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Fantasy Land Financial Analysis for Investors

“Here is the most recent chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This is the adjusted monetary base over the past 12 months. This reflects the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is in control of the monetary base. Perhaps we should look at the longer-range policy. Do you see any change since 2009? The MarketWatch writer draws a conclusion from this ‘tightening.’ He writes: ‘The Fed’s tightening is primarily to prevent a full-blown asset bubble. Its burst could bring another financial crisis.’ But if the FED is not tightening, what happens to the asset bubble?” Continue reading →

Law professor: Should 3rd Amendment prevent government spying?

“If the government places a surveillance device in your home, is that sufficiently like quartering troops there to trigger Third Amendment scrutiny? What if it installs spyware on your computer or your cable modem? What if it requires ‘smart meters’ that allow moment-to-moment monitoring of your thermostat settings or toilet flushes? These specific concerns weren’t what the Framers had in mind. In their day, to spy on a family in its own home, you’d have to put a soldier there. But now we have electronic troops in the form of software, gadgets and sensors. Maybe the law needs to take account of this.” Continue reading →

New Hampshire governor signs medical marijuana bill into law

“New Hampshire on Tuesday became the 19th state to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. ‘This legislation is long overdue and comes as a relief to the many seriously ill patients throughout New Hampshire who will benefit from safe access to medical marijuana,’ said Matt Simon, a New Hampshire-based legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project. The Republican-led New Hampshire legislature approved a similar medical marijuana bill last year, but it was vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Lynch. The governor claimed the proposed law would be abused by those who didn’t really need the drug.” Continue reading →

Colorado Springs bans recreational marijuana shops

“Officials in Colorado’s second-largest city voted on Tuesday to ban recreational marijuana shops, becoming the largest community in the state to utilize an opt-out provision of a law that legalized the non-medical use of pot. Colorado Springs has a population of about 420,000 with a large military and evangelical Christian presence and is one of the most conservative and Republican areas in a state which in recent election cycles has turned leftward. The federal government lists cannabis as a dangerous narcotic and considers it illegal for any purpose, a point underscored by Colorado Springs residents who spoke on Tuesday in favor of the ban.” Continue reading →

Brazil becomes world’s 7th most violent country with 1 million murders in 30 years

“More than one million people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2011, making it the world’s seventh most violent country, a survey showed Thursday. During the period, homicides soared 132 percent to claim 1,145,208 lives, from a rate of 11.5 murders for 100,000 inhabitants in 1980 to 27 per 100,000 in 2011, according to the Map of Violence report, In 2011, Brazil, now home to 194 million people, recorded 51,198 homicides, ranked seventh among the world’s most violent nations after El Salvador, the US Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala.” Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda claims Iraq prison raids, says 500 inmates freed

“Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for simultaneous raids on two Iraqi prisons and said more than 500 inmates had been set free, in a statement posted on militant forums on Tuesday. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed earlier this year through a merger between al Qaeda’s affiliates in Syria and Iraq, said it had carried out the attacks on Abu Ghraib and Taji jails after months of preparation. Sunni Islamist militants have in recent months been regaining momentum in their insurgency against Iraq‘s Shi’ite-led government, which came to power after the U.S. invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.” Continue reading →

Yemeni journalist who reported U.S. drone strike released from jail

“A Yemeni journalist who was kept in prison for years at the apparent request of the Obama administration has been released in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, according to local reports. Abdulelah Haider Shaye was imprisoned in 2010, after reporting that an attack on a suspected al-Qaida training camp in southern Yemen for which the Yemeni government claimed responsibility had actually been carried out by the United States. Shaye had visited the site and discovered pieces of cruise missiles and cluster bombs not found in Yemen’s arsenal, according to a Jeremy Scahill dispatch in the Nation.” Continue reading →

Bloomberg vetoes bill to halt New York’s stop-and-frisk policy

“New York City Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday vetoed two measures meant to curb the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk policing policy, setting up a likely showdown with the City Council. One measure would create an independent inspector general to monitor the New York City Police Department. The other would expand the definition of racial profiling and allow people who believe they have been profiled to sue police in state court. Opponents of stop-and-frisk, among them minority groups, civil libertarians and some of the Democratic mayoral candidates, have said police officers disproportionately target young black and Hispanic men.” Continue reading →