greece falls into 'death spiral': rising debt, no growth
from ap:
Greece has enough money to pay pensions, salaries and bondholders through mid-November, the finance minister said Tuesday, as global markets sank on worries that a messy default could bring down European banks and trigger another global recession. The Athens Stock Exchange general index tumbled to close down 6.3 percent, while the main Europe markets fell almost 3 percent. The turmoil endangered French-Belgian bank Dexia, whose shares plunged as much as 40 percent, on worries about its exposure to Greek bonds. The Dow Jones fell 250 points, but recovered somewhat when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank is prepared to take more steps to stimulate the U.S. economy.
related econocrash updates:
greece to miss deficit targets despite austerity*
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from wsj:
Summer may be on its way and Osama bin Laden may be dead, but that doesn’t mean the sun is going to shine on the dollar. Ben Bernanke made sure of that. The Fed Chairman’s insistence last week that U.S. ultra-loose monetary policy is here to stay not only indicated his lack of confidence in the recovery but confirmed fears the U.S. Federal Reserve is falling behind the curve. As a result, not even good news will help the U.S. currency now... All this means that even good economic news will not save the dollar now. The true test could well come on Friday with the latest unemployment numbers, data that traditionally should give the dollar direction. But, if the Fed is saying no change is in sight, even strong non-farm payrolls won’t stop the dollar from floundering. This whole “good news is bad news” theme was apparent as Osama bin Laden’s assassination by U.S. forces in Pakistan broke.
from reuters:
The United States will hit the legal limit on its ability to borrow no later than May 16, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday, ramping up pressure on Congress to act to avoid a debt default. "The longer Congress fails to act, the more we risk that investors here and around the world will lose confidence in our ability to meet our commitments and our obligations," Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders. "Default by the United States is unthinkable."
Previously, the Treasury had forecast that the $14.3 trillion statutory debt limit would be reached between April 15 and May 31. As of Friday, Treasury borrowing stood just $95 billion from the ceiling. Some Republican lawmakers have sought to use the need to raise the debt limit as a lever to pressure the Obama administration into agreeing on large-scale budget cuts.
The debt-limit showdown comes as Congress struggles to complete a spending package that would keep the government operating beyond Friday. Republicans are seeking to use that bill to enact deep spending cuts and lawmakers are focusing on a proposal to trim this year's budget by $33 billion, a relatively small amount compared with a projected $1.4 trillion deficit.
Geithner said a failure to raise the debt ceiling in a timely way would push interest rates higher and spark "a financial crisis potentially more severe than the crisis from which we are only starting to recover." Both Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have said a failure to raise the ceiling could have "catastrophic consequences."
government shutdown 2011? - 16 things you need to know*
shutdown: 800,000 federal workers in the dark*
US government bracing for shutdown*
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bernanke's fed sets sail with $600b 'quantitative easing'
from cnbc:
The Federal Reserve launched a controversial new policy on Wednesday, committing to buy $600 billion more in government bonds by the middle of next year in an attempt to breathe new life into a struggling U.S. economy. The decision, which takes the Fed into largely uncharted waters, is aimed at further lowering borrowing costs for consumers and businesses still suffering in the aftermath of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The U.S. central bank said it would buy about $75 billion in longer-term Treasury bonds per month. It said it would regularly review the pace and size of the program and adjust it as needed depending on the path of the recovery. In its post-meeting statement, the Fed described the economy as "slow", and said employers remained reluctant to add to payrolls. It said measures of inflation were "somewhat low."
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video: federal reserve celebrates 100yrs of dominating US*
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the fed at jekyll island: 100 years later, they're baaack!
from blacklisted news:
The Federal Reserve is going back to Jekyll Island to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the infamous 1910 Jekyll Island meeting that spawned the draft legislation that would ultimately create the U.S. Federal Reserve. The title of this conference is "A Return to Jekyll Island: The Origins, History, and Future of the Federal Reserve", and it will be held on November 5th and 6th in the exact same building where the original 1910 meeting occurred. In November 1910, the original gathering at Jekyll Island included U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department A.P. Andrews and many representatives from the upper crust of the U.S. banking establishment. That meeting was held in an environment of absolute and total secrecy. 100 years later, Federal Reserve bureaucrats will return to Jekyll Island once again to ”celebrate” the history and the future of the Federal Reserve. Sadly, most Americans have no idea how the Federal Reserve came into being... It was a system that was designed by the bankers and for the bankers. Now, the bureaucrats running the system are returning to Jekyll Island to congratulate themselves. Those attending the conference on November 5th and 6th include Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Goldman Sachs managing director E. Gerald Corrigan and the heads of the various regional Federal Reserve banks. You can view the entire agenda of the conference right here. It looks like that there will be plenty of hors d’oeuvres to go around, but should the Federal Reserve really be celebrating their accomplishments at a time when the U.S. economy is literally falling to pieces?
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initial jobless claims in US climb more than forecast*
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bank of england chief mervyn king proposes eliminating fractional reserve banking*
fed will surpass china as top holder of US debt by end of nov*
video: commercial about national debt being banned by major networks*
update: big thanks to disinfo for picking this up
United Russia Pushes for Military Training in Schools* 
