VIDEO – EFFECTS OF AN EMP (ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE) STRIKE
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
Archive for the ‘National Emergency Preparedness’ Category
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS’S GOLD BUY IS A GAME-CHANGER
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011Over the weekend, an announcement was made that the University of Texas endowment fund had decided to take delivery of $1 billion worth of gold. This was an absolutely huge development on multiple fronts.
First, the UT endowment fund’s gold purchase was a radical deviation from the standard institutional portfolio, the possibility of which we have considered for some time. Since UT has about $20 billion in assets, a $1 billion gold allocation would indicate 5% of its assets in gold. The standard institutional allocation to gold is 1%; a 5% allocation is a huge increase. If (or in our opinion, when) other institutions adopt a similar stance, the price of gold will skyrocket.
Second, the endowment’s purchase of this large an amount of gold gives a huge vote of confidence to gold and precious metals as an investment. For the past few years, financial media has lined up “experts” to tell us all about how gold is an irrational and poor investment, including figures as large as Warren Buffett’s right hand man, Charlie Munger.
Well, the UT endowment fund is neither dumb nor stupid, and it helps that it’s not poor: It’s well-funded institutional investors who are making a tactical investment decision, not a short-term trade. As Kyle Bass, the hedge fund manager who advised UT to purchase the gold, explained, the gold was purchased as a hedge against money-printing and currency debasement worldwide. (more…)
ARE WE READY FOR A FINANCIAL CYBER ATTACK?
Friday, April 1st, 2011
- MARCH 31, 2011
An assault on Estonia in 2007 disrupted banking and other services for over a week.
By WARREN GETLER
Last week, the European Union revealed that its headquarters had come under a major cyber attack, likely state-sponsored, on the eve of the EU summit. Earlier this month, the French announced that they had been hit with a cyber assault at the end of 2010, probably launched by Chinese hackers, aimed at pilfering sensitive G-20 documents from finance ministry computers in Paris. Last fall, the Nasdaq suffered what looks like an organized-crime attack on a service it provides to corporate executives for exchanging confidential files.
But what if e-espionage aimed at the financial sector suddenly escalated into e-war? What if, for example, China, North Korea or Iran initiated a crippling assault against the West’s electronic financial network, where trillions of dollars worth of transactions occur every day?
Such an event would mean a massive and potentially long-lasting disruption to the flow of dollars and euros among banks, businesses and consumers. At a minimum, it would mean the loss or corruption of financial data at major stock and commodity exchanges. (more…)
CYBER WARFARE IS A REAL THREAT
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011latimes.com
Virtual war a real threat
The U.S. is vulnerable to a cyber attack, with its electrical grids, pipelines, chemical plants and other infrastructure designed without security in mind. Some say not enough is being done to protect the country.
By Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau
March 28, 2011
Reporting from Washington
When a large Southern California water system wanted to probe the vulnerabilities of its computer networks, it hired Los Angeles-based hacker Marc Maiffret to test them. His team seized control of the equipment that added chemical treatments to drinking water — in one day.
The weak link: County employees had been logging into the network through their home computers, leaving a gaping security hole. Officials of the urban water system told Maiffret that with a few mouse clicks, he could have rendered the water undrinkable for millions of homes.
“There’s always a way in,” said Maiffret, who declined to identify the water system for its own protection.
The weaknesses that he found in California exist in crucial facilities nationwide, U.S. officials and private experts say.
The same industrial control systems Maiffret’s team was able to commandeer also run electrical grids, pipelines, chemical plants and other infrastructure. Those systems, many designed without security in mind, are vulnerable to cyber attacks that have the potential to blow up city blocks, erase bank data, crash planes and cut power to large sections of the country. (more…)
VIDEO – MIKE ROGERS, CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SPEAKING ON THE THREAT TO OUR ELECTRICAL GRID SYSTEM THROUGH CYBER WARFARE
Monday, March 7th, 2011LEON PANETTA – CYBERATTACKS COULD BE OUR NEXT PEARL HARBOR
Friday, February 11th, 2011NEWS & OBSERVER
Power grid a top terror target, officials say
WASHINGTON A major cyberattack somewhere in the U.S. is becoming increasingly possible, top government intelligence officials said Thursday, warning that an assault on America’s power-grid system “represents the battleground for the future.”
The officials, speaking at a special hearing on Capitol Hill, also said that while al-Qaida has been diminished after nine years of U.S. action, more foreign groups have risen up, increasing concerns among U.S. authorities that one of them may eventually get its hands on a nuclear device.
“I don’t think there’s any question but that this is a real national security threat that we have to pay attention to,” CIA Director Leon Panetta said of a cyberattack. “The Internet, the cyber-arena … this is a vastly growing area of information that can be used and abused in a number of ways.”
With that in mind, he told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, “When it comes to national security, I think this represents the battleground for the future. I’ve often said that I think the potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyberattack.” (more…)
EGYPT TURMOIL AND OUR ENERGY SUPPLY: THE BIG PICTURE
Friday, February 4th, 2011
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| Egypt Turmoil and Our Energy Supply: The Big Picture
Posted 02/03/2011 ET
Egypt’s turmoil looms large over the world’s energy markets, but not for the reasons you might think. Egypt currently produces about 750 thousand barrels per day (BPD) of crude oil, which barely covers the country’s growing internal consumption. Regardless of whether a shutdown is short- or long-term, Egyptian exports will not be missed on the world market. But if there is an Egyptian revolution, the consequences may reach far beyond the Nile delta. Global Supply and Demand The global market for crude oil is balanced on a knife edge. In round numbers, the world’s total consumption of oil is about 85 million BPD. The market is in equilibrium when the total production capacity exceeds consumption by a million or two barrels per day, the slight excess supply covering for the hiccups that may occur in transportation or refining. When there are more than a couple of million barrels per day of excess production capacity, prices can plummet, as they did in late 2008. When all the tankers, pipelines, and tank farms are full, the incremental barrel has very little value. Conversely, when demand outstrips supply, prices can skyrocket. Refiners and other consumers bid up the price per barrel, rarely curtailing demand because oil is a uniquely valuable transportation fuel and chemical feedstock. Oil’s recent low, about $32 a barrel, occurred just two years ago this month. Since that time, the price has steadily marched back into the $90 range, despite a protracted recession. That’s a sign that there’s no real excess supply. The lack of slack in the market means that we are vulnerable to supply interruptions. An abrupt shortfall of supply could lead to price spikes that would be as dramatic as they would be painful. (more…) |
PRICES SOAR ON CROP WOES
Thursday, January 13th, 2011- JANUARY 13, 2011
U.S. Cuts Global Grain Supply Outlook; Higher Prices Expected at Grocery Stores
By SCOTT KILMAN And LIAM PLEVEN
Evidence of tightening global food supplies grew as the U.S. Agriculture Department cut its estimates for global harvests of key crops and raised some demand forecasts, adding to worries about rising food prices.
Prices of corn and soybeans leapt 4% Wednesday and wheat gained 1%, continuing the broad rally in commodity prices that began in June. With yesterday’s gains, prices of corn futures contracts are now up 94% from their June lows; soybeans are up 51% and wheat is up 80%.
Illinois farmer Adam Wallace unloads corn, which is in tight supply.
The USDA’s revisions reflect the impact of dry weather in South America and floods in Australia, which have compounded supply constraints that first started to emerge in the middle of last year, when a drought in Russia ravaged that country’s wheat fields. The agency also cut estimates for U.S. harvests of corn and soybeans. (more…)
THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE ABOUT THE NATIONAL DEBT
Monday, December 27th, 2010By James A. Bacon –
The Washington Times December 8, 2010
BLOOMBERG Erskine Bowles (right) and Alan Simpson, co-chairmen of the president’s deficit commission, challenged the panel’s members to put aside partisan differences and agree to its tax and budget recommendations.America’s budget debate suffers from a failure of imagination. Deficit hawks warn that the federal budget is on an “unsustainable path,” but they don’t spell out what will happen when the budget can no longer be sustained. Their language tends to be vague and imprecise.
“America cannot be great if we go broke,” opined Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairmen of President Obama‘s deficit reform commission, when they issued their controversial budget recommendations last month. Going broke? What exactly does it mean for a government to go broke? Countries don’t file for bankruptcy. Does it mean running out of money – even though the government will continue to bring in trillions of dollars in tax revenue and the Federal Reserve can print as much money as it wants?
Alice V. Rivlin and former Sen. Pete V. Domenici got a little more specific in a report, “Restoring America’s Future,” they issued nearly a month ago:
Federal spending is projected to rise substantially faster than revenues, and the government will be forced to borrow ever-increasing amounts. Federal debt will rise to unmanageable levels, which will push interest rates up, endanger our prosperity and make us increasingly vulnerable to the dictates of our creditors, including nations whose interests may differ from ours.
Higher interest rates sound unpleasant, but we’ve had them before, and we lived to tell the tale. As for being vulnerable to the “dictates” of unnamed creditors (who sound suspiciously like the Chinese), what does that mean? Could China command us to cut spending and raise taxes like the European Union dishes out orders to Greece and Ireland? Don’t be vague – spell it out. (more…)
U.S. FOOD SUPPLY THE NEXT TARGET?
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010AQAP Looking To Attack U.S. Food Supply?
Posted By Mike Levine On December 21, 2010 @ 12:41 AM In Terrorism | 25 Comments
John Brennan speaks in Washington, Dec. 17
The group behind last year’s failed Christmas Day bombing and the recent attempt to send two explosives-laden packages to the United States may be looking to attack U.S. food supplies, Fox News has learned.
A source with knowledge of the situation said authorities obtained information “a while ago” indicating a possible plot by associates of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to target food at hotels and restaurants inside the United States, perhaps slipping harmful agents into salad bars or buffets.
“We don’t have a specific target or time frame, just the intent,” the source said.
Nevertheless, the source said, authorities are not convinced that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – or AQAP – has the capability to actually carry out such an attack.
CBS News was the first to report the threat information, noting that the plot may involve the use of ricin or cyanide. However, the source with knowledge of the situation told Fox News that authorities assessed AQAP’s capability to use those bio-agents in such a manner as “low.”
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, and Food and Drug Administration have briefed a small group of corporate security officers within the hotel and restaurant industries about the potential threat, according to the CBS News report. (more…)