KOMAKI, Japan — It’s springtime in Japan and that means one thing.

Actually, two things. Penis festivals and vagina festivals.

It may sound like a sophomoric gag. But these are folk rites going back at least 1,500 years, into Japan’s agricultural past. They’re held to ensure a good harvest and promote baby-making.

Japan Penis | Japanese Vagina

When the Mayans envisioned the world coming to an end in 2012 — at least in the Hollywood telling — they didn’t count junk bonds among the perils that would lead to worldwide disaster.

Maybe they should have, because 2012 also is the beginning of a three-year period in which more than $700 billion in risky, high-yield corporate debt begins to come due, an extraordinary surge that some analysts fear could overload the debt markets.

Payback Time – Avalanche of Maturing Junk Bonds Looms for Markets – NYTimes.com

Check out this report by Casey Research titled, “The Good, Bad and Ugly: Outlook for the Economy.”

Get report here.

The report is not all bad, just mostly bad. Here are a few key points:

1. Debt is at a critical juncture and vulnerable to collapse.

2. Government takeover of the economy.

3. Dependence on the kindness of foreigners.

4. The U.S. consumer is tapped out.

5. Destruction of the dollar’s purchasing power.

6. Unemployment remains high.

7. Banks in Trouble, Part I – real estate problems are far from over.

8. Banks in Trouble, Part II – big loans in bad shape.

9. Banks in Trouble, Part III – problem banks on the
rise.

10. Banks in Trouble, Part IV – the FDIC is in trouble,
too.

11. Interest rates will rise.

12. Pensions in trouble.

13. Stocks are not cheap.

You’ll have to read the report to get the good and ugly.

You can get on their email list here: Get on email list here.

A global decline in political freedom is partly the fault of the middle class.

The Global Decline In Democracy – Newsweek.com

Declinists have always projected America’s imminent demise. For a change, they’re onto something.

Call it America’s Age of Angst. The buzz of negativity seems to be everywhere. DECLINE AND FALL: WHEN THE AMERICAN EMPIRE GOES, IT IS LIKELY TO GO QUICKLY reads the cover headline for British historian Niall Ferguson’s article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Faced with an unemployment rate near 10 percent, a ballooning deficit, and a grueling partisan battle over health-care reform, both President Barack Obama and his Republican critics in Congress are complaining loudly about the government’s inability to get things done. In the meantime, there’s a growing sense that others—here, China is always first on the list—are steadily chipping away at America’s leadership position in the world.

America May Truly Be In Decline – Newsweek.com

Europe and America Wrestle over Tighter Financial Regulation

In the wake of the financial crisis, governments in Europe and the US sought to rein in the global banking sector. One year later, little has been accomplished — and success in the near future seems doubtful. Competing oversight visions could increase trans-Atlantic tensions.

Read More…

With the revelation of Iran’s secret uranium enrichment facilities, North Korea’s brazen testing of missiles and nuclear weapons, and nuclear-endowed Pakistan’s descent into instability, the urgency of the nuclear proliferation problem has never been greater. Based on his extensive experience in tracking the illicit nuclear trade as one of the world’s foremost proliferation experts, in Peddling Peril David Albright offers a harrowing narrative of the frighteningly large cracks through which nuclear weapons traffickers—such as Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan—continue to slip.

Six years after the arrest of Khan, the networks he established continue to thrive, with black markets sprouting up across the globe. The dramatic takedown of the leader of the world’s largest and most perilous smuggling network was originally considered a model of savvy detection by intelligence and enforcement agencies, including the CIA and MI6. But, as Albright chronicles, the prosecutions of traffickers that were much anticipated have not come to pass, and Khan himself was released from house arrest in February 2009.

Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea all use statesponsored smuggling networks that easily bypass export regulations and avoid detection. Albright illuminates how these networks have learned many ways to trick suppliers across the globe, including many in the United States, into selling them vital parts, and why, despite the fact that, since 2007, several dozen companies have been indicted—with some pleading guilty—for suspicion of participating in illicit trade, very few prosecutions have been achieved.

Peddling Peril charts the dealings of several of these companies. Albright also reports on the hopeful story of the German company Leybold’s decision to become an industry watchdog, and shows how this story reveals just how effective corporate monitoring and government cooperation would be if more serious efforts were made. Concluding with a detailed plan for clamping down tightly on the illicit trade, Albright shows the way forward in the vital mission of freeing the world of this terrifying menace.

Amazon.Com link.

About the Author

David Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and was its founder. He has been quoted over 150 times in the New York Times and Washington Post and has appeared over 200 times on network television news shows, including Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Nightline, NBC Nightly News, and The Lehrer Report. He is one of the world’s most respected and sought-out specialists on nuclear proliferation. He lives in Alexandria, VA.

Today, Peddling Peril becomes available in bookstores in the United States and Canada.  The book, written by David Albright with the assistance of others at ISIS, shows how during the last three decades states have proliferated by using illicit nuclear trade and how not enough has been done to stop this pathway to the bomb. Peddling Peril, which grew out of a multiple year research project at ISIS, draws from a vast amount of documents that range from shipping and procurement manifests, to blueprints, satellite imagery, court files, interviews with involved parties and declassified dossiers.

In support of the book’s release, ISIS is also unveiling a section of its website dedicated to providing interested readers with supplemental materials that enable them to further explore the information and details behind the stories in the book.  An increasing amount of material will become available in the coming months as we add more information and documents and provide continuing coverage of the vital issues raised in this book.

Visit the Peddling Peril section of our website: http://isis-online.org/peddlingperil

The world’s five biggest AAA-rated states are all at risk of soaring debt costs and will have to implement austerity plans that threaten “social cohnesion”, according to a report on sovereign debt by Moody’s.

The US rating agency said the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Spain are walking a tightrope as they try to bring public finances under control without nipping recovery in the bud. It warned of “substantial execution risk” in withdrawal of stimulus.

Read More…

Iran attempted to buy a nuclear bomb from Pakistan as early as 1987, a leading Middle East analyst has told Haaretz.

Documents obtained by Simon Henderson, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former journalist, offer crucial evidence that Iran’s nuclear program is not wholly for civilian purposes as it claims – but aimed at developing an atomic bomb.

Iran tried to buy nuclear bomb from Pakistan as early as 1987 – Haaretz – Israel News

China has emerged as Iran’s top economic partner, investing heavily in the energy sector and filling the gaps left by Western firms forced out by international sanctions.

In 2009, China became Iran’s premier trade partner, with bilateral trade worth 21.2 billion dollars against 14.4 billion dollars three years earlier.

China takes over from West as Iran’s main economic partner – Yahoo! News