Economy
Related: About this forumSTOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 11 April 2012
[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday,11 April 2012[font color=black][/font]
SMW for 10 April 2012
AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 10 April 2012
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Dow Jones 12,715.93 -213.66 (-1.65%)
S&P 500 1,358.59 -23.61 (-1.71%)
Nasdaq 2,991.22 -55.86 (-1.83%)
[font color=green]10 Year 1.98% -0.05 (-2.46%)
30 Year 3.13% -0.05 (-1.57%) [font color=black]
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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
[/center][font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 = [/font][font color=red]12[/font]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]
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Demeter
(85,373 posts)We have some information for your comfort during today's flight to safety:
The seat cushion also serves as a flotation device. Place it across your abdomen and loop your arms through the straps on the sides.
In the seat pocket in front of you is a convenient waxed bag, should you experience nausea due to market turbulence. Inside the bag is a 12 hour supply of Dramamine...in the event it proves ineffective, use the bag. Try to remove the medication, first.
Thank you for flying Bankster Airlines. We are the 1%!
AnneD
(15,774 posts)just looking at the gold and silver charts.
Remember, if the cabin pressure changes sudddenly and the masks drop.....put yours on first, then help others as needed.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I have a bad feeling about this.
550 points in 5 days...what a recovery!
The futures are red all over...except for the US. Denial, it used to be called the Hudson, but it's been renamed....
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)Bernanke going to fall off the wagon so soon? He's looking at losing it all in Spain, regardless of how much QE he coaxes out of the sofa cushions.
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)
Hey, this looks more appropriate
Demeter
(85,373 posts)It's late, and I don't pick up on these things...
Roland99
(53,342 posts)Alcoa earned 9 cents/share vs. an expected loss of 3-4/share cents (but vs. last year's 27 cents/share?)
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Who would have thought aluminum made the entire market move so much?
Demeter
(85,373 posts)This is tax time, or in the case of many big businesses, just another time without taxes. These companies deserve to be recognized. With the help of SEC data and the results of several excellent research studies, PayUpNow.org has selected the 'winners' of the 2011 Tax Avoidance Awards.
First a review of last year's results... The top spot went to General Electric, which made pre-tax profits of $44 billion from 2008 to 2010 but received almost $5 billion in refunds. A GE spokesperson added, "We are committed to acting with integrity in relation to our tax obligations." A close second was Exxon, notable for having the nation's highest pre-tax earnings three years in a row, a 2% federal income tax payment rate, and hubris comparable to that of GE: "Any claim we don't pay taxes is absurd...ExxonMobil is a leading U.S. taxpayer." There were numerous other candidates, each no less unworthy than the next. Verizon and Boeing and Dow and DuPont all made profits three years in a row, but all paid zero taxes over the three-year period. Banking leaders Citigroup and Bank of America, with a combined $8 billion of pretax earnings in 2009 and 2010, each paid zero taxes two years in a row. From 2008 to 2010, Chevron paid less than 5% a year. Merck paid 5%. Hewlett-Packard 3%. IBM 2%. Carnival 1%.
Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) recently noted other companies who were tax-free over the 2008-10 period, including Pepco Holdings, Computer Sciences, Consolidated Edison, Honeywell International, and Wells Fargo. In the past year new information has surfaced about past and present nominees for the avoidance awards. According to one CTJ report, "From 2001 through 2010, GE's U.S. net federal cash income taxes paid appear to have been less than zero!" Another CTJ analysis concludes that the company paid 2.3% of its $81.2 billion U.S. pretax profits in federal income taxes over the last 10 years. In 2011, GE paid a generous 5.1% of its total net income in U.S. federal taxes (11.3% of its reported US profit). Joining the 10-year nonpayment club was Boeing, which from 2002 to 2011, according to CTJ, "has paid nothing in net federal income taxes, despite $32 billion in pretax U.S. profits." The huge aerospace company, which has two U.S. plants working overtime to fill contracts for 800 Dreamliner jets, claimed the largest percentage refund among the top tax avoiders in 2011. Citigroup also claimed a refund, despite announcing a profit of almost $15 billion for the year. Exxon paid its usual 2.1%, Chevron 4%. Verizon, IBM, and Dow each paid a little something. The data can be found at PayUpNow.
Now for the awards. Tax Avoidance Gold goes to Boeing for its long record of worsening tax avoidance and massive 2011 refund despite billions in Dreamliner contracts. The Silver Award defaults to GE, whose unparalleled history of tax avoidance kept it near the top. The Bronze Award goes to Citigroup for avoiding tax obligations on $15 billion of net income. And all the nominees should be recognized for their skills in avoiding payment for the benefits derived from building up their companies in America.
LET'S GIVE THEM A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE, SHALL WE?
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Charles and David Koch became national news about two years ago when a Jane Mayer exposé in the New Yorker revealed the billionaire brothers were funding “stealth attacks on the federal government,” especially the Obama administration. Since then, the evidence of the Kochs’ nefariously outsized influence on American politics has only grown: The echo chamber they fund spreads misinformation about Social Security, undermines labor rights, works to re-segregate public schools, and pushes voter ID initiatives that would deny voting rights to millions. The Kochs themselves undermine academic integrity by buying the right to appoint professors at universities. And residents of Crossett, Arkansas, are giving powerful testimony to links between a Koch chemical plant and the disproportionate number of cancer deaths in that community. Our new film, Koch Brothers Exposed, gives the dirty details on all of these stories.
But why, in the end, does it matter? Let’s say everything that we progressives say about these guys is true. Is there anything that can or should be done about two men participating in the political process? When it comes to the kind of influence the Koch brothers wield, the answer is yes. Democracy, fundamentally, is about ensuring everyone has influence over the way their society functions. Power cannot be concentrated in a few hands; it’s supposed to be spread across everyone. The Kochs, who use their wealth to perpetuate and expand their own fortunes, aren’t just exercising their rights as humble citizens; they are keeping others from doing the same. Remember when a journalist called Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin at the height of the worker protests, pretending to be David Koch? The governor spent like 20 minutes trying to suck up to him and prove that he was doing all he could to crush the unions. But let’s say a teacher in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, had called Walker. Is there even the slightest chance he’d get to talk to the guy? Is there any remote possibility Walker would feel a desperate need to prove his bona fides to the teacher? Or consider those people dying of cancer near a Koch plant in Arkansas. Do government officials listen to their cries for help when they’re considering what pollution rules should be and whether they’ll be enforced? Or are they more concerned with what the Kochs want?
To ask these questions is to answer them. That's because Koch brothers aren’t just rich; they’re using the resources they have to step on the backs of the 99%. And so our job in pursuing an ever-more robust democracy is not just to demand more equitable policies on health and the environment and all that good stuff. It’s also to look to the root of our democracy to ensure that when we make our demands, there’s a level playing field that gives us a real chance at winning.
For now, the Kochs are rigging the game in their favor. But it needn’t always be thus. Occupy Wall Street has built national momentum for cleaning up politics to guarantee that regular people get power back. Will we push that movement forward, even in the face of the formidable opposition of people like Charles and David Koch? That’s up to us.
*******************************************************************
Brave New Foundation has just released the film, "Koch Brothers Exposed," available on DVD. https://members.truth-out.org/bgift80-gift/choose-type-donation
Demeter
(85,373 posts)http://www.alternet.org/rss/1/879472/top_10_koch_facts?akid=8560.227380.G00B3G&rd=1&t=25
READ IT AND WEEP
...said Charles Koch...“I want my fair share, and that’s all of it” — encapsulates the unbridled greed driving the Kochs’ political activism and business dealings. Democracy cannot thrive with so much power being in the hands of men like this. If we care about democracy, we have to work to take it back.
JAIL TIME WOULDN'T HURT, EITHER
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Aries
You have a mind like a steel-trap, much to the horror of all those poor naked women (OR MEN) locked inside.
Taurus
Never in a million years did you think you'd be diagnosed with split-personality disorder, which is surprising, as Frank saw it coming a mile away.
Gemini
A prize-winning horse should have a thick coat, strong hindquarters, and an elegant gait. Also, it probably shouldn't talk, suddenly split in two, and run off in opposing directions.
Cancer
It's not enough to just sit there and cry about your problems all night long. Try also kicking your legs a bit to see if that helps.
Leo
Border guards will accuse you of trying to smuggle 10 pounds of prime Chilean beef inside your colon, though the condition they'll find it in will be less than desirable.
Virgo
You're getting to be much too old for a babysitter, especially one who's supposed to be watching after your children.
Libra
The stars foresee a huge promotion at work this week. Get ready to move up to Senior Person Who Nobody Takes Seriously Or Respects.
Scorpio
You'll kick back this week with a little bit of Grandpa's cough medicine, which is too bad, as Grandpa was a radiation oncologist.
Sagittarius
Behind every successful man is a woman. However, if they find the basement full of yours, you can kiss your career in politics goodbye.
Capricorn
A little piece of you will die this week, clotting the little fluids it helps to circulate, collapsing the little lungs it helps to expand, and completely shutting down your little nerve center.
Aquarius
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, the exaggerated and drawn-out stutter they say it with indicates otherwise.
Pisces
You will soon make a comfortable living exploiting other people's deep-seated anxieties and crippling fears.
SOUNDS PRETTY GRIM, FOLKS~
Hugin
(33,198 posts)Either, the Heavens really are talking or I'm being watched! 
Tansy_Gold
(17,868 posts)
Roland99
(53,342 posts)one could even say that I'm a legend in my own mind!
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)
InkAddict
(3,387 posts)pre-existing conditions until 2014.
Po_d Mainiac
(4,183 posts)As I aw8 the results of yesterday's CAT scan..
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)and it is the Onion, after all....
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Yasha Levine: Recovered Economic History – “Everyone But an Idiot Knows That The Lower Classes Must Be Kept Poor, or They Will Never Be Industrious”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/yasha-levine-recovered-economic-history-everyone-but-an-idiot-knows-that-the-lower-classes-must-be-kept-poor-or-they-will-never-be-industrious.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
YVES...The conventional thinking on the so-called “lower orders” usually depicts them as deserving their fate (either due to lack of self-discipline and motivation, or in other ages, as genetically inferior), or as victims of circumstance. But Levine, citing a recent book by economic historian Michael Perelmen, points to another strain of thought: that self-sufficient peasants were indolent, and it would be better for them to reduce their income so as to force them to work harder. God forbid that anyone other that the aristocrats have the luxury of a lot of leisure time!
***************************************************************
Our popular economic wisdom says that capitalism equals freedom and free societies, right? Well, if you ever suspected that the logic is full of shit, then I’d recommend checking a book called The Invention of Capitalism, written by an economic historian named Michael Perelmen, who’s been exiled to Chico State, a redneck college in rural California, for his lack of freemarket friendliness. And Perelman has been putting his time in exile to damn good use, digging deep into the works and correspondence of Adam Smith and his contemporaries to write a history of the creation of capitalism that goes beyond superficial The Wealth of Nations fairy tale and straight to the source, allowing you to read the early capitalists, economists, philosophers, clergymen and statesmen in their own words. And it ain’t pretty.
One thing that the historical record makes obviously clear is that Adam Smith and his laissez-faire buddies were a bunch of closet-case statists, who needed brutal government policies to whip the English peasantry into a good capitalistic workforce willing to accept wage slavery.
Francis Hutcheson, from whom Adam Smith learned all about the virtue of natural liberty, wrote: ”it is the one great design of civil laws to strengthen by political sanctions the several laws of nature. … The populace needs to be taught, and engaged by laws, into the best methods of managing their own affairs and exercising mechanic art.”
Yep, despite what you might have learned, the transition to a capitalistic society did not happen naturally or smoothly. See, English peasants didn’t want to give up their rural communal lifestyle, leave their land and go work for below-subsistence wages in shitty, dangerous factories being set up by a new, rich class of landowning capitalists. And for good reason, too. Using Adam Smith’s own estimates of factory wages being paid at the time in Scotland, a factory-peasant would have to toil for more than three days to buy a pair of commercially produced shoes. Or they could make their own traditional brogues using their own leather in a matter of hours, and spend the rest of the time getting wasted on ale. It’s really not much of a choice, is it?
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Yves here. One of the themes in this Bill Black post is that a senior official who understands the importance of effective regulation can have an impact in a relatively short period of time. It’s important to keep that in mind as a reminder that the obstacle to reining in banks isn’t feasibility but lack of political will.
*********************************************************************
Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives.
****************************************************
April 9, 2012 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the most infamous savings and loan fraud, Charles Keating’s, successful use of five U.S. Senators to escape sanction for a massive violation of the law. The Senators were Alan Cranston (D. CA), Dennis DeConcini (D. AZ), John Glenn (D OH), John McCain (R. AZ), and Donald Riegle (D. MI). They became infamous as the “Keating Five.” I was one of four regulators who attended the April 9, 1987 meeting. I took the notes of the meeting, in transcript format, that were so detailed and accurate that the Senators testified that they were sure I had tape recorded the meeting. (The reality is that I owe my note taking abilities to Bill Valentine, my high school debate coach, and experience debating for the University of Michigan.)
Reviewing my (near) transcript of the April 9 offers a large number of important lessons that would have allowed us to avoid future crises. We suffered the crises because we ignored all the lessons about which approaches are criminogenic and which are successful. The transcript shows four things that work. First, we were apolitical as regulators. I worked closely in the same regional office with my three regulatory colleagues for years, but I do not know their political affiliation (if any). We went after the S&L frauds and their political cronies regardless of party. Second, we were vigorous and fearless enough as regulators that the frauds (e.g., Keating) feared us. Keating knew that despite his fearsome political power and reputation for trying to ruin his opponents we (the regional S&L regulators based in San Francisco) would never back off.
Third, we were effective. The April 9 meeting exemplified how a largely ineffective office had improved greatly in two years. Ed Gray, the head of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, inherited an agency driven by an anti-regulatory dogma that was actively making things worse. Gray had been a strong supporter of deregulation. Gray’s great virtue is that he listened to the facts and looked for patterns. What he realized was that the large failures followed a consistent pattern. They were (to use modern criminology jargon) “control frauds” – seemingly legitimate entities controlled by officers who used them as “weapons” to defraud the S&L’s creditors and shareholders. Gray knew that S&Ls that were still open and followed the same pattern were growing at an average annual rate of 50% and that hundreds of similar S&Ls were entering the industry annually. Gray perceived, correctly, that business as usual would produce a catastrophe.
Gray began to reregulate the industry in 1983. That was extraordinary on several dimensions. The Garn-St Germain bill (drafted by Gray’s predecessor, Richard Pratt) that deregulated the S&L industry was enacted in 1982. It passed with one opposing vote in each chamber. For Gray to begin to reregulate the industry only a year later was an enormous repudiation of the will of the Congress, the Reagan administration, neo-classical economics, the anti-governmental zeitgeist, and the agency’s traditional position. It also required Gray to reverse his embrace of deregulation. To succeed in his push to reregulate the industry Gray had to take on, simultaneously, the House, the Senate, the administration, the S&L trade association (rated the third most powerful in America by some political scientists), economists, much of his own agency, and the media. Astonishingly, Gray’s reregulation succeeded and because it was so prompt it contained the crisis and prevented a trillion dollars in fraud losses and a Great Recession.
By contrast, reregulation began in the current crisis in 2009 (the effective date of the Federal Reserve’s rule finally banning liar’s loans (fraudulent mortgage loans made without verifying the borrower’s income). The nine year-to-ten year delay in reregulation (measured from passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley (1999) or the Commodities Futures Modernization Act (2000) allowed fraud to become epidemic and hyper-inflate the financial bubble, producing the Great Recession....MORE AT LINK
Demeter
(85,373 posts)More Proof of Obama Mortgage Settlement Lies: Woefully Underresourced Investigation Not Fully Staffed Yet
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/more-proof-of-obama-mortgage-settlement-lies-woefully-underresourced-investigation-not-fully-staffed-yet.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
Eric Schneiderman is finding out he sold out to the Administration for far too little. The New York state attorney general torpedoed the opposition to the mortgage settlement via joining a newly-established mortgage fraud investigation and then going silent on where he stood on the settlement.
It was easy to see this task force wasn’t a serious effort. Schneiderman was only a co-chairman. The co-chairman, Lanny Breuer, was from the heretofore-missing-in-action Department of Justice. No one on the task force was head of a Federal agency.
The idea that this effort was all for show and would at most deliver a few suits conveniently close to the election was confirmed by its staffing. Schneiderman looked foolish when he said he’d have hundreds of investigators at his disposal, when Breuer announced it would be a mere 55. Those numbers are so paltry it begged the question as to what if anything Schneiderman was getting from this deal. If he has stuck with his earlier plan of a combined state AG effort, they probably could have mustered up this level of staffing among the 15 states that were considering breaking with the Administration prior to the Schneiderman betrayal.
And in further proof of what bad judgment Schneiderman demonstrated, Dave Dayen highlighted this find in an e-mail from Credo:
And now we’re hearing from insiders in Washington DC, that the full complement of 55 promised investigators — which is already not nearly enough — haven’t even been deployed to the task force.
MORE
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)... even I never learn, it seems 
on edit: "we" in this post refers to the progressive groups in NY who supported him to the max in election
Demeter
(85,373 posts)or he got corrupted....which I don't even want to think about.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Yves here. I hope you’ll take the time to read this important post. There has been a great deal of discussion of the many deficiencies of the mortgage settlement, but its biggest has gone pretty much unnoticed. It isn’t just that the settlement gives the banks a close to free pass for past predatory, illegal conduct, but it also has such lax servicing standards and weak enforcement provisions so as to give the banks license to carry on with servicing abuses....
Demeter
(85,373 posts)...Starting in 1998 Thomas Lawler held the job of SVP Portfolio Management, SVP Financial Strategy, and SVP of Risk Strategy at Fannie Mae until he unceremoniously left in January, 2006, following an $8 billion financial fraud that occurred under his watch. Lawler, along with the rest of Fannie’s executive team, cooked the books spectacularly. That was back in the early 2000s, when a billion dollars was still real money.
Lawler’s Project Libra
It’d be impossible to summarize Lawler’s ethical mosh-pit better than OFHEO, Fannie’s former regulator which morphed into the FHFA, already did so I’ll just cut-and-paste from their 2006 “Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae” (emphasis mine):
Andrew McCormick, Senior Vice President for Portfolio Management (then reporting to Mr. Lawler), indicated he believed Goldman Sachs (Mr. Niculescu’s former employer and the underwriter of the transactions) was the source of the idea.209 In fact Goldman Sachs described the proposed transaction in a November 19, 2001, presentation to Fannie Mae. David Rosenblum, a Goldman Sachs managing director, attached PowerPoint slides for the presentation to a December 3, 2001, e-mail to Mr. Niculescu. Mr. Rosenblum referred to the project as ‘Project Libra.’
Mr. Lawler acknowledged that a motive for creating the REMICs was to effect ‘a change in the expected [pattern of] recognition [of income].’ He also emphasized that without the income-shifting REMICs he did not believe the GAAP earnings that the company would have realized would have accurately reflected the underlying economics. Although he referred to economics, Mr. Lawler was actually talking about the GAAP accounting mismatch Goldman Sachs cited. In an e-mail to a colleague, Jeff Juliane, who, as a member of the Office of the Controller had operational responsibilities for accounting for premiums and discounts on the tranches Fannie Mae retained, ‘these (REMICs) were structured to transfer income from 2002 to out-years.’
Is it just me or, in much the same way every fairy tale starts with “Once upon a time,” every government report on a major scam seems to include the line “Goldman Sachs described the proposed transaction.”
MUCH MORE AT LINK
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Update: When reading about how “our” government sold us the servicing standards as the big prize in the deal (along with the $25 billion that isn’t) even as they agreed the standards wouldn’t be meaningfully implemented or enforced, remember that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be rulemaking on servicing during the settlement’s duration, with its rules set to take effect in 2013 and 2014, well before the 2015 expiration date of the deal. So the “standards” in this deal are even more useless than they otherwise appear.
On Thursday, April 5th U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer announced she had decided to sign off on the “$25 billion” Mortgage Settlement. By “announced”, I mean she signed the consent orders all our major law enforcers and the biggest bankers had agreed to, and entered them into the record. Judge Collyer didn’t actually say anything about the deal. She didn’t let anyone else say anything, either: she didn’t hold a public hearing on the deal.
In acting silently, Judge Collyer not only okayed the deal’s lousy terms, which institutionalize servicer theft and foreclosure fraud, she reinforced the incredibly poor public process that’s kept the enforcement fraud at the heart of the deal hidden. Deliberately hidden...
MORE BAD NEWS. MAYBE THE REAL REASON WHY THE MARKET IS RISING
Demeter
(85,373 posts)HOW ABUSIVE, PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE IS CONCEALED, AND CODIFIED INTO LAW BY THE SETTLEMENT
Demeter
(85,373 posts)REALLY? ALL BY THEMSELVES? ON THEIR OWNSOME? AFTER THE FRAUD AND ABUSE HAVE BEEN CODIFIED INTO LAW?
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/220589-embargoed-consumer-bureau-plans-overhaul-of-mortgage-industry
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)By the time they get going, with our great JOBS Act, and pending legislation, they won't be able to regulate a gumball machine.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)IT'S KINDA LATE TO GET RELIGION, BEN
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-09/bernanke-sees-need-for-more-curbs-on-shadow-banking.html
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke called on regulators to stem risks from “shadow banking” operating beyond traditional oversight and favored steps to promote the “resiliency” of money market funds.
“An important lesson learned from the financial crisis is that the growth of what has been termed ‘shadow banking’ creates additional potential channels for the propagation of shocks through the financial system and the economy,” Bernanke said today in a speech in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Bernanke also called for close tracking of financial innovation and backed curbs on intraday credit in tri-party repo markets. While not specifying what steps he supports to increase stability among money market funds, he referred to Securities and Exchange Commission proposals to require firms to maintain capital buffers or to redeem shares at the market value of underlying assets rather than at a fixed price of $1.
Congress under a 2010 regulatory overhaul known as Dodd- Frank mandated the Fed to safeguard stability partly by monitoring firms whose collapse may provoke turmoil across financial markets. The law is aimed at averting a repeat of the credit crisis that was triggered by the collapse of U.S. mortgage finance and deepened by the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008. ...
AnneD
(15,774 posts)1) denial
2) denial
3) denial
4) OH SHIT Ben Is Here!
5) too late
Demeter
(85,373 posts)But he loosed the fairy again....
Demeter
(85,373 posts)A Dose Of Socialism Could Save Our States - State Sponsored, Single Payer Healthcare Would Bring In Business & Jobs
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/04/06/a-dose-of-socialism-could-save-our-states-state-sponsored-single-payer-healthcare-would-bring-in-business-jobs/
I'M GOING OUTSIDE TO LOOK FOR THE 4 HORSEMEN....AFTER ALL, IT WAS SNOWING EARLIER TODAY....
My pool (solar heated) is 88 degrees!
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I'm told the Michigan cherry crop is toast.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)If FORBES is publishing this -
No matter that of course it makes perfect sense - but why now? These points have been in the public domain for a long time now.
Could it be that some of the 1%-ers are surveying the landscape out here from their castle towers and wondering why the pitchforks and torches aren't at their gates already? Wondering which straw is going to finally break this camel's back any day now? Thinking that it's time for a little Rooseveltian dose of relief for the lower orders, but knowing that without their express permission the supine bought and sold cowards in DC will just keep robbing the poor to bring them their subject offerings?
Wake me up, I must be dreaming.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I'm sure that will be the next goal for destruction.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)GAS CAME DOWN 40 CENTS AFTER EASTER...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-09/oil-falls-to-seven-week-low-on-jobs-iran-commodities-at-close.html
Not here. It's between $3.91-$3.95 a gallon. The nighest since 2008.
And that was yesterday.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The recovery continues to elude us.
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)This week gas $3.69
wonder how long we get this 'low price'
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)- can't remember exactly -
I refuse to complain about high gas prices - we're still underpaying when one considers the price to the earth. But I CAN & WILL complain loudly and often about the serf wages and tax burden on the working class and the poor that make these prices such a terrible hardship on the not-rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Companies are unusually exposed to price movements after purchasing far fewer derivative contracts against future production than normal
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/R5WAEE/08Q0V6/LSLXF/0856BA/4CRHQT/9A/t?a1=2012&a2=4&a3=11
I THINK THIS IS NATURAL GAS...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)TO DEFEND AGAINST LAWSUITS FOR FALSE ADVERTISING, I SUPPOSE....
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/goldman-should-stop-saying-we-put-customers-first-levitt-says.html
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) should stop promoting itself as “putting customers first” because the slogan ignores conflicts inherent in trading, said Arthur Levitt, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and a senior adviser to the firm.
“We probably ought to stop saying that because nobody really puts customers first,” Levitt, 81, said in an interview with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television today. “Business is a tension between sellers and buyers.”
“Our clients’ interests always come first,” has been the No. 1 business policy at New York-based Goldman Sachs since the late 1970s, when then co-Chairman John C. Whitehead drafted a set of 14 business principles to guide the firm. Levitt’s suggestion comes 14 months after a committee on which he served issued a “business standards” report that reaffirmed Goldman Sachs’s commitment to putting clients’ interests first.
“Goldman shouldn’t play to that,” Levitt said in the interview today. “Goldman should play to their competence, which is considerable.”
FROM MARCH 28, AN EARLY APRIL FOOLS?
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Four giant card-payment processors and large U.S. banks that issue debit and credit cards were hit by a data-security breach after third-party services provider Global Payments Inc discovered its systems were compromised by unauthorized access.It was not immediately clear how many cardholders became victims of the breach, which affected MasterCard Inc, Visa Inc, American Express Co and Discover Financial Services, as well as banks and other franchises that issue cards bearing their logos.
U.S. law enforcement authorities including the Secret Service are investigating and MasterCard said it has hired an independent data-security organization to review the incident...
Analysts said any financial losses from the data breach would be shouldered by merchants, card issuers and Global Payments rather than Visa or Mastercard, which operate payment networks.
Global Payments said it determined that an unauthorized entity had accessed its systems and possible customer card data in early March. Krebs on Security, a blog that first reported the incident on Friday, said accounts had been compromised for over a month, between January 21, 2012 and February 25, 2012...
LOTS MORE AT LINK
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The Obama administration proposed requiring that debt collectors let student-loan borrowers make payments based on what they can afford, rather than on the size of their debt.
The U.S. Education Department, which hires private collectors, said yesterday it would mandate that the companies use a standard form to gather debtors’ income and expenses. If borrowers protest, they would be offered an income-based formula, which can result in payments as low as $50 a month for an unmarried person with $20,000 in income and $20,000 in loans. The collection companies -- which receive commissions of as much as 20 percent of recoveries -- are facing complaints that they insist on stiff payments from defaulted borrowers even though the Obama administration and Congress have approved more- lenient plans, Bloomberg News reported March 26. The education department is also reviewing the commissions it pays collectors.
“We definitely feel a sense of urgency to make sure we are doing everything we can to serve the interests of taxpayers and students,” Justin Hamilton, an Education Department spokesman, said in a telephone interview.
The agency first proposed changing the rule governing the treatment of defaulted borrowers a year ago, Hamilton said. After a public comment period, the regulation may take effect as soon as July 2013....
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)FORGIVE THE DEBT - let the bloodsuckers suck it up. MAKE EDUCATION AFFORDABLE AGAIN OR MAKE IT FREE. Goddess, will we ever get beyond our paltry pleading with the Masters?
Free Education
Guaranteed income for all
National health care
30 hour work week
Retirement at 50
Minimum wage somewhat higher than at its 40 years ago or so peak - something like $20
Those are DEMANDS. Not "please Lord Bankster, let us peasants pay a little less tribute, please, please, our children are starving...."
Note: I just read the excerpt posted, not the full article. For all I know Obama has come to his senses and proposed something better than excerpted - if so, my apologies. (but somehow....I doubt it)
AnneD
(15,774 posts)Seems like it extends the servitude to the debt. Like the cash for clunkers program...you are offered a few peanuts and all you have to do is wear this velvet hand cuff (go in debt to buy a new car). I think loan forgiveness is in order, esp if one cannot find anything but low paying jobs and have paid for a certain number of years. One cannot service debt forever.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Lant Pritchett says that nominating the Dartmouth president “is like picking the shortstop for the New York Yankees out of the scrub leagues.”
Larry Summers has been unnaturally silent on President Obama’s surprise decision to pass him over for the World Bank presidency in favor of Dartmouth University president and public health hero Jim Yong Kim. Well, one of Summers’ closest chums at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Lant Pritchett, has now gone public with a scorching blast at Kim. Pritchett told Forbes magazine, “It’s an embarrassment to the U.S. You cannot with a straight face say this person is the most qualified to lead the World Bank.”
It was Pritchett, while working under Summers at the World Bank in 1991, who drafted the embarrassing memo that Summers signed on the supposed economic benefits of exporting polluting industries to third world countries. Pritchett later contended that the leaked parts of the memo were doctored to omit his ironic intent. The full memo never surfaced. Pritchett took the fall for Summers’ embarrassment when he was up for the presidency of Harvard. So, it’s fair to say these senior and junior colleagues are close.
Now, it’s possible that Pritchett went public with his startling comments about Dr. Kim without Larry Summers’ consent or knowledge. It’s also possible that subprime bonds are a terrific investment, and that the Red Sox will sweep this year’s World Series...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Ministers and officials have acted to try to calm jitters in the bond markets as Madrid’s borrowing costs soar
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/C4TXQ8/CWSVD/FKNK44/WTDF46/LE/t?a1=2012&a2=4&a3=11
SECOND VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST, A LITTLE BIT LOUDER AND A LITTLE BIT WORSE...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The president will place the measure at the heart of his re-election platform, presenting it as a matter of economic efficiency and fairness
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/C4TXQ8/CWSVD/FKNK44/HY6MH3/LE/t?a1=2012&a2=4&a3=11
SO HE CAN DO WHAT HE DID TO BUSH TAX CUTS AND HABEAS CORPUS?
Demeter
(85,373 posts)As the nation’s economy slowly recovers and income inequality emerges as a crucial issue in the presidential campaign, lawmakers are facing growing pressure to raise the minimum wage, which was last increased at the federal level to $7.25 an hour in July 2009.
State legislators in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and elsewhere are pushing to raise the minimum wage above the federal level in their own states, arguing that $7.25 an hour is too meager for anyone to live on. Massachusetts lawmakers are pushing for a big jump, with the Legislature’s joint committee on labor approving a measure last month that would raise the minimum to $10 an hour, which would leapfrog Washington State, whose $9.04 minimum is the nation’s highest. Voters in Missouri may be asked to vote on a minimum wage referendum in November.
These moves are giving momentum to an effort to persuade Congress to embrace a higher national minimum wage. Some liberal and labor groups, capitalizing on the energy and message of the Occupy Wall Street movement, are urging Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, to head a Congressional effort to raise the federal minimum to $9.80 an hour by 2014.
Congress last passed a bill to increase minimum wages in 2006, phasing in higher rates over several years. Although some states raise the minimum wage automatically every year as the cost of living increases, federal law does not provides for an automatic increase....
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The Supreme Court has agreed to take a case that justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer say will give it a chance to rethink its infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision. The court is being asked to look into a Montana Supreme Court decision stating that its law restricting corporate election spending in state elections is fine, because it "arises from Montana history," UPI reports. Essentially, Montana is arguing that Citizens United only applies to federal laws and elections, not state ones.
Two Montana corporations are asking the court to make a summary judgment to the contrary; their lead counsel argues that otherwise, "free speech will be seriously harmed," because states anywhere could "ban core political speech." But Ginsburg and Breyer earlier wrote that the case "will give the Court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway."
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Congress has opened up U.S. airspace to the drone industry -- and your privacy is about to be at risk...A drone is probably heading toward your personal airspace soon. With Congress requiring the Federal Aviation Administration to simplify and expedite drone applications from U.S. police departments by May 15, industry and watchdog groups agree: It won’t be long before cops and first responders put them into action.
Thanks to a law passed without much public debate in March, the FAA must allow law enforcement agencies to operate small drones (i.e., less than 4.4 pounds) at altitudes of less than 400 feet. “The demand is huge,” says Catherine Crump, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. Michael Toscano, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a trade group, says there are nearly 19,000 law enforcement entities in the United States, of which only 300 now have aerial surveillance capacities.
“Those departments have helicopters which cost about $1,500 an hour to operate,” Toscano says. “You can fly these drones for maybe less than $50 hour. A lot of smaller departments can now afford this technology.”
It is easy to imagine the benefits of having an eye in the sky. “You don’t have to call off a search for a missing person because of darkness or inclement weather,” Toscano says. Using airborne sensors, a drone could pinpoint the most dangerous areas of a fire for firefighters on the ground...The downside is obvious too. Drones are mostly known for their use in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the controversial targeted killing of overseas U.S. citizens allegedly involved in terrorism. The introduction of surveillance drones into U.S. airspace signals an unprecedented conflation of homeland security, counterterrorism and domestic law enforcement, a combination that is galvanizing civil society activists....Technology developed for attacking armed enemies abroad is being repurposed for enforcing the law at home — without any new safeguards for privacy and civil liberties. Domestic drones can engage in constant surveillance from the sky, which the Supreme Court has ruled does not constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment strictures against unreasonable search. Photographs of political demonstrators could be fed into facial recognition software on a scale previously unimaginable. Drones can also be weaponized with tear gas or tasers for remote crowd control....
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Privacy is eroding fast as technology offers government increasing ways to track and spy on citizens. The Washington Post reported there are 3,984 federal, state and local organizations working on domestic counterterrorism. Most collect information on people in the US. Here are thirteen examples of how some of the biggest government agencies and programs track people.
- The National Security Agency (NSA) collects hundreds of millions of emails, texts and phone calls every day and has the ability to collect and sift through billions more. WIRED just reported NSA is building an immense new data center which will intercept, analyze and store even more electronic communications from satellites and cables across the nation and the world. Though NSA is not supposed to focus on US citizens, it does.
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) has more than 1.5 billion government and private sector records about US citizens collected from commercial databases, government information, and criminal probes.
- The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times recently reported that cellphones of private individuals in the US are being tracked without warrants by state and local law enforcement all across the country. With more than 300 million cellphones in the US connected to more than 200,000 cell phone towers, cellphone tracking software can pinpoint the location of a phone and document the places the cellphone user visits over the course of a day, week, month or longer.
- More than 62 million people in the US have their fingerprints on file with the FBI, state and local governments. This system, called the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), shares information with 43 states and 5 federal agencies. This system conducts more than 168,000 checks each day.
- Over 126 million people have their fingerprints, photographs and biographical information accessible on the US Department of Homeland Security Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT). This system conducts about 250,000 biometric transactions each day. The goal of this system is to provide information for national security, law enforcement, immigration, intelligence and other Homeland Security Functions.
- More than 110 million people have their visas and more than 90 million have their photographs entered into the US Department of State Consular Consolidated Database (CCD). This system grows by adding about 35,000 people a day. This system serves as a gateway to the Department of State Facial Recognition system, IDENT and IAFSIS.
- DNA profiles on more than 10 million people are available in the FBI coordinated Combined DNA index System (CODIS) National DNA Index.
- Information on more than 2 million people is kept in the Intelligence Community Security Clearance Repository, commonly known as Scattered Castles. Most of the people in this database are employees of the Department of Defense (DOD) and other intelligence agencies.
- The DOD also has an automated biometric identification system (ABIS) to support military operations overseas. This database incorporates fingerprint, palm print, face and iris matching on 6 million people and is adding 20,000 more people each day.
- Information on over 740,000 people is included in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) of the National Counterterrorism Center. TIDE is the US government central repository of information on international terrorist identities. The government says that less than 2 percent of the people on file are US citizens or legal permanent residents. They were just given permission to keep their non-terrorism information on US citizens for a period of five years, up from 180 days.
- Tens of thousands of people are subjects of facial recognition software. The FBI has been working with North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles and other state and local law enforcement on facial recognition software in a project called “Face Mask.” For example, the FBI has provided thousands of photos and names to the North Carolina DMV which runs those against their photos of North Carolina drivers. The Maricopa Arizona County Sheriff’s Office alone records 9,000 biometric mug shots a month.
- The FBI operates the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (SAR) that collects and analyzes observations or reports of suspicious activities by local law enforcement. With over 160,000 suspicious activity files, SAR stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime but who are alleged to have acted suspiciously.
- The FBI admits it has about 3,000 GPS tracking devices on cars of unsuspecting people in the US right now, even after the US Supreme Court decision authorizing these only after a warrant for probable cause has been issued.
The Future
The technology for tracking and identifying people is exploding as is the government appetite for it. Soon, police everywhere will be equipped with handheld devices to collect fingerprint, face, iris and even DNA information on the spot and have it instantly sent to national databases for comparison and storage. Bloomberg News reports the newest surveillance products “can also secretly activate laptop webcams or microphones on mobile devices,” change the contents of written emails mid-transmission, and use voice recognition to scan phone networks. The advanced technology of the war on terrorism, combined with deferential courts and legislators, have endangered both the right to privacy and the right of people to be free from government snooping and tracking. Only the people can stop this.
hamerfan
(1,404 posts)Fairly long article, but very shocking as to what is capable.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)...Unless we do something soon, we might be heading for yet another people's bailout of America's bank.
Occupy Wall Street has decided to fight back. “This bank is not working, and the people should be deciding how to break up this bank, how it should be democratically run, before it gets either another bailout or is bought out by some other bank,” Nelini Stamp, an Occupy Wall Street participant and organizer, told AlterNet.
Big Bad BAC
Bank of America just can't seem to stay ahead of its public relations disasters. Just last week, the news hit that the bank paid its CEO, Brian Moynihan, $7.5 million last year—a year in which the company's stock dropped 58 percent and when it lost claim to its place as the nation's biggest bank (to JP Morgan Chase). That was a sixfold pay increase, in case you were wondering, from the year before. So: your company's stock price plummets, you get sued left, right and center, and you get a giant raise?
But outrage over its CEO's pay is the least of the zombie bank's concerns. More pressing is an impending downgrade (another one) of its credit rating. Right now, Moody's rates B of A as Baa1—but this May, along with other financial giants, it might drop that rating to Baa2—just two steps above junk...
xchrom
(108,903 posts)
Tansy_Gold
(17,868 posts)And I'm happy to be right where I am. The bottlebrush tree is blooming and the hummingbirds are zipping around the red flowers. Bees are buzzing around the mesquites and palo verdes. The bougainvilleas seem to have survived the BF's drastic trimming. The cereus has new arms growing, the hedgehogs are blooming furiously, the polka dot cactus the BF tried to kill last year have both come back defiantly with tons of splendiferous orange blossoms. The fairy dusters are popping red fluffs, the lavender globe mallow is twice the size it was last year, and the chuparosas are absolutely covered with flowers. Not a cloud in the sky.
Pictures maybe later.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)sort of my spiritual home.
Tansy_Gold
(17,868 posts)I keep seeing the news of housing prices falling in Spain and it's all I can do not to look at real estate there. . . .
If I didn't have the dogs and all the stuff, I think I'd be heading there tomorrow.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Barcelona is the place I'd most like...I'm an urban type.
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)
Tansy_Gold
(17,868 posts)Hedgehog cactus. This pic is from a couple years ago; I'll get better ones this afternoon.
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)xchrom
(108,903 posts)After serving time in a Virginia prison following convictions on gun and drug-possession charges, Sean Collins-Harris decided he would fight the odds against his ever returning to white-collar work with the only tool he had: education.
“I refused to believe that I was going to be confined to a blue-collar world,” Collins-Harris, 28, says. “If they didn’t open the door for me, I would open my own. If I had a proper education, and learned how to be an organizational leader, I could start my own company; I could do my own thing.”
Today, Collins-Harris has a master’s degree and works for a property-management company in Virginia Beach. It took a personal crash that landed him inside St. Brides Correctional Center in Chesapeake, Virginia, where he says he buffed floors for 27 cents an hour, for Collins-Harris to understand what so many young American men don’t.
The U.S. workplace is polarizing between the education haves and have-nots, says David Autor, professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. So-called middle-skill jobs, typically well-paying work that doesn’t require extensive higher education, are vanishing, dividing the labor force into high- and low-skill positions. While women are moving up the knowledge ladder, male educational attainment is growing at a slower rate.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)The six largest U.S. lenders, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Wells Fargo & Co., may post an 11 percent drop in first-quarter profit, threatening a rally that has pushed bank stocks 19 percent higher this year.
The banks will post $15.3 billion in net income when adjusted for one-time items, down from $17.3 billion in last year’s first quarter, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts. Trading revenue at the biggest lenders is projected to fall 23 percent to $18.3 billion, according to Morgan Stanley analysts, who didn’t include their firm or Wells Fargo.
You can’t expect bank stocks to go straight to the moon,” said Peter Kovalski, a money manager at Alpine Woods Capital Investors LLC in Purchase, New York, which manages about $5 billion. “You have to expect fundamentals to catch up, and there are some headwinds facing the industry. There is a little too much optimism going into this quarter.”
U.S. lenders, struggling to expand in commercial banking years after the housing collapse, haven’t matched last year’s overall results, even as bond and equity markets strengthened. Making matters worse, loan balances increased less than the economy, bucking a trend in previous recoveries, said Brian Foran, a New York-based analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)(Reuters) - Spain's banks are fast joining the ranks of the most unloved in Europe just as many need to raise capital urgently, deserted by investors who believe the country is on the brink of a recession that many lenders will not survive.
The government has ruled out more state aid for a sector that comprises a motley mix of international lenders and heavily indebted local savings banks. That leaves two options: raising private capital or turning to the EU for bailout funds.
Prospects for a private sector solution are poor. Nothing on the horizon looks likely to persuade foreign fund managers to invest, such is the fear of the banks' growing bad loans, their holdings of shaky sovereign debt and the worsening economy.
Already battered by a property market crash that began four years ago and continues unabated, few Spanish banks are able to borrow funds on wholesale credit markets and the majority are instead relying on the European Central Bank.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Government officials said Greece will call a snap election for May 6th today, launching a campaign that may produce no clear results and risk implementation of the bailout plan that saved Athens from bankruptcy.
The election will be the first since the debt crisis exploded at the end of 2009, dragging the country into its worst economic recession since the second World War, pushing unemployment to record highs and shaking the euro.
The conservative New Democracy and the Socialist Pasok, which back the interim government of technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, have suffered in opinion polls for supporting the bailout plan and may not gather enough votes to rule.
Polls show small parties opposing the steep wage and pension cuts imposed by the EU and the IMF in return for aid are gaining ground and may stop the leading parties from even forming a coalition government.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION declined by 3.6 per cent in February compared to January, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
On an annual basis, production fell by 3.3 per cent from February 2011 to the same month this year.
The seasonally adjusted volume of industrial production from December to February was 3.9 per cent lower than in the preceding three-month period.
The so-called modern sector, which comprises a number of high-tech and chemical sectors, showed a monthly decrease in production of 5.8 per cent in February. During the same month there was a 0.4 per cent increase in the traditional manufacturing sector.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Spain's industrial output shrank for the sixth straight month in February and at the second fastest pace in more than two years, fuelling concerns over its stuttering economy which have prompted debt premiums to jump.
Banks and other private sector creditors are demanding ever higher risk premiums to borrow to Spain as the government struggles to generate growth while implementing deep spending cuts to tame one of the highest public deficits in the euro zone.
Spanish calendar-adjusted industrial output fell 5.1 per cent year-on-year in February, data from the National Statistics Institute showed today, just off forecasts for a 5.0 per cent drop and following a 4.3 per cent drop in January.
"Expecting a turnaround before the second half is unrealistic. It's a cyclical downturn and industrial production is a reflection of that. They're probably going to be seeing recession this year and next," economist at Citi, Guillaume Menuet said.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)The always excellent bank watchdog blog, Naked Capitalism, recently looked into the systemic accounting abuses of Wells Fargo as court proceedings continue to reveal just how severely victims of the mortgage crisis have been affected.
But Wells Fargo’s legal team has done quite a job of hindering the legal process. Common cases in which homeowners were being charged erroneous fees and penalties while making regular payments are being held up every step of the way. One judge who reviewed the case described Wells Fargo’s tactics as “reprehensible,” according to post author, Yves Smith:
Wells Fargo has taken the position that every debtor in the district should be made to challenge, by separate suit, the proofs of claim or motions for relief from the automatic stay it files. It has steadfastly refused to audit its pleadings or proofs of claim for errors and has refused to voluntarily correct any errors that come to light except through threat of litigation. Although its own representatives have admitted that it routinely misapplied payments on loans and improperly charged fees, they have refused to correct past errors. They stubbornly insist on limiting any change in their conduct prospectively, even as they seek to collect on loans in other cases for amounts owed in error.
Wells Fargo’s conduct is clandestine. Rather than provide Jones with a complete history of his debt on an ongoing basis, Wells Fargo simply stopped communicating with Jones once it deemed him in default. At that point in time, fees and costs were assessed against his account and satisfied with postpetition payments intended for other debt without notice. Only through litigation was this practice discovered. Wells Fargo admitted to the same practices for all other loans in bankruptcy or default. As a result, it is unlikely that most debtors will be able to discern problems with their accounts without extensive discovery….
Demeter
(85,373 posts)"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."
Dante, The Inferno
Forbes has been head and shoulders above the rest of the mainstream media in reporting on MF Global. Francine McKenna provides an excellent summation of the entire three part scandal. SEE LINK FOR MCKENNA ARTICLE REPRINTED AT BOTTOM
Part one. There was the conscious transferring of customer assets to meet a margin call by JP Morgan in London in what was intended to be an 'over the weekend' transaction with the funds replaced on Monday. Edith O'Brien is at the center of this, although it is almost inconceivable that she acted alone.
Part two. In part the failure of MF Global was caused by the refusal of certain parties to honor requests for wire transfers of legitimate funds. These parties almost certainly had insider knowledge of MF Global's finances, and may have even had a financial interest in MF Global's failure.
Part three. In hiding funds seized at the last hour from MF Global, and using influence to steer the bankruptcy to Chapter 11 versus the much more appropriate Chapter 7, certain parties, which may include some regulators most likely at the SEC and CFTC, and the hiding of the funds from investigators and the customers, it is quite possible that there was a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
And as in all scandals such as this, it is the obstruction of justice that can become the real giant killer in covering up 'a third rate burglary.'
Obviously neither Francine McKenna or I have all the facts. The way in which the bankruptcy was handled helps to insure that. And of course in the US people have the right to plead the Fifth Amendment, and are 'innocent and proven guilty.' Plausible deniability and the 'CEO defense' are very much en vogue these days, which is ironic because as in the case of Enron, the defense if invoked by exceptionally well-compensated 'professionals' who were being paid for their performance and expertise. Until something goes wrong that is, and then no one knows anything. And this is why corporate America hates Sarbanes-Oxley, because it strikes to the heart of that plausible deniability, and says, 'you should know.'
From my perspective, MF Global is a symptom of what is wrong with the system in addition to being a shocking injustice. It has all the elements of a system gone wrong. White collar criminality, privileged elites, the double standard of law, secretive proceedings, craven media, posturing Congressmen, non-involved Justice Department, seizure of private property, compromised regulators, and a culture of fraud and deceit that serves the monied interests above all else, above oaths and honor. The sign on the entrance to the Anglo-American financial system should read, 'Abandon all hope. ye who enter here.' There will be no sustainable recovery until the banks are restrained and the system is reformed.
I'M INCLINED TO ADVOCATE A GENERAL FIRING SQUAD, AND LET GOD SORT THEM OUT...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)In an earlier article, EU’s selective Lessons from Greece, we saw that EU Parliament’s investigation of the financial crisis (CRIS), and the hearing Lessons from Greece (ECON/7/02578), lacked the resolve to address the Greece/Goldman secret loan that was allegedly improper and exacerbated Greece’s ills. Goldman Sachs’ explanations contained gaping holes, and that was left unchallenged. Perhaps the most striking example of it is the the claim by its spokesman at a 2010 hearing before the EU parliament that he didn’t know of the single most important restructuring of the deal in 2005:
&feature=player_embedded
These superficial initiatives, as pertaining to this particular issue, erode the credibility of the EU parliament. In contrast, the senate panel led by Levin and Coburn produced preliminary investigations of a number of cases in the mortgage crisis that were taken up by the SEC and the DOJ (McClatchy).
It is probably Commissioner Olli Rehn who planted the seed of this unsavory state of affairs. When a Director General for ECFIN says the Goldman/Greece deal is legal, that sets a powerful precedent. But it is flawed in multiple respects. First, his judgment was pronounced with no arguments other than mentioning Greek law at the April 2010 hearing. Second, paradoxically, Eurostat says that it didn’t review most of the evidence on the transactions until September of that year, due to delays by the Greek authorities. Third, Olli Rehn ignored existing allegations of market abuse using special knowledge of Greece’s actual, rather than reported, finances. The thesis-without-basis is blithely disseminated by financial journalists. For example, in May 2010 Martin Wolf declared that the transactions were scandalous but perfectly legal (HuffPo). As an aside, that’s a thorn in the side of a recent comment, in relation to journalists accepting soft dollar from Wall Street, that he is incorruptible because he “writes on the economy rather than on companies or personalities” (NakedCap).
Instead of facing scrutiny, Goldman Sachs was offered a partnership with the EU debt agency (EFSF), as we discuss next. The consequences of the EU’s selective lessons from Greece are starting to emerge....The emergency fund set up by the EU to deal with the government debt crisis is the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). It is funded and guaranteed by the member states of the EU. In spite of the above considerations, it granted Goldman Sachs primary dealer status (press release). Getting a head start in this market may translate into a potentially lasting competitive advantage. Only three other banks were awarded this privilege. To see how lucrative that might turn out to be, EFSF bonds are the precursor of Eurobonds. If it materializes, their market could potentially rival in size US Treasuries. Mario Monti, who as of 2011 sat on the International Advisory Board of Goldman Sachs, is using his clout in the Eurozone to push for Eurobonds (DMN).
Olli Rehn said at the hearing Lessons from Greece in April 2010 that the transactions were “illegitimate” but “legal”. The contradiction in terms illustrates what passes for due process at the EU Commission. Indeed, most of the evidence on the transactions wasn’t examined until September 2010 by Eurostat, and the final report was delivered in November. Parliament sits still throughout. The EU Commission rewards Goldman Sachs with a contract via the newly set up European Financial Stability Facility in 2011.
MUCH MORE AT LINK
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Want to get a taste of what it felt like being on the Titanic, sans the part where it sunk into the ocean? A restaurant in Houston is offering what it calls the Titanic Experience: a 10-course meal comprised of similar dishes served to the ill-fated ship's first class passengers the night they met their demise. Or at least that's what Cullen's, the restaurant, claims. Aside from the food itself, going for the Titanic Experience means you also get to dine at Macy's Table, the exclusive room suspended from the ceiling of the restaurant.
The whole event lasts for four hours, from the wine and beef appetizer to the after dinner cheese. To make the experience even more authentic, guests are given the chance to sample a bottle of Armagnac brandy from the year 1900 by the end of the night. Of course, a fancy dinner served with fancy liquor in a fancy room can't come cheap — the Titanic Experience comes with the sky-high price tag of $12,000. Thankfully, you can bring 11 friends with you, so you can at least split the bill. But when have you last plunked down $1,000 for one dinner?
Cullen's special Titanic package was created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking on April 15. Check out the restaurant's official website for more info if you have $12,000 burning a hole in your pocket.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)
Demeter
(85,373 posts)After working 12-hour days for a month, Tian Yu still had not received her salary card. Totally broke, exhausted and frustrated... she climbed to the fourth floor of her dormitory and jumped.
Unknown to anyone, the 17-year-old changed the world economy forever when she took that desperate leap.
Ms. Yu didn’t die, like she had hoped. But 18-year-old Ma Diangqian did. And so did 16 other Chinese citizens who’ve taken these drastic leaps.
In communist China, suicide is considered a crime against the state. It’s the ultimate form of protest. And Tian, Ma and those 16 other Chinese have made the ultimate sacrifice to protest the low wages and sweatshop-like working conditions.
Together, they’ve incited a small, but growing revolution — one that has already begun to play its part in shifting the investing landscape, not only in China, but right here in America, too....Slowly, but surely, these protests are working. Chinese wages are now on the rise. Just take a look at this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
EMAIL AD FOR DAILY RECKONING
xchrom
(108,903 posts)MONTREAL - The outlook for China's economy, with the government recently forecasting lower growth, has been muddied by conflicting data including, most recently, an unexpected jump in exports and mixed messages earlier this month from manufacturers.
Increased demand in the United States and Europe for Chinese-made goods helped to drive China's trade balance into a surplus in March after two months of deficit, sufficient to produce a US$670 million trade surplus for the first quarter.
The March surplus of $5.35 billion came as exports rose 8.9% from a year earlier to $165.7 billion, beating the 7% consensus expectation. At the same time, China's demand for overseas goods rose only 4.6%, about half the 9% expected, and even then boosted by record grain imports in March.
March exports to the US were the highest so far this year, while exports to Europe for the month were above their January-February average, according to Market News International. For the first quarter, total trade turnover gained 7.3% on the 2011 period to $859.4 billion, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)As the cost of a college education continues to rise, a startup called SoFi is offering a way for alumni to offer students financial assistance and more. Co-founder and CEO Mike Cagney describes the current student loan system as a “classic market failure,” resulting in students who are stuck with high interest rates and heavy debt that they struggle to pay off. He says that if you can remove government from the equation (specifically government loans) and replace it with alumni, then “you create a very virtuous cycle.”
So that’s what SoFi tries to do. The company is creating university-specific funds for alumni to invest in, and those are used to make loans to students. SoFi says it’s offering to cover the full cost of attendance for participants, with loans ranging from $5,000 to $200,000. The loans are 6.24 percent fixed rate, and they can drop to 5.99 percent, lower than federal Stafford and PLUS loans and many private loans. So students get relatively low interest rates, while alumni get a significant financial return.
The benefits aren’t purely monetary. Through its website, SoFi tries to connect the participating alumni and students, for example if someone is looking for mentorship or help with their job search. Cagney notes that the loans create a financial incentive for alumni to pitch in — after all, they want students to do well so they can pay off the loans. On the flip side, he says that some alumni don’t care about making money from the investments at all, and want to use the interest payments to a nonprofit organization that will help the students (something that SoFi is investigating). Of course, alumni donations are already an important source of funding for university programs. Cagney says these loans can be made from tax-deferred accounts like a 401k, so they shouldn’t divert money from traditional alumni giving.
Cagney and his co-founders ran a pilot program at Stanford (where they attended the Graduate School of Business) last fall, raising a $2 million fund from 40 alumni. This fall, SoFi is expanding to 40 locations and hopes to lend out $150 million. As for its own funding, the company has raised $4 million from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, and board members Joe Chen (founder and CEO of RenRen) and Steve Anderson (founder of Baseline Ventures).
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"4TH GHOST. Fallacy somewhere, I fancy!" Ruddigore, Gilbert & Sullivan
Demeter
(85,373 posts)And these were WaPo readers....graphic porn at link
Demeter
(85,373 posts)HERE WE GO AGAIN...SECOND (OR IS IT THIRD) ATTEMPT TO SUCKER THE PUBLIC
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-10/carlyle-said-to-seek-value-of-up-to-8-billion-in-ipo.html
BIG WRITEUP ON WHAT THEY ARE DOING...MIGHT EVEN BE TRUTHFUL, AS FAR AS IT GOES...
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Watch out for the bears and tasmanian devils.
Just a parting thought. If you haven't read Greg Palast's "Vultures Picnic", grab it! I was up with it until 3:00am last night. You'll get a good idea of just how corrupted everything is. It's even worse than we imagined.
He even talks about the few times he locked horns with Economic Hitman, John Perkins in his days as an investigator.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I'm hiding from reality, a bit...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The Department of Justice has sued Apple and five of the largest book publishers, alleging that they colluded to increase the price of ebooks, saying that a change to the industry’s model at the time Apple launched its iPad tablet has cost consumers “tens of millions of dollars”.
Sources close to the publishers said the DoJ was expected to immediately settle with three of the five publishers: Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster.
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/19JYUU/YBI05T/VTVRG/2OW08U/JE0KOK/PJ/t?a1=2012&a2=4&a3=11
Tansy_Gold
(17,868 posts)Last edited Wed Apr 11, 2012, 03:29 PM - Edit history (1)
http://dearauthor.com/argolinkroundups/wednesday-links-doj-sues-apple-macmillan-and-possibly-others/comment-page-1/#comment-367165Just so the SMWers are aware: I absolutely hate, loathe, and despise capital-P Publishers. Every last fucking one of 'em. They're nothing but corporate ghouls and parasites.
(Edited to revise subject line to reflect that Apple isn't the sole target).
AnneD
(15,774 posts)the same way musicians hate, loathe, and despise record companies.