The TSA and your junk

Of course hopefully most of the readers of this blog will have come to relize that airport scanners have little to do with preventing weapons or bombs getting on planes, as metal detectors and bomb dogs are sufficient for that purpose. Why the scanners are being setup and becoming commonplace is to allow the US to implement capital controls. When the the population panics and thinks about leaving with whatever cash they have strapped to themselves the scanners or groping will catch them in the act. The US has learned a lot from the South African situation of wealthy people fleeing and getting around the capital controls when the Communists took power.

Billions erased in market's worst day in a year

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The Australian sharemarket has suffered its worst day since June last year as renewed worries about the strength of the global economy wiped about $33 billion off the value of the market.

At the close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 106.9 points, or 2.3 per cent, at 4600.4, while the broader All Ordinaries index slumped 105.4 points, or 2.2 per cent, at 4683.2.

The size of the retreat is the most since almost 3 per cent was lopped off the market's value on June 7, 2010.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/billions-erased-in-markets-worst-day-in-a-year-20110602-1fhh0.html#ixzz1O6IoXznx

Gaddafi dodged Madoff only to be attacked by The Squid

From The Independent:

Goldman Sachs managed to lose nearly all of the money it had been given to invest by the Libyan government, which eventually led the giant Wall Street bank to offer shares as compensation that would have effectively made Colonel Gaddafi one of its largest single investors.

The Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund worth tens of billions of dollars into which the Gaddafi administration poured the money it made from oil sales, handed over $1.3bn to the bank in 2008 with a mandate to invest in foreign currency markets and other structured products. The deal was struck months before the onset of the financial crisis, and sources close to the bank yesterday claimed that the LIA had initially been uninterested when Goldman told it that the value of the investment had lost several hundreds of millions of dollars.

But by early 2009 Goldman Sachs had lost 98 per cent of what it had been given, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. It is believed that senior Goldman Sachs officials were then summoned to Tripoli, and were told that, after losing the cash in just a handful of complex trades, the bank would need to offer some sort of compensation......read on

Moody's cuts Greece's credit rating

(Reuters) - Moody's on Wednesday cut Greece's credit rating by three notches to an extremely speculative level on debt restructuring worries and warned that more downgrades could come.

Citing a growing risk that the government will fail to stabilize its debt position without a debt restructuring, Moody's cut Greece's rating to Caa1 from the previous level of B1, bringing it seven notches into junk territory.

The outlook on the new rating is negative, in a sign that another downgrade is likely in the short- to medium-term.

"The first trigger for today's downgrade is Moody's view that Greece is increasingly likely to fail to stabilize its debt ratios within the timeframe set by previously announced fiscal consolidation plans," the ratings agency said in a statement......read on