(Bloomberg) – Russia will help lead efforts to recast the global economic hierarchy as the world emerges from the financial crisis, President Dmitry Medvedev said.

“We really live at a unique time, and we should use it to build a modern, prosperous and strong Russia, a Russia that will be a co-founder of the new world economic order,” Medvedev said at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum today.

Russia will use tax incentives and other free-market economic policies to turn the country into a destination for innovators from around the world, Medvedev told an audience including Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit and French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde.

Medvedev, in the third year of his presidency, is promoting modernization to transform Russia from an oil-and-gas economy into a magnet for high technology. Russia’s reliance on natural resources exacerbated the steepest contraction among emerging markets last year, when the economy shrank a record 7.9 percent. Full article here

(CommitteeForAbolitionOfThirdWorldDebt) – Eurozone Economic Crisis: Call For a European Mobilisation Against the Dictatorship of the Creditors

Text of the La Marlagne Declaration Read More Here

(HuffingtonPost) – Tier 5: The Despair Of The 99ers

Hundreds of thousands of long-term unemployed people across the country are watching in despair as Congress limps toward a reauthorization of jobless aid programs that won’t even help them.

They are the 99ers, people who have exhausted the maximum 99 weeks of unemployment benefits available in some states. Read More Here

(MotherJones) – Soldier in Iraq Loses Home Over $800 Debt

Michael Clauer is a captain in the Army Reserve who commanded over 100 soldiers in Iraq. But while he was fighting for his country, a different kind of battle was brewing on the home front. Last September, Michael returned to Frisco, Texas, to find that his homeowners’ association had foreclosed on his $300,000 house—and sold it for $3,500. This is story illustrates the type of legal quagmire that can get out of hand while soldiers are serving abroad and their families are dealing with the stress of their deployment. And fixing the mess isn’t easy. Read More Here

(ZeroHedge) – Dollar to be Replaced with IMF’s SDR as Reserve Currency?

Jim O’Neill, who did not make any friends within the bear community earlier today, has written an interesting paper on the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, and whether this hypernational currency can ever become a reserve currency as is, and/or with the CNY as a constituent member. Read More Here

(Globe&Mail) – Greece could set off bigger debt bomb

Let’s play a little game called Disaster. Imagine an event that could trigger a genuine, knock ’em down, worldwide catastrophe. Think of Pearl Harbor, multiplied by 10, or even 100. Read More Here

(BizJournals) – N.C. loses 1,800 more construction jobs

North Carolina lost 1,800 jobs in the construction industry in April, according to a report released Friday. But the study also shows the industry’s nationwide slowdown is beginning to wane. Read More Here

(Bloomberg) – Berlusconi Says $30 Billion of Budget Cuts Needed to Save Euro – Read More Here

(CNBC) – More Cities on Brink of Bankruptcy – Read More Here

(BizJournals) – Cincinnati State hikes tuition 3.5% – Read More Here

(HoweStreet) – Miami Commissioner Says Bankruptcy is City’s Best Hope; Chris Christie Says New Jersey Careens Towards Becoming Greece – Read More Here

(CNNMoney) – Youth jobless crisis could have lasting impact – Read More Here

(NBCMiami) – Video: Miami Budget Begging for Bankruptcy – Video Link Here

(WPost) – 100,000 teachers nationwide face layoffs – Read More Here

(AmericanThinker) – Folly Central: Obama Considers Another Stimulus

Another stimulus. That’s right. You read correctly. The U.K.’s Telegraph reports that dour President Obama and his cadre of thick-headed left-wing ideologues are weighing additional borrowing. This time to the tune of $200 billion. Paltry when stacked against the trillions in debt the nation is already massing? Can you say the “tyranny of compounding interest?” Read More Here

(BusinessInsider) – The Worst Money Supply Plunge Since The Depression Means A Double Dip Is Now A ‘Virtual Certainty’

The negative take is that this crashing money supply will lead to both deflation and a double dip recession: Read More Here

(ABCNews) – National Debt Soars Past $13 Trillion – Read More Here

(EconomicPolicyJournal) – Subprime Goes to College: $300 Billion in Defaults Coming

Mike O’Rourke (Via ZeroHedge) has a nice summary of yesterday’s Ira Sohn Research Conference.

Of note was Frontpoint’s Steve Eisman, who has spotted another private sector industry that is in bed with government big time ,that is taking advantage of the poor, and will collapse. Here’s O’Rourke’s report on Eisman’s speech: Read More Here

(TaxProf) – Gird Your Loins: IRS ‘Wealth Squads’ Are on the Way

Newly created exam teams will scrub wealthy taxpayers’ hedge funds, trusts and foreign accounts. Read More Here

(DailyFinance) – BankWatch: TARP Investments Lead to Huge Losses for U.S. Treasury

As struggling banks get acquired or fail, the U.S. Treasury is shouldering a growing burden: Its investments in TARP are turning out to be a bust, leading to huge losses. And there are signs of more trouble ahead. Read More Here

(AmericanThinker) – Another Sham Stimulus Bill – Read More Here

(WashingtonPost) – 100,000 teachers nationwide face layoffs

Senior congressional Democrats and the Obama administration scrambled Wednesday to line up support for $23 billion in federal aid to avert an estimated 100,000 or more school layoffs in a brutal year for education budgets coast to coast. Read More Here

(InfoClearingHouse) – Credit Storm in Europe; Politics on Capital Hill – Mike Whitney

Credit market turmoil in the Eurozone has ignited frenzied trading on global markets. On Tuesday, shares tumbled nearly 300 points on the Dow Jones before launching an unconvincing 257-point late-day comeback. Wednesday the mayhem continued; all the major indexes seesawed wildly as positive news on durable goods was nixed by reports on wobbly EU banks. Read More Here

(HuffingtonPost) – The Cult of Subprime Central Bankers

The world is suffering from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The crisis has left tens of millions unemployed in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. The huge baby boomer generation in the United States, now on the edge of retirement, has seen much of its wealth destroyed with the collapse of the housing bubble. Read More Here

(WSJ) – Banks Trim Debt, Obscuring Risks

Three big banks—Bank of America Corp., Deutsche Bank AG and Citigroup Inc.—are among the most active at temporarily shedding debt just before reporting their finances to the public, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. Read More Here

(Fox) – Video: Freedom Watch – Reigning in National Debt

May 26 – What role did supply-side economics play in creating U.S. deficit? Read the rest of this entry »

(Infowars) – The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an invitation only membershipgroup made up of about 4000 people that comprise what many observers consider to bethe shadow government of America. The CFR is more than a ‘think tank’, it is a network of elitists that control America by creating policies, laws, financial alliances and monopolies. This new video, starring such diverse personalities as Angelina Jolie and Zbigniew Brzezinski, promotes the CFR as a wonderful place where people meet to discuss policy, thus giving the impression that all points of view are represented and implemented with the public’s best interests at heart. Read the rest of this entry »

(RussiaToday) – This time Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look at the scandals of financial crisis show trials in America; Citigroup alleges they could not possibly have predicted the collapse of a very obvious housing bubble; and former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, tells the show trial commissioners that the financial world is far too complex for mere mortals. In the second half of the show, Max talks to economist Dean Baker about Citigroup’s alleged profits. Read the rest of this entry »

(BusinessInsider) – The image of banks locking their doors to keep customers from making withdrawals during a bank run is what immediately came to mind when we heard that Citigroup was telling customers it has the right to prevent any withdrawals from checking accounts for seven days. Read the rest of this entry »

(BusinessWeek) – COMMENT: The original headline, ‘Clinton donor list doesn’t say who gave in ‘09′ reflects an earlier lack of reporting; the Foundation has now updated with greater disclosure. As the AP reports, “The foundation released a donor list Friday morning that didn’t identify who gave in 2009, but then updated it to provide that information.” Therefore, Business Week’s headline is no longer up-to-date while the report is still worthwhile. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced the appointment of Howard Schmidt, a former adviser to George W. Bush and executive at Microsoft, as the new White House cybersecurity coordinator. Read the rest of this entry »

(RollingStone) – The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway Read the rest of this entry »

(RollingStone) – The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway Read the rest of this entry »

(Bloomberg) – Gold surged to a record for a second day as investors stepped up purchases to protect their wealth against fiat currencies. Silver also gained. Read the rest of this entry »

The following story in italics is a potential fictional time line for the day the dollar died. I hope not to instill fear or loathing but to give everyone some perspective on a POSSIBLE outcome which does not really take much of a reach to come to any conclusion. Read the rest of this entry »

(BobChapman) – Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Bloomberg reports that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and other Wall Street firms. Bloomberg reports that none of these aides faced Senate confirmation. Yet, they are overseeing the handout of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds to their former employers. Read the rest of this entry »

What planet is Congressman Barney Frank on, anyway? It is the planet of the banks and other financial firms that keep his campaign coffers humming, as their chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Read the rest of this entry »

Timothy Geithner’s aides have been paid millions of dollars by a variety of Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, according to financial disclosure forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Timothy Geithner’s aides have been paid millions of dollars by a variety of Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, according to financial disclosure forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Disclosure forms, according to Bloomberg, reveal that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides received millions of dollars from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Read the rest of this entry »

Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary, always takes calls from his bankster bosses on Wall Street, according to an Associated Press report. Read the rest of this entry »

A federal agency tasked with expanding the American dream of home ownership and affordable housing free from discrimination to people of modest means has been quietly moving a chunk of that role to Wall Street since 2002. Read the rest of this entry »

(WashingtonsBlog) – In a post called “Break Up the Big Banks”, Rolfe Winkler provides a nice graphic showing that the too big to fails have gotten bigger: Read the rest of this entry »

(Bloomberg) — Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Read the rest of this entry »

Americans, particularly ones from the middle class, need to realize that there are no core entitlements imparted by their government representatives, nor any other sources. They have none and should adjust their expectations accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »

(CNBC) – America’s most credit-worthy borrowers are defaulting on their loans faster than those with poor financial records, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Read the rest of this entry »

(HuffingtonPost) – Lobbyists representing seven of Wall Street’s top ten bailout beneficiaries and their trade associations made more than $6 million in campaign contributions to members of Congress — and hosted no fewer than 70 fundraising parties between Election Day and June, according to a new analysis by Public Citizen. Read the rest of this entry »

Companies that specialize in stock market forecasting and trading—such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase—pay very high salaries to their employee-vendors. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just released data showing that these and other large banks are giving each of their 5000 trader-forecasters bonuses of at least one million dollars. Read the rest of this entry »

(DailyMail) – One cannot imagine headlines more certain to rouse public rage than those this week: ‘Massive bonuses for bankers’; ‘record payouts at Goldman Sachs ‘; ‘greed is back’. Amid the worst recession for a generation, the financial communities in Britain and the U.S. will this year award themselves prizes on a scale to gasp at. Read the rest of this entry »

(Bloomberg) – Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and seven other U.S. banks paid $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds, according to a report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Read the rest of this entry »

(Telegraph) – The collapse in Britain’s economy now rivals the worst days of the Great Depression, it has emerged. Read the rest of this entry »

(Guardian) – Morgan Stanley is setting aside a huge sum to pay out bonuses despite posting its third consecutive quarterly loss and admitting it is disappointed with key departments. Read the rest of this entry »

Due to the fact that Goldman Sachs is currently the favorite of Washington they are raking in massive profits during a time when most banks and brokerage firms are struggling for survival. Read the rest of this entry »

Many people are raised with an orientation, indeed an imperative sense, that puts compassion and ethics — ones values and principles — as central to their dealings with others. This foundation becomes part of their identities and shapes the directions that their lives take. Read the rest of this entry »

Yekaterinburg, famous tragically as the spot Lenin chose to have the Tsar and his family executed in 1918, and ironically as the fiefdom of Boris Yeltsin, who finished off the Russian revolution itself in 1991, witnessed something no less remarkable last week when leaders of the so-called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) held their first summit, following the yearly meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Read the rest of this entry »

(Bloomberg) – Executives at U.S. companies are taking advantage of the biggest stock-market rally in 71 years to sell their shares at the fastest pace since credit markets started to seize up two years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm’s 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms. Read the rest of this entry »

President Obama’s plan to give the privately-owned and unaccountable Federal Reserve complete regulatory oversight across the entire U.S. economy, which is likely to be enacted before the end of the year, will officially herald the beginning of a new form of government in the United States – an ultra-powerful banking dictatorship controlled by a small gaggle of shadowy and corrupt elitists. Read the rest of this entry »

(Bob Chapman) – Last vestiges of a rally similar to what we saw in 1931 Read the rest of this entry »

Bankers get what they lobbied for, media reports total lack of transparency as “regulation” Read the rest of this entry »

(Reuters) – U.S. credit card defaults rose to record highs in May, with a steep deterioration of Bank of America Corp’s (BAC.N) lending portfolio, in another sign that consumers remain under severe stress. Read the rest of this entry »

“Crony capitalism” is a term often applied to foreign nations where government interference circumvents market forces. The practice is widely associated with tin-pot dictators and second-rate economies. Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Schiff exchanges blows with Michael Mussa from The Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Read the rest of this entry »

1. How much change has Obama brought to America? Read the rest of this entry »

(Raw Story) – It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that the banking and financial services industry has an outsized influence in Congress. Read the rest of this entry »

Will the Financial Reforms lead to Change or just Prop up the Status Quo?
It is almost axiomatic to argue that renewal comes out of chaos. And reform and change are born in crisis. Read the rest of this entry »

We have reached an impasse. Capitalism as we know it is coming apart at the seams. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. Organized resistance is scattered and incoherent. Read the rest of this entry »

(Bloomberg) – Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, describing nine U.S. banks as “central to any solution” of the credit crisis, told their leaders to take government aid or be forced to by regulators, according to a memo his staff prepared for a private meeting in October. Read the rest of this entry »