Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve agreed to provide $30 billion each to the central banks of Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore, expanding its effort to unfreeze money markets to emerging nations for the first time.

The Fed set up ``liquidity swap facilities with the central banks of these four large systemically important economies'' effective until April 30, the central bank said yesterday in a statement. The arrangements aim ``to mitigate the spread of difficulties in obtaining U.S. dollar funding.''

Fed Opens Swaps With South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore

Uncle Sam has a new name on Wall Street — Sugar Daddy. Bonuses for investment bankers and traders are projected to fall by 40% this year. But analysts, compensation consultants and recruiters say the drop would be much more severe, perhaps as much as 70%, had it not been for the government's efforts to prop up the financial firms. "Year-end pay on Wall Street will be higher than it would have been had it not been for the government and mergers," says Alan Johnson, a leading compensation consultant. "You would expect it to be down much more."

Johnson predicts the average managing director at an investment bank, a title typically earned around eight years on the job, will receive a bonus of $625,000. That's down from nearly $1.1 million last year, but it is still 15 times the income of the average American household. Top bankers could receive as much as $1 million. Even a bond trader just out of business school could see his or her bank account enriched by as much as $170,000 this Christmas. "The firms have had an extremely difficult year," says Joan Zimmerman, a Wall Street career coach. "But they can't afford to lose talent either."

How Washington's Wall Street Bailout Will Boost Bonuses

When out-of-control federal spending runs smack into sluggish tax revenues, red ink splashes all over Washington. In September, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit this year would be $407 billion, a sum that reflected the $168 billion economic stimulus package approved by President Bush in February and the estimated $188billion spent for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2008. Add to that the $700 billion financial bailout package passed in October, plus another economic stimulus package likely to take shape in the coming months that could cost as much as $175 billion, and you're talking about an all-inclusive fiscal 2008 deficit exceeding $1 trillion.

You won't likely see such huge numbers leading the networks' evening newscasts because deficit talk is akin to Washington wonk speak.

A far bigger concern is the national debt — the total of what we've cumulatively borrowed to finance those yearly deficits. Sometime around 2020, according to projections offered by Walker's foundation, the U.S. debt will be equal to or greater than annual gross domestic product.

Does Anyone Care About a Trillion Dollar Deficit?

You wouldn't want to be the President of Pakistan: Even as the military finds itself embroiled in a war against militants that much of the country's elected leadership (and even more of the electorate) opposes, it's hard even to keep the lights on as the limits of the country's electricity supply mean daily blackouts in major cities. The economy, meanwhile, is in a perilous state, with inflation running rampant, the currency having lost a third of its value, and foreign currency reserves reduced to the point that they can finance no more than six weeks of imports. Pakistan, in fact, is in danger of defaulting on its substantial foreign debt if it can't get help either from its friends or from the IMF — and the price of such help will be politically unpopular: a stepped up effort against the Taliban and, perhaps, some tough domestic economic reforms.

No wonder, then, that the forthcoming U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Pakistan reportedly makes "bleak" reading. The NIE represents the consensus of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, and according to a McClatchy newspapers report, an official familiar with the contents of the document that will brief the next President says it warns that Pakistan has "no money, no energy, no government". Washington's primary concern remains al-Qaeda, which John Kringen, the CIA's director for intelligence, recently described as being "resurgent" and "well-settled" in Pakistan's tribal areas. But the presence of Bin Laden's group is enabled by an indigenous militant insurgency — the Pakistan Taliban — and Pakistani leaders remain divided over how to respond to this challenge.

Time and Money Running Out for Pakistan

(NAIROBI, Kenya) — Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms — some with a reputation for being quick on the trigger in Iraq — are joining the battle against pirates plaguing one of the world's most important shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.
More Related

The growing interest among merchant fleets to hire their own firepower is encouraged by the U.S. Navy and represents a new and potential lucrative market for security firms scaling back operations in Iraq.

Security Firms Join the Pirate Fight

Apparently the Georgia Board of Medical Examiners decided this year, in its wisdom, that no one but a doctor can authorize the flu shot.

They actually called the flu shot “a dangerous drug.” On 9-11 no less:

On Sept. 11, the Composite State Board of Medical Examiners issued a statement saying that only doctors can give permission for patients to have flu shots.

“Under both federal and Georgia law, influenza vaccine is considered to be a dangerous drug,” the statement said. “Georgia law requires a valid patient-specific prescription.”

Georgia flu scandal

Bet you haven't seen this on a bumper sticker lately: "Save the derivatives market."

Hardly catchy. Especially since almost no one actually knows what a derivative is. And it sure goes against the emotions of the crowd right now.

Along with Christopher Cox, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and of a Wall Street culture of greed, derivatives are the villains in the current collapse of the global financial system.

The global market for derivatives has a notional value of $455 trillion. The market for a single kind of derivative called credit default swaps (CDS) comes to $62 trillion. A single company, the recently rescued AIG, was counterparty to $422 billion in derivatives. That's just a tad below the low-end estimate for the government buy-up plan as a whole. For a single company.

Another devil in the financial crisis

WASHINGTON — Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife gave an average of $369 a year to charity during the past decade, his tax records show.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's campaign today released 10 years' worth of tax returns for Biden, a senator from Delaware, and his wife Jill, a community college instructor. The Bidens reported earning $319,853 last year, including $71,000 in royalties for his memoir, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics.

The Bidens reported giving $995 in charitable donations last year — about 0.3% of their income and the highest amount in the past decade. The low was $120 in 1999, about 0.1% of yearly income.

Over the decade, the Bidens reported a total of $3,690 in charitable donations, or 0.2% of their income.

Biden gave average of $369 to charity a year

On Tuesday, the Web site TeleGeography reported that Google has joined a consortium to build an intra-Asia undersea cable called the Southeast Asia Japan Cable to connect Japan, Guam, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Earlier this year, Google joined a group to build an undersea cable linking Japan to the United States. The consortium building the new intra-Asia cable has many of the same members as the consortium developed for the Japan-U.S. cable, including Google, Bharti, SingTel, KDDI, and Global Transit.

There is already a lot of competition along this Southeast Asia route, where several cables have already been planned. As a result, the new intra-Asia SAJC cable won't likely be ready until 2011, TeleGeography analyst Alan Mauldin said in the report.

Google helping expand undersea cable infrastructure

Good read...

-----

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Preparing the Battlefield - The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.