierre Lassonde is President of Newmont Mining, the world's largest gold producer. Dorothy Kosich at Mineweb reports on a conference call in which Lassonde comments on Dr. Ben Bernanke. Bernanke was nominated to head the Federal Reserve and take Alan Greenspan's place upon his retirement.

During a conference call to discuss Newmont's third-quarter financial results, Lassonde described Bernanke as a "reflationist" with a Chicago School-economist orientation (The Chicago School is renown for its belief in the power of markets).

Lassonde predicted that there will be a slowdown in the U.S. economy, which will motivate the Fed to become "commodative," which will be good for gold. Meanwhile, he noted, "China continues to defy expectation" in terms of demand.

Gold "supply continues to be challenged," Lassonde forecast as the production of Newmont and other international gold mining companies is down. As a result, he predicted the gold price will reach $525 an ounce before the beginning of next year.

gold Lassonde mover mike

On July 14th, 2003, Robert Novak wrote his column that formally outed Valerie Plame as CIA.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

From the indictment:

page 3

Joseph Wilson was married to Valerie Plame Wilson ("Valerie Wilson"). At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community. I challenge the the prosecutor's claim that the affiliation with the CIA was not well known and that she was outed by Libby or Robert Novak. In fact Joe Wilson may have outed her!

Clifford D May says:

That Wilson worked at the CIA was not widely known, but it was hardly a secret [See Cliff May at NRO)

Who is Clifford D May?

Before moving to Colorado Mr. May spent nearly a decade with The New York Times as a reporter in both New York and Washington, an editor of The New York Times Sunday Magazine and a foreign correspondent. He established the Times' West Africa bureau and, as Bureau Chief, covered more than a score of African nations.

So the question is "Who didn't know?"

Why would Matt Cooper, on July 12th 2003 ask the question of Libby:

Basically, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife having been involved in sending him to Niger.

Mr Russert was out of the loop according to his testimony:

Russert told the Special Prosecutor that, at the time of that conversation, he did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a CIA operative and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby. Mr. Russert said that he first learned Ms. Plame's name and her role at the CIA when he read a column written by Robert Novak later that month.

Here are some others that are asking who knew about Valerie's CIA connections?

Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom

That is, Valerie Plame, it now seems, was not “outed”—at least not by Novak’s report.

So I ask again: was Plame “outed”? If so, where are the charges suggesting that?
I still maintain that Plame’s CIA ties were already known publicly. She did, after all, work at the CIA. And so if she wasn’t “covert,” then how the hell was she compromised?

The issue, as a matter of law, is whether she was classified as covert by the CIA, and whether the CIA took steps to protect her identity.

In The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons Stephen F. Hayes writes:

The promised CIA follow-up came quickly. That same day officials at the agency's Counterproliferation Division discussed how they might investigate further. An employee of the division, Valerie Wilson, suggested the agency send her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon with experience in Niger, to Africa to make inquiries. In a memo to the deputy director of the Counterproliferation Division, she wrote: "My husband has good relations with the PM [prime minister of Niger] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." Mrs. Wilson would later say she asked her husband, on behalf of the CIA, if he would investigate "this crazy report" on a uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Wilson agreed to go.

On June 14, 2003, Joe Wilson is scheduled to speak at the 2003 Iraq Forum. The website EPIC - Education for Peace in Iraq Centerhas this bio:

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV served as a member of the U.S. Diplomatic Service from 1976 until 1998. From 1988 to 1991, Ambassador Wilson served in Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy. As acting Ambassador during "Desert Shield," he was responsible for the negotiations that resulted in the release of several hundred American hostages. He was the last official American to meet with Saddam Hussein before the launching of "Desert Storm." Ambassador Wilson graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1972. He has been decorated as a Commander in the Order of the Equatorial Star by the Government of Gabon and as an Admiral in the El Paso Navy by the El Paso County Commissioners. He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has four children.

Again recall Wizbang:

I'm over generalizing here, but it seem like there wasn't an outing of an agent until two non-secret bits of information were combined.Joseph Wilson's wife's maiden name, most would now agree, was not a secret. That Wilson worked at the CIA was not widely known, but it was hardly a secret

Plame wilson Libby

Update: Captain's Quarters has covered this issue a number of times with Oct 30th being the latest: The Myth Of Dragging Wilson's Wife Into The Niger Case

If anyone other than Plame bears responsibility for Plame's outing, it's her martyr-playing husband, Joe Wilson.

mover mike

It's now a hurricane!

Sustained winds of 85 MPH. Looks like people least able to afford it, from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guateamala, will be hit hard.

beta mover mike

So what did "everyone know" about Valerie Plame and the CIA?

Here's a shot of Who's Who from Wizbang:

"Copyright (c) 2002 by Reed Elsevier, Inc."

Quoting from Wizbang

I'm over generalizing here, but it seem like there wasn't an outing of an agent until two non-secret bits of information were combined.Joseph Wilson's wife's maiden name, most would now agree, was not a secret. That Wilson worked at the CIA was not widely known, but it was hardly a secret [See Cliff May at NRO and Just One Minute].

Clifford May says "I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."
Just One Minute says "I can find plenty of references invoking the notion that Andrea Mitchell recently admitted that Valerie Plame's identity was widely known amongst journalists and/or the Washington glitterati."

Again from Wizbang

That Wilson's wife was (or had been) a covert operative was only known to (if reports are to be believed) the Cuban government and perhaps those receiving information form Aldrich Ames, but it was still a secret. Novak puts two pieces of non-secret information together and gets this flashpoint.

But how did that combination "out" a covert agent? It turns out the the Valerie Plame name (remember, according to many commenters her name's no big deal) was her cover. If her cover name was Valerie Jones how exactly would Novak's column as it was written have "outed" her? It's wouldn't have. As former federal prosecutor Joesph DiGenoa contends it sure looks like the CIA didn't exactly bust a nut to "take every conceivable step to protect this person's identity."

That Wilson worked at the CIA was not widely known, but it was hardly a secret

That is the crux of the matter! We can argue the aformentioned or we can argue

Valerie Plame's name wasn't a secret.

The fact that Valerie Plame was married to Joe Wilson wasn't a secret.

The fact that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA WAS a secret. (Hat tip G Spot1 at August 5, 2005 04:42 PM)

Since the indictment of Libby, Just One Minute has an update to who outed Valerie Plame

Unless there is more coming from Fitzgerald, it sure seems "Scooter" and Martha Stewart are in trouble over related charges. The "act" didn't get them into trouble, but the lies did!

Plame Libby mover mike

From the New York Post, REFCO STIFFING ITS CUSTOMERS

Lawyers for collapsed futures trading giant Refco Inc. are trying to treat investors' cash and investments as debt that doesn't need to be immediately returned to the bankrupt firm's customers.

[...]

"Any way you look at this, many of the Refco Capital Markets clients are going to have to take some [loss] on their positions," said an investor in Refco's junk bonds. "There are no hard assets to be sold, and the cash from the sale of the units is going to go to pay down bondholders," he said.

There's never an end to outrage!

refco mover mike

I just listened to Patrick Fitzgerald's news conference and I have one question. He said Valerie Plame's cover was blown in July of 2003. But, in fact wasn't it well known that she was employed by the CIA? And wasn't it Wilson, Valerie Plame's husband that outed her?

mover mike

Question to ask next time you fill up: Does your station have an emergency generator? One of the big problems since Wilma is the gas line that affects the efficiency of the state's economy. From the seattlepi.com,

Three days after Wilma hit South Florida, many gas stations remained shut down Thursday. Most closed stations have full storage tanks, but the widespread power outages have silenced their pumps.

From the Miami Hearld Opinion Page:

GERALD LURIE, Miami

If gas stations were required to have back-up generators, the stations could also serve as distribution points for food, water, ice and gas during power outages. It would leave people better able to assist with recovery efforts. Without gas, many residents can't reach FEMA distribution centers.

Another problem with the lack of generators, from the Christian Science Monitor

A lack of generators has also set the stage for a potential health emergency. Sewers are beginning to back up and overflow into the streets. Backups are caused when sewer lift stations are shut down from lack of power for too long. Without a generator or some other power source, the sewer pipes fill up and eventually overflow through manhole covers.

Such problems are usually averted by the swift restoration of power.

Another sign that the economy could take a hit is this report on the damage to the agriculture in South Florida:

(Florida's agriculture commissioner Charles) Bronson said losses of greenhouses and nursery plants in horticulture, Florida's leading agriculture sector, could lead to an ``economic meltdown'' in many rural areas.

No official estimate has been made of Florida's agriculture losses from Wilma, but Bronson said this week they likely will exceed $1 billion. The losses appeared to be worse than those from Hurricane Katrina earlier this year and the four hurricanes that ravaged Florida last year, he said.

wilma mover mike

I posted information about Palladium in Metal of the 21st Century before I ran out the door to my Pilate's class. I want to add some additional information. Yesterday, I read at Le Metropole Cafe that the price of Palladium was up $9 to $221. That's a darn good gain in one day. I took a look at the monthly chart and again, darn, if it doesn't look like it wants to go a lot higher. It was over $340 last year in mid-April and over $1100 in January, 2001.

My guess, it has made a huge base and if it breaks out, $340 would be the first target (up 53%).

Palladium has an advantage over gold, in that there doesn't seem to be the concerted effort by federal officials and politicians to hold the price down.

The monthly chart of Platinum looks similar to the gold chart, up 100% from its lows in 2001, and also doesn't have the gold stigma attached.

One ounce Palladium coins sell close to the price of the metal content and IMHO seem to have a big potential. One other thing Palladium seems to be used or is researched to being used in the latest technologies, solutions to many of our problems.

Palladium Platinum gold mover mike

From the AP, Official: Louisiana public hospital system on verge of collapse

Two months after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana's public hospital system is on the verge of financial collapse unless federal aid is forthcoming quickly, the head of the system said Thursday.

[...]

Congress passed emergency legislation earlier this month providing up to $1 billion in federal loans to local governments to enable them to continuing paying essential employees. (Donald) Smithburg, (chief executive of the LSU Health Care Services Division) said the public hospitals are not eligible for loans under that legislation.

Katrina and Rita were like rocks thrown into a pond, the ripples keep getting wider!

katrina rita mover mike

Update:

PALLADIUM(Pd) Metal of the 21st Century

Autocatalysts Softer than platinum, ductile and resistant to oxidation and high temperature corrosion, palladium is useful in eliminating harmful emissions produced by internal combustion engines. Autocatalysts are by far the largest user of palladium; autocatalysts convert over 90 percent of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen produced in the exhaust from gasoline engines into carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor. More about autocatalysts.

Electronics Palladium has a number of electronic applications. For example, palladium’s chemical stability and electrical conductivity make it an effective and durable alternative to gold for plating in electronic components. More about electronic uses.

Dentistry Palladium-based alloys are used in dentistry for dental crowns and bridges. And palladium metal is also compatible with human tissue and is used, in a radioactive form, in the medical industry for the treatment of cancer. More about dental uses.

Jewelry Palladium is lighter than platinum having about the same density as silver, thus, palladium is a jewelry metal as well. Palladium in jewelry is primarily used as an alloy with platinum to optimize platinum’s working characteristics and wear properties. Palladium is also used as an alloy in producing white gold. More about jewelry uses.

Chemical Palladium is an important part of the refining of nitric acid, and has important uses in developing raw materials for synthetic rubber and nylon. More about chemical uses.

Fuel Cells Palladium-based alloys are actively being researched for applications in fuel cell technology, an area of future promise for the metal. More about fuel cell uses.

Coinage Palladium is an attractive metal for coinage purposes. Northwest Territorial Mint is actively minting both bullion coins for the bullion market, as well as custom coins from this attractive and precious metal. More about coinage uses.

Oil Refining Palladium and other PGM metals serve important functions in catalytic reactions that are used in various stages in the refining of petroleum. More about petroleum refining.

Polyester Palladium is a critical catalyst in the manufacture of polyester. Read a first hand account about the development of that critical step.

Photography Palladium and platinum are both used in an historic photographic printing process that many consider superior to conventional silver in tonal quality and archival longevity. More about palladium printing.

Water Treatment Palladium is a unique and important catalyst being studied for use in removing a number of toxic and carcinogenic substances from groundwater. More about water treatment.

Hydrogen Purification Palladium’s ability to absorb and desorb hydrogen depending on circumstances allows it to be an effective material to filter hydrogen from other gasses resulting in an ultra pure hydrogen gas. Find out more.

Medicine Palladium-103, a radioactive isotope of palladium, is seeing promissing applications in the treatement of prostate cancer. A newly emerging added area of research is potential use in the treatment of breast cancer. Find out more.

Other Uses Palladium has some uses that rank as befitting royalty. Come see the royal coffemaker with which the preparation is not just a taste sensation, but an event as well. For an audio sensation, check out the palladium interconnect cables.

mover mike

On Oct. 25th I posted about Refco and quoted The Faulking Truth

In our opinion, REFCO is not the tip of the iceberg in this issue, it's nothing more than an ice cube floating in a sea of icebergs.

I have also posted that there is not enough portfiolio management talent for 8000+ hedge funds. Financial Director in Lack of hedge fund talent risks another Refco

Experts have warned that firms are finding it difficult to recruit staff capable of coping with the demands of assurance and advisory work around the funds, posing a substantial risk to investors and hedge fund managers.

In addition,

Amin Rajan, CEO of research firm Create, which has worked extensively with KPMG on hedge fund research, said that, because the funds used such intricate techniques, it was difficult to recruit individuals with the required ability.

‘There is a huge shortage of skills. There are not enough people out there who understand how the investment vehicles are used,’ Rajan said. ‘Skills will only develop as demand grows.'

Great! That's like putting trainees in charge of a Nuclear Power Plant and giving them on-the-job training!

Refco hedge funds mover mike

I'll be darned! Harriett Miers withdraws. From President Bush:

I understand and share her concern, however, about the current state of the Supreme Court confirmation process. It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel. Harriet Miers' decision demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the constitutional separation of powers and confirms my deep respect and admiration for her.

And I was wrong when on Oct. 8th, I said Harriet Miers Will Be Confirmed!

harriett miers mover mike

Update:

The nation's largest conservative women's group yesterday called for the withdrawal of the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination.
[...]
The move, which surprised even Republicans working closely with Mr. Leo, came as the Concerned Women for America called for the nomination to be withdrawn in part because of reports of a 1993 speech in which Miss Miers appeared to agree with some of the grounds for the legal right to abortion.

From the London Irvine Report, it's going to be tough to be an American worker as this is a sign of things to come:

The world's largest automaker (GM) disclosed in an SEC filing that it had received subpoenas from the agency related to a variety of topics, including concerns over pension and retiree health care costs, transactions between GM and its former parts unit, Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy court protections earlier this month, the automaker's recovery of recall costs from suppliers and supplier price reductions or credits.

Delphi Corp., the largest U.S. auto parts supplier, wants to cut workers' wages by as much two-thirds and eliminate health care for retirees as part of a plan to exit bankruptcy.

An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

In a final bit of irony,

Moody’s Ups Russia’s Credit Rating into Investment Grade Territory

Is it any wonder that there is an unease in this country or as Peggy Noonan in A Separate Peace wrote, fear the wheels are coming off the trolley.

GM Delphi Noonan Walmart mover mike

The NYT has a lengthy article by Jeff Gerth titled Doubts Raised on Saudi Vow for More Oil. The US has always looked to Saudi Arabia as the swing producer of oil. We have cut them some slack over terrorists and human rights for women because they would increase production to meet world temporary decreases in oil supply. Echoing the book Twilight in the Desert by Matthew Simmons (which I posted about in Let's Talk About Credit and Oil!), Gerth says

...doubts about Saudi Arabia's assurances of how much it can expand capacity - and for how long - have been raised in a secret intelligence report and in a separate analysis by a leading government oil adviser, according to a federal government official and the oil expert.

If those skeptical assessments are correct, the administration's hopes of increasing supplies would become still more difficult to fulfill. Washington's expectations about oil production from Iraq and the United Arab Emirates have proved overly optimistic, and the White House has failed to heed advice about both those countries from industry and government specialists, according to documents and interviews.

In a related article Rob Kirby points out how energy stocks have receded 20% and the news from CNN and CNBC, et al

...reasoned, heck argued, through these venerable news outlets – time and time again – that the rising prices of said commodities have in effect sown the seeds of their own declines, and all is either fine or returning to normal. The age old reasoning, of course, is that rising prices lead to lessened demand and a resultant fall in prices – all economics 101 stuff that few would argue.

Here we have a weekly chart of Oil traded on the NYMEX and it shows a decline from above $70 per barrel to just under $60. Does the chart look like Oil has dropped into a bear market? Or does Oil look like this is merely another correction much like corrections in the past?

The real story according to Kirby is that we are starting to run shortages in key materials made from oil, one reason being that 25% of our production is shut down because of Katrina and Rita! We have seen recently shortages and price increases in foam used in seat cushions. Now Kirby has a copy of a letter from Royal Pipe Systems (Royal Pipe Systems is North America’s largest PVC extruder and just happens to be one of the largest suppliers of building materials to the construction industry in Canada.)that says they will no longer provide quotes until Nov. 7th and then review that date; a quote over 15 days old is cancelled; and they will prioritize shipments (meaning ration). The two key commodities involved are ethylene and chlorine.

Call me silly, (says Rob Kirby) but I’ve really been scratching my head the past couple of weeks – wondering why the heck petroleum based products [crude, gasoline, nat. gas as well as their specific related exchange listed shares] have been plummeting in price? The shortages outlined here are not only real but involve the most basic and fundamental products required in countless industrial and manufacturing processes – jeepers, we wouldn’t even have potable water without chlorine. You see, the letter cited above never once mentioned that price was an issue. What the letter did do was explicitly state that “supply shortages” was the issue. With that being the case – why are these prices precipitously falling and why are we being ‘pelted’ with pronunciations that “all is fine” when it clearly is not?

If the information from Matthew Simmons, and the "secret intelligence report" are true, then we have more shortages ahead due to peak oil, and much higher prices. Complacency is not an option!

Saudi Arabia Matthew Simmons peak oil Rob Kirby mover mike

Update: MEXICO CITY - The paralysis of Mexico's world famous tourist resorts on the Yucatan peninsula caused by the devastating passage of Hurricane Wilma may slow the country's economic growth in 2005 by up to a quarter of a percentage point.

If one hurricane hitting the tip of Yucatan could slow the Mexican economy by 1/4 of one percent, what do Katrina, Rita and Wilma do to the US, especially when it shuts down 25% of our oil production?

I received the following email in response to my email complaining about the photo of Condoleezza Rice:

Thank you for your e-mail of Oct. 26 regarding the photo of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that was published Oct. 19 at http://www.usatoday.com.

As you know, Rice’s eyes appeared unnaturally bright in the photo. I’d like to explain how this happened. USATODAY.com, like other news organizations, often adjusts photos for sharpness and brightness to optimize their appearance when published online. In this case, a newly hired USATODAY.com editor sharpened the photo and then brightened a portion of Rice's face. Those changes had the effect of inadvertently distorting the photo and failed to meet our editorial standards. The photo has been replaced with a properly adjusted copy and an editor's note has been published here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-19-rice-congress_x.htm.

The photo did not appear in the USA TODAY newspaper.

The editors of USATODAY.com will make every effort to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.

Thank you again for your email and for your concern.

Kind regards,

Kinsey Wilson

VP & Editor-in-Chief

USATODAY.com

rice mover mike

Update: The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns has an excellent analysis of the techniques used to give us the "evil eye" of Condoleezza Rice

I just send an email to USA Today's Graphics and Photos Managing Editor, Richard Curtis a note (rcurtis@usatoday.com) an email saying

"Shame on you and your publication for showing this doctored photo! An apology is in order!

(Hat tip to the Maxedoutmama!)

rice mover mike

Here is a list of Refco's 25 largest unsecured creditors. Its largest secured creditor is Bank of America.

The company had assets and liabilities of about $16.5 billion as of Aug. 31.

Global Partners LP $620.0 Mln Moscow, Russia
Wells Fargo & Co. $390.0 Mln Minneapolis, MN
Rogers Raw Materials Fund $287.6 Mln Chicago, IL
Bawag International Finance $234.0 Mln Vienna, Austria
Bancafe International Bank $204.0 Mln Guatemala
Premier Trust Custody $194.2 Mln Neth. Antilles
Inter Financial Services Ltd $138.0 Mln British Virgin Is
Markwood Investments $135.0 Mln Rome, Italy
VR Argentina Recovery Fund $130.0 Mln Moscow, Russia
Leuthold Funds Inc. $120.4 Mln Minneapolis
Betio Asset Investments Ltd $116.4 Mln British Virgin Is
Capital Management Select Fund $109.5 Mln Nassau, Bahamas
Chaco City Investments Ltd $100.7 Mln British Virgin Is
Cosmorex Ltd $96.2 Mln Madrid, Spain
Rabaul Holdings Ltd $92.8 Mln British Virgin Is
Tecka Asset Holdings Ltd $78.2 Mln British Virgin Is
Tuvalu Holding Co Ltd $77.6 Mln British Virgin Is
Catamarca Asset Series I Ltd $77.6 Mln British Virgin Is
Rogers International Raw Mats $75.2 Mln Chicago, IL
Cargill $67.0 Mln Minneapolis, MN
Creative Finance Ltd $65.1 Mln British Virgin Is
RB Securities Ltd $62.9 Mln Riga, Latvia
Banesco Banco Universal CA Pan $51.0 Mln PanamaCity, Pan
Banesco International(Panama)SA $50.8 Mln PanamaCity, Pan
Rietumu Banka $50.1 Mln Riga, Latvia

Looking at the list, a couple of things pop out at me. How did the famous investor James Rogers get so strung out at Refco?

Rogers Raw Materials Fund $287.6 Mln Chicago, IL
Rogers International Raw Mats $75.2 Mln Chicago, IL

A total of $362.8 Million, almost the second largest unsecured creditor! And what does the British Virgin Is. offer investors? In light of all the naked shorting that seems to have gone on at Refco (see Refco and Naked Shorting!), is it easier to do from outside the country? Whar is the benefit of operating a hedge fund outside the country?

Who is 990N?

Refco naked shorting mover mike

From the Miami Herald (registration required),

Wilma spread an unusually broad swath of damage, leaving no community south of Lake Okeechobee — east and west — untouched: Flooding from the storm surge in Key West, beaches torn up in Naples, windows smashed in high-rises on Miami's Brickell Avenue, a sea of debris from battered offices in downtown Fort Lauderdale, power lines mangled by downed trees in West Palm Beach.

And, it packed a bigger wallop than many expected. Just about everywhere Wilma went, darkened homes and streets followed. About 2.5 million are without power in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, all of which are served by FPL. Most of the west coast is also without power. This time, FPL warns that it could take several weeks, not days, before everyone has electricity again.

CBC World News writes about the hardships visited on the people in Wilma's path:

Hundreds of people lined up outside one home-supply store, desperate for cleanup and other items. Drivers waited five hours at gas stations, and at a handful of fast-food restaurants open in the Miami area, burgers were available - to those willing to endure two-hour waits.

Thousands stand in line for ice and water in Miami on Tuesday Photo: Richard Patterson/Getty Images

Nine hours after she first got in line at one of the designated relief-supply locations, Fanie Aristil, 23, of North Miami wearily left for home with 13 kilograms of ice and six litres of bottled water.

From MTV News,

Even as they await basic supplies, many South Floridians are getting used to the idea that the worst may be ahead of them. With nearly 3 million residents still in the dark on Tuesday, much of the area has turned into a cash-only economy (emphasis added) because of a lack of working ATMs or open banks. Florida Power & Light officials said it could take two to four weeks to fully restore power because, unlike in past storms, FPL substations suffered extensive damage from flying debris, knocking out power to whole neighborhoods. Now, FPL has to repair downed lines and the stations that feed them.

It is recommended that the emergency kits you build, have $50 for each person; 3-$10s, 3-$5s and 5-$1s.

wilma mover mike

Cap'n Arbyte's has the first Central Banker joke I have ever seen and it made me laugh!

bernanke humor mover mike

On August 25th, I posted in The Problem of "fails to deliver" (FTD)

There have been allegations of illegal naked short selling, and regulators are smarting over allegations that they gave super hedge funds a free pass because regarding "fails to deliver". Regulation SHO included a "grandfather clause" to fix the FTD problem, but the FTDs are so massive a problem that even with a six months notice it has not been cleaned up.

Yesterday I posted in Refco Bankruptcy Filing, the bankruptcy filing of Refco was made available and listed as "Securities sold, not yet purchased" was $10,590,379,000. Bob O'Brien of Sanity Check - The Blog believes this is a "naked short" position.

At the National Coalition Against Naked Short Selling - Failing to Deliver (NCANS) there is a discussion of the Systemic Risk of FTD's caused by naked shorting:

Because of this unbridled FTD manufacturing, a tremendous contingent liability for the industry has been created over time, as the large float of FTD's represents stock that needs to be bought back at some point in the future, but for which there is no guarantee that stock is readily available. In some instances there are reports of companies where FTD's represent multiples of the issued genuine shares.

How many companies are affected? Records reveal there are about 600 companies listed on the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ that have FTD problems and another 800 companies that trade in the "pink Sheets".

The collateral used to secure the FTD at the NSCC (the clearing and settlement system) is cash, but it is marked to market against the price of the stock at the end of the day, and any overage is available to the seller. This means that if the FTD was created at $20 per share, and the stock has been run down to $5 per share, the seller gets to withdraw the $15 dollar difference. This creates a dangerous situation where the system is hopelessly under-collateralized for the true risk - the shares will cost far more than their current depressed price to cover, as the depressed price is often a function of massive selling of FTD's. This is the contingent liability risk. It is likely considerable, and is ignored by the system.

This risk creates a situation where the brokerage community has a vested interest in seeing the prices of victim companies stay down once they are down, as their best customers (hedge funds) have taken out the over-collateralization dollars over the years from the FTD's, and used them to collateralize other securities - many times, more FTD's.

I posted on October 17th, in What is a Wells Notice? about some of the run-ins that Refco has had with the SEC.

From The Faulking Truth

In our opinion, REFCO is not the tip of the iceberg in this issue, it's nothing more than an ice cube floating in a sea of icebergs.

Earlier The Faulking Truth says

We've been telling the world about this massive scandal for over a year and a half, and in fact, said that it could be "the biggest financial scandal in the history of the world"

Stay tuned!

Refco fails to deliver naked short mover mike

Who is 990N?

Carnival of Liberty XVII is up. We've got one of the largest Carnivals ever, with discussions of corruption in local politics, how government should deal with pandemics, and more.

mover mike

From Haig Simonian of the 25 October 2005, Financial Times

Austria's financial markets watchdog may take up to six weeks to complete its investigation into Bawag, the bank closely involved in the Refco scandal.

A team of six specialists from the Financial Market Authority, an independent regulator, and from Austria's National Bank started sifting through documents at Bawag's Vienna headquarters last Friday.

But in spite of initial hopes that the job might be over within a fortnight, officials yesterday warned it could take much longer.

Even when completed, the report into whether the bank broke any rules in lending Euros 350m (Dollars 418m) to Phillip Bennett, Refco's ousted chief executive, and Euros 75m to Refco itself will not be made public. (emphasis added)

Are they hoping we'll forget by then?

Refco Bawag mover mike

StormTrack says Wilma is strengthening and is now a category 3 Hurricane again with winds of 125 MPH. He caustions that Wilma is heading to the Northeast and may collide with a oncoming mid-lattitude system and create a kind of "perfect storm"!

There is a strong chance of significant snow event across much of Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont. Winter weather watches and warnings are in effect from the following offices:

* Binghamton, NY
* State College, PA
* Burlington, VT

wilma mover mike

Storm surge hurts South Florida.

The storm came ashore with winds of 125 mph near Cape Romano, about 20 miles south of Naples, at about 6:30 a.m. local time. The coastal parts of Collier County, which includes Naples and nearby beach resort Marco Island, haven't been hit by a hurricane since 1960.

``I've been in the Collier County area for 22 years, and this is the first time I have heard of Everglades City being under 3 to 5 feet of water,'' Captain Al Beatty of the Collier County sheriff's office said in an interview.

Damage in Florida is expected to reach $10 Billion.
In Cancun

Luxury hotels in Mexico's Caribbean beach resorts have shut down and will not open for the peak Christmas season because of multimillion dollar damage caused by Hurricane Wilma.

[...]

Jesus Almaguer, head of the Association of Hotel Owners for Quintana Roo state, home to Cancun and Cozumel,estimated sector damage of $800 million...and estimating that 80 percent of all rooms in the state's $3 billion-per-year hotel industry were damaged.

It may cost over $1.5 Billion to repair the physical damage, but what about the financial damage of missing the tourist season on the local population that services the hotels. What a tragedy!

wilma mover mike

According to the Silver Users Association (SUA),

prior to 1966, because silver had been a U.S. monetary standard along with gold, the U.S. government held the world's largest source of secondary supply

Meaning that we held the largest pile of mined silver in our vaults; a larger pile than any country in the world!

Then, in 1965, it appeared that in less than two years the Treasury would effectively lose control of the price of silver. If silver had been allowed to rise above $1.40 per ounce, the silver content of U.S. coins would have been worth more than their face value, causing them to disappear from circulation.

Which they have!

Under the Coinage Act of 1965, Congress eliminated the use of silver in coins. The right of holders of U.S. silver certificates to redeem them for silver was suspended in 1968. The following year, a federal ban on the melting of U.S. coins was lifted, freeing anywhere from 400 to 700 million ounces for secondary recovery.

In late 1970, the General Services Administration was authorized by Congress to release the national strategic stockpile of silver to the Treasury Department, primarily for coinage of new commemorative silver dollars (40 percent silver content). The same act provided for the auction of approximately 3 million old uncirculated silver dollars (90 percent silver). In 1973, the Cost of Living council freed commercial-grade silver from price ceilings imposed the year before to allow domestic silver to advance to current international price levels.

The New York spot settlement price for silver has ranged from a low of $3.92 in 1975 to a high of $48.70 in 1980.

Today, it trades at $7.64!

In the early 80's, the U.S. government's strategic stockpile of silver was locked in by law at 139.5 Moz. Congress has since authorized legislation to dispose of these stockpiles. In late 2000 the U.S. Defense National Stockpile Center delivered its remaining stockpile of nearly 15 Moz to the U.S. Mint for coinage programs. Since 2001, the U.S. has had to purchase silver for its coinage programs from the open market.

The stockpile is gone. From the largest pile to nothing!

Now some would like to offer to investors an ETF that would contain 130 Million ounzes of silver for investment purposes, but the SUA is opposed. Why? The SUA says

The SUA opposes the creation of a silver ETF because of the concerns that doing so will require the holding of physical silver in allocated accounts, thus removing large amounts of silver from the market. By doing so, the ETF most likely would cause a shortage of silver in the marketplace. This removal of large quantities of physical silver could have a negative impact on silver-industry specific employment as well as the overall economy, both through job losses and inflation.

Let's see more demand leads to rising prices. Rising prices lead to more demand for silver miners, which leads to falling unemployment, higher incomes and higher taxes, and more mining of silver leads to greater supplies of silver.

The Mogambo Guru at The Daily Reckoning today quotes David Bond, associate editor at Free Market News.

China has admitted that they have literally run out of silver, and now they need to buy it! A country so big that it has almost five times as many people as ours needs to buy silver, because we, a country that has five times fewer people in it, have used all the silver to get to where we are!

Reading the history of the squandering of our national silver treasure makes me nauseous. We have allowed the mismanagment of our economy. We have a fiat currency, we are the largest debtor in the world, we have a huge trade deficit of $60 Billion per month, and our net investment income has just turned negative. We may find that our gold reserves have been leased out and are no longer available to us.

I agree with Mogambo when he screams, "Buy silver now! And lots of it!"

gold silver mover mike

From the WSJ, President Bush plans to name Ben Bernanke, the current chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

It was Bernanke that said.

...deflation was unlikely because when all else failed, the U.S. had "a printing press … that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."

Essentially, he said we could drop money from helicopters to the citizenry below!

greenspan bernanke federal reserve

I have posted about the problems of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Now the FT has written that with the bankruptcies of Delta, Northwest and United Airways, along with that of auto parts supplier Delphi, it's likely that the $24 Billion deficit will have grown considerably when it files its year-end report in mid-November.

The US is heading towards another bailout of a government-backed insurer, similar to that of the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s but this time involving the insurance scheme for occupational pensions, a prominent economist warned on Thursday

From SacBee, Researchers seek help battling dog flu

Like people, dogs with the flu develop runny noses, sneezes, coughs and fever. And, as with the human flu, the illness can be mild, moderate, severe and even lethal. The mortality rate so far has been low, about 5 percent to 8 percent.
[...]
Ruben Donis, a flu geneticist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who collaborated on the research, said this is the first known instance in 100 years of research that a flu strain has became established in a completely new species.

Most of the people that have contracted bird flu have been in close contact with chickens or poultry. There is less concern in the US about getting bird flu, however people live in close contact with their dogs, so it would be worrisome.

What health officials fear is that the virus may evolve to spread from person to person, potentially causing a global epidemic, because it would be a new strain in humans to which they have not developed immunity.

bird flu dog flu

Hurricane Wilma makes landfall.

Wilma, Florida's eighth hurricane in 15 months, came ashore in Florida at 6:30 a.m. EDT near Cape Romano, 22 miles south of Naples, spinning off tornadoes and bringing a potential 18-foot storm surge, the National Hurricane Center said. Up to 10 inches of rain were forecast in Florida.

"I looked out our place and I saw a bunch of stuff flying by," said Paul Tucchinio, who was riding out the storm in a condo three blocks from the beach in Naples. "It sounds like someone threw a bunch of rocks against the boards. It's wicked."
[...]

In Weston, near Fort Lauderdale, Kim DuBois sat in her darkened house with her two children and husband, with the power out and the storm shutters up. For light they used a battery-powered pumpkin lantern they bought for Halloween.

"I could hear tiles coming off the roof," she said. "There are trees on cars and flooding at the end of our street." She added: "Really what I'm afraid of is tornadoes."

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog has excellent coverage of the storm surge.

The surge is causing extensive flooding of local access roads to Marco Island, Everglades City, and Chokoloskee including state roads 92, 951, 953 and 29 and large parts of the Tamiami Trail U.S. Highway 41. Everglades City is likely flooded or will be shortly, and parts of Chokoloskee and Marco Island are also likely flooded.

Steve Gregory reports

Extensive power outages have occurred. FP&L estimated 1.6 million customers without power across South Florida at 8 am EDT.

StormTrack points out an interesting phenomenum.

I'm also going to point out something that is just cool. I didn't realize how cold is was over much of the South this morning until I looked at the satellite. The IR satellite imagery is actually measuring emissive temperature. You can see much of the South is shaded lighter than the Gulf. This means that temperatures being emitted from the continent are much cooler than the ocean. You can see in the visible shot that this is not due to any clouds. When I actually checked, I saw it was in the 40s in Pensacola. Ok, this is cool to me.

I agree, that's cool. wilma

Here's a shocker, if he's right! From Sanity Check - The Blog

The listing for the assets and liabilities of REFCO was just made available, and guess what just happens to be hiding in the liabilities column?

A $10.5 billion liability, at TODAY's mark to market valuation, called "Securities sold, not yet purchased."

$10,590,379,000 - to be precise.

The whole bankruptcy filing is visible here.

Not sure he's right on this, seems to be some controversy in comment section, but I will pursue. refco

The latest from Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Wilma has entered a slow intensification phase the past three hours. The pressure has fallen from 963 mb to 959 mb, the eye has shrunk in diameter from 60 nm to 45 nm, and satellite imagery shows cooling cloud tops in the eyewall region--all signs of an ongoing intensification cycle. In response to this intensification cycle, the Hurricane Center has now upped their forecast of the maximum storm surge from 13 feet to 17 feet over southwest Florida. At the current rate of intensification, Wilma could become a Category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds by midnight. (emphasis added)

Masters is saying that wind shear could bring the intensity back down so it would be a category 2 tomorrow morning at landfall.

wilma

Update:

Update:

Update:

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog has an update on Wilma and carries this picture of powerful Wilma waves in Georgetown, Grand Cayman

Masters says:

Assuming my forecast of a landfall near Marco, Florida as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds is a good one, we can expect a storm surge of 8 to 14 feet near that city and to the south. The Keys would see storm surge flooding of 5 to 8 feet. Fortunately, the area south of Marco is primarily uninhabited--the Everglades swamp. However, if Wilma comes ashore north of Naples--or further south near the Keys--storm surge flood damage in those areas could easily reach billions of dollars. Storm surge flooding should be only 2 - 4 feet on the east coast of Florida, where wind damage is the primary threat.

wilma

Two stories recently on the the use of "eminent domain" in Oregon. The first,

The Port of Portland, unable to reach agreement to buy a Willamette River industrial property (owned by Mar Com), may use its eminent domain power to take the land.

The Port of Portland in 2000, sold its 57-acre shipyard on Swan Island to shipbuilder Cascade General for $30.8 million.

Mar Com's owner, Tom Maples, and others protested then that the price was too low and that the Port was subsidizing one competitor. The following year, Cascade General sold its biggest drydock to a company in the Bahamas for $25 million.

Now the Port wants Mar Com's property

The Port says the Mar Com property would allow for expansion of Toyota's auto-import operation at Terminal 4. Though the Port's container business is struggling, its car operations are booming. Toyota imports through Portland are up 11.6 percent from a year ago, to 110,184 vehicles through August.

The second instance, the Portland Development Commission (PDC) have wanted a convention center hotel for about 15 years, but no hotel chain has come in to build the hotel.

Officials contend convention organizers require large blocks of rooms -- 400 or more at a time -- for delegates attending big conferences. Proximity to the convention center, they say, would make the hotel attractive to event organizers who are influential in choosing destination cities.
[...]
The PDC has spent years planning the hotel, even using the agency's eminent domain power to force local real estate mogul Barry Menashe to sell it land for the project.

But Heywood Sanders, a national critic of taxpayer spending on convention center hotels, argues they

almost always fail to provide the convention boost cities seek. In an arms race of prestige, he says, dozens are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on expansions that flood the national convention market and hurt local hotels.

It appears to me that the Port is making decisions with no responsibility for its actions and using its power to take land to make more decisions and hurting competitors. In the second, the PDC is using its power to force land owners to sell it land based on a desire to have a hotel that apparently no hotel chain sees needed and if built, would hurt competitors. There is no freedom when eminent domain can be used like a pistol at one's head.

eminent domain Portland

The Washington Post defines "naked shorting":

The focus of an ongoing SEC investigation into the securities unit of futures broker Refco.

Refco

Mexico has looters, too!

Looters carry new electronic equipment from a store after Hurricane Wilma hit the resort town of Cancun in Mexico's state of Quintana Roo October 22, 2005. Hurricane Wilma relentlessly pounded Mexico's Caribbean coast on Saturday, destroying homes and flooding beach resorts as it meandered slowly over the Yucatan peninsula. REUTERS/DANIEL AGUILAR
[...]
As the storm eased on Saturday evening, people ventured out in search of food, and some took advantage of the chaos to loot. Dozens waded out of smashed stores clasping plasma TVs, fridges and bundles of clothes on hangers. Police fired shots into the water to try to scatter them.

Meanwhile, Wilma is taking aim at Florida, already the outer bands are flooding streets in South Florida.

Hurricane centre director Max Mayfield predicted Wilma would dramatically pick up speed later Sunday and its top wind speed would increase.

"It's really going to take off like a rocket," he said. "It's going to start moving like 32 km/h."

The latest information shows Wilma with sustained winds of 100 MPH. The latest loop from the Sun-Sentinel has Wilma looking like a giant fist heading for Florida!

StormTrack says

Wilma should regain category 3 intensity over the Gulf. This may be slow to occur as the Yucatan seems to have destroyed her inner core. Wilma will need to rebuild an eye before strengthening. Microwave imagery suggests that the inner eyewall is nearly non-existent. The larger outer eyewall will not be able to support a major hurricane yet.

wilma

From News24.com, Hurricane Wilma destroys town

Cancun - The Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen, popular with European and North American tourists, was "destroyed" by powerful Hurricane Wilma, civil defence officials said on Saturday.

[...]

"The water is already reaching the third floor of some hotels," said Humberto Hernandez Uzon, a spokesperson for the national weather service. "And the bad weather will continue for another 12 hours." (emphsis added)

wilma

Hurricane Wilma has battered the coastline of Mexico and the tourist attractions of Cozumel and Cancun for more than 24 hours and was expected to hang over the area.

Wilma dumped 590mm of rain on Isla Mujeres island yesterday, an unprecedented downpour for Mexico.

"We are talking about a record hurricane as far as rain is concerned," meteorologist Alberto Hernandez Unzon said.

US meteriologists predict that some areas in the Yucatan will get up to 1000mm or about 40 inches of rain.

"It's a monster, it is roaring all the time," Guadalupe Torroella said from the low-lying resort of Cancun, where the sea rushed onto the land and flooded international hotels.

The track of the storm still has it hitting the west coast of Florida on Monday somewhere between Naples and Tampa.

wilma

Remember the hot spot in Los Padres National Forest that started a forest fire and was tested at almost 500 degrees? I wrote about it here and here and here and here and here.

This odd landslide was the focus of much attention at the Geological Society of America in Utah.

Earth Changes TV is reporting the Dr Allen King, a geologist with the USDA Forest Service in Goleta, California,

theorized (when the hotspot became public information) that the landslide exposed a mix of minerals to the air, which promptly began oxidizing. This chemical reaction may have given off enough heat to trigger the fire

They ruled out Volcanism, geothermal heat, radioactivity, and an alien conspiracy.

And so King is left with the chemical-reaction idea. The rocks are mostly shale, with bits of pyrite crystals and carbonaceous material. "Our hypothesis is when that comes in contact with oxygen, it generates heat," says King.

Similar reactions can sometimes trigger spontaneous fires inside mines that are being worked. But King says he could not find any examples of such a thing happening in a natural setting.

A meeting of forest service geologists two weeks ago wasn't able to come up with a better idea. So at the Salt Lake convention, (Monday) King stood hopefully by his poster, waiting for someone to help explain the landslide that started a forest fire.

Los Padres hot spot

From NewsMax,

An aide (Dieter Snell) to former Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick blocked the 9/11 Commission from hearing bombshell testimony about the findings of the elite Able Danger military intelligence team, Rep. Curt Weldon said late Friday.

Able Danger Jamie Gorelick Dieter Snell

From Business World, More than 310,700 jobs in Louisiana and Mississippi were washed away by Hurricane Katrina, the Labor Department reported Friday.

katrina

From StormTrack, this absolutely stunning shot of Cozumel taking a direct hit from Hurricane Wilma

Winds are still 140 MPH and it must be awful to be there at this time.

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog is saying that rain is coming down an inch per hour! He has a link to a blogger InCozumel:

While (Wilma) is pounding us and she has been at it since 12:00AM CDT. The winds gradually picked up and have been gusting at levels that I had not witnessed before. The winds are definitely lot worse than what we had seen during Emily, may be it was night time and we could not judge but what Emily had weakened, plant wise, Wilma is taking it down. At best we are looking for a massive clean up effort of streets and properties and hope to get back to business as our whole economy is dependent on tourism. I will try to post some roof top shots of what we can see shortly

.

wilma

Last night Jim Sinclair of JSMineset in response to this question

(Refco had a lot of commodities positions. When I look at the trading patterns for oil and gold lately, they sell off and rally at the close. It looks like a forced liquidation that a lot of floor traders know about in advance.

Am I way off base here?)

answered

Was the evaporation of the equities market today only on a disappointing earnings report? Maybe in today’s world. But my nose smells something foul in the Refco situation that has yet to be disclosed. This is not the end of the Refco fallout by a wide margin.

This morning the London Irvine Report says

Is the derivatives daisy chain cracking? After 18 years of monetizing every financial crisis since the 1987 stock market crash, will the Great Guru have to monetize “the big one”, the unravelling of the $320+ trillion of global derivatives bets? It’s starting to look like he will.

From Melduke's Blog Page

Earlier in the week we had that $1.4 billion trade in ExxonMobil. This was followed by large buying in S&P futures that created short covering. Then there was yesterday�s down day. It appears to me that one or more large accounts are being liquidated. They appear to be heavily centered in energy commodities and energy-related equities.

Just before gold trading closed for the weekend, gold went up its "$6 Limit". Market down, Treasuries up, Gold up big, doesn't make sense, unless things are coming unraveled!

Who is 990N?

Refco gold

We have some good news about Hurricane Wilma after Wilma leaves Cozumel and Cancun in Mexico, According to StormTrack

Once Wilma hits the relatively cooler waters of the Gulf, wind shear should increase and Wilma will be unlikely to reach her original strength. It's looking like Wilma may be much weaker than thought when we she approaches Florida. Please notice how I am no longer saying exlusively Southern Florida. Right now time is on Florida's side. The longer Wilma lingers near Mexico, the weaker she will be when she reaches Florida. As time passes, upper-level conditions over the Gulf are forecast to become increasingly hostile. A Category 2 landfall in Florida is most likely.

wilma

From the Timesonline, University to banish 'discriminatory' Holy Book into wilderness

EDINBURGH University is set to ban Bibles from its student halls of residence amid concern that the Holy Book is “discriminatory” and makes students of other faiths feel unwelcome.

[...]

(The Gideon bible) distribution is now seen as inappropriate and potentially offensive to non-Christians. The student body is drawn from 120 countries and represents a broad spectrum of faiths, it is argued.

Hat tip for picture to TonyRo76

bible Christianity

Ann Woolner columnist at Bloomberg, in Refco's Scandal Is That It Follows Many Scandals, asks the question of the Refco IPO underwriters, What about deterrance?

Underwriting for Refco's IPO was led by Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs Group and Bank of America Corp. The first two each paid $12.5 million to settle the WorldCom suit while Bank of America agreed to shell out $460.5 million.

Refco

From QT Monster's Place, who was so great to get a transcript of the interview of Rep. Curt Weldon on the The Sean Hannity Show

Rep. Curt Weldon: 2 weeks before the attack on the USS Cole and then again 2 days before the attack on the USS Cole, saw through their analysis that a major event was going to occur in Yemen. They told the Navy not to bring the Cole into Yemen harbor and it went in and was attacked. That information was also compiled and the analysis was done by Able Danger.

This is stunning news and we need to hear first hand testimony from the men involved with Able Danger. Why are the holdovers from the previous administration, who would not act on information like this, that caused an enormous loss of lives, still working at the DI?

Able Danger weldon USS Cole

From Byron York at NRO, the Senate voted tonight to cut off funds to Independent Counsel David Barrett's office -- he has spent about $20 million investigating former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros since 1995. Most importantly, lawmakers required that Barrett's report be released to the public within 60 days of final passage of the law.

Back in April, 2005, I wrote the WSJ had a story about Senators Byron Dorgan, John Kerry and Richard Durbin trying to block the release of a special council's report.

Then according to the Daily News, Hillary's lawyers tryed to quash Bennett's report. I asked why would Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton try to quash the release of the special council's report after all these years?

After Cisneros was convicted, Barrett started looking into allegations that IRS and Justice Department aides stymied a tax fraud case against the disgraced Housing and Urban Development secretary and audited Clinton critics.

Apparently the 420-page final report will include alleged abuses of power by the Clinton Administration and that report could come out during Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election campaign!

Now the American people will finally get to read the report, for which we paid $20 Million, about the abuse of power that took place in the Clinton adnministration, if, that is, both houses pass the bill!

independent counsel Barrett Hillary Cisneros

Live Science has a discussion of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale and asks the question, "Should we have a Category Six for hurricanes over 175 MPH. The inventor, Herbert Saffir, thinks the scale has lasted this long because it is simple and can be easily grasped by the public.

Saffir-Simpson Scale

Category--Winds(mph)---Storm Surge (feet)

1----------74-95------------4-5
2----------96-110---------- 6-8
3----------111-130---------9-12
4----------131-155---------13-18
5----------155 + -----------18 +

LiveScience / SOURCE: NHC

Robert Simpson, then director of the National Hurricane Center, modified Saffir's work, adding measurements for flooding and storm surge.

"When you get up into winds in excess of 155 mph you have enough damage," Simpson said in a 1999 interview with the National Weather Log, a publication of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"If that extreme wind sustains itself for as much as six seconds on a building it's going to cause rupturing damages that are serious no matter how well it's engineered. So I think that it's immaterial what will happen with winds stronger than 156 miles per hour. That's the reason why we didn't try to go any higher than that," Simpson said.

Saffir didn't believe there was a need for category six.

"In general, I didn't expect that there would be too many hurricanes that went [above] 155 miles per hour for sustained winds," Saffir said. "The limit seems to be about 175 miles per hour and I don't know of anything that goes much over that.

wilma Saffir-Simpson

Richard Russell's Dow Theory Letters, Inc. (by subscription only) has an interesting aside about China.

In Shanghai, during this year alone, they will complete more towers with space for living and working than there is space in ALL the office buildings in New York City. Shanghai already has 4,000 skyscrapers, almost double that of New York. And there are plans for 1,000 more skyscrapers to go up by the end of this decade.

I don't know if there are words enough to describe the massive growth that is taking place in China. How much of it is financed by our enormous trade inbalance?

China

UPDATE: The Amendment Has Failed 15 to 82

There has been an informal movement to encourage Congress to forego spending on "pork" and apply that money to Katrina relief. I posted here that Sen Barbara Boxer was absolutely unwilling to cut waste to help Katrina victims. Powerline has posted about "A Hill to Die On"

That's what Red State calls the Coburn Amendment. ...The amendment is very simple: it proposes to redirect the ridiculous $220 million earmarked for the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" to Hurricane Katrina relief; specifically, reconstruction of the Twin Spans Bridge that connects New Orleans with Slidell, Louisiana.

Red State says that the "Bridge to Nowhere" will cost enough to buy every one of the 50 residents of Gravina Island a Lear Jet. It's hard to see how anyone will justify voting against Coburn's amendment, so the forces of reaction are reported to be fighting to keep it from coming to a vote.

Now I read that our neighbor to the north, Sen Patty Murray (D-WA)

is now speaking against the Coburn Amendment, and has just issued a threat against any Senators who vote for the amendment: we on the Appropriations Committee will take a "long, hard look" at any projects in your state.

(Hat tip to Powerline)

We can't cut spending!

katrina Boxer Murray

Hurricane Wilma is almost through with eyewall replacement and could intensify back to a category 5 hurricane. Winds currently are 145 and pressure is 915 MB. Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog at Wunderground.com is worried about storm surge. He has a map at his site that shows Naples and Marco could be flooded.

What kind of storm surge might affect Florida?
One can see from the storm surge map above that the southwest coast of Florida is very prone to high storm surges. This is because the Continental Shelf extends about 100 miles offshore, creating a very shallow area for the storm surge waters to build up in. If Wilma does hit the southwest coast of Florida as a Category 3 hurricane, which is the upper end of the intensity I think is likely, a 10 - 16 foot storm surge could flood most of Naples and all of Marco. Given the expected high forward speed of the hurricane at landfall in Florida--25 to 30 mph--regions to the south side of where the eye makes landfall will receive far greater wind damage and storm surge than is typical for a hurricane.

wilma

StormTrack says Hurricane Wilma has gone through "eyewall replacement and maintained pressure at 892 MB and wind speed at 160 MPH. He's indicating that track may have shifted slightly west to hit Yucatan Peninsula, but still early to tell.

wilma

From Reuters, Refco lawyers appear in court, assets shrink

Refco made a new bankruptcy filing showing total assets of $16.5 billion through the end of August -- a sharp reduction from the $48.8 billion as of Feb. 28 listed in its initial petition filed on Oct. 17.

Liabilities were also cut to $16.8 billion in the new filing from $48.6 billion listed earlier in the week.

The new filing gave no explanation for the change in the figures.

Wow, more amazing than the strengthening in Hurricane Wilma is the disappearence of $32 Billion!

Refco wilma

Who is 990N?

Did you ever notice that the price of gold (POG) never goes up more than $6.00 give or take a few cents? Bet you thought that was "limit up". It never fails, if we are up $6, early in the morning, the price is capped for the rest of the day. However, there never is a "limit down". Today, for example, in the face of the biggest jump in the PPI in, what, 15 years, POG was down $8.80! I'll leave it to you to ponder the mystery. In the meantime, Who is 990N?

gold inflation

Finally, we are getting people talking about the risks of derivatives in relation to Refco's unregulated businesses, the side that filed for bankruptcy.

Today's WSJ has an article Refco's Collapse Underscores Risks Inherent in the Derivatives Market by Jesse Eisinger which says in part

"Everything is in suspended animation," says Bianco Research president Jim Bianco. "Refco was a big company with lots of customers. One of them surely must have been in midst of a margin call or operating on fringes of the business."

That means markets will have to wait for the moratorium to be lifted before we know whether there are buyers out there that can't make good on their trades and whether that causes other dominoes to fall.

We learn, also, that Refco was doing more than facilitating trades, it was also trading for its account.

In the seven months ending in February, it recorded $161 million in revenue from such bets. ...

What we don't know is how much of these bets are outstanding, and whether Refco can make good on them.

That's the other shoe!

Refco derivatives

Who is 990N?

Well, today's the day! I am going to spend $5 on the Powerball lottery today and won't be working tomorrow or ever again! You see Powerball has climbed to $340 Million, a third of a billion dollars! After the discount for cash and taxes, I figure I'll end up with a tidy $110 Million. I plan to give 15 of my closest friends and family $1 Million each leaving me with $95 Million. I'll keep $5 million for walking around money and put the balance into gold and municipal bonds. At 5% interest that will throw off somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 1/2 million tax free a year or $375,000 tax free per month. I am thinking a villa on the Amalfi coast in Italy would be required along with one in Hawaii or Mexico, someplace warm. I definitely will get rid of those shoes I bought at the outlet factory that I wear while walking the dog. I don't like to fly when I go to Las Vegas. With more money I can afford the time to drive and see the sights between here and there. Oh, and when I'm there, I'm going to play the dollar slots!

I know that's what everybody is thinking. What to do with all that money. Oh sure, we know the odds are 1 in 145,000,000 of winning, but someone is going to win. Sure, I know it's a voluntary tax, but how many taxes do we pay where we have a chance of getting a return. Ask the people in New Orleans or Mississippi or Florida. The lottery is a great fantasy. I am having trouble figutring out how to spend $375,000 tax free per month. I guess Phillip Bennett could help me or Ken Lay or Sadaam Hussein, but where are they going to be wearing a $3000 suit?

Powerball

While watching Boston Legal (one of the best shows on TV, IMO) something struck me in the dialogue that was like a blow upside my head. Candice Bergen was trying to enlist Denny Crane's (William Shatner) help in the closing argument to defend a democratic congressman in a law suit alleging fraud. (He didn't vote the way he was supposed to after he was given campaign contributions by the plaintiff.) Denny Crane is on the opposite side politically from the congressman.

"We need you on this Denn