Wondering what’s with this awful Financial Crisis and where’s your money? Here they are. Bailouts and Handouts! US President Barack Obama has signed the foreign aid budget law for 2010 which includes the granting of $2.775 billion in security aid to Israel. The Israeli Ynet news website reported that the budget signed by Obama, for the first time, also grants $500 million to the Palestinian... 

African leaders will ask rich nations for $67 billion per year to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world’s poorest continent, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Monday. Ten leaders are holding talks at African Union (AU) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital to try to agree a common stance ahead of a U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December. Experts... 

American Indians The US government announced last week that it would settle a class action lawsuit brought against it on behalf of Elouise Cobell, former Treasurer of Montana’s Black Feet Tribe, and the owners of American Indian land trusts throughout the western United States. The suit accuses the government, responsible for leasing the Native American lands for use by mining, lumber, oil and gas... 

Bank Bailouts The Treasury may have made some silly paper “profit” on its bailout of Citigroup (C) but the taxpayer may not get much of anything. The Washington Post reports that as part of the bank’s TARP payback agreement, it’s quietly been given a $38 billion tax break by the IRS. Seriously. The Internal Revenue Service on Friday issued an exception to long-standing tax rules... 

Believe it or not, but these were German money that became completely useless in the Weimar. Hitler came and saved Germany but where is he now? (Germany’s first Hyperinflation) The German cabinet approved next year’s budget proposals on Wednesday, envisaging record debt for 2010, government sources told German Press Agency dpa. The budget, drawn up by Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble,... 

Only 10 percent of French youths read a newspaper daily. This may be the era of Twitter and blogs, but the French government won’t give up on the printed press. In fact, it is stepping in to bail out the print-news industry in an unusual way. In an attempt to get young people to read the printed stuff again, the Sarkozy government this fall started giving every 18-to-24-year-old a one-year subscription... 

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday voiced his opposition to legislation calling for regular audits of the Fed’s monetary policies, but 79% of Americans think auditing the Fed is a good idea. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just seven percent (7%) of adults oppose auditing the Federal Reserve and making those results available to the public. Fourteen... 

The price tag for bailing out UK banks has hit 850 billion pounds ($1.4 trillion) but Britain’s spending watchdog says the final cost to taxpayers will not be known for years. The independent National Audit Office (NAO) said on Friday the government was justified in asking the public to shore up the shaken sector at the height of last year’s financial crisis — although lending to... 

“In recent years, China has become the world’s fastest growing automotive producer,” according to a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service. “[China’s] annual vehicle output has increased from less than 2 million vehicles in the late 1990s to 9.5 million in 2008. In terms of production volume in 2008, China has surpassed Korea, France, Germany, and the United States,... 

What, the mainstream media lied? We thought rednecks were dumb and poor… For many people “rural” is synonymous with low incomes, limited economic opportunity, and poor schools. However, a recent study found that much of rural America is actually prosperous, particularly in the Midwest and Plains. Researchers just had to look at things differently to see the prosperity. The study... 

Line-up people! Soon you will receive more free money! Although global warming has been proven by more than 30,000 scientists and the recent hacked UK emails to be a fraud, these people demand billions of our money collected from taxes and most likely our corrupt politicians will give them whatever they demand. African leaders agreed on Tuesday on how much cash to demand from the rich world to compensate... 

I was pleased last week when we won a vote in the Financial Services Committee to include language from the Audit the Fed bill HR1207 in the upcoming financial regulatory reform bill. As it stands now, if HR 3996 passes, because of this action, the Federal Reserve’s entire balance sheet will be opened up to a GAO audit. We will at last have a chance to find out what happened to the trillions of... 

The Wave Is gathering force & could hit between the first & second quarter of 2010 Many of my friends who have been receiving my e-mail alerts over the last two years have lamented that in recent weeks I have not commented on the state of the global economy. I appreciate their anxiety but they forget that I am not a stock market analyst who is paid to write articles to lure investors back... 

Militants have been demanding a greater share of the oil wealth The European Commission has signed a $1bn (£602m) development pact with Nigeria, aimed at tackling corruption and promoting peace. A substantial amount of the funding will be spent on resolving conflict in the oil-rich and crime-plagued Niger Delta, the EU’s development chief said. The money will also target electoral reform and... 

When US President Barack Obama visits China this weekend, he will encounter a rival that sees the financial crisis as more of an opportunity than a threat. America, on the other hand, has been fundamentally weakened by the global crunch — and is more dependent on the goodwill of the rising superpower than ever. The scientists at the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, China,...