Pending Bankruptcy of Largest Solar Company Puts Alternative Energy Industry Into Full Meltdown Mode

The darling industry of Sustainable Development is solar energy and wind turbines. The global policy of Sustainable Development (aka Technocracy) is to a) destroy carbon-based energy and b) replace the deficit with alternative energy.
Read more at Technocracy News Read More......

Sotomayor Helps Puerto Rico Argue Its Bankruptcy Case

Before Tuesday, I’d have said that Puerto Rico had no chance to win its legal fight to let its municipalities and utilities declare bankruptcy. That's how the island hopes to resolve its overwhelming debt problems, but the federal bankruptcy code says that it can't.
Read more at Yahoo Finance Read More......

The Postal Service Is Delivering Itself Into Bankruptcy, Audit Shows

Declining business and rising expenses are not exactly a recipe for long-term business success, but that is exactly what's going on at the U.S. Postal Service right now, the Government Accountability Office told a congressional panel on Thursday.
Read more at Investor's Business Daily Read More......

Coal industry could leave U.S. taxpayers with major bill -Jewell

U.S. taxpayers could be left with multibillion-dollar liabilities if large coal companies are pushed to bankruptcy, the Interior Department Secretary said on Wednesday.

At issue is a practice known as self-bonding, allowed under a decades-old mining program, in which some of the country's biggest coal companies forego insurance on a portion of future mine cleanup costs.

Read more at Yahoo Finance Read More......

In Dramatic Decision Judge Finds Fed Bailout Of AIG Was "Illegal", Government "Violated Federal Reserve Act"

Earlier today, former AIG head Hank Greenberg's long-running legal battle of the US government came to a dramatic end when in a 75-page ruling, U.S. Court of Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler found that Greenberg was indeed correct in claiming the government overstepped its legal boundaries in its "unduly harsh treatment of AIG in comparison to other institutions" which was "misguided and had no legitimate purpose."


Read more at Zero Hedge Read More......

America's Clash of Generations: How Many Working People Can Support One Retiree in the Future?

We are locked in a generational war, which will get worse before it gets better. Indeed, it may not get better for a long time. No one wants to admit this, because it's ugly and unwelcome. Parents are supposed to care for their children, and children are supposed to care for their aging parents. For families, these collective obligations may work. But what makes sense for families doesn't always succeed for society as a whole. The clash of generations is intensifying.

Last week, a federal judge ruled that Detroit qualifies for municipal bankruptcy. This almost certainly means that pensions and health benefits for the city's retired workers will be trimmed.

Read more at Real Clear Markets Read More......

US Consumer Bankruptcies Jump By Most In Three Years; Third-Party Collections At All Time High

Something funny happened on the road to the epic consumer balance sheet cleansing and subsequent releveraging (without which there can be no actual non-Fed sugar high fueled recovery): the second quarter. And specifically, as the Fed just disclosed in its quarterly Household Debt and Credit Report, the number of consumer bankruptcies during the second quarter, just jumped by 71K, to 380K from 309K in Q1, the biggest quarterly jump in precisely three years - on both an absolute and relative basis - and the most since the 158K jump recorded in Q2 2010. It appears that when the "releveraging" US consumer isn't busy buying stuff on credit, they are just as busy filing for bankruptcy. Healthy consumer-led recovery and all that.

Read more at Zero Hedge Read More......

Your green energy failure of the day: VPG of Michigan

Another one of the Energy Department’s taxpayer-financed “investments” just went belly-up.  This one died very quietly, without making a formal announcement, but USA Today noticed:

A Michigan maker of vans for the disabled that received a $50-million Energy Department loan has quietly ceased operation and laid off its staff.
Vehicle Production Group, or VPG, stopped operations after finances dipped below the minimum threshold required by the government as a condition of the loan, says its former CEO, John Walsh. Though about 100 staff were laid off and its offices shuttered, it has not filed for bankruptcy reorganization.

Read more at Human Events

(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Green Graveyard: ReVolt Technology Bites the Dust

Bringing the number of tombstones in Heritage’s Green Graveyard to 20 is ReVolt Technology, a Portland-based company, which specialized in developing zinc-air flow battery systems.

ReVolt earned its place in the Graveyard when it declared bankruptcy, despite the fact it had been offered a whopping $10 million in funds from federal, state, and local governments. The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy offered a $5 million grant in 2010. Oregon matched the federal government’s promise with $5 million worth of loans.

Read more at The Foundry Read More......

Battery maker A123 got U.S. funds as it sought bankruptcy

(Reuters) - The Obama administration provided struggling battery maker A123 Systems Inc with nearly $1 million on the day it filed for bankruptcy, the company told lawmakers investigating its government grant.

The company, which makes lithium ion batteries for electric cars, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after a rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group fell apart.

That same day, October 16, A123 received a $946,830 payment as part of its $249 million clean energy grant from the Energy Department, the company said in a letter, obtained by Reuters, to Republican Senators John Thune and Chuck Grassley.

Read more at Reuters

List of Failed Obama Green Energy & Solar Companies in the Billions Read More......

Quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant creates just 400 jobs

Battery maker A123 Systems vowed thousands of new jobs when it received a nearly quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant in late 2009, but federal job-tracking figures show only a few hundred positions were created before the company joined a growing list of federally backed energy businesses that ended in bankruptcy.

The latest quarterly report on file with a federal stimulus tracking database shows just seven positions created through the grant from April to June this year. Previous quarters’ job reports contained anywhere from a handful of positions created to more than 100 new jobs.

Read more at the Washington Times


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White House REJECTS Solyndra Subpoena

PATRIOT UPDATE, 11/4/2011 - President Obama’s attorney sent a letter to Congressional investigators on Friday, saying the White House would not cooperate with a subpoena requesting documents related to its doling out a $535 million loan guarantee to now bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. ✧ “I can only conclude that your decision to issue a subpoena, authorized by a party-line vote, was driven more by partisan politics than a legitimate effort to conduct a responsible investigation,” Obama’s counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, wrote in a letter to the top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce committee. (Read Ruemmler’s full letter here). ✧ Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich, blasted the White House response:

“We have been reasonable every step of the way in this investigation, and it is a shame that the Obama Administration and House Democrats continue to put up partisan roadblocks to hide the truth from taxpayers.

Read More......

Oregon's Obamacare -- hearing Friday

VICTORIA TAFT, 3/8/2011 - "OregonObamaCare Coming. Unless YOU Stop It! Hearing Friday. After rearranging the construct of DHS and health care delivery in the last legislature (elections have consequences) here, Democrats have set the table for ObamaCare to come to Oregon. This is an unaffordable blank check to establish OregonObamaCare (This isn't what they're calling it. I just thought it looked snappy all mashed up). This bill establish a health care welfare plan, begin the process of taking control of HMO's, rationing care (of course) and, among other things, set up a huge bureaucracy without increasing the number of doctors. ∴ This, of course, will bankrupt the state..." Read more at Victoria Taft... Read More......

NIA's Top 10 Predictions for 2011

NATIONAL INFLATION ASSOCIATION Preparing Americans for Hyperinflation , 1/4/2011 (Hat tip: Jean Nelson) - The National Inflation Association is pleased to announce its top 10 predictions for 2011.

1) The Dow/Gold and Gold/Silver ratios will continue to decline.
In NIA's top 10 predictions for 2010, we predicted major declines in the Dow/Gold and Gold/Silver ratios. The Dow/Gold ratio was 9.3 at the time and finished 2010 down 15% to 8.1. The Gold/Silver ratio was 64 at the time and finished 2010 down 28% to 46. We expect to see the Dow/Gold ratio decline to 6.5 and the Gold/Silver ratio decline to 38 in 2011. Later this decade, we expect to see the Dow/Gold ratio bottom at 1 and the Gold/Silver ratio decline to below 16 and possibly as low as 10.

2) Colleges will begin to go bankrupt and close their doors.
We have a college education bubble in America that was made possible by the U.S. government's willingness to give out cheap and easy student loans. With all of the technological advances that have been taking place worldwide, the cost for a college education in America should be getting cheaper. Instead, private four-year colleges have averaged 5.6% tuition inflation over the past six years.

College tuitions are the one thing in America that never declined in price during the panic of 2008. Despite collapsing stock market and Real Estate prices, college tuition costs surged to new highs as Americans instinctively sought to become better educated in order to better ride out and survive the economic crisis. Unfortunately, American students who overpaid for college educations are graduating and finding out that their degrees are worthless and no jobs are available for them. They would have been better off going straight into the work force and investing their money into gold and silver. That way, they would have real wealth today instead of debt and would already have valuable work place experience, which is much more important than any piece of paper.

Colleges and universities took on ambitious construction projects and built new libraries, gyms, and sporting venues, that added no value to the education of students. These projects were intended for the sole purpose of impressing students and their families. The administrators of these colleges knew that no matter how high tuitions rose, students would be able to simply borrow more from the government in order to pay them.

Americans today can purchase just about any type of good on Amazon.com, cheaper than they can find it in retail stores. This is because Amazon.com is a lot more efficient and doesn't have the overhead costs of brick and mortar retailers. NIA expects to see a new trend of Americans seeking to become educated cheaply over the Internet. There will be a huge drop off in demand for traditional college degrees. NIA expects to see many colleges default on their debts in 2011. These colleges will be forced to either downsize and educate students more cost effectively or close their doors for good.

3) U.S. retailers will report declines in profit margins and their stocks will decline.
Although most analysts on Wall Street believe retailers will report a major increase in holiday season sales over a year ago, NIA believes any top line growth retailers report will come at the expense of dismal bottom line profits. NIA expects many retailers to report large declines in their profit margins for the 4Q of 2010 and first half of 2011. Retailers have been selling goods at bargain basement prices in order to generate demand. Americans, being flush with newly printed dollars from the Federal Reserve, have been eager to buy up supplies of goods at artificially low prices. However, shareholders will likely sell off their retail stocks on this news. As share prices of retail stocks decline, retailers will begin to rapidly increase their prices by mid-2011.

4) The mainstream public will begin to buy gold.
Although the mainstream media continues to proclaim we have a gold bubble, it is impossible to have a gold bubble when mainstream America isn't buying gold. The average American is more likely to be a seller of gold through companies like Cash4Gold, in order to raise enough dollars to put food on their table. Most Americans today don't even know the price of gold. During the next 12 months, we expect to see a huge ramping up in the public's knowledge about gold. More Americans than ever will know the current price of gold and understand that it is real money. By the end of 2011, we expect the general public to begin looking at gold as an investment, just like they began looking at Real Estate as an investment in 2003. Sometime during the next six months, we believe you will overhear a stranger at a restaurant talking about investing into gold. We believe the price of gold could surge to as high as $2,000 per ounce in 2011.

5) We will see a huge surge in municipal debt defaults.
In the closing months of 2010, we saw yields on municipal bonds rise to their highest levels since early 2009. After 29 consecutive weeks of inflows into municipal bond funds, investors are now pulling money out of municipal bond funds by record amounts, with $9 billion exiting municipal bond funds in the five weeks leading up to Christmas. NIA believes there could be a small dip in municipal bond yields over the next couple of months as investors realize that municipal debt defaults might not be imminent, but we expect municipal bond yields to begin rising again by mid-2011 with a huge surge in municipal debt defaults coming in the second half of 2011. Although the Federal Government has a printing press that it uses in order to pay its debts, cities and municipalities do not.

6) We will see a large decline in the crude oil/natural gas ratio.
When we released our top 10 predictions for 2010, crude oil was $73 per barrel and we predicted that oil prices would rise to $100 per barrel in 2010. Crude oil ended up rising by 26% in 2010 to $92 per barrel, coming short of our outlook. However, it is possible our $100 per barrel oil forecast might be off by just a month or two. We wouldn't be surprised to see $100 per barrel oil within the first two months of 2011 and if so, we expect to see a huge movement in America this year towards natural gas.

The crude oil/natural gas ratio currently stands at 20. Historically, the crude oil/natural gas ratio has averaged 10 and based on an energy equivalent basis, crude oil and natural gas prices should have a 6 to 1 ratio. Brand new fracking technology has caused natural gas supplies in the U.S. to rise to record levels. Although our country might be flooded with natural gas, the natural gas fracking boom that is taking place across the U.S. today is causing ground water in the U.S. to become contaminated. Americans living near natural gas wells that use fracking, are finding that they can now light the water coming out of their faucets on fire. New government regulations are likely to crack down on natural gas fracking and this will come at the same time as American individuals and businesses begin to convert their automobiles and machinery to run off of natural gas. A large decline in the crude oil/natural gas ratio in 2011 is likely, possibly do wn to as low as 15.

7) The median U.S. home will decline sharply priced in silver.
For the past couple of years, being able to make ones mortgage payment has been the primary concern for the average American. In an attempt to support housing prices and keep mortgage interest rates at artificially low levels, the Federal Reserve has been implementing massive quantitative easing and buying mortgage backed securities. NIA believes the Federal Reserve will be successful at putting a nominal floor under Real Estate prices. NIA also believes that the Federal Reserve's actions will cause a massive decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, which will allow Americans to more easily pay back their mortgages with depreciated U.S. dollars.

However, the Federal Reserve will not be successful at reinflating the Real Estate bubble. In fact, in terms of real money (gold and silver), NIA believes Real Estate prices will decline to record lows. The median U.S. home is currently priced at $170,600 or 5,500 ounces of silver. Priced in silver, the median U.S. home price is down 16% from one month ago and 45% from one year ago. After the inflationary crisis of the 1970s, silver rose to a high in 1980 of $49.45 per ounce. The median U.S. home price in 1980 was $47,200, which means the median U.S. home/silver ratio declined to a low of 954.

With the Federal Reserve printing money at an unprecedented rate and record amounts of new homes built during the recent Real Estate bubble, NIA believes it is inevitable that the median U.S. home will decline to a price of 1,000 ounces of silver this decade and possibly as low as 500 ounces of silver. In 2011, we believe a decline in the median U.S. home price to 4,000 ounces of silver is possible.

8) Food inflation will become America's top crisis.
Starting a few decades ago and accelerating in recent years, America has seen a boom in non-productive service jobs, mainly in the financial sector. Most of these jobs were made possible by inflation. Without inflation, which steals from the purchasing power of the incomes and savings of goods producing workers, the majority of the jobs on Wall Street would not exist today and our country would be in much better financial shape because of it.

With most Americans in recent decades seeking non-productive jobs in the financial services sector because that is where they could access the Fed's cheap and easy money, very few Americans sought jobs in the farming and agriculture sector. In the 1930s, approximately 28% of the population was employed in the agriculture sector, but today this number is less than 2%. Agriculture currently makes up only 1.2% of U.S. GDP, compared to the services sector, which makes up 76.9% of U.S. GDP.

There is currently a major shortage of farmers in the U.S. and a lot of land that was previously used for farming has now been developed with Real Estate. To make matters worse, agricultural products now trade on the international market and Americans must now compete against citizens of emerging nations like China and India for the purchasing of food.

Prices of goods and services do not rise equally when governments create monetary inflation. Inflation gravitates most towards the items that Americans need the most and there is nothing that Americans need more to survive than food and agriculture. As the U.S. government prints money, the first thing Americans will spend it on is food. Americans can cut back on energy use by moving into a smaller home and carpooling to work. They can cut back on entertainment, travel, and other discretionary spending. However, Americans can never stop spending money on food.

The days of cheap food in America are coming to an end. The recent unprecedented rise that we have seen in agricultural commodity prices is showing no signs of letting up. In the past few days, sugar futures reached a new 30-year high, coffee futures reached a new 13-year high, orange juice futures reached a new 3-year high, corn futures reached a new 29-month high, soybean futures reached a new 27-month high, and palm oil futures reached a new 33-month high.

We estimate that it takes as long as six months for rising agricultural commodity prices to be felt by U.S. consumers in their local supermarket. Even if food producers and retailers accept substantially lower profit margins in 2011, we are still guaranteed to see double-digit across the board U.S. food inflation in the first half of the year. That is correct, let us repeat, NIA guarantees that Americans will see double-digit food inflation in the first half of 2011.

Shockingly, except for Glenn Beck (who was kind enough to feature our food inflation report), absolutely nobody in the mainstream media is doing anything to warn Americans about the food inflation crisis that is ahead. In fact, left-wing groups like Media Matters (funded by George Soros) have been working tirelessly to try and discredit NIA's research while reassuring Americans that they need not worry about food inflation. The truth is, when Americans realize that they can no longer take food for granted, we will likely see the outbreak of an all out food price panic with everybody rushing to the supermarket to stock up on goods before prices rise even further. The end result will likely be government price controls and empty store shelves, but NIA doesn't project this to occur until later this decade.

9) QE2 will disappoint and the Federal Reserve will prepare QE3.
The Dow Jones is now back up to 11,670, which is where it was in mid-2008 before the crash. NIA believes that most of QE2 has already been priced into the market, before the Federal Reserve even prints the $600 billion. At some point, we expect it to become apparent to all that the U.S. economic recovery is phony and stock prices are rising solely due to inflation. In our opinion, we will see some sort of catalyst that causes the stock market to sell off at some point and the consensus on Wall Street will be that QE2 will not be enough to save the U.S. economy. By the end of 2011, we expect the Federal Reserve to begin planning QE3. QE3 might be the final dose of inflation that causes the U.S. economy to overdose into hyperinflation.

10) Sarah Palin will announce she is running for President as a Republican.
NIA believes that Sarah Palin has been setup perfectly to run for President in 2012 and that she will announce her candidacy for the Republican nomination with great fanfare from tea party supporters in 2011. We give Sarah Palin credit for recently speaking out against the Federal Reserve's QE2 and warning Americans about the food inflation crisis that is ahead. Unfortunately, we believe Sarah Palin is not a true independent and is being controlled by the Republican establishment, which is just as responsible as the Democrats are for the financial crisis we have today. As President, Palin would be unlikely to implement the measures that are necessary to prevent hyperinflation. In our opinion, we need to elect a true libertarian candidate as President who will cut government spending, balance the budget, and restore sound money. NIA intends to support Ron Paul, if he decides to run for President.

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free! Read More......

Lest we become bankrupt...

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” Cicero – 55 BC
(Hat tip: Shawn/OC) Read More......

Gov. Pawlenty: Obama Corrosive to Freedom, Liberty

NEWSMAX, 10/26/2009 by Ronald Kessler - President Obama has used bait-and-switch tactics first to get elected and now to push his healthcare proposal, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty tells Newsmax. ∴ During the campaign, Obama portrayed himself as a centrist but has governed as a “movement liberal,” says Pawlenty, who is widely seen as preparing for a presidential bid and has started Freedom First PAC to raise funds for Republican candidates in next year’s elections. ∴ “His solutions are federalization of policy, spending way beyond anything we’ve seen in terms of deficit or debt levels, spending the country into bankruptcy,” Pawlenty says. “And what’s behind it is a philosophy that government knows best, a nanny-state mentality on domestic issues that will ultimately be corrosive to the other pillars of our country — to markets, private enterprise, individual responsibility, freedom and liberty.” Read more at Newsmax... Read More......

The Great 'Prevention' Myth

WASHINGTON POST, 8/14/2009 by Charles Krauthammer (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health-care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health-care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse. Read more at the Washington Post and find out why 'prevention' does not save money as Obama claims... (not that we're opposed to preventive medicine).

John says, "No matter how simplistic we make things, they are never simple." Read More......

White House Puts UAW Ahead of Property Rights

TOWNHALL.COM, 5/7/09 by Michael Barone - Last Friday, the day after Chrysler filed for bankruptcy, I drove past the company's headquarters on I-75 in Auburn Hills, Mich. As I glanced at the pentagram logo, I felt myself tearing up a little bit. Anyone who grew up in the Detroit area, as I did, can't help but be sad to see a once great company fail.

But my sadness turned to anger later when I heard what bankruptcy lawyer Tom Lauria said on a WJR talk show that morning. "One of my clients," Lauria told host Frank Beckmann, "was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight." Read more at townhall.com... Read More......