Recent Comments:

Oil roared above the $120 a barrel level on Thursday and gold prices jumped amid mounting geopolitical tensions following Russia's decision to suspend military co-operation activities with Nato in response to a missile shield agreement between the US and Poland.

Nymex October West Texas Intermediate touched a session high of $122.04 before easing back to trade $5.89 higher at $121.45 a barrel while ICE October Brent rose $6 to $120.36 a barrel.

Moscow said it would respond with more than a diplomatic protest to a deal to place part of a US missile defence system in Poland. It also made it clear that it has no intention of bowing to calls for a withdrawal to positions held before the invasion of Georgia.

yes

Although there are two strong female leads in the rock opera (Stephen's iron-willed mother, and Réka, the pious Christian daughter of Koppány who is like Stewphen's soul sister), the composers (I assume Szörényi) showed an antedeluvian view of women. Stephen's wife has a solo to the tune 'I'm bored of politics, why don't we make children instead', and the women in Koppány's harem only want to please their lord.

Maybe a sense of this motivated this year's talent show to re-cast one important supporting role, that of the táltos (shamanic priest) as female. (The táltos is having visions of a future had Koppány won, in which every Hungarian revolution that failed in reality turned a success.)

:: :: :: :: ::

At the time of the original premiere, the scam artist director I mentioned made a controversial decision. He thought the two singers singing two of the key roles (Réka, and Stephen himself!) aren't photogenous enough, so he had them on on playback while actors performed their parts. But behind Réka was an accomplished folk singer, behind Stephen a rock singer who also had a big hit with a love song to Europe(!). So by popular demand, laater eighties performances had them live.

US negotiators have not yet succeeded in getting Iraqi officials to agree to keep US troops well into the next US president's first term, the US secretary of state confirmed yesterday.

On a surprise visit to Baghdad, Condoleezza Rice, denied earlier reports this week that the two sides had ironed out the last disputes in a heavily-contested draft agreement that is due to replace the UN mandate covering the US occupation.

President Bush wants the pact to authorise a troop presence at least until 2011 so that he can trumpet it as proof of his policy's success. But the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, has adopted the rising nationalism in the Iraqi parliament and public and is insisting on a clear withdrawal timetable, the lifting of judicial immunity for US troops who commit abuses, and an Iraqi veto on US military operations, including the arrest of Iraqis.

British security services colluded in the unlawful detention and facilitated the interrogation of a UK resident detained in Pakistan six years ago, the high court ruled today.

Two judges found that the foreign secretary had a duty to hand over to Binyam Mohamed's legal team secret information that could support his case that he was tortured in Pakistan and Morocco before being sent to Guantánamo Bay.

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones found that the British security service "facilitated interviews by or on behalf of the United States incommunicado and without access to a lawyer in Pakistan" (pdf) in 2002.

The detention was unlawful under Pakistani law, the judges said.

FDIC to modify IndyMac loans
The agency plans to cut interest rates and extend payments for some in hopes of limiting foreclosures.
By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 21, 2008
The regulators operating failed IndyMac Bank said Wednesday that they would try to modify about 25,000 troubled mortgages by slashing interest rates to as low as 3% for five years, extending payments over 40 years and in some cases charging interest on only part of the loan balance.

The plan, aimed at about 37% of IndyMac's seriously delinquent borrowers, is the start of a modification program that eventually could involve thousands of other borrowers at the savings and loan. Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said she hoped it would become a model for the reeling mortgage industry.

-Skip-

Soon after it took over IndyMac, the FDIC said it was freezing foreclosures on the almost 40,000 loans still owned by the thrift. Those loans amount to 6% of the 637,000 existing IndyMac-serviced mortgages at the end of July. The FDIC also has broad powers to change the terms of 225,000 loans that were pooled to back debt securities under the IndyMac name.

But the remaining 372,000 mortgages serviced by IndyMac, nearly 60%, can't be modified easily because of complications in the terms under which they were sold to investors or bought or guaranteed by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

-Skip-

The borrowers, most of whom initially stated their incomes without proof, must fully document their earnings to obtain modified loans and sign a statement pledging to live in the home. They must have enough income to devote no more than 38% of their gross earnings toward principal and interest on a modified first mortgage, along with home insurance and taxes.

The fact that many borrowers took on hefty second mortgages and have credit card, automobile and other debts will also complicate the picture, FDIC officials said.

But the most difficult pill for borrowers to swallow may be the large majority who won't qualify for the program because IndyMac doesn't own all the loans it services. The FDIC will try to help those borrowers when they get in trouble on their loans despite not being able to use its standard model to modify them, Bair said.

-Skip-

To achieve the 38% debt-to-income ratio, the FDIC may extend the loan term to 40 years and reduce the interest rate -- now typically 7.51% on IndyMac-owned loans -- to as low as 3%. After five years, the rate would rise by 1 percentage point a year until it reached the current Freddie Mac survey rate for conforming mortgages, now about 6.5%, where it would be permanently capped.

The FDIC also may suspend interest on a portion of the loan amount, although the principal not earning interest will still have to be paid off if the home is sold or the loan is refinanced. Michael Krimminger, a policy advisor to Bair, said that option had limited use because it tended to substantially reduce the value of loans.

This is the first action I have seen by Federal agencies that seems to move in the right direction, i.e., recognizing that the loans are worth only a fraction of their face value.

Looks like one can speculate in the Oil Market by playing in the dollar currency market.

At least 50 people have reportedly been killed in clashes in the Somali capital Mogadishu and the port of Kismayo.

Some 30 people have been killed in two days of fierce fighting between Islamists and a clan militia in Kismayo, a BBC reporter says.

Some mortars landed near the compound of President Abdullahi Yusuf, who is currently out of the country.

Another landed near a mosque in the busy Bakara market, killing at least six people, a witness told the BBC.

The South African man convicted of feeding one of his ex-workers to the lions has been freed on parole, after three years in jail.

Mark Scott-Crossley was originally given a life sentence for murder but this was reduced after a judge said there was no proof the man was alive.

The remains of Nelson Chisale's body were found in a Limpopo lion enclosure, causing a national outcry.

Trade unions, MPs and right groups have condemned Scott-Crossley's release.

The case has highlighted the racial tensions in rural South Africa.

Russia has told Nato that it is halting military co-operation over the continuing crisis in Georgia, an alliance spokeswoman has said.

The move follows a statement by Nato that there would be no "business as usual" with Russia unless its troops pulled out of Georgia.

However, the alliance had stopped short of freezing co-operation with Moscow.

Meanwhile, Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have held mass rallies calling for independence.

The temporary relocation of the European Parliament to Brussels next month from Strasbourg has reignited a row about where it should be based.

An EU official has confirmed to the BBC that the building in the French city cannot be used yet because part of its ceiling has collapsed.

About 200sq m (2,152sq ft) of the ceiling caved in on 7 August. Nobody was in the chamber at the time.

European law obliges the parliament to meet in Strasbourg 12 times a year.

Spain is grieving for the 153 victims of Madrid's plane crash, as experts begin to look into why the jet crashed and burnt shortly after take-off.

The country's prime minister has visited some of the 19 survivors, while King Juan Carlos met relatives of the victims at a makeshift mortuary.

Three days of mourning have been declared and flags are at half-mast.

Of the survivors of the Spanair flight JK 5022 crash on Wednesday, several remain critically ill.

...at the same time, the Currencies section:

At least 63 people have been killed and dozens injured in twin suicide bombings outside Pakistan's main munitions factory in the town of Wah, police say.

The attack is the deadliest on a military site in Pakistan's history.

Police say one man is in custody for the attack, which occurred some 30km (18 miles) north-west of Islamabad.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban said they had carried out the attacks, which he said were a response to army violence in the country's north-west.

Speaking to the BBC, Maulvi Umar of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan said the bombings in Wah were in retaliation for the deaths of "innocent women and children" in the tribal area of Bajaur.

He said more attacks would take place in Pakistan's major urban conurbations unless the army withdrew from the tribal areas.

The cause of the forthcoming recession/depression is that the credit = money necessary for economic activity will not be deployed in productive activity but will be used to replace the money literally destroyed in defaults.

That is the most maddening aspect of our current debacle.  All efforts at present are directed towards preventing the inevitable losses to those who are most responsible for the problem.  It is the most egregious example of which I am aware of throwing good money after bad.  Well, to the extent to which there is any "good money" left in existence.

That response is entirely due to the nature of existing campaign finance.  The authors of this disaster are still the dominant contributors to the process, so their interests will be protected first.  The US government will suck dry all available wealth from those unable to protect themselves in a failed effort to save the un-savable.   What a miserable bunch of dummies we all are.

Russia told Nato today that it had suspended military cooperation activities with alliance countries until further notice, the Western military pact said.

"Russia has informed us through military channels that the minister of defence of the Russian Federation has taken a decision to halt international military cooperation events between Russia and Nato countries ... until further instructions," Nato spokeswoman Carmen Romero said.

Nato members Norway, Estonia and Latvia have already said they had received notice of the step, which emerged after the alliance agreed this week that normal ties with Moscow were not possible until it had withdrawn troops from Georgia in line with efforts to end the South Ossetia conflict.

I assume they don't have the McLaughlin Group in Europe.  Here's a clip: