NEWS

[towhom]

Out-of-pocket health-care costs rise for workers with employer coverage
Study finds high underinsurance rates for sicker workers with modest incomes
EurekAlert
Public Release: 2-Jun-2009
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/cf-ohc060109.php

Bethesda, MD -- The 161 million Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance are facing substantial increases in out-of-pocket (OOP) costs, according to a study published today on the Health Affairs Web site.

The study, authored by researchers from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and Watson Wyatt Worldwide and funded by The Commonwealth Fund, examines trends in the comprehensiveness of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) from 2004 to 2007. It finds rising rates of underinsurance and unaffordability, particularly for poorer and sicker people.

In 2007, adults with employer coverage faced an average of $729 annually in OOP costs for medical services, including deductibles and other forms of cost sharing such as copayments and coinsurance. That represents a 34 percent increase from 2004, when the average OOP burden was $545. Health plans covered a slightly smaller percentage of overall expenses in 2007 than 2004, but growth in overall health spending was the chief culprit behind rising out-of-pocket costs.

"The years from 2004 through 2007 were a period of economic expansion, yet rising health care costs still eroded the value of employer-sponsored coverage. Historically, employees have been asked to shoulder even more of the cost-sharing burden during difficult economic times such as the United States is now experiencing. Hence, it is imperative that health care reform include constraints on health spending, or else health insurance will become unaffordable for low- and middle-income Americans, and reform itself will be unsustainable," said lead author Jon Gabel, a senior fellow at NORC in Bethesda, Maryland.

The study by Gabel and his colleagues updates earlier studies on ESI and out-of-pocket costs published in 1997, 2000, and 2004. The researchers used simulated bill paying for a standard population of people with employer-based insurance, as if that standard population were enrolled in each insurance plan from a representative sample of employer-based plans. Highlights of their findings include the following:

• Out-Of-Pocket Spending Varied Widely Among Low-Cost And High-Cost Workers. The average OOP expense for the 50 percent of workers with the lowest health spending was $85 in 2007, whereas for the highest-spending 1 percent and 10 percent of employees it was $8,703 and $3,364, respectively. Health plans paid for a greater share of spending by adults with chronic conditions, but these individuals also had relatively higher out-of-pocket costs.
  
  
• A Slight Decline In The Actuarial Value Of ESI. While most of the increase in OOP costs for workers was due to the underlying growth in health care spending, the actuarial value of ESI declined slightly from 2004 to 2007. Overall, ESI paid 81.4 percent of medical bills for all workers in 2004 and 80.1 percent in 2007. This resulted from increases in the percentage of plans with deductibles and in average deductible levels, reflecting the emergence of consumer-directed health plans, the decline in market share for health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and point-of-service (POS) plans, and the increased use of deductibles by preferred provider organizations (PPOs).

Surprisingly, high-deductible health plans coupled with employer contributions to tax-favored savings accounts had the highest actuarial value of all plan types. Overall, these types of plans paid 91.1 percent of medical bills. However, their actuarial value was concentrated among the half of workers with the lowest health spending. Low-spending employees were able to save nearly all of the $878 average contribution by the employer for the savings account, but higher-spending employees paid more out of pocket in these plans than did high spenders in other types of plans. HMOs had the next-highest actuarial value, followed by POS plans, PPOs, and high-deductible health plans without employer contributions.

Average actuarial value did not differ significantly among firms of different sizes.

A Deterioration In Rates Of Underinsurance And Affordability. Gabel and coauthors deemed individuals "underinsured" if they would be expected to spend more than 5 percent of their income out of pocket for medical services (excluding premiums). For people with family incomes at 200 percent of the federal poverty level, about 20.3 percent of those with ESI exceeded this threshold in 2007, up from 16.5 percent in 2004. If the threshold were set at 10 percent of income, 8.7 percent of those with family incomes at 200 percent of the FPL would have been underinsured in 2007, up from 5.8 percent in 2004.

"In the United States, if you are sick and earn a modest income, then you are probably underinsured -- even if you have employer-based health coverage," the researchers write. In 2007, among those with family incomes at 200 percent of poverty who were among the top 25 percent in health care spending, the underinsurance rate was 71 percent.

To calculate whether coverage was affordable, the researchers looked at whether OOP spending for both premiums and medical services would exceed 10 percent of income. Gabel and his colleagues found that affordability declined at all incomes levels between 2004 and 2007. For example, about 18 percent of those with family incomes at 200 percent of poverty spent more than 10 percent of their incomes out of pocket in 2007, up from 13 percent in 2004 (see graphic).

Of the increase in total OOP payments for workers between 2004 and 2007, Gabel and his colleagues found that about 57 percent was attributable to higher cost sharing for medical services and 43 percent to higher premium contributions.

"As the nation debates health reform, these findings highlight the need to ensure that workers and their families will have access to affordable health insurance coverage that protects them from high out-of-pocket spending regardless of whether they are healthy or sick," said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis.

ABOUT THE COMMONWEALTH FUND
The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation supporting independent research on health policy reform and a high performance health system.

ABOUT HEALTH AFFAIRS:
Health Affairs, published by Project HOPE, is the leading journal of health policy. The peer-reviewed journal appears bimonthly in print, with additional online-only papers published weekly as Health Affairs Web Exclusives at www.healthaffairs.org.

Health Care Reform is needed - this is a FACT. But, once again, you're looking to the insured parties to shoulder ANOTHER burden. I am sure you're going to "suggest" ways of reducing the costs of coverage by elimination of and/or adding a co-payment percentage for treatments currently covered, increasing the list of "experimental treatments" that are not covered, adding "surcharges" to covered procedures, etc. It wouldn't be "profitable" to target the drug Pharms for their outrageous pricing scams, the medical equipment manufacturers for their profit-driven diagnostic paraphernalia and software, rein in the "for-profit" hospital industrial machines, etc. They are making health care unaffordable...and are making us sicker to boot.

Furthermore - "HILLBEANIES" - YOU ARE DRAGGING YOUR HEELS IN ADDRESSING THESE ISSUES. This is EXACTLY what I expected you to do. You and "your fiends friends", the insurance and drug Pharm lobbyists, are all in this together. Geez...

[gzelle]

just got caught back up on the news - sooooo....



Congrats

[towhom]

Jun 2, 2009 20:28:08 GMT 4 @mike said:

Thank you, Sally Anne! I've been a bit preoccupied with other stuff lately, but I still try to get in here a few times a week and read up on everyone's postings along with the latest developments in Eagles Country.

Do you remember when that story broke about AT&T installing taps in all of its major switching centers, to allow various spooks and alphabet agencies unrestricted access to all of its traffic? It basically confirmed what a lot of us had suspected for quite awhile--once your traffic reaches the routers of a major backbone provider, you can consider it compromised. Strong mathematics can still protect your traffic, but it won't protect you as an individual from the resources of your elected government (cough). As others here can tell you, it's probably better to hide in plain sight and send information back channel (innuendo, implication, brevities, open codes, even steganography) because it is less amenable to automated analysis and discovery. If they want the information badly enough, make them work for it.

Of course, when it comes down to brass tacks, one-time pads are easy to generate and are just as unbreakable now as they were during the cold war. I'm somewhat hopeful that good crypto, passable marksmanship and a vigilant, educated population can preserve some aspects of our democracy. Of course, the realist in me tends to agree with you. The system--such as it is--has been subverted for so long and to such an extent that all of the Goobers have a level of confidence that goes way past the point of arrogance. Sigh.

Kind regards,
Mike

Hiya Mike!

Yeah, I know - I worked for AT&T before the big antitrust-mandated "divestiture" and then for one of the LOCs (Local Operating Companies) for years. And yes, I handled Federal Government Accounts. So, given what was available to the general public versus what was in place (both normal and "special-assembly") on intrastate and interstate (and international) for those "yahoos", it was and is amusing to read the disclaimers being tossed around now. That's just on the "known" and obvious traffic platforms. We haven't even touched the "signal interceptor" devices independent of these "wired and wireless" networks.

That would be a "ping" in their favor...how about them switching systems...

;D

Peace and Joy
Always

Sally Anne

[towhom]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

DEAR
FR33KSH0W2012...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

[/b][/size][/center]

[towhom]

Now let us calmly look at the financial "front", shall we...

The housing market folded (must have been the poor quality materials used, huh). Of course, this had nothing to do with the loan sharks, the mortgage "back-breaking" brokers, the "just-sign-on-the-dotted-line" bankers. Nope, it was the fault of the "borrowers". In a sense, this is partially true, because we bought into a BIG FAT LIE. What is hard to face is we lied to ourselves to do this. What we were/are left with is another story-in-progress.

So, the mortgage-holders (whomever and wherever they are) realized their "Pile-O-Plunder" was dwindling while their "Pile-O-ASSEtS" were "radioactive" - as in "toxic" - and the "fallout" was heading their way.

What to do...just call your local "in-your-pocket" politician...

Our buddies, the Beanie Babies in the House on the Hill, at the urging of "Bush"-man and "Chain"-ey along with the not-so-subtle prodding of the special "you-owe-me" interest groups, were able to MAKE THIS HAPPEN (whatever "THIS" is...) IN A VERY SHORT WINDOW OF TIME. We're talking a REAL Congressional record...

And so it was - we, as in the taxpayers, bailed out the banks and (indirectly) bailed out Wall Street.

Now, keep in mind that during this same period, the aforementioned taxpayers (that would be us) were slowly but surely losing their houses, jobs, vehicles, health care, unemployment "benefits" (that's a joke - trying to make ends meet on unemployment checks is like taking a breath during a walk in space without the "benefit" of a spacesuit and oxygen tank), etc.

What did the little "bankies" and other financial institutions do? They awarded themselves with bonuses, used another portion of the "Monopoly Money" to do just that - consolidate and merge - thereby creating larger monopolies with "tax incentives" allowing them to book losses from the pre-merger environment on one big "creative accounting" spreadsheet. Another "bonus" handed to them by the "Hill of Beans", the "under-the-radar" Federal "Me"serve Bank and the "Bottomless" US Treasury Dept. was the "get-out-of-accountability" free card.

Then the bankers and investors "hoarded" the remaining bailout funds - which they invested in other "hedge fund markets" and profited by - while NOT lending, NOT re-financing, NOT helping their depositors. Now they're balking at the regulatory changes that are being hammered out by a group of harassed "bean-counters" hoping to halt the "event-horizon" approach of the "Black Hole-In-The-Wall Gang" aka "The Goobers".

Gobble-Gobble-Burp...

Now rather than continue this epic saga, it would be best to just point out a few things:

• The (foreclosed upon) land is being purchased by "groups"
  
• Large open tracts of land are being purchased or taken over by "groups"
  
• The food is being genetically-modified and is not at sustainable (as in nutritional) levels, as well as, not being produced in sufficient quantities to ward off starvation of the majority of the population on this planet
  
• Much of the medicines available today (for those that can afford them) are not without extreme side effects that can also cause life-threatening reactions
  
• The soil is being contaminated
  
• The water is being contaminated
  
• The air is being contaminated
  
• Essential commodities are being withheld - fuels for heating, materials for building, free-energy devices (yep, they exist), information of all forms and in all fields of knowledge
  
• Arsenals are being broadened
  
• Propaganda machines - the media - are spewing out garbage filled with fear and hate
  
• Wars are proliferating

What are the two most common denominators here? That's easy - MONEY up front and POWER in the background with many levels of obstructions in between.

Now, all of you politicians, bankers, investors, commodities traders, etc. - you need to understand something. While you may have a bundle of bucks socked away to weather "hard times", your MONEY means nothing if it's devalued - and it will be. You are simply another level that is being breached. It's just paper or bytes of data that can be wiped with the press of a button...and it ain't your finger poised over that one, dudes.

You might think you're safe if you have "gold" or "silver" - NOPE. It's just metal. You can't eat it, drink it, breathe it, etc. It, too, is worthless because the things you need to exist aren't going to be for sale. Now what are you going to do?

No one wants to be a target - NO ONE. Why are you playing this silly money game? That's all it is - a game.

Do you realize that not only have you taken our livelihoods and spent them, but you are also planning to charge us more for the debts YOU PUT IN PLACE. We don't have it to give it to you, so you're going to have your debts called and be forced to pay up.

Welcome to our world...it's called humanity.

DO THE RIGHT THING - not the GOOBER thing - THE RIGHT THING.

Just say NO.

[towhom]

Jun 1, 2009 21:28:51 GMT 4 @jack said:

Hi everyone... some of the old timers will remember me... Ive been crazy busy but now that summer is here the gym is finley slowing down a bit... I found this to be very interesting. As fast as tec is growing, its something like we double our learning about everything every 6 months, this will be crazy stuff in a few years... well here it is... Have a great day all...
www.disclose.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4595&view=unread#unread

JACK -

Howdy, dude! Speak up...this "oldtimer" is a bit hard of hearing... ;D

How's the family doing? Hope all is well down your way!

I'll check out the video and report back (hopefully I'll be able to "hear it" ).

Peace and Joy
Always

Sally Anne

[nodstar]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FREAKSHOW 2012[/b][/size] ;D ;D ;D ;D

Wishing you a so MANY happy returns

and a wonderful year ahead ..

lotsa love

Nodstar*

[locoaz2009]

China’s Yu Tells U.S. Not to Be Complacent About Debt

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Didn’t the media inform us yesterday that China was CONFIDENT concerning US debt? This does not read like a confident bull on either the US dollar or US debt.



June 2 (Bloomberg) — China’s former central bank adviser Yu Yongding will meet Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today and tell him the U.S. shouldn’t be complacent about China continuing to buy Treasuries.

“I wish to tell the U.S. government: ‘Don’t be complacent and think there isn’t any alternative for China to buy your bills and bonds’,” Yu said in an interview yesterday. “The euro is an alternative. And there are lots of raw materials we can still buy.”

Yu said he is scheduled to meet Geithner today at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Beijing.

China is the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries with $768 billion at the end of the first quarter. Premier Wen Jiabao in March called for the U.S. “to guarantee the safety of China’s assets” and central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan has proposed a new global currency to reduce reliance on the dollar.

“China will be shooting themselves in the foot if they push this issue too hard,” said Sean Callow, a senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in Sydney. “If they are too alarmist and contribute substantially to a dollar and Treasuries sell off, they are going to feel more pain than just about anybody in the world.”

jsmineset.com/

LOCOAZ

[locoaz2009]

Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternatives
By Oliver Biggadike and Chris Fournier

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Don’t let the numbing spin and off the scale development with equities put you in an exposed mode. The dollar is dead - that is becoming quite clear.

The ramification of the demise of the dollar this year are severe. The sheeple are sleeping, dope smoking, snorting or doing something else to disengaged their brains.

Gold is going to $1650 then on to Alf’s numbers. The dollar is going to .52 and maybe lower on the USDX. The long bonds are going to Hades. The IMF is going to be the world Federal Reserve.

There will be a SDR tied to gold as I have suggested, in the form of a basket of mainly non-dollar currencies that will be the one world currency.

The agenda of those that seek the above is unfolding. Democracy will become an underground movement. About all this there is no question.

Are you prepared?


June 2 (Bloomberg) — The dollar weakened beyond $1.43 against the euro for the first time in 2009 on bets record U.S. borrowing will undermine the greenback, prompting nations to consider alternatives to the world’s main reserve currency.

The euro gained for a fourth day versus the dollar as the Russian government said emerging-market leaders may discuss the idea of a supranational currency. The pound rose to the highest level since October and the Canadian dollar traded near an eight-month high on speculation signs of a recovery in U.S. and U.K. housing will spur higher-yield demand.

“There’s been a lot of talk out of Russia about a new global currency, and that’s contributing toward this latest bout of dollar weakness,” said Henrik Gullberg, a currency strategist in London at Deutsche Bank AG, the world’s largest currency trader. “These latest comments are just adding to the general dollar weakness we’ve seen recently.”

The dollar slid 1.1 percent to $1.4317 per euro at 4:21 p.m. in New York, from $1.4159 yesterday. It touched $1.4331, the weakest level since Dec. 29. The dollar depreciated 1.1 percent to 95.54 yen, from 96.59. The euro traded at 136.77 yen, compared with 136.78.

Sterling rose as much as 0.9 percent to $1.6596, the highest level since Oct. 30, while the Canadian dollar advanced 1.2 percent to C$1.0806, near the strongest level since Oct. 3.

jsmineset.com/

LOCOAZ

[locoaz2009]

FDIC Fund Running Dry

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Just another bailout where the taxpayer is burdened beyond the ability to cope.


By: Dirk van Dijk, CF

We highlight JP Morgan Chase & Co., Inc. (JPM - Snapshot Report), BankUnited Financial Corp. (BKUNA - Snapshot Report), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC - Analyst Report) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC -Snapshot Report).

As the FDIC has had to step in to take over more and more insolvent banks, the fund has dwindled to dangerously low levels. At the same time, the number of problem banks continues to grow at a rapid pace.

At the end of the first quarter there were 305 “problem institutions” with a total of $220.0 billion in assets, up from 252 institutions and $159.4 billion in assets at the end of 2008. At the end of the quarter, the Deposit insurance fund was at just $13.0 billion, or 0.27% of insured deposits, a decline of 24.7% in the quarter alone.

The first graph (from www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows the steep drop in the coverage ratio. Just a year ago, the fund was equal to 1.01% of covered deposits. The current level is its lowest since the first quarter of 1993, when we were digging out from the S&L fiasco.

However, don’t worry about losing the money in your checking account if your bank goes under. Congress has already approved a $500 billion line of credit to the FDIC. Without a doubt, that line of credit is going to have to be tapped. This does emphasize the insanity of having the FDIC provide the guarantees for the PPIP [Public-Private Investment Program]. The fund simply does not have the resources available to do it. The money for the inevitable large losses that the fund will take on the program will come from that line of credit.

jsmineset.com/

LOCOAZ

[locoaz2009]

Jim,

This is thought out well and in line with what you have posted most recently…

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without knowing how it happened… I no longer need to run as a Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.
– Norman Thomas, six-time U.S. presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, 1944.

On that chart I shipped you, historically the fall of Napoleon in the early 1800s opened the door for Anglo-American dominance of the world.
With the fall of the pound, and now the dollar, that era will end soon by your reckoning and many others. I find it quite interesting that Greenspan has publicly said the Euro will become the new world currency, and he had urged the gulf states to break their dollar peg about a year ago.
In reality, the euro is just another piece of garbage, but perception sometimes trumps reality for a time as we all know. It could easily be that the euro is just further advanced in terms of currency than what Asia offers at this time, so it will precede it by some years.
This fits prophetically, so I sit by and watch. The "one is" refers to the emerging power in Europe, first by the Kaiser and then Hitler/Mussolini, that twice went to war against the Anglo-Saxon hegemony and lost.
The one "yet to come" will emerge from its cocoon when the dollar goes down and needs to be replaced on the world’s stage. Perhaps the repatriation of US/Britain gold to both Germany and the emirates is in anticipation of this.
It’s always follow the money as you well know. Fascinating times to be sure. Prophetically, China/Russia will emerge to challenge the Euro state. When the baton of power is passed back across the Atlantic, we will know we are getting down to the short strokes.

CIGA Yahn

jsmineset.com/

LOCOAZ

[locoaz2009]

The Big Collapse Could Be Very Near

The Federal Reserve appears to be increasingly nervous about the long term bond market. This is serious. How panicked are they? After leaking a story on Friday, they are back at it on Sunday.

The Federal Reserve leaked to CNBC's Steve Liesman on Friday that they weren't targeting long rates. Why such a leak? Probably because the Fed did not want to appear impotent in controlling the long rate. So they put out the word through Liesman that they weren't targetting the long rate. Can you imagine what would happen to the markets if it sensed long rates were beyond the control of the Fed?

The Fed can of course print money to buy up every Treasury bond in existence, but the inflationary ramifications would be Zimbabwe like, and crush the dollar on international currency markets.

Are we near the phase where all hell breaks loose? I have never even answered, maybe, to this question before. It's always been, "no." Now it's maybe.

What really has me spooked is another article out this afternoon (on a Sunday) that Drudge has even picked up. It's a Reuters story by Alister Bull. The headline: Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening.

Translation, the Fed doesn't know what is going on, but they are really scared.

Here's more from Bull:


The Federal Reserve is studying significant moves in the U.S. government bond market last week that could have big implications for the central bank's strategy to combat the country's recession.

But the Fed is not really sure what is driving the sharp rise in long-dated bond yields, and especially a widening gap between short and long term yields.

Do rising U.S. Treasury yields and a steepening yield curve suggest an economic recovery is more certain, meaning less need for safe haven government bonds and a healthy demand for credit? If so, there might be less need for the Fed to expand the money supply by buying more U.S. Treasuries.

Or does the steepening yield curve mean investors are worried about the deterioration in the U.S. fiscal outlook, or the potential for a collapse in the U.S. dollar as the Fed floods the world with newly minted currency as part of its quantitative easing program. This might be an argument to augment to step up asset purchases.

Another possibility is that China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury debt, has decided to refocus its portfolio by leaning more heavily on shorter-term maturities...

An obvious culprit for the move in bond yields is the country's record fiscal deficit, which will generate a massive amount of new government issuance.

The U.S. Treasury must sell a record net $2 trillion in new debt in 2009 to fund a $1.8 trillion projected fiscal deficit, resulting from falling tax revenues, an economic stimulus package and sundry bank bailouts.

It's the Chinese, and any other Treasury bond buyer who follows the markets, that have pulled away, to varying degrees from buying Treasury long securities. No one wants to be the last one holding bonds, where the new debt about to be issued is in the trillions.

Bull continues with the part of the message the Fed really wanted to get out:

With officials still grappling to divine the factors steepening the yield curve, a speedy decision on whether to ramp up the Treasury debt purchase program or the related plan to snap up mortgage-related debt seems unlikely.

"I'm in wait-and-see mode," said one Fed official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"We laid out the asset purchase plan and we're following it. That is going to have some affect on various interest rates, but together with a hundred other things. So I don't think we should be chasing a long-term interest rate," the official said.

It's the same message as Friday. The Fed does not want to spook the world into thinking that it can't push long term rates down, so it says it is not trying. But if rates continue to climb, a panic out of Treasury securities is a very likely scenario. And Bernanke has only one play to force long rates back down, buy every long bond in sight, which of course is highly inflationary and puts upward pressure on rates. How's that for a dilemma?

The end of the current financial system, as we know it, maybe iminent. If you would have asked me even two weeks ago if collapse was imminent, I would have said it was highly unlikely, now I am saying it is possible. Bernanke may be able to patch things up short-term, if he is lucky, but long term the U.S. financial structure is in serious trouble. There is just too much Treasury debt that needs to be raised. An international panic out of Treasury securities, even a slow controlled panic, means the Fed will be the major buyer. This will ultimately mean record inflation.

And keep this in mind, we have never seen a collapse of a currency like the dollar. Even the hyperinflation during Germany's Wiemar Period can not serve as an example. Since the dollar is the reserve currency of most of the world, a panic out of the dollar means more dollars will return to the U.S. shores than any country has ever experienced.

Other countries have had collapsed currencies, but never in the history of world of finance has so much currency been held outside a country of issue that could come flying back, almost on a moments notice. If the panic out of the dollar starts, even if Bernanke stops printing money (unlikely), all the dollars flying back into the U.S. could cause a huge price inflation all on its own.

www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/05/big-collapse-could-be-very-near.html

LOCOAZ

[towhom]

U.S. releases secret nuclear list accidentally
Report gives details about hundreds of the nation's nuclear sites, programs
MSNBC
June 2, 2009 at 9:37 PM EDT
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31073594

DETROIT - The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.

The publication of the document was revealed Monday in an on-line newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy. That publicity set off a debate among nuclear experts about what dangers, if any, the disclosures posed. It also prompted a flurry of investigations in Washington into why the document was made public.

On Tuesday evening, after inquiries from The New York Times, the document was withdrawn from a Government Printing Office Web site.

Several nuclear experts argued that any dangers from the disclosure were minimal, given that the general outlines of the most sensitive information were already known publicly.

“These screw-ups happen,” said John M. Deutch, a former Director of Central Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of Defense who is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s going further than I would have gone but doesn’t look like a serious breach.”

'A physical security threat'
But David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said information that shows where nuclear fuels are stored “can provide thieves or terrorists inside information that can help them seize the material, which is why that kind of data is not given out. It can become a physical security threat.”

The information, considered sensitive but not classified, was assembled for transmission later this year to the International Atomic Energy Agency as part of a process by which the United States is opening itself up to more stringent inspections in hopes that foreign countries will do likewise, especially Iran and other states believed to be clandestinely developing nuclear arms.

President Obama sent the document to Congress on May 5 for Congressional review and possible revision, and the Government Printing Office subsequently posted the draft declaration on its web site.

As of Tuesday evening, the reasons for that action remained a mystery. On its cover, the document attributes its publication to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. But Lynne Weil, the committee spokesperson, said the committee “neither published it nor had control over its publication.”

No military information
Gary Somerset, a spokesman for the Government Printing Office, said it had “produced” the document “under normal operating procedures” but had now removed it from its web site pending “further review.”

The document contains no military information about the nation’s stockpile of nuclear arms, or about the facilities and programs that guard such weapons. Rather, it presents that appears to be an exhaustive listing of the sites that comprise the nation’s civilian nuclear complex, which stretches coast-to-coast and includes everything from nuclear reactors to highly sensitive sites at weapon laboratories.

Steven Aftergood, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, revealed the existence of the document Monday in “Secrecy News,” an electronic newsletter that he publishes on the web.

'One-stop shot for information'
He expressed bafflement at its disclosure, calling it “a one-stop shop for information on U.S. nuclear programs.”

In his letter of transmittal to Congress, Mr. Obama characterized the information as “sensitive but unclassified” and said all the information that the United States gathered to comply with the advanced protocol “shall be exempt from disclosure” under the Freedom of Information Act.

The report details the locations of hundreds of nuclear sites and activities. Each page is marked across the top “HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL SAFEGUARDS SENSITIVE,” with the exception of pages that detailed additional information such as site maps. In his transmittal letter, Mr. Obama said the cautionary language was a classification category of the I.A.E.A.’s inspectors.

The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna is a unit of the United Nations whose mandate is to enforce a global treaty that tries to keep civilian nuclear programs from engaging in secret military work.

In recent years, it has sought to gain wide adherence to a set of strict inspection rules, known formally as the additional protocol. The rules give the agency powerful new rights to poke its nose beyond known nuclear sites into factories, storage areas, laboratories, schools, and anywhere else that a nation might be preparing to flex its nuclear muscle. The United States signed the agreement in 1998 but only recently moved forward with its implementation.

The report lists many particulars about nuclear programs and facilities at the nation’s three nuclear weapons labs — Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia — as well as dozens of other federal and private nuclear sites.

Map shows location of a tube vault
One of the most serious disclosures appears to center on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which houses the Y-12 National Security Complex, a sprawling site ringed by barbed wire and armed guards. It calls itself the nation’s “Fort Knox” for highly enriched uranium — a main fuel of nuclear arms.

The report lists “Tube Vault 16, East Storage Array,” as a prospective site for nuclear inspection. It said the site, in building 9720-5, contains highly enriched uranium for “long-term storage.”

An attached map is marked “OFFICIAL USE ONLY,” with a dated note from an official saying that the document “may be exempt from public release under the “Freedom of Information Act.” The map shows the exact location of Tube Vault 16 along a hallway and its orientation in relation to geographic north, although not its location in the Y-12 complex.

Tube vaults are typically cylinders embedded in concrete that prevent the accidental formation of critical masses of highly enriched uranium that could undergo bursts of nuclear fission, known as a criticality incident. According to federal reports, a typical tube vault can hold up to 44 tons of highly enriched uranium in 200 tubes. Motion detectors and television cameras typically monitor activity at each vault.

Another entry details a site at Hanford site of the Department of Energy, located near Richland, Wash., on the Columbia River. Its job was making plutonium — another bomb fuel — for the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

'It's no national-security breach'
The document lists building 2736-Z as a site for possible inspection, saying it contains plutonium. An addendum provides a building map, marked “OFFICIAL USE ONLY.”

The Senate Foreign Relations committee also received the sensitive document but kept it private, a committee spokesman said.

Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, called the document harmless. “It’s a better listing than anything I’ve seen” of the nation’s civilian nuclear complex, he said. “But it’s no national-security breach. It confirms what’s already out there and adds a bit more information.”

The leaky-sneaky sabotaging snots are still trying to railroad President Obama and his administration's work to "update the USA" using transparency, accountability and fairness. It really wouldn't matter who is in office - there are agendas, and then there are "hidden" agendas...

[locoaz2009]

PINOCCHIO IS ALIVE & WELL & LIVING IN WASHINGTON

Aubie Baltin CFA, CTA, CFP, PhD.
May 27, 2009


TRANSPARENCY:
The headline read "Bank Stress Test Lifts Clouds of Uncertainty." Did it really? Did they explain the assumptions that they used? Was it mark to market, mark to model or what? Has the real estate market hit bottom? If not, what numbers did they use as to when and how much lower prices will drop? What were their assumptions regarding commercial real estate and the $1.6 trillion in refinancing coming due in the summer? Maybe I should STOP being so picayune - after all, the bank stocks are rallying. The regional bank, Fifth Third Bancorp was up 40% on the news that it needs to raise only $1.1 billion. The next day Bank of America announced that they will only need to raise an additional $33 billion or so and what happened? The stock soared 62%. In total, the Government's Stress Tests recommended that banks need to raise only $75 billion to withstand further potential losses. Of course, the bank rally only lasted one day, but who's counting? And no mentioned the word DILUTION.

For the "Stress Test," the Treasury used 7.9% unemployment as its "worst case scenario." Yet on the day the Stress Test info was released, the unemployment numbers were reported at 8.9% and will certainly go a lot higher before they improve. The euphoria surrounding the so called slower than expected increase in unemployment claims must also be tempered by the 72,000 increase in Federal Government hiring that went into making up the most recent numbers.

I'm not sure how to reconcile the Stress Test results with the April/09 IMF Report on expected bank losses: They estimated that total losses for banks and financial institutions would hit $4 trillion with the US share being $1.1 trillion. What assumptions did they use to come up with that number? Even so, since $500 billion has already been written off, leaving $600 billion in write offs yet to come. Clearly some things do not add up. I understand that part of the Government's role is to boost confidence in the economy, but throwing out ridiculous economic numbers isn't going to do it. I might be dumb, but I'm not stupid. These numbers won't fool anyone for very long and will undoubtedly subvert the tremendous amount of confidence there presently is in the administration by undercutting any and all confidence in "official Washington" numbers. And what about the $1.4 trillion budget deficit? That is 4 times larger than the largest deficit ever. What effect will that have on our economy?

LESSONS FROM THE PAST
In 1920-21, the United States faced a grave economic crisis, worse than 1929, the first year of the Great Depression. Double-digit unemployment and a 21% decline in production over the previous twelve months greeted the new president.

President, Warren G. Harding, told Americans that the bust following the artificial, credit-induced boom of the war years was the fault of the banks. He stated that, "the banks got themselves into this mess, so let them get themselves out" and decided that the Government would do NOTHING. Hoover was then Secretary of Commerce and proposed the exact same remedies that he eventually introduced as President in 1929 to 1933. Harding stopped Hoover cold and the Government actually cut its budget during the crisis. There was no fiscal "stimulus." The Fed looked on and did nothing: Low and behold, by the summer, recovery had already begun. According to today's Keynesian textbooks, that wasn't supposed to happen. But it did.

On the other hand, President Obama's approach to the current crisis couldn't be more different. Once in office, the candidate who had run on "hope" and "change," began speaking in apocalyptic terms of what might happen to America if vigorous Government interventions were not undertaken. At the very least, we might experience an extended slump rivaling the Great Depression. "Just look at Japan," Obama said in his first press conference as president. Japan "did not act" and as a consequence they suffered what he termed the 'lost decade' where essentially for the entire '90s and up until today, they did not see any economic growth. As usual, the Left sees only what it wants to see and thus draws the wrong lesson from history.

In actual fact, Japan acted very "boldly" and "quickly." Tens of trillions of Yen in stimulus were thrown at just about anything that moved or should I say didn't move, including propping up failing companies and especially failing banks. Interest rates were lowered overnight to zero, and massive programs of government infrastructure spending were instituted, including building an entire island on which the world's largest and most modern airport was built. The result: After 19 years, Japan has nothing to show for its 100's of trillions of Yen other than making Japan, which at the time had the world's largest trade surpluses, the most indebted country in the world. Nineteen+ years later, they are still in recession and now heading for depression.

Keynesians, desperate to find some reason why their entire game plan failed to elicit the expected response, try to argue that Japan didn't nationalize its banks fast enough or soon enough. However, when Japan did start nationalizing its banks, it resulted in the two worst years (1998 and 1999) of their "lost 2 decades."

Shortly after taking office, President Obama urged the Congress to approve a "stimulus" package of over $1.5 trillion in order to restore our economy and stop it from falling into depression. In his first news conference as President, Obama warned that a failure to pass this bill "could turn a crisis into a catastrophe" and "that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans."

WHERE DID THE BUST COME FROM ANYWAY?
How, did we get into this funk anyway? It was certainly not because of any lack or regulation or oversight. The key culprits were, as they always are, the Congress in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and its government induced, ultra loose monetary policy. The new money created by the bus load under the auspices of Alan Greenspan in conjunction with "The Community Reinvestment Act" and the gutting of the Glass-Steagl Act in the years following 9/11, went overwhelmingly into the housing market, inflating prices to unheard of and unsustainable levels.

Americans felt wealthier than they really were. They were lent money that they thought never had to be paid back; all they had to do was refinance and each time they did they could take out more spending money. They made consumption decisions based on pipe dreams; they thought that they were living in Disney Land. Businesses were started and expanded under the boom that was expected to continue on forever. After all, they are not making any more of it (land that is) and with all the new immigrants flooding in, yada, yada … and now that we are in a new paradigm. But alas, like all booms, reality eventually sets IN. As home prices stopped rising and with easy credit no longer so readily available, (Bernanke raised interest rates to 5¼% from 1%), the whole world came face to face with reality.

Had the economy been allowed to correct itself of all its bubble activities, by suffering through a mild two year controlled recession, all of the misapplied resources would then be made available for use by new real wealth producers. The best cure for recession has and will always be a recession. In two years we would have been back in the growth groove just like we were after the 1920-21 Depression. But first Bush and now Obama and the Democrat Congress would not let that happen. But they too, will come smack dab up against reality and the worst depression in our history will be the end result.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK: CAN THE CONSENSUS BE RIGHT?

Among the Government economists, Wall Street and media hacks, a new consensus view has emerged .The evidence, they say, while not yet compelling, is that the Stock Markets and the U.S. economy is at least in the bottoming process. This is a key reason why the stock-market rally of the last two months has exceeded widespread expectations and the injection of $trillions into the system. However, a possible end of the contraction or in the rate of decline doesn't mean a resumption of quick growth. Indeed, even to the most optimistic, the recovery is expected to be sluggish and protracted at best. Can you really believe that a bunch of government BUREAUCRATS like Geithner and Bernanke et al, will be able to solve and then regulate the largest most complex economy in the World under Socialism?

That's how life works. Nothing is ever cut and dyed and common sense always takes a back seat to the "what maybe could be" way of thinking. People who are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the results of tests that are just smoke and mirrors - just missed out on a fifteen hundred point market move. You just can't react to news stories and expect to make money. Remember the cardinal rule - "the obvious is obviously wrong". People who waited for the news of the Stress Test to jump into the market ended up buying just as the market was about to sell-off.

www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/baltin052709.html

LOCOAZ

[towhom]

Cantabrian cornice has experienced seven cooling and warming phases over past 41,000 years
EurekAlert
Public Release: 3-Jun-2009
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/f-sf-cch060309.php

In 1996, an international team of scientists led by the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) started to carry out a paleontological survey in the cave of El Mirón. Since then they have focused on analysing the fossil remains of the bones and teeth of small vertebrates that lived in the Cantabrian region over the past 41,000 years, at the end of the Quaternary. The richness, great diversity and good conservation status of the fossils have enabled the researchers to carry out a paleoclimatic study, which has been published recently in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

"We carried out every kind of statistical analysis over a six-month period at the University of New Mexico, analysing around 100,000 remains, of which 4,000 were specifically identified, and catalogued according to species and the number of individuals in each stratum", Gloria Cuenca-Bescós, lead author of the study and a researcher in the Paleontology Department of the UNIZAR's Institute for Scientific Research (IUCA), tells SINC.

The resulting study involves climatic inferences being drawn on the basis of the fossil associations of small mammals whose remains have been deposited in El Mirón over the past 41,000 years. The fossil associations of these mammals reveal the composition of fauna living around the cave at the time, and have made it possible to develop a paleoclimatological and paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the environment.

The research shows that there have been seven periods of cooling and warming in the Cantabrian cornice over the past 41,000 years. An analysis carried out by other authors on data relating to pollen, marine isotope stratigraphy, and materials deposited by glaciers backs this up this result.

The water rat was king of the Late Pleistocene

According to the study, there were four unstable cold periods, two more stable ones, and a temperate climatic period at the El Mirón cave. The scientists are unsure about dating the seventh and last period ended, as this "could correspond with the Bronze Age, the Ice Age, or the start of agricultural expansion by human beings, which certainly would have impacted on the wild animals living close to the caves.

However, the study shows that during earlier periods at the end of the Late Pleistocene, the species that predominated during cold periods were rodents and insectivores that were well-adapted to environments with only sparse vegetation. "When climatic conditions became more mild at the end of the last cold pulse of the Late Pleistocene, known as the Dryas III, forest-dwelling rodents and insectivores flourished and become more frequent in the associations", explains Cuenca-Bescós. We now know that the water vole (Arvicola terrestris) dominated in this period.

According to the researcher, this domination by woodland species started to decline in the area only at the end of the Holocene, when human activities began to change the landscape, and when deforestation resulting from permanent settlements and agriculture can be observed "even though the climate continued to be favourable to these kinds of organisms".

The study has also shown that the majority of the Pleistocene taxa became extinct around 10,000 years ago while "some cold-adapted species, which had managed to survive, moved to the north of Europe, leaving our warmer latitudes behind", the scientist concludes.

References: Cuenca-Bescós, Gloria; Straus, Lawrence G.; González Morales, Manuel R.; García Pimienta, Juan C. "The reconstruction of past environments through small mammals: from the Mousterian to the Bronze Age in El Miron Cave (Cantabria, Spain)" Journal of Archaeological Science 36(4): 947-955 abril de 2009.