Budget Shenanigangs

I am watching the stuff going on in Washington, I shake my head.

Don't people get it?

The USA and just about every country has debt problems.

Print more money>? Raise the debt ceiling>? Stiff Bond holders.

What a time.

Jobs, the future and failure and option?

Too many part time jobs.

Men of a certain age, out of work now, will never work again.

The Movie Industry, about the only engine in the Vancouver economy, sucks.

The Tea Party loonies have screwed the USA into a credit downgrade.

That will be fun.

Seen the stock markets lately?

I have no one in a good mood.

My owner, that I told I was moving.

The new owner, landlord, that had to spend thousands to remediate from a punk.

It's a weird time and much angst in the air.

Watch Obama - something up his sleeve?

The CA$D is doing great things against the US buck - and that hurts Canadian exporters.

Americans are not much on touring, and they are so broke, they aren't coming - in droves.

The Pacific Northwest and BC has been very cold and weird this summer.

Now. We wait for the junk for Fukushima to destroy our Beaches and way of life.

Greek Bonds are two steps from Default

The folks in Greece will be paying through their Drachmas, for the next thirty years, as their Bonds crashed today.

Consider:

Bank of Montreal's Sherry Cooper wondered aloud last week whether we'll all look back at this some day and "see this as a period of global economic mismanagement of historical proportions." Only time will tell of course, but I'm sure BMO's chief economist is right

Austria and Italy cancelled a bond auction.

Bond Vigilantes are mounted up and are heading to Washington.

What the heck is going on with the US? (* Impeach Obama?)

Will the World Reserve Currency, the US Dollar, lose that role?

So many questions, and so many answers about to come to the fore.

What a day! Gold and Silver could go to the moon.

Rick Rule (* a genius) - expects good Jr Companies in gold and silver might be takeover targets.

We shall see.

I just have this sinking feeling.

The US will default.
It is going to happen.

As improbable as another Hurricane Katrina - this could actually happen?

Most of the smart people I admire have pooh poohed -and said this is posturing for 2012.

Obama s done anyway. But why are the Republicans playing high wire>?

This has catastrophic consequences.

God Help Us.

On a side note.

Amy Winehouse.

Alcohol is not the only dangerous drug out there.

Capiche?

Canadians not using their cars as much (*Gas too expensive?)

Canadians are putting off summer vacations, new car purchases, and are becoming more strict with budgets so they can better handle higher gas and food prices and reduce their debts, according to a survey by Royal Bank.

The Canadian Consumer Outlook Index released Wednesday suggests Canadians are looking for ways to save as they grapple with gas prices that rose 29.5 per cent in May alone and food prices that grew 4.2 per cent that month.

"Canadians are continuing to focus on managing their debts - a very good sign as we enter the second half of the year," Richard Goyder, vice-president, Personal Lending, RBC said in a statement.

"It's encouraging to see consumers are trying to live within their means and seeking out very practical ways to not only pay their bills but also to save and invest."

The survey was released the same day Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney warned in a speech that agricultural product prices are up substantially since interest rates last went up, and will continue to rise.

"As we tried to explain in April, our expectation was that these food prices would come into the economy over about a six-month period. That's been the historic experience and that's exactly what's happening."

"So there's a bit more to come, given the recent rises in food. Food, unfortunately, is going to remain relatively expensive and get a little more expensive in the coming months."

Canadians Hooked on the Internet - TV and Phone fading.

One-fifth of Canadians polled in a new survey said they would turn down a million dollars in order to keep their Internet access - a possible sign that our reliance on the World Wide Web is slowly catching up to the television and phone, telecom experts say.
The survey conducted by Angus Reid Forum for Primus Canada, showed that almost half of those polled would give up watching television before they would give up surfing the Internet or using their phones.


Of the 1,009 Canadians surveyed, one-third said they would rather give up their phone to keep online and television services. Only 20 per cent said they would give up their Internet access.
Western Canadians and senior citizens were more likely to give up the tube in order to keep their Internet or telephone, with 61 per cent of British Columbians and 58 per cent of Albertans saying they would live without TV.


The survey also found that higher income respondents, earning over $100,000, were also more likely to ditch their televisions to keep Internet and phone access.
The online poll was conducted between May 23 and 24 by 1,009 Canadians over 18. The margin of error was 3.1 per cent.

Read more:

Fiduciary Duty - The Ships that never were and cheaters?

They are the two ships no one wanted, almost constantly embroiled in one dispute or another for the past 25 years. The two Navy behemoths have never gone on a mission, were never even completed, yet they cost taxpayers at least $300 million.

Now the vessels, the Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, are destined to leave Virginia waters for good and be scrapped at a Texas salvage yard, with no money coming back to the U.S. Treasury.

The Isherwood, stretching more than 660 feet, began its final journey this week, unceremoniously towed Tuesday from its mooring spot in the James River Reserve Fleet, also known as the "ghost fleet," near Fort Eus-tis in Newport News.

Its destination: International Shipbreaking Limited in Brownsville, Texas, just above the Mexico border. There, the vessel will be cut up, its innards removed and disposed of, and its steel and other metals sold as recycled products.

The Eckford, of equal size, is scheduled to follow next Tuesday, leaving behind fewer than 20 junk ships in the ghost fleet, the smallest number since its inception during World War I.

Once the two Navy oilers have departed, "it will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that matter, federal fiduciary folly," wrote Joseph Keefe, a global maritime commentator, this week on the website MaritimeProfessional.com.

In seeing the two ships headed for a scrap heap, the U.S. Maritime Administration, which oversees ghost fleets in Virginia, Texas and California, also will close one of its most contentious disposal contracts - one that spurred environmental protests on both sides of the Atlantic, caused lawsuits over American toxic dumping, and drew condemnation by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In 2003, the Maritime Administration announced a $17.8 million contract with Able UK, a shipyard in northeastern England, to dismantle 13 ghost ships from Virginia.

Able UK, which had never demolished a ship before and did not have permits to do so at the time, also was to receive the Isherwood and Eckford as perks to sweeten the deal.

Only four ghost ships arrived at the yard in Hartlepool, off the North Sea, the rest blocked by legal orders and political maneuvering. There they sat for nearly seven years before finally being recycled in late 2010, according to company and government officials.

Able UK won title rights to the Isherwood and Eckford after completing the work and took ownership in June, said Kim Riddle, a spokeswoman for the Maritime Administration, a branch of the U.S. Transportation Department.

Uber Editor:

You wonder why the US Treasury is thin?

Before Canadians laugh and point - remember the 2 Billion buck Gun Registry?


Meanwhile > Atlanta cheaters in School? TEACHERS. 200 > LINK >


95% of American High School kids admit to CHEATING in recent study. Huh?

Could the US - DEFAULT?

Reading about the horrible numbers coming out of the United States = and if there is no budgetary deal by August 2/3rd = the US could default.
What would it look like?

UH, not nice.

No Social Security checks, food stamps (1/4 of US Population get some form of a check from Uncle Sam) - even the Troops would not get paid.

The loss of confidence in US Treasuries will gut the world Financial system.
Gut it, like a trout.

Canada does 70% of our business with the Broke States.

We have NOTHING to be smug about.

Watch interest rates in Euro Zone. 30% in Spain!!!

Things are getting tight.

Buy a house now? Lock in at cheap rates? Are you nuts?

Hacking of Phones and more - "The Age of Privacy" is DEAD.

The story that the Editor of the Sunday News of The World, and now that the Chief of the London Police, has resigned over 'the hacking scandal" - has raised the spectre of an era when there is "no privacy".

Cellphones are hacked - in London, there are so many cameras on the street, the Police can just about track your every move.

Facebook is AWFUL in it's privacy section. They are like the CIA. They want to know all about you and for FREE and then they OWN all your photos - imagine opening a magazine in a few years and there you are smiling, selling toothpaste.

Twitter. I hate Twitter. I used it and learned the ins and outs and all it is is a two lane black top of garbage. Bad language and the N word for the users that have Twitter as their messaging system, and thereby proving to the world they are idiots - and the other half is people trying to get their bot to sell you something.

The age of the SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN is here.

I refuse to add my name to sign up lists. Only reason I did the Census is because they phoned me three times and bugged me.

The end of the line is in sight and I am not really happy how all this is turning out.

I love my Mac's. Have a few of them - love IPads...and the Iphone....swell....but I am starting to get very uneasy.

Time to think about unplugging in some ways.

If that's possible.

The "Age of Privacy" is dead - long live snoops, hackers, creeps, and thieves.

Sheesh.

Obama Playing Chicken

President Barack Obama appealed for public support Saturday to push Congress to avert an unprecedented default on America's national debt as lawmakers worked on dual tracks to reach an elusive deal. 

Obama wants lawmakers to approve a giant package that would not only prevent a default by raising the government's borrowing limit, but also slash trillions of dollars from the country's enormous deficit. 

He challenged lawmakers "to do something big".

Rivers vanish during earthquakes - and what do these people do for a living?

Today, I was reading about a river that vanished overnight. Costa Rican earthquake. Not the first time this kind of weird stuff has happened, either.


Then, something as weird occurred to me.


I live in a City where the average house is 14 times the average wage *depending on whom you ask, or, gulp, believe - and there are virtually no big industries here. Yes, there are Mining Company headquarters because of the Casino in Junior Stocks. Yes we ship stuff, and we have tourists on the Cruise ships (*because of the stupid 2 flag law in the States - don't start me on that). 


Yet people cruise this burg like Rockefeller. The Jags and Porsches. How do people afford iron like that?
Here's a dirty secret - most of them can't.
The HELOC and LOC has killed a lot of home flippers and ne'er do wells, here in Vancouver, just like it has happened in the States. They just don't realize it yet.


Borrow big on record low rates. Bid up junk High rise stuff and flip it - don 't work - get a shell company, you will make a fortune. Sure.
Chickens are coming home to roost.

Getting tough on Power Couponers?

If you need to borrow a cup of, well, anything, Cassie Howard is your girl.

With dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of individual products in storage at any given time, the Mississauga, Ont., woman's basement is a veritable grocery store. And all because of coupons - shopping tools with which the 25-year-old is so skilled, you'd expect her to whip them from a holster instead of a binder.

But where once getting something for nothing was viewed as an art, "extreme couponing" now has fellow consumers cringing, and stores scrambling to tighten their redemption policies.

The World has gone "Owling".

The bizarre internet craze of ‘planking’ is set to lose its cult online status to the increasingly popular trend of ‘owling’.

Hundreds of young people in America, Australia and now, Britain, have taken up the new ‘owling’ craze. 

It consists of nothing more taxing than crouching on one's haunches and staring into the middle distance, like an owl.

Student loans - University = Scam?

The recent announcement of huge raises in tuition at Colleges and Universities comes at a bad time. Many 'Graduates" will never work in their chosen profession.
Many of the kids that graduate will also carry a TON of student debt.
The horror is, a lot of the people will work these debts off for years.

I think that Trade Schools are over looked.

Take Acupuncture.

Get into the health care field.

All the old dudes around are going to be health care consumers for years.

Things are getting ugly. REALLY ugly.

Be careful.

Pay off your debt, and have some breathing room.

Kitchen Table Economics from AP

(AP)
The debt crisis has brought the government to the "kitchen table" to do something that hard-pressed families do routinely, which is tear their hair out over how to pay the bills.

Pawn the family jewelry? Emptying gold reserves at Fort Knox and other repositories could raise a very handy $400 billion.

Sell the property that has been in the family for generations? Yosemite National Park would fetch a pretty penny.

At least so far, such last-gasp ideas are not in serious play at Washington's kitchen table. But as the Aug. 2 deadline approaches for raising the country's borrowing limit, you can bet someone in the government is thinking about them. Economists are.

"The consequences of America defaulting on its debt are so unthinkable, catastrophic and costly that we should consider anything," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Martin Smith College of Business at California State University. "Sell gold, sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, do ANYTHING to avoid a default."

MORE:

Uber Editor:

I know few people who have a clue how badly off things are. People are buying books by Snooki and think Michelle Bachman is Ayn Rand.

There are so many stupid things goes on, I don't know where to start.

People are piling up debt like garbage bags after a picnic and will never be able to repay.

People are still getting help buying homes, in America, and Canada and a lot of other places, where they have no business owning a home.

You never own a home!

Don't pay your taxes and you will find out who own's your home.


Government gigs pay way more than the civil jobs and the perks are nuts.


Why does the US have Forces in 130 Countries?


Why does Canada have to put up with people coming here to have babies, or buy RE to get "citizenship" and contribute NOTHING to this Country?


The time will come when people are going to stand up and get pissed off.


That time is soon.

Debt - KILLS

I was never too worried about debt. I was in media - the pay was OK - I had Credit Cards.
Blah, blah.
Got Mortgage.
Got smart.
Sold Real estate - paid off debt - rent.

Sleep a lot better.

Many of my friends are in debt up to their ears and they are all in on Real Estate. They have toys and HELOCS and their stress must be something.

What's coming - we have never seen before.

This could be like the Fall of Rome - The US might default.

The world could end in ten minutes.

All I am saying is = BE READY for anything.

30 Reasons To Get Out Of Real Estate And Into REAL Assets

“You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.” –Abraham Lincoln

We are in a major paradigm shift that like a tsunami starts slowly and ends with the landscape wiped clean.The paradigm shift is from paper assets to real tangible assets. This shift happens every generation or so,where one asset class dramatically outperforms the other.

THIRTY REASONS TO GET OUT OF REAL ESTATE AND INTO REAL ASSETS.

QE-3 - Bet on it - BUT

Look - the bottom line is the World Economic system is in total chaos.


Europe is in disarray. China is a big ole Potemkin Village - and USA is so far behind the eight ball, that they won't be able to pay their Old Age Security - (*I can't believe I am writing this.)


Canada is a smug Country. We have a smug leader.
The Bank of Canada is run by a Goldman Sachs ex (as if) and we have interest rates that should be at 7% for a 5 year, and we are still dithering.


Most of the people I run into are broke. I watched a guy out $3.23 on his credit card yesterday - and today, the Bank I deal with was empty. People standing around.


My goodness, Vancouver is about to undergo a Real Estate crash, and it is gathering steam.


Everyone is nervous. Gold is scraping $1600.00 an ounce, and I think Silver will run way higher. Time to get my Juniors out?
I guess.


The whole deal is this.


We borrowed too much, at artificially low rates. Paper profits were turned into HELOCS and people blew high dough on cabins, Jet-skis and vacations


DUMB.


Now we reap the whirlwind and so many people are going to feel the pain, and sadly it could have all been avoided.


But that, for another time.

Downgrade of US Credit?

Will it happen?

The US debt - downgraded...?

Is this fiction? This is walking the tight rope.

The leaders have to make a deal. Default on the debt is unthinkable.

Any deal is better than no deal.

Very scary.

Spacewalkers to pack gear for last shuttle home

HOUSTON - A pair of spacewalking astronauts floated outside the International Space Station Tuesday to pack up a broken cooling pump and tackle other tasks before NASA’s last space shuttle heads back to Earth.

Space station flight engineers Mike Fossum and Ron Garan ventured through the the space station’s airlock for a spacewalk that lasted six hours and 31 minutes.

Riding the station’s robotic arm, Garan grappled the refrigerator-sized coolant pump and wrestled it into a cargo rack at the back of shuttle Atlantis’ payload bay, a delicate task considering the unit’s 1,400-pound bulk.

“I love it when a plan comes together,” Fossum said after Garan bolted down the pump for its return to Earth.

Engineers are eager to take apart the pump, which shut down last year, wiping out cooling to half the station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that took more than a decade to build.

NASA suspended most science experiments until space station astronauts could make three unplanned spacewalks to install a spare pump.

“Understanding what caused that failure is going to help us in the long run. It may change how we operate the pumps on board, maybe lead to some design changes in the end,” said station flight director Jerry Jason.

Normally, shuttle astronauts handle spacewalks while they are visiting the station, but Atlantis, which arrived at the station Sunday for an extended nine-day stay, is short-handed.

With the spacewalk complete, the main task of Atlantis’ crew will be to unpack 9,403 pounds of spare parts, equipment and supplies that are meant to hold over the space station crew until private companies can establish cargo flights.

NASA cut the crew size to just four instead of the typical six or seven to accommodate the smaller Russian Soyuz capsules that would be used as rescue vehicles if Atlantis were too damaged to safely return to Earth.

Since the 2003 Columbia accident, shuttle crews have had a second shuttle on standby to mount a rescue mission if needed. But there is no backup shuttle for Atlantis, which is closing out the 30-year-old program with NASA’s 135th and final flight.

During their spacewalk, Fossum and Garan also installed a $22.6 million technology experiment outside the station that will be used by the station’s Dextre robot to demonstrate tools and techniques for refueling satellites in orbit.

Fed Officials Divided on Further Stimulus

Federal Reserve policy makers disagreed on whether additional monetary stimulus will be needed even if the outlook for economic growth remains weak, minutes of their meeting last month showed.

“A few members noted that, depending on how economic conditions evolve, the committee might have to consider providing additional monetary stimulus, especially if economic growth remained too slow to meaningfully reduce the unemployment rate in the medium run,” theFederal Open Market Committee said in the minutes of its June 21-22 meeting, released today in Washington.

“On the other hand, a few members viewed the increase in inflation risks as suggesting that economic conditions might well evolve in a way that would warrant” the FOMC “taking steps to begin removing policy accommodation sooner than currently anticipated.”

Policy makers cut their forecasts for growth this year before a July 8 government report showed employers added jobs at the slowest pace in nine months in June. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke at a June 22 news conference said growth will pick up as energy prices subside and disruptions of parts from Japanese factories ease, while also leaving the door open to additional stimulus. In their meeting, policy makers also agreed on a strategy for withdrawing record monetary stimulus and adopted a new set of communications guidelines.

Of Course - 30% for a 2 year Bond?

The pundits are always saying rates are NOT going up. 
The pundits on TV say all is well, and the US pumps out 18,000 jobs (*OMG).
The Pundits say the market is fine.
The pundits are all wrong/


The guy to watch is Bill Bonner at the Daily Reckoning. In Canada - Garth Turner. They speak out of one side of their mouth and they know of what they speak.


Both nice people too.


Deal is this:


We are entering a new era. NO ONE knows what the heck is going to happen in Europe. Of the United States does default - waht? (Turner says it won't).


The EURO Zone is done.


Where do I get yield?


Housing is crashing like ten pins, in most of the world.


25% of Americans depend on food welfare. 


25% are underwater on the mortgage.


People are broke - tapped out.


OK - tell me  - where do you make money now?

Treatment of Veterans - STUDY Roman History

Tonight I watched "Sixty Minutes".


 I have since Rooney still used a typewriter.

The story on returning Veterans nearly killed me.

Canada has has folks doing yeoman duty coming home to - NOTHING.

The shame of this makes me cringe.

HOW CAN LEADERS OF CANADA and the UNITED STATES treat VETERANS with such CALLOUS disregard.

Many have MULTIPLE TOURS - and you give them NO SUPPORT - POST DEPLOYMENT?

How can you sleep at night?

Have you ever been shot at?

Have you left your Family in economic Hell, while you ARE LIVING IT - EVERY DAY - and then you fat cats PARTY on your "Private Jets", while no one can find a "shovel ready job", snicker.

This kind of thinking ended the Roman Empire.

Read Gibbons.

You won't, but I wish you would.

Very upset by this and may GOD BLESS ALL VETS - MAY you remember there are MANY who have your back, on Civvie Street - who are just getting the skinny -  we are here - we will get organized - we will get help.

WE promise.

RIGHT?

LOOK IT UP - GET HELP AT THIS LINK :

Charity - SURE!!!!

Goodwill means good wages for thousands of Canadian charity workers.

An analysis of tax filings by The Canadian Press has found salaries often run well into six figures -- raising questions about how money raised in the name of charity is being spent.

The Canada Revenue Agency keeps a database of all the country's registered charities, which now number around 85,000. Charities must disclose how much their 10 highest-paid workers take home.

There are around a million charity workers in Canada. The agency's database shows more than 6,000 of them earned above $120,000 last year. A few hundred made over $350,000.

Another 12,000 workers made between $80,000 and $120,000. And about 163,000 earned less than that.

It's likely the number of charity workers making six-figure salaries is actually greater since organizations must only disclose their Top 10 earners.

Charities defend the high pay by saying they have to pay top dollar for the brightest talent.

From:

CTV.ca

The Sovereign Debt Crisis Is Never Going To End Until There Is A Major Global Financial Collapse

In the past, there certainly have been governments that have gotten into trouble with debt, but what we are experiencing now is the first truly global sovereign debt crisis.  There has never been a time in recorded history when virtually all of the governments of the world were drowning in debt all at the same time.  

This sovereign debt crisis is never going to end until there is a major global financial collapse.  There simply is no way to unwind the colossal web of debt that we have constructed in an orderly fashion.  Right now the EU and the IMF have been making "emergency loans" to nations such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal, but that is only going to buy those countries a few additional months.  

Giving more loans to nations that are already drowning in red ink may "kick the can down the road" for a little while but it isn't going to solve anything.  Meanwhile, dozens more nations all over the globe are rapidly approaching a day of reckoning.

From:

Theeeconomiccollapseblog.com

House - go ahead - BUY and CRY > USA?

On June 3, Standard and Poor’s issued the latest update to its Case-Shiller Home Price series.

The press release begins, “Data through March 2011 ... show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, after having fallen 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2010. The National Index hit a new recession low with the first quarter’s data and posted an annual decline of 5.1% versus the first quarter of 2010.”

Then comes the key statement: “Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels.”

From :
Casey Reasearch

Uber Editor: 


Vancouver, Toronto and some place in OZ and China will crash like The Sunday News of the World.

What the HELL is going on?

Trouble with getting a Liberal education, no one ever tells you the truth about money.


Lucky circumstances, and my Family is in fairly good shape.


Many are not. Why?


CREDIT, DEBT, and Greenspan.


There is no way on God's green and verdant earth, can we escape the gathering Currency Crisis about to grip the World.


I post articles from some of the hundreds of people I interview, and also throw in my own stuff, just to take the 'layman's side'. 


Straight up - I hated economics, when I went to University - but I had a great 201 Educator named Edgar Efrat. 


Dr. Efrat was a pragmatist. 


He was still Keynsian, but he knew had an audience of bored morons like me and so he tried, valiantly, to make the "Dismal Science" interesting.


He did.


He looked across the sea of 230 of us Freshmen and said something to the effect that you are are in for a nasty surprise "There is NO FREE LUNCH."


Trouble is - for the last ten years - ridiculous interest rates, derivatives and sleazoids on Wall Street have SCREWED it up, big time.


I got into University when even middle class kids could go.
Not anymore.


I think University taught me how to become an alcoholic and little else. (*21 years sober).


I learned more from talking to John Rubino, Dr. Mark Faber and many others in my Radio career- (*thanks to the prescient Tom Allen at the excellent howestreet.com).


I will post and see if you are in agreement with me, that we are on the precipice of a very dangerous era.


I have made some dreadful mistakes - so take NOTHING at face value. 


Make your own decisions.
I will bring the info.


You bring the brains.


Ben Bernanke is a high functioning MORON, if he doesn't know what's going on.


Cheers.


The Uber Editor  (trying to make myself sound like a big shot)

John Rubino: After Greece, Portugal

Now that Greece has been kicked down the road, it’s time for the other PIIGS countries to start lining up for similar deals. Portugal looks to be next, after its most recent deficit report:

Portugal’s 1Q Budget Deficit Higher Than Expected

LISBON (Dow Jones)–Portugal’s budget deficit for the first quarter of the year came in higher than suggested by the previous government, forcing the new one to step up efforts to control the country’s accounts.

Portugal’s statistics agency said the deficit for the first quarter was at 8.7% of gross domestic product. Although it was an improvement from 9.2% of GDP in the fourth quarter, it is still much higher than the 5.9% Portugal must reach by the end of the year under a EUR78 billion bailout program.

“This needs to be corrected fast,” a government official familiar with the matter said.

Two government officials told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday that the new administration will accelerate some measures to address the budget gap, including on tax increases. Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho is expected to announce the measures in parliament Thursday.

Under terms of the bailout agreed with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank last month, Portugal must cut its budget deficit to 3% of GDP by 2013.

The goal is challenging, particularly because the country faces a recession over the next two years.

Nonetheless, Passos Coelho, who took over the post of prime minister last week, has been quick to show how willing his government is to fulfill all the requirements imposed by the troika under deadline.

Portugal’s bailout success will be key to the euro zone, which is currently struggling to shake off problems in bailed-out Greece.

Like Portugal, Greece was told to cuts its budget deficit sharply in exchange for financial aid. So far it hasn’t been able to meet the targets.

Portugal, a country of nearly 11 million, is Western Europe’s poorest, with growth that has trailed its neighbors over the past decade, something economists blame on an uncompetitive and rigid labor market. The unemployment rate has risen above 12% this year.

From The Globe and Mail : Canada Jobs Picture Bright

Canada’s economy created a surprisingly strong number of jobs in June, but it could be the last hurrah for a long time as governments enter restraint mode and businesses grow more cautious.

Employers added more than 28,000 workers in June, Statistics Canada said Friday, almost twice the number that Bay Street analysts were expecting. The jobless rate stayed at 7.4 per cent, the lowest level in two years, instead of falling further mainly because the labour market grew as more people became confident enough in the economy to search for work.

Safeguards Scant for U.S. Investors as Registered Advisers Increase by 39%

Arnold and Cheryl Levy were a year away from retiring when Jeffrey Liskov, acting as their registered investment adviser, took a large position during July 2009 in a speculative fund with Arnold’s retirement money.

The Levys were dealing with an ill family member at the time and the trade escaped their notice until December of that year when Liskov alerted them to losses on the fund, the Levys said in a telephone interview. According to court filings they lost about $85,000 on theProShares UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets (EEV) exchange-traded fund, which placed bets that foreign stocks would drop.

“We were just beside ourselves,” said Cheryl, 67. She and Arnold, 69, of Stoughton, Massachusetts, felt they could trust Liskov’s judgment, she said. Actually, Liskov was sliding toward bankruptcy, and they had to absorb a 44 percent loss on the fund.

Registered investment advisers -- firms that employ about 280,000 individual representatives nationwide -- are billed as an alternative to traditional brokers because they are legally bound to a fiduciary duty to put their clients’ interests first, and typically charge fees instead of commissions. Brokers, who number about 632,000, are held to a suitability standard that their advice meet clients’ needs at the time a product is sold.

In practice, the lightly regulated RIA industry -- where low barriers to entry helped swell membership by 39 percent in six years -- may offer few protections for investors who wind up with incompetent advisers.

How the economic storm battered St. Thomas, Ont.'s factories

In the depths of the recession, John LaCroix stopped at a traffic light in his green Ford Windstar and found himself struck by a wave of anxiety.

He had been working only part-time since being laid off at the Sterling Truck plant in St. Thomas in 2007 and fears about running out of money had been waking him in the middle of the night. Now, they were beginning to dominate his daytime thoughts as well.

“You’re stopped at a red light. There’s nobody around; you’re looking at your gas gauge and thinking of your money. ‘I’m wasting gas that I need. This is serious. This is food for my table. I’m not sitting here when there’s no other cars around. I’m going through this red light.’” And he did.

Mr. LaCroix’s journey through the recession reflects the devastation the manufacturing crisis has wrought on St. Thomas, the one-time railway capital of Canada that now has a strong claim to another, more dubious title: the Canadian city hit hardest by the recession and factory closings.

The shutdown of the Sterling heavy-truck plant, the looming closing of a nearby Ford Motor Co. factory and numerous other shutdowns have rippled well beyond Mr. LaCroix and thousands of others whose jobs have vanished, hitting social service agencies, the United Way, local school boards and taxpayers in the city and the surrounding area.