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To: Brumar89 who wrote (595485)	12/12/2010 2:22:17 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1583396

Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department can’t even print play money correctly. Also linked from therandomtexan site: The $100bn blunder: Fed forced to 'quarantine' one billion $100 bills after printing error makes them worthless By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 8:57 AM on 7th December 2010 Comments (24) Add to My Stories A printing problem with the new high-tech $100 bills has forced government printers to shut down production - and to quarantine more than one billion of the notes. The flawed notes represent more than ten per cent of the U.S. currently on the entire planet. They are being stored in giant vaults at Fort Worth in Texas and in Washington, DC, as the Federal Reserve desperately tries to resolve the problem. Red-faced: Bureau of Engraving and Printing manager Kevin Brown displays a new $100 bill at the World's Fair of Money in Boston in August. Now a flaw with the new bills has halted production Meanwhile printers have begun reprinting the old $100 notes - without the high-tech security features and still bearing the signature of George W Bush's treasury secretary, Hank Paulson - in order to prevent a cash flow crisis. With the holiday shopping season in full swing, authorities are scrambling to do everything they can to keep U.S. cash flowing. 'There is something drastically wrong here,' one source told CNBC. 'The frustration level is off the charts.' No glory: The bills were due to be the first that bore the signature of Barack Obama's treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, pictured here in Washington last month. [How fitting. ] The new high-tech bills were initially scheduled for release in February of 2011. They were due to be the first in circulation that bore the signature of President Obama's treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner. The new notes were to feature new sophisticated security features such as a 3D security strip and a colour-shifting image of a bell. The features - announced with great fanfare by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve - were designed to foil counterfeiters. But it turns out those who designed the new notes may have been flying too close to the sun, for the process of producing them in their billions with all the new security features is so complex that it has foiled the government printers. CNBC sources claimed that printers have produced 1.1billion of the new bills - but those bills are unusable because of a creasing problem. The paper folds over during production - revealing a blank, unlinked portion of the bill face. After printing, officials discovered that some of the new bills have a vertical crease that, when the sides of the bill are pulled, unfolds and reveals a blank space on the face of the bill. At first glance, the bills appear completely printed - but they are not. Another source claimed that at the height of the problem up to 30 per cent of the bills rolling off the presses included the flaw. As officials are not certain exactly which of the notes are flawed, it means that all of the notes that have been printed are having to be quarantined - all $110 billion of them. HOW ARE U.S. BANK NOTES PRODUCED? The printing of American dollar bills is a long and convoluted process. The paper on which all U.S. bank notes are printed is manufactured and supplied by Crane & Company. The company has supplied the government with paper continually since 1879. The Treasury Department and its Bureau of Engraving and Printing handle the design and production of the bills. However they do not get much of the glory: As the currency is actually issued by the Federal Reserve, each note is emblazoned with the phrase 'Federal Reserve Note'. WHAT FEATURES DOES THE NEW $100 BILL HAVE? More than a decade of research has gone into the security features on the redesigned $100 bill. The Treasury has already redesigned the $5, $10, $20 and $50 notes. The new $100 bill features a blue, 3D security strip that pictures bells that change to 100s as the strip is tilted. The ribbon is woven into the paper, not printed on it, which is why it is the focus of speculation as a potential cause of the paper creasing problem on the printing presses. The note also features another colour-shifting image, of a bell inside an inkwell. The bell shifts color from copper to green as the bill is tilted. The sheer numbers are staggering. Authorities estimated that sorting through the enormous pile of bills by hand could take 20 to 30 years. Instead they are developing a mechanised way of sorting the usable notes from the flawed ones - a process that they hope will only take a year. There was no estimate on how much the sorting process will cost. A government source told CNBC that the total supply of U.S. currency on the planet is $930billion in bank notes. A view of Fort Worth in Texas. Many of the faulty bills are being stored in giant vaults there as the government develops a way to sort through them The defective bills - which are the most costly ever produced - will simply have to be burned. The American taxpayer paid 12 cents to produce each note, roughly twice the cost of previous bills, meaning roughly $120 million is about to go up in flames. The Fed issued a press release on October 1 announcing a 'delay in the issue date' of the new bills due to a 'problem with sporadic creasing of the paper'. But, until now, the full extent of the problem - and its cost - has largely been hidden from public view. Officials are trying not to assign blame - publicly at least. But sources claim the finger-pointing has already begin. 'The Fed’s very unhappy, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is taking a beating unnecessarily,' CNBC quoted one official as saying. 'Somebody has to pay for this.' Read more: dailymail.co.uk

To: Brumar89 who wrote (595485)	12/12/2010 7:08:11 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1583396

Why we know Texans are stupid..even moreso than Ohio and Wisconsin.. The interstate highway system began in St. Charles County, Missouri, but you can still take it from Seattle to San Diego. How Ohio and Wisconsin connected Fresno and Bakersfield... CHSRA Board to Consider Modifying Initial Corridor Selection Dec 11th, 2010 \| Posted by Robert Cruickshank Well, this is interesting. Just a week after the California High Speed Rail Authority board approved the Borden to Corcoran section of the high speed rail project for initial construction – with stations at Fresno and Hanford – we learned late Friday that the CHSRA board will meet on Monday, December 20 to consider modifying the corridor selection in light of the recent award of $624 million in new HSR funding from the federal government. I don’t yet have any further information on exactly what this modification would include, but it would at minimum include an extension of the segment to get the project closer to Bakersfield. Whether the northern end of the route would be altered as well, to provide more of a Fresno-Bakersfield route than, say, Borden to Shafter is an open question for now. We’ll hopefully learn more soon. But this does show that the California HSR project is proceeding exactly as planned – with each round of new funding, more of the route gets built. As I argued yesterday, this should be incentive for cities that want the trains but who weren’t included in this first round to be as aggressive as they can in bringing more dollars to the project. == We’re learning more today about just how the $642 million California received in HSR stimulus funds redirected from Wisconsin and Ohio are to be used. Tim Sheehan at the Fresno Bee explains more: Along with an equal sum in state matching money, the reallocation will allow the state to extend the southern end of the system’s first segment perhaps as far as Bakersfield. It also provides money to design stations in Merced and Bakersfield. And that could soothe some hurt feelings in the North and South Valley after the state decided to start building near Fresno…. Assembly Member Cathleen Galgiani, D-Livingston, said rail officials told her the reallocation includes money to plan and design high-speed-train stations in Merced and Bakersfield. My sources indicate that the new federal funding includes money specifically earmarked for station area acquisition in Bakersfield – not just design. Other stations in the system, including some not in the Central Valley, will get some of this money as well for design and acquisition work. Just under $600 million will be left over to build tracks toward Bakersfield. Look for more details about all that on Monday. cahsrblog.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (595485)	12/12/2010 7:20:51 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1583396

"especially for a state that can’t even balance its budget"?? We always balance the budget; it's da law. We just ignore the law what sez it has to be done in a timely fashion. Gonna be easier with people woking on da railroad, all the live long day. You prolly need to get your own house in order before you worry about mine. Budget Problems Deep in the Heart of Texas dallasnews.com. (Texas) Legislature likely to cut deep to meet possible $25 billion budget gap AUSTIN – Texas faces a budget crisis of truly daunting proportions, with lawmakers likely to cut sacrosanct programs such as education for the first time in memory and to lay off hundreds if not thousands of state workers and public university employees. Texas' GOP leaders, their eyes on the Nov. 2 election, have played down the problem's size, even as the hole in the next two-year cycle has grown in recent weeks to as much as $24 billion to $25 billion. That's about 25 percent of current spending. The gap is now proportionately larger than the deficit California recently closed with cuts and fee increases, its fourth dose of budget misery since September 2008. I talked before about "Net Export Math" and government budgets, especially state & local. Just as oil exporting countries, showing falling production, generally have a net export decline rate that is in excess of their production decline rate, the pattern that we will tend to see is that the rate of decline in government aid and services to citizens will exceed the rate of decline in government revenue. Take Texas as example, and let's assume two year projected spending of $100 billion versus projected revenue of $75 billion. For the sake of argument, let's assume that $50 billion in spending is non-discretionary and can't be cut. Under this scenario, a 25% reduction in revenue would result in a 50% reduction in discretionary spending (primarily aid and services to citizens). westexas (Jeff Brown of Peak Exports fame) on October 25, 2010 - 9:30am theoildrum.com