Money Morning

Money Morning
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
It's the biggest find in 50 years and the media is completely ignoring it...
It is 6 times larger than the Bakken, 17 times the size of the Marcellus formation, and 80 times larger than the Eagle Ford shale.
All told what was recently discovered outside a sleepy Australian town contains more black gold more than in all of Iran, Iraq, Canada, or Venezuela.  
With current estimates at 233 billion barrels its just 30 billion shy of the estimated reserves in all of Saudi Arabia.
According to one renowned international expert, this massive discovery could eventually dwarf the oil rich kingdom as the original estimates are revised.
An advisor to six of the top 10 oil producers and active consultant to 20 world governments, Dr. Kent Moors now believes the find, "may land at 300 or 400 billion barrels," making it one of  "the greatest unconventional oil discoveries any of us will see in our lifetimes."
"It's represents a bona fide redrawing of the global energy map as we know it," Moors says, "and the mainstream media is completely ignoring it."

Where the Hell is Coober Pedy?

But to people who call this place home,  the oncoming oil boom means nothing will ever be the same  ($20 trillion worth of oil can do that to a town).
It's centered around a place called Coober Pedy, an inhospitable speck on the map in Southern Australia.
Founded in 1915, Coober Pedy had long been the home to a scarce 1700 people who lived in residences literally carved out in its caves.
Now another 20,000 people have suddenly flocked there, making it one of the hottest real estate markets in all of Australia.
Considering the conditions the sudden stampede is remarkable - there's little to no water and temperatures routinely reach above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
While it's obviously still just the beginning, Coober Pedy real estate agent Di Enders says her phone has been ringing off the hook since the news broke.
"I've had so many calls, you wouldn't believe it," she says. "My brain is about to explode."
"People renting don't want to surrender their houses, they know they won't get another one," she says.
The big draw is the riches about to be pulled out of a vast geological structure called the Arckaringa basin.
Encompassing an area in excess of 30,000 square miles, what's buried within the basin is enough black gold to completely change the global oil landscape-not to mention the lives early investors.
Analysts now believe ground zero will be much like is was in Saudi Arabia in the 1950's.
And according to the inner circle briefing below by Dr. Moors, there's one little company that controls the whole thing.

And since Arckaringa footprint will be beyond extensive, hundreds of wells, massive infrastructure networks, gathering systems, pipelines, processing facilities and support services will vital.

The Death Knell for OPEC

The massive find has been likened to the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale oil projects in the US, which have created legitimate boom times in Texas and North Dakota.
The outflows from these areas have been so big they have given way to predictions that the US could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer as soon as this year.
Even at the lowest estimate, the Coober Pedy fins is set to make Australia a net oil exporter; at the higher estimate, Australia would become one of the world's biggest oil exporters.
"What we're seeing up there is a very, very big deposit," says South Australia's mining minister, Tom Koutsantonis, "If the reserves and the pressure was right over millions of years and the rocks have done the things they think they've done, they think they can extract vast reserves of oil out of South Australia which would have a value of about $20 trillion."
Dependence on OPEC's crude is already slipping as the U.S. and Canada unlock unconventional oil supplies from deep underground shale deposits with new drilling techniques.
Now there's even more completion bubbling up from "Down Under."
Given all of the trouble in the Middle East, the Saudi's have good reason to be alarmed.

Are the Obama administration’s ‘Promise Zones’ a promising anti-poverty strategy?

Are the Obama administration’s ‘Promise Zones’ a promising anti-poverty strategy?
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
In the years immediately following the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the federal government passed bold civil rights and anti-poverty legislation to address critical issues facing the nation. Among this legislation was the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, which launched the War on Poverty, including programs like Head Start and food stamps, and other efforts to address poverty and its affects. During the administration of former president Lyndon B. Johnson, Congress authorized about $2 billion annually to fight poverty.
Today, 50 years later, the Head Start and food stamp (now Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP) programs are being deeply cut. Twenty -six percent of black people live below the poverty level and black unemployment is still twice as high as that of whites, just as it was in 1963. According to University of Michigan economics professor Shelton Danziger, “Americans have allowed poverty to fall off the national agenda.”
Brian Smedley, vice president and director of the Health Policy Institute at the D.C.-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, sees hope for a federal response in the Obama administration’s new Promise Zones initiative. Smedley calls Promise Zones “the biggest, most promising anti-poverty strategy” in decades. The Joint Center is working with the Obama administration to build awareness about the effort.
Promise Zones are intended to coordinate and focus community-based programs of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Education (DOE), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Agriculture (DOA), on high-poverty communities across the country.  Among the programs to be included, for example, are HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods, which helps neighborhoods with distressed public housing implement plans for transformation; DOE’s Promise Neighborhoods inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone and intended to improve educational opportunities and life chances for children in high poverty neighborhoods; and the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Initiative,  which works with high crime neighborhoods to control and prevent violent crime, drug abuse and gang activity.  The goal of Promise Zones is to accelerate these programs by using the administration’s new “place-based” approach of integrating and aligning the resources of several federal agencies in areas of concentrated poverty. According to HUD, since 2009, the administration has invested more than $350 million in 100 of the nation’s persistent pockets of poverty.
Why is Smedley so hopeful about Promise Zones?
“Promise Zones gets the prescription right,” he says. “Past civil rights efforts such as the War on Poverty focused on helping individuals, but did not address the structural barriers to opportunity in neighborhoods where poor people of color live,” such as segregated and poor quality housing, the lack of capital and economic opportunity, inadequate schools, and transportation.
Previous HUD programs, such as Empowerment Zones, have certainly used the concept of targeting specific places to spur investment and revitalization. However, Smedley believes that the Promise Zones approach of cooperating across agencies to locate a range of federal programs in poor neighborhoods, can better attract business investment and help lessen poverty.

Smedley is also encouraged that the Promise Zones strategy is being implemented as researchers, including the Joint Center, are looking more seriously at the intersection between “place,” health and economic justice.
The Joint Center held its third annual National Health Equity Conference on October 2, in Washington, D.C., which was attended by researchers, community development leaders, policy makers and practitioners from across the country. The purpose of the conference was to discuss and disseminate strategies for addressing  the relationship between health and economic inequities. Smedley points to “a large body of research which shows that the places where people live have a direct impact on their health status.” He explains that for many people of color, poor socio-economic status also means poor health. He believes that Promise Zones provide an opportunity to learn more about how stimulating economic activity in targeted neighborhoods can improve resident’s health.
Other policy analysts aren’t so certain about the Promise Zone’s placed-based recipe. Phil Tegeler, executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, says programs, such as Promise Neighborhoods, that will make up the Promise Zones are worthy efforts. However, he is concerned that they are too focused on keeping the poor in distressed communities.
Poor families “need to have the choice to move to higher income neighborhoods,” said Tegeler, who believes that HUD should make more funding available for programs that expand housing choice outside of areas of extreme poverty. This is a particularly note worthy critique given  research which shows the harmful effects on children of growing up in poverty-stricken neighborhoods
Over the next four years, the Obama administration will designate 20 high poverty communities as Promise Zones. These communities will not receive direct funding, but will benefit from tax incentives (if enacted by Congress) to encourage private business investment, intensive assistance from federal agencies to help them make the best use of existing federal funding, and priority access to federal investments made under the administration’s placed–based approach.
Of course there are no “promises” with the Promise Zones strategy. There are many factors that could get in the way of success. Over the past two decades, private foundations have spent significant resources investing in place-based initiatives and produced plenty of evidence that much can go wrong. For example, any effort to alleviate entrenched poverty requires a long time horizon, and few funders — public, private or philanthropic — have the resources or patience to stick with these initiatives if they don’t show early positive results. Multi-dimensional, place-based projects are expensive and often funders don’t provide adequate resources. Promise Zones will not receive direct funding and the resources for which they can apply appear limited, given what has been spent in these areas so far.The War on Poverty spent billions in 1960’s dollars and was still considered under-funded by some.
In addition, tax incentives, designed to attract private businesses to the zones, still need to be approved by Congress. As things stand now between Congress and the administration, that could be a long shot. Also, many communities that have experienced years of disinvestment do not have the infrastructure to successfully implement and sustain a complex revitalization effort without intense, continuous capacity development — which of course means time and resources. Finally, these projects are getting underway in a very fragile economy and any downturn, national or local, could hamper the best intentions.
Despite the cautions and questions, it’s encouraging to see the Obama administration at least attempting to move the federal government to address poverty and inequality. Is it bold or well funded enough? Of course not, but in this economic and political environment “bold” is highly unlikely. Still, maybe we can learn something from this limited Promise Zones initiative to help move the needle in the fight against inequality. In this case, I’d like to see America prove Professor Danziger wrong.

Kenneth Bae's mother visits North Korea to see imprisoned son - CNN.com

Kenneth Bae's mother visits North Korea to see imprisoned son - CNN.com
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
The mother of Kenneth Bae, the American imprisoned in North Korea, has arrived in the country to visit her ailing son, according to a friend of the family.

Earlier this year, Bae, a Korean-American, was sentenced to 15 years in a North Korean labor camp for what the government called "hostile acts."

His family has not been able to see him for almost a year since his November 3 arrest in North Korea.

"As a mother, I worry endlessly about his health," said his mother, Myunghee Bae in a videotaped statement. "I want to see him, comfort and hold him in person. I miss him so much."

Rodman: Jailed American not my problem

Imprisoned American's sister speaks out

Imprisoned American's health failing

Sister: Kenneth Bae is too weak to work

Bae, of Lynwood, Washington, said that she pleaded with the North Korean authorities to let her visit her son, and expressed gratitude for granting permission. She is expected to be in North Korea for five days with the goal of encouraging her son who has become ill, according to a website dedicated to Kenneth Bae's freedom.

In a prison interview released in July, Kenneth Bae had spoken of health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver and a back problem. He looked noticeably thinner and wore a blue prison garment streaked with sweat and dirt.

His family say he has lost more than 50 pounds.

"My heart was broken into pieces when his prison interview was released on July 3," said his mother, in her statement. "His appearance was very shocking, he looked so different, and he lost so much weight. I could not believe that prisoner was my son."

Bae was moved to a hospital for serious health problems, his sister, Terri Chung had told CNN in August.

In previous interviews, Chung has said that her brother suffers from health problems including severe back and leg pain, kidney stones, dizziness, blurred vision and loss of vision. He was already dealing with diabetes.

His family and friends have asked North Korea for mercy and the United States for help in securing his release.

U.S. officials have repeatedly called on North Korea to release Bae. In August, the two countries appeared close, but North Korea rescinded an invitation to a U.S. envoy. Ambassador Robert King, President Barack Obama's special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, had been expected to fly to Pyongyang to try to win his freedom.

Bae was arrested last year after arriving as a tourist in Rason City, a port in the northeastern corner of North Korea. His sister says that Bae is the owner of a tour company and was in North Korea for work.

The North Korean government accuses Bae of setting up bases in China for the purpose of "toppling" the North Korean government, encouraging North Korean citizens to bring down the government and conducting a "malignant smear campaign."

The country's state media also says that Bae had planned what it called a "Jericho operation" to bring down North Korea through religious activities. They have suggested that Bae could have been sentenced to death, but avoided it through "candid confession of his crimes."

On the eve of her trip, his mother looked solemnly into the camera, expressing her anxiety.

"It's hard to describe the agony of the past year since my son has been imprisoned in the DPRK," she said in a released statement. "I spend every day thinking about him and praying for his homecoming."