Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific: Japan experts

TOKYO (Reuters) – Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday.

"The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption," said Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo.

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110704/ts_nm/us_rareearth_japan

Enough of this Greek farce: everyone knows default is coming

The “Greek tragedy” metaphor has proved irresistible to columnists, but what is taking place in Athens owes less to Sophocles than to Ionesco.

No one seriously thinks that the measures adopted by the Greek parliament will end the crisis. In Brussels and in Athens, officials are conniving at an official suspension of disbelief.

In their imaginary world, Greece has now turned the corner. Tax evasion will stop. Public expenditure will fall. Privatization will bring in an extraordinary €50 billion. The county’s creditors will be satisfied, and Greece will return to growth.

In the real world, none of these things will happen – certainly not while Greece remains caged by the euro. Never mind the credibility of the fiscal reforms. Look at what ought to be the easy bit: the sale of state assets. Greece is proposing to denationalize a water company, a gas supplier, a rail operator, an airport, a casino, a nickel mine and much else. Good. The fact that all these concerns are owned by the state goes some way to explain why the Hellenic Republic is in its present mess and, in the long term, their transfer to the private sector will indeed boost growth.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100094699/what-is-happening-in-athens-is-a-farce-everyone-knows-that-a-default-is-coming/

As Plastic Reigns, the Treasury Slows Its Printing Presses

The number of dollar bills rolling off the great government presses here and in Fort Worth fell to a modern low last year. Production of $5 bills also dropped to the lowest level in 30 years. And for the first time in that period, the Treasury Department did not print any $10 bills.

The meaning seems clear. The future is here. Cash is in decline.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/business/07currency.html?_r=1&hp

Pat Buchanan: Overextended U.S. Empire Is Coming Down

"The United States is strategically overextended worldwide. What are we doing borrowing money from Japan to defend Japan. Borrow money from Europe to defend Europe. Borrow money from the Persian Gulf to defend the Persian Gulf. This country is over extended. It is an empire and the empire is coming down," Pat Buchanan said on "Morning Joe" today.

"Well you're not going to get the revenue, so you might as well end the war," he added.

http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/06/pat_buchanan_overextended_us_empire_is_coming_down.html

Landmark US-Mexico trucking agreement resolves 15-year conflict

After years of wrangling, US and Mexican officials signed an agreement Wednesday that allows trucks from each nation to travel on the other country’s highways – a key provision of NAFTA.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2011/0706/Landmark-US-Mexico-trucking-agreement-resolves-15-year-conflict

Taleb’s Universa Bets on Black Swan Deflation, Hyperinflation

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Universa Investments LP, the hedge- fund firm advised by “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb, is adding a new strategy, betting that government efforts to pump money into economies around the world won’t prevent deflation or could result in hyperinflation.

Universa manages $6 billion under investment chief Mark Spitznagel, offering funds and accounts wagering on extreme market moves. The Santa Monica, California-based firm is investing client funds on the premise that no one knows where inflation is headed, Taleb said in an interview today.

“Policy makers have no control over the outcome of their actions,” Taleb said. “The plane they are flying will either hit the mountain, which is hyperinflation, or crash in the ocean, which is deflation. There is a chance of the pilot hitting the runway. But if he’s not skilled, it’s less than he thinks.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aDVgqxiT9RSg

General Mills sees 2012 profit hit by food costs

General Mills Inc (NYSE:GIS - News) forecast weaker fiscal-year earnings than Wall Street expected as higher ingredient and fuel costs hammer the food company.

The maker of Cheerios cereal and Progresso soups said on Wednesday that it expects costs to rise 10 percent to 11 percent in the 2012 fiscal year, which began May 30. That is more than double the inflation it had forecast for the previous year.

The inflation will be the most intense in the first quarter. As a result, General Mills expects quarterly profit to fall in the current quarter and rise in the remaining three.

General Mills shares were up 1.2 percent in afternoon trading on Wednesday, outperforming the Standard & Poor's Packaged Food index and the S&P 500.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/General-Mills-sees-2012-rb-756642526.html?x=0&.v=7

Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-economists-stimulus-has-cost-278000-job_576014.html

Get Ready for $150 Oil

After a decline this summer, crude's price is likely to rise sharply by next spring. It will hurt the economy, but it won't be a disaster.

The U.S. economy is never completely ready for higher oil prices, which is one reason they take a nasty economic toll when they arrive. But readiness can be enhanced by awareness of the likely outlook for petroleum prices–and the outlook today is relatively grim, although probably not disastrous.

Despite the recent 20% decline from April highs, new highs on crude, heating oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline seem likely over the next 12 months. Following some further easing over the summer, the second leg of the long-term bull market in petroleum–the first occurred in 2007-08–probably will begin this fall.

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111903617204576411791590055646.html?mod=TWM_pastedition_1