STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 3 May 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 3 May 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 2 May 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 2 May 2012
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Dow Jones 13,268.57 -10.75 (-0.08%)
S&P 500 1,402.31 -3.51 (-0.25%)
[font color=green]Nasdaq 3,059.85 +9.41 (0.31%)


[font color=red]10 Year 1.93% +0.02 (1.05%)
30 Year 3.11% +0.01 (0.32%) [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
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[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]

[Fuddnik]

1. That was quick!

I'm still working on today.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. I was kinda bummed because. . . .

I couldn't post the 'toon I really wanted to. Don't worry, it's going to be posted by someone else and you'll really love it.

But I was still bummed, and I knew I had to find something. And there was this one, and it brought more than a little tear to my eye.

Hope you all approve; I expect most of you have been there at one time or another, for one reason or another or maybe more than one.

[Fuddnik]

3. As a kid who had really red hair when I was young,

I have an inkling.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. My son at age 4

He's now 34, has been shaving his head since early 20s.

[Demeter]

6. But it's gorgeous!

Not at all like Rupert Grint. He should let it grow.

[DemReadingDU]

10. My son has red hair too! n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

13. Oh, and he's left-handed, too.

Has been since the day he was born. Six hours old and he was already reaching out with the left hand. I told everyone he was going to be left handed and they told me I was crazy, said it wasn't possible to tell that early. Well, he's absolutely 100% left handed.

[DemReadingDU]

39. my son is left-handed too!

I didn't really know for sure until he was around 4 (i think). He was unable to cut with scissors. So I bought some scissors for left-handers, and he was able to cut with them.

[Demeter]

67. Some of the best people are left-handed

Like me and the Younger Kid.

It was a nightmare...trying to teach her sister right-handed, and then left-handed with the younger, and by the time they could do it, I couldn't remember how to hold a pencil, let alone write, with either hand.

[Demeter]

5. The Renegade Economist Speaks with Ann Pettifor

&feature=player_embedded

[Demeter]

7. Wells Fargo doubles down on housing by Christopher Whalen

http://www.housingwire.com/news/wells-fargo-doubles-down-housing

At the start of the financial crisis in 2007, the top four retail banks — Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were printing money by turning residential mortgages into securities of various toxic flavors and selling them to investors. In many cases, these securities were deliberately fraudulent, part of a breakdown in the legal protections against such activities put in place during the Great Depression.

Wind the clock forward to 2012 and three of these four behemoths have largely withdrawn from the secondary market for home loans, especially loans purchased from other banks. Weighed down by litigation and other concerns, Bank America, Citi and JPMorgan have been withdrawing from most aspects of the market for real estate finance other than writing new business for their own portfolios and then only profitable business.

But the last of the four banks, Wells Fargo, has thrown caution to the wind and is aggressively writing new business in both residential and commercial real estate loans. The $1.3 trillion asset lender is now the dominant player in the secondary market for mortgage loans and has actually managed to grow its market share and assets when other large banks are shrinking their books.

In New York City, for example, the backyard of JPMorgan and Citigroup, Wells has become the leading lender to commercial property developers. One of the oldest and most respected players in the New York commercial real estate community tells HousingWire that Wells is writing business that is at least half a point lower in cost than loans available from other banks and with far easier terms. In residential, Wells Fargo enjoys a market share above 25% and continues to grow and grow. This hyper-aggressive stance is not hard to explain. Unlike the other zombie banks, Wells does not have a significant securities or capital markets business to fall back on, not that these markets are doing particularly well at present. The only significant business line that Wells can use to support its earnings and balance sheet is real estate lending. Thus the quality of the bank’s future earnings are largely a function of whether the U.S. real estate market starts to recover in earnest....MORE

[Demeter]

42. Wells Fargo’s Market Share of U.S. Mortgages Tops 33%

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/wells-fargo-s-market-share-of-u-s-mortgages-tops-33-.html

[areyanstalin]

76. Spam deleted by cbayer (MIR Team)

[Fuddnik]

8. Extremely rich asshole (Bain Capital) says income inequality is good!

Former Bain honcho says economic inequality is OK

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/02/11504858-former-bain-honcho-says-economic-inequality-is-ok?lite


By Eve Tahmincioglu

Maybe economic inequality isn’t such a bad thing after all.

At least that’s what a new book written by a rich, former Bain Capital managing director espouses. Even though the economic manifesto about how the 1 percent benefits the 99 percent hasn’t hit bookstores yet, it’s already getting heat from the 99-percent crowd and beyond.

“Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong,” by Edward Conard, 51, comes out next week. According to his publicist the book offers: “A contrarian analysis of the recent economic crisis by a close associate of Mitt Romney. (It) promises to be one of the year's most talked-about books on the subject.”

Indeed, social media is already lighting up over the book, prompted mainly by an article in the New York Times Magazine, published online Tuesday, titled: “The Purpose of Spectacular Wealth, According to a Spectacularly Wealthy Guy.”

The writer of the magazine piece, Adam Davidson, founder of NPR’s Planet Money blog and podcast, surmised: “This could be the most hated book of the year.”

(snip) Some breath taking stupidity at the link,

[Demeter]

14. Good for him, I'm sure

until comes the revolution....

[Hugin]

25. The Calvinists thought so too...

They also thought most of the things in Today's toon. It's really surprising how little conservative thought has changed in a few thousand years.

[Fuddnik]

9. Grand plan to save Europe unraveling. Break out Tansy's stamp!

By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/02/11503464-grand-plan-to-save-europe-is-unraveling?lite

Europe's two-year-old strategy of austerity isn't working. And there is no Plan B.

The latest evidence that government spending cuts are driving the eurozone deeper into recession came Wednesday with a report on soaring unemployment in the zone's weaker economies.

Overall unemployment hit a 15-year high of 10.9 percent in March, driven by layoffs in Italy and Spain, a tenth of a point higher than in February, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office. That level of joblessness hasn't been seen since 1997, before the euro was introduced to world financial markets.

The average rate masks painfully high levels of unemployment in the hardest-hit countries. In Spain, which sank back into recession in the first quarter, the unemployment rate hit 24.1 percent in March, a level not seen in eurozone data stretching back to 1986. In Greece, more than one in five are out of work. In both countries, half of those under 25 are out of a job.

With deep government spending cuts only beginning, economists believe the jobless rate in Europe is headed higher.

"It now looks odds-on that the eurozone unemployment rate will move appreciably above 11.0 percent over the coming months with an ever-growing danger that it will reach 11.5 percent," said Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight.

The recession has also begun to take a toll on Germany, the flywheel of Europe's economy and the driving force in the austerity measures imposed on debt-burdened countries with the weakest economies.

(snip)

[Demeter]

15. Because Plan B is what they should have done in the first place

shut down the banksters and break off the euro.

[TalkingDog]

11. Being mass produced as we speak.

Thanks for recommending that I post this here Tansy. Very appropriate.

[Tansy_Gold]

12. The bottom one appears to be. . .

DIS. .. but look closer. It's really something else.

And check out the last three digits of the Visa card number.




And even with the rofl, I don't want to see it come to this, not really. I just fear that this is the road we're heading down.

[Demeter]

16. Ah, you're too nice, you pussycat, you

I'm ready. I'm more than ready.

[Tansy_Gold]

23. No, I'm not nice.

For cryin' out loud, haven't you been reading the PMs I've been sending you? I. AM. NOT. NICE. !!

No, seriously, it's not whether I'm a nice person or not, it's just that I know how many innocents get caught up in this shit. I just saw a sig line somewhere that had a quote to the effect that "If you have to do evil to get rid of evil, something is very wrong."

I have no qualms about seeing the likes of Lloyd Blankfein, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Jamie Dimon, Mittens (AND ANN!) Romney reduced to abject poverty, or imprisoned. But I don't want to see a bloody revolution. I really don't.

[Demeter]

26. A Revolution isn't necessarily evil

But it's usually necessary.

[Tansy_Gold]

50. Revolution? Yes!

Bloody revolution? Not so much.

[DemReadingDU]

48. I read the numbers backwards, because of the 3 digits

and I read 'o2h'

and I'm thinking...water? but that would be H2O.

Then I realized I not only was reading backwards, but upside down!

[Tansy_Gold]

53. I'm trying to figure out

the name on the bottom card. "CAIN MOTTER"????

[DemReadingDU]

58. That's what I see too

I even got a magnifying glass to get a closer look at the letters.

[girl gone mad]

68. He's the artist who created the piece (guillotine)..

http://www.facebook.com/CainsCreditCardHell

ETA: another one of his I like:

[DemReadingDU]

74. Thank you for the artist's name

[Demeter]

17. ‘The Scream’ sets record with $119.9m sale

An 1895 version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” has sold for almost $120m, breaking the record for an artwork sold at auction, the $106m paid in 2010 for Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” in 2010.

Over almost 10 tense minutes in a packed auction room at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday evening, bidding was dominated by two telephone bidders. The hammer came down at $107m, on top of which a bidder’s premium brought the aggregate price to $119.9m. The identity of the buyer was not immediately known.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/LVA6WW/MSA74N/204L2/VLAUZ8/7AU6Y9/ZH/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=2

[Demeter]

18. Ability-to-Repay Rule for Mortgages Nears CFPB Approval

ISN'T THAT LIKE TRYING TO BRING BACK THE 50'S?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-01/ability-to-repay-rule-for-mortgages-nears-cfpb-approval.html

Richard Cordray wants lenders to adhere to the most basic tenet of banking: making sure borrowers can repay. Getting them to agree on how is proving tougher. The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is aiming to discourage lenders from making home loans with risky features and outlining steps they must take to verify borrowers’ finances, as part of the “qualified mortgage” or QM regulation. Banks that follow the guidelines will gain legal protection against borrower defaults.

“Here’s what should be the least surprising lending advice you’ve ever heard: If you are going to lend money, you should probably care about getting paid back,” Raj Date, the agency’s deputy director, said in a speech April 20 in Los Angeles.

The rule, which may be released as soon as next month, is dividing the banking industry with the largest mortgage firms such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. siding with some consumer groups that the provision should allow certain lawsuits. Trade groups whose members include smaller lenders are holding out for a version that would protect bankers entirely from being sued, arguing that without the provision, home loans will be costlier and harder to obtain....MORE

[Demeter]

19. The Tinder-Box Society By Robert Reich

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8857-the-tinder-box-society

...Payrolls used to account for almost 70 percent of the typical company’s costs. But one of the most striking legacies of the Great Recession has been the decline of full-time employment – as companies have substituted software or outsourced jobs abroad (courtesy of the Internet, making outsourcing more efficient than ever), or shifted them to contract workers also linked via Internet and software. That’s why most of the gains from the productivity revolution are going to the owners of capital, while typical workers are either unemployed or underemployed, or else getting wages and benefits whose real value continues to drop. The portion of total income going to capital rather than labor is the highest since the 1920s.

Increasingly, the world belongs to those collecting capital gains. They’re the ones who demanded and got massive tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, on the false promise that the gains would “trickle down” to everyone else in the form of more jobs and better wages. They’re now advocating austerity economics, on the false basis that cuts in public spending – including education, infrastructure, and safety nets – will generate more “confidence” and “certainty” among lenders and investors, and also lead to more jobs and better wages.

None of this is sustainable, economically or socially. It’s not sustainable economically because it has resulted in chronically inadequate demand for goods and services. That’s meant anemic growth punctuated by recessions. Without a larger share of the economic gains, the vast middle class doesn’t have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services an ever-more productive economy can generate. It’s not sustainable socially because it has resulted in rising frustration over the inability of most people to get ahead. Austerity economics in Europe is fanning the flames, as public budgets are slashed on the false crucible of fiscal responsibility. In the United States, an anemic recovery and plunging home prices are taking a toll: a large portion of the public believes the game is rigged, and no longer trusts that the major institutions of society – big business, Wall Street, or government – are on their side. In Europe and America, 30 to 50 percent of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. Inequality is also widening in China, where the scandal surrounding Bo Xilai and his family is serving as a public morality tale about great wealth and official corruption. Students in Chile are in revolt over soaring tuition and other perceived social injustices.

It’s a combustible concoction wherever it occurs: Increasing productivity, widening inequality, and rising unemployment create tinder-box societies. Public anger and frustration can ignite in two very different ways. One is toward reforms that more broadly share the productivity gains. The other is toward demagogues that turn people against one another. Demagogues use fear and frustration to advance themselves and their own narrow political agendas – scapegoating immigrants, foreigners, ethnic minorities, labor unions, government workers, the poor, the rich, and “enemies within” such as communists, terrorists, or other conspirators. Be warned. The demagogues already are on the loose. In Europe, fringe parties on the right and left are gaining ground. In America, politics has turned especially caustic and polarized. (The right is even accusing people it doesn’t like of being communists.) No one knows where China is heading, but reformers and ideologues are battling some of it out in public...

[Demeter]

20. The Current Business Paradigm Is Toxic to Business and Society. Here's How We Change It

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8858-from-current-business-paradigm-to-second-renaissance

The current business paradigm can be summed up in its four flawed principles:

• The business of business is business

• A business exists to maximize value for its shareholders

• Short-term profits are maximized even at the expense of a company's long-term financial health

• Compliance can be equated with business ethics

A better system of ethics, meaning a system more productive and therefore more conducive to making profits, is one based on what one believes one "ought" to do based upon one's heightened sense of a moral compass.

The question for corporate executives is not, "What can we get away with?" The question must be, "Given our power in society, what ought we to do to solve these enormous challenges consistent with our ongoing requirement to accumulate appropriate levels of surplus called 'profits' as we do it?" Failing to do what we ought to do, whether or not it is required by a statute or government regulation, should be seen as an ethical failure; such a failure by any company is a predictor that its profits ultimately will decline.

The only social aspects that the current system can value, capture and measure are those that can be immediately quantified in transitory monetary terms (i.e., reflected as positive on the quarter-to-quarterprofit statement). Businesses, being the most dynamic and powerful economic engines, must also be evaluated in their contributions to the societies and communities in which they operate. There simply is no choice but to look at the bigger picture since failure to do so would be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic rather than addressing the crisis that is at hand.

The current system in the Western industrialized societies can measure economic contributions, but fails miserably in accounting for the damage and cost to society of the so-called "externalities" that are ignored when profits are made by destroying the public commons without taking into account the cost to society of that destruction in computing the true "profit" earned...

[Demeter]

21. 40 Years Of Workers Left Behind

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/40-years-of-workers-left-behind-chart.php

[tclambert]

31. Objection! #2 should read: A business exists to maximize compensation of its executives.

Shareholders routinely get robbed these last few decades. Major shareholders used to fill most of the seats on the board of directors. Now, CEOs and CFOs from other corporations form incestuous boards who take care of each other before considering shareholders.

And #4, about compliance--they've created two loopholes in that one. First, if the penalty for non-compliance costs less than the savings or profit from breaking the law, they not only will knowingly violate the law, they feel obligated to violate it. And second, you can always buy some new laws to make your former crimes legal. Elizabeth Warren said they now spend more money on lobbyists than on paying taxes. (It's a matter of what gives you a better return on investment.)

[Demeter]

22. Yes, you can become a millionaire farmer (Best job of 21st century)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yes-you-can-become-a-millionaire-farmer-2012-05-03?siteid=YAHOOB

“‘If you want to become rich,” Jim Rogers, investment whiz, best-selling author and one of Wall Street’s towering personalities, has this advice: Become a farmer.”

That was in Time magazine last summer. So did you make the leap? Listen to Rogers? Leave Wall Street? Leave that stuffy ol’ bank? Get on the road to becoming a millionaire farmer? Still thinking? OK, let’s examine four possible ways you could get into farming this year:

You could buy some natural resources and commodities mutual funds

You can get into a hedge fund, trust, partnership or private equity firm investing in farmland

You might actually bite the proverbial bullet, buy a working farm and live off the land or

You can have your cake and eat it too, like Michael Murphy who publishes the highly-successful New World Investor biotech newsletter and also operates a unique permaculture farm.

There’s an even bigger reason for abandoning the financial world for farming. “We don’t need more bankers. What we need are more farmers,” says Rogers. “The invisible hand will do its magic.”

In short, farming’s not just another great way to get rich. There’s a higher calling in it, a mix of money, enjoying life, fulfilling your destiny, and a dose of altruism: “The world has a serious food problem,” says Rogers in Steve Gandel’s exciting Time article. And “the only real way to solve it is to draw more people back to agriculture.”

[Demeter]

24. How to Invest With a Declining US Dollar By Bill Bonner

Jekyll Island. You know Jekyll Island, don’t you? It’s where the monster was created…

A group of the nation’s richest, biggest, and most powerful bankers got together there — in secret — in November, 1910. They figured it was time to put in place a system that would make it a little easier for them to make money. Instead of competing head to head, without any backstop to protect them when things got rough, they decided to set up a central bank.

The meeting was so cloaked in secrecy few believed it ever took place. Implausibly, it was first reported by the poet Ezra Pound. How Pound learned of it…and why he reported it…we don’t know. But that’s the word on the street.

B. C. Forbes reported in 1916:

Picture a party of the nation’s greatest bankers stealing out of New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness, stealthily riding hundreds of miles South, embarking on a mysterious launch, sneaking onto an island deserted by all but a few servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the names of not one of them was once mentioned, lest the servants learn the identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret expedition in the history of American finance. I am not romancing; I am giving to the world, for the first time, the real story of how the famous Aldrich currency report, the foundation of our new currency system, was written… The utmost secrecy was enjoined upon all. The public must not glean a hint of what was to be done. Senator Aldrich notified each one to go quietly into a private car of which the railroad had received orders to draw up on an unfrequented platform. Off the party set. New York’s ubiquitous reporters had been foiled… Nelson (Aldrich) had confided to Henry, Frank, Paul and Piatt that he was to keep them locked up at Jekyll Island, out of the rest of the world, until they had evolved and compiled a scientific currency system for the United States, the real birth of the present Federal Reserve System, the plan done on Jekyll Island in the conference with Paul, Frank and Henry… Warburg is the link that binds the Aldrich system and the present system together. He more than any one man has made the system possible as a working reality.

And now it’s official. Ben Bernanke went there to give a speech in 2010, marking the 100th year of the meeting.

The role of the Fed…apart from greasing the skids for rich bankers…was supposed to be to protect the value of the dollar. Why the dollar needed protection was never explained. For the previous 100 years, it had been solid enough — except for during the War Between the States, when Lincoln printed up far too many of them in order to pay for his attack on the South. But Lincoln’s paper dollars came and went. And on the day the Fed was officially set up, in 1913, the dollar was still worth about as much as it had been when Napoleon Bonaparte set off for Russia.

Whatever the Fed was supposed do to, what it did not do was protect the greenback. Instead, the dollar slipped and slid throughout the 20th century and is now worth only about 3 cents...

Read more: How to Invest With a Declining US Dollar http://dailyreckoning.com/how-to-invest-with-a-declining-us-dollar/#ixzz1tmVWSzTu

[Demeter]

27. How to Buy Happiness Yes, this TED talk tells you how. VIDEO AT LINK

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/how-to-buy-happiness.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

[Demeter]

28. Reprehensible Behavior a Cornerstone of its Business Model

http://www.financialarmageddon.com/2012/04/reprehensible-behavior-a-cornerstone-of-its-business-model.html

Although I (and many others) have long been critics of Wall Street's incredibly sleazy, recklessly psychopathic, and relentlessly self-destructive underbelly, there is another corner of the financial services industry that seems to have made reprehensible behavior a cornerstone of its business model.

As the New York Times reports in, "Insurers Alter Cost Formula, and Patients Pay More," the insurance industry seems intent on making Congress look like a bastion of honesty and ethical behavior.

Despite a landmark settlement that was expected to increase coverage for out-of-network care, the nation’s largest health insurers have been switching to a new payment method that in most cases significantly increases the cost to the patient.

The settlement, reached in 2009, followed New York State’s accusation that the companies manipulated data they used to price such care, shortchanging the nation’s patients by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The agreement required the companies to finance an objective database of doctors’ fees that patients and insurers nationally could rely on. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, then the attorney general, said it would increase reimbursements by as much as 28 percent.

It has not turned out that way. Though the settlement required the companies to underwrite the new database with $95 million, it did not obligate them to use it. So by the time the database was finally up and running last year, the same companies, across the country, were rapidly shifting to another calculation method, based on Medicare rates, that usually reduces reimbursement substantially.

“It’s deplorable,” said Chad Glaser, a sales manager for a seafood company near Buffalo, who learned that he was facing hundreds of dollars more in out-of-pocket costs for his son’s checkups with a specialist who had performed a lifesaving liver transplant. “I could get balance-billed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I have no protection.”

That's not the end of it, of course. In fact, all it takes is about 10 minutes of Googling to come up with plenty of other stories about an industry that apparently feels really good about doing bad:

"MetLife Settles Suit Over Missed Beneficiary Payments"

"Insurers Probed by New York Over Force-Placed Coverage"

"Hartford in $24 Mln NY Insurance Settlement"

"Will Farmers Insurance Settlement Turn into a Good Deal For Customers?"

"A Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Wells Fargo Partnered With Insurers To Rip Off Homeowners"

"ANALYSIS: Health Insurers Try To Fool Congress With Fuzzy Math"

"Adjusters: Insurance Companies Preventing Policy Payouts"

"Insurance Company Ordered to Pay $34 Million For Kicking 90-Year-Old Arlene Hull Off Plan"

"As Weather Gets Biblical, Insurers Go Missing"

"Insurance Company Sued By Sewage Plant Owners: Binghamton, Johnson City Say Company Improperly Withheld Payment"

"Aetna Rate Hike Is Deemed 'Excessive' By California Regulator"

"Maryland Law Would Ban Insurers From Requiring Consumers ‘Bundle’"

"Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Citizens Property Insurance Corp."

"MetLife Must Defend Lawsuit Over Retained Asset Checkbook"

LINKS TO ARTICLES AT ORIGINAL LINK, IF YOU WANT DETAILS

[Demeter]

29. TSA officers charged in drug smuggling conspiracy

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0425/TSA-officers-charged-in-drug-smuggling-conspiracy

The screeners were accepting large cash payments to look the other way as drug couriers smuggled cocaine through security at LAX....


WELL, WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WOULD SIGN UP FOR A JOB LIKE THAT, ANYWAY? YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. AND THEY AREN'T PAYING MUCH.

[Demeter]

30. For Obama, A Kinder, Gentler Netroots Nation In 2012

THIS IS A FASCINATING...REALLY DISTURBING ARTICLE

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/for-obama-a-kinder-gentler-netroots-nation-in-2012.php

The Professional Left is ready to play nice.

This June, progressive activists will gather once again for their annual convention, Netroots Nation. Born from the DailyKos community, the conference is a premier event on the liberal calendar, and a good way to take the temperature of the progressive community. And this year, it’s feeling pretty darn good, Netroots organizers said Monday. President Obama is no longer persona non grata, and the left is ready to build on what it sees as a very successful past 12 months.

Last year, the left was angry. At their conference in Minneapolis last year, the anger of thousands of progressives who were spitting mad at President Obama was palpable. They dragged White House Communications Director Dan Pfieffer on stage for a well-attended drubbing that included boos.

This was a Netroots still smarting from then-Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ “professional left” crack, which left progressives feeling (at best) unloved by the Obama White House. They returned that sentiment in spades to Team Obama in 2011. At a panel called “What To Do When The President Is Just Not That Into You,” LGBT activist Dan Choi actually ripped up an Obama flyer on camera and chastised the Obama volunteer who dared present it to him.

There is no such panel evident on the Netroots schedule for 2012. At this year’s conference in Providence, R.I., the bitterness will be tempered, organizers say....This not to say the progressives are lying down. Indeed, Brooks and Rickles pointed to a string of progressive victories over the past year from the Obama administration decision — including cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline, increased recognition for LGBT families in federal benefits and the successful pressure campaign on ALEC — as examples of how the left has broken through in the past year. The next Netroots will be focused on building on those victories as well as expanding the Netroots base to include activists focused on areas like criminal justice by tapping into the outrage over the Trayvon Martin shooting.

“With progressives there will always be frustrations, that’s the nature of the beast,” Rickles said. “But there are a lot of things to look at as wins and as things done right.”

TIME TO OCCUPY THE PROFESSIONAL LEFT

[Demeter]

32. If Japan Is Broke, How Is It Bailing Out Europe?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2012/04/23/will-the-real-japan-please-stand-up-2/

...as the International Monetary Fund wound down its semi-annual meeting in Washington yesterday, the Japanese government emerged as by far the largest single non-eurozone contributor to the latest euro rescue effort. Yes, this is the same government that has been going round pretending to be bankrupt (or at least offering no serious rebuttal when benighted American and British commentators portray Japanese public finances as a trainwreck).

Japan is putting up $60 billion. That is equal to 14 percent of the total of $430 billion in pledges drummed up by the IMF’s overworked managing director Christine Lagarde. By comparison the United Kingdom with almost half of Japan’s population is throwing in a mere $15 billion, or one-quarter as much. And the U.K. actually looks generous by comparison with the United States and Canada, neither of which is prepared to proffer so much as a single brass cent. Besides Japan, the most significant contributors are Saudi Arabia and South Korea. This is not the first time that Japan has stepped up to the plate as lender of last resort to the world financial system. At the height of the global panic in 2009, the Tokyo Ministry of Finance more or less single-handedly rescued this system when it injected $100 billion into the IMF. How can a nation whose government is supposedly the most overborrowed in the advanced world afford such generosity? To say the least there seems to be a paradox here — but then paradoxes have always been a dime a dozen in the West’s understanding of the Japanese government.

The betting is that Japan’s true public finances are far stronger than the Western press has been led to believe. What is undeniable is that the Japanese Ministry of Finance is one of the most opaque in the world — and rarely speaks fully frankly to the Japanese press, let alone the foreign press. Opaqueness is a big help in batting off domestic interest groups pressing for handouts. It also helps in politely waving away third world nations seeking overseas development aid.

One technique for keeping outsiders at sixes and sevens is that the Japanese budget is announced every year on Christmas Day. That is, of course, the one day of the year when virtually all senior foreign correspondents can be guaranteed to be otherwise engaged. Let’s be frank: outsiders have little or no ability to delve into Japan’s true government finances. Indeed many commentators who have been particularly outspoken in promoting the story of the Japanese government’s supposed bankruptcy cannot even read the Japanese language. It is also questionable whether they can read a balance sheet...

I DON'T BUY THIS ARGUMENT FOR TWO REASONS:

1) GOVERNMENTS AREN'T OPAQUE JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT. THAT'S A POLICY DECISION TO HIDE SOMETHING THAT WOULD RAISE OBJECTIONS IF GENERALLY KNOWN

2)FUKUSHIMA

[Demeter]

33. Growth will save us? You bet!

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/04/growth-will-save-us-you-bet/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=growth-will-save-us-you-bet

There are so many reasons for believing that the European ‘recovery’ plan is not working now and will continue to not work no matter how long we are forced to subsidize it. Today we can add one more reason – Mr Francois Hollande is now the favourite to beat Mr Sarkozy and become France’s next President. For the financial class who rely on endless public bailing of the banks, and whose chosen political agenda is to cut the State, the very prospect that Mr Hollande might replace Mr Sarkozy is enough for all the European markets to head straight down. Germany and Spain are both down over 2.7%. Why should this be so? Because Mr Hollande has made it clear he will ‘renegotiate’ France’s role in Europe’s various bail out plans. Any such renegotiation would leave Europe’s bail-out fund fiction in tatters. What then for the financial elite and their insolvent private banks?

Mr Hollande evidently does not believe the pious fiction that underpins almost the whole European and in fact global fiction of recovery, namely that there is now, or will be soon – quite soon, fairly soon, just over the next hill… some growth. Growth is what is supposed to allow Greece to become solvent, allow Spain to cope with the bursting of the dam of regional debt that is presently engulfing its banks and forcing its CDS rates to unsustainable levels. Mr Hollande is the first but will not be the last to say that the growth plan is not working. The Dutch Parliament yesterday collapsed because they too could not agree to go along with the fiction. We do not have growth. What we have are cuts in public spending while we have increases in public funds being siphoned away to pay for more and yet more bank bail outs. Just a quick look at what we can expect in Spain is enough to clear away the fog of lies. I and others have said for well over a year that Spain had been hiding debts in its regions. This turns out to have been true. A recent report by Carmel Asset Management paints a very ugly picture. When you add in regional debts the total debt load in Spain rises from the official 60% of GDP to 90%. This comes ON TOP of the fact that all of Spain’s austerity cuts of last year did not reduce Spain’s’ debts not by even one single euro. They are worse off now than they were, with higher unemployment and borrowing costs shooting up.

According to the Carmel study, with which I agree [EDIT - Please see Joe R's comment at 1.33pm for a health warning on some aspects of this report. I am mainly concerned with what is has to say about hidden debts but I think Joe's points are important], Spain’s banks are STILL wildly underestimating the losses they are holding and more losses to come on their huge loans to property developers and owners. Further losses on these ‘assets’ will mean yet more bad debts piling up in the banks. Those debts will be taken on by the National government and this will further corrode Spain’s ability to finance the debts it already has. In 2012 alone Spain will have to refinance existing debts of €186 billion. And the rate of interest it will have to pay on all that debt is above what it currently pays. Spain is sinking.

The problem (one of them at least) is that while our leaders are banking on growth to save us, the banks are not. They are banking instead, on fear. Our leaders keep thinking if they ‘save’ the banks then the banks will help save us by investing in growth. They fail to understand that ‘invest’ is really not something high up on the global bank’s ‘to do’ list. I spoke at length recently to bankers in The City who deal in investing in raising money for Small and Medium businesses. They were unequivocal – it is getting harder not easier to raise money for such investment. The big banks and big funds are looking for short term speculative returns not slow investment returns. When you have large and growing losses from bad debts you cannot and will not recoup and recover on the basis of wise but slow investment returns. The worse your previous debt mountain is, the greater the pressure to pursue exactly the sort of high-risk speculation that got you in trouble in the first place. If it is a choice between investing in Spanish factories or buying Spanish debt or selling CDS on that debt, the ‘smart’ bonus seeking money goes for the latter every time...So it turns out there is growth in Europe after all - its growth in counterparty risk.

MORE ON US BANKS AND UNSUSTAINABLE CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS...

[Demeter]

34. Dow Corn, Resistant to a Weed Killer, Runs Into Opposition (AGENT ORANGE CORN)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/business/energy-environment/dow-weed-killer-runs-into-opposition.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1335420011-rlZp9QMepPaukpOYxpLq2Q

FOLLOWING THE MONSANTO MODEL...

[Demeter]

35. Carlyle drops public offering price

Weak investor appetite for private equity stock has led to a lukewarm response to the proposed initial public offering for Carlyle

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/J0VG55/L92784/XBAN6/DWF5NR/L9AK22/KI/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=3

ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID, NEVER THE BRIDE

[Demeter]

36. Pro-gay stance cost Goldman, says Blankfein

Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein tells gay activists the company lost at least one client because of its stance in favour of same-sex marriage

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/J0VG55/L92784/XBAN6/DWF5NR/16JLSH/KI/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=3

WOW! WHAT A DISASTER!

HOW MANY DID THEY LOSE WHEN THE "I QUIT, YOU BASTARDS" LETTER WENT PUBLIC?

[Demeter]

37. Spanish youth urged to seek work abroad

Joblessness has spread to the country’s most educated youth, cementing fears of a ‘lost generation’ blighted for decades to come

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/19JYUU/EXGOZM/NRHD3/979ASJ/PF5EMN/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=3

OKAY, UM....WHERE?

LATIN AMERICA IS THE BEST PLACE, I SUPPOSE...IF THE NATIVES DON'T KILL YOU FIRST.

[Demeter]

38. Concern for Greek reforms ahead of poll

Even conservative loyalists are concerned they may win insufficient votes to form a stable coalition and keep economic reforms on track

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/19JYUU/EXGOZM/NRHD3/979ASJ/AMTCLX/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=3

[Demeter]

40. How to Muddy Your Tracks on the Internet By KATE MURPH MUST READ!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/technology/personaltech/how-to-muddy-your-tracks-on-the-internet.html?_r=1&src=dayp

I'M BOOKMARKING THIS ONE!

[AnneD]

61. Excellent.....

a great bookmark.

[xchrom]

41. ok -- so april was cool{turn the heat on even} may is...

[kickysnana]

57. It's raining cats and dogs, warm and humid here but it is clear behind it.

Waiting for deliveries and my first call of the day was a distant relative who was asking if I had gotten pregnant in 1999.

Farmers and forests need the rain. But if I were queen of the world I would order rain only overnight.

[xchrom]

59. you can be Queen of HALF the world.

cause i am Queen of the New York, London and Paris part.

[Fuddnik]

64. Now give me back my beer!

[hamerfan]

62. Love the pic!

Thanks for sharing, x.

[xchrom]

43. Are Europe's banks starting to resemble Japan's?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/blog/2012/may/03/european-banks-japan

Japan's economic collapse twenty years ago caused chaos in the banking system. Analysts at the investment banking arm of Barclays are now pointing to similarities between the fate of European economies and their banks.

While the analysts point to differences - Europe's banks are more profitable and not trying to hide their losses in the way Japan's banks did during the 1990s crisis - they also see similarities emerging, in part because of the European Central Bank's long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) which is throwing liquidity at the banks.

Their theory is that European banks will start to hold more sovereign bonds as a result of the LTRO, which happened in Japan post-crisis where banks went from holding 6% of their balance sheets in government debt to more than a quarter now. This has reduced Japan's private sector credit from 60% of banks' balance sheets to 42% now. Europe's banking sector has 57% of its balance sheet in private sector loans and 4% in government debt at the moment.

But they also reckon that the "clearest evidence" of what they call "Japan-isation" of the banks is the way shares are trading on the stock market.

They write:

Both banking systems reached c20% of their respective stock markets, and six years from peak, both halved to around c10%. Worryingly, Japan's banks then went on decline a further 40% over the next half decade.


The "distinguishing feature" of the Japanese crisis was the way banks kept their bad debts low by lending more to troubled borrowers, the Barclays analysts said.

[Demeter]

44. Morgan Stanley Banker Charged With Hate Crime Waives Right to Jury Trial

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/05/01/morgan-stanley-banker-charged-with-hate-crime-waives-right-to-jury-trial/

[Demeter]

45. It's another busy day

Last edited Thu May 3, 2012, 03:36 PM - Edit history (1)

I've got a lot to do so I can disappear for a day and a half...be seeing you, but I don't know when. Stay cool!

[xchrom]

47. bye miss demeter!

[Fuddnik]

52. Yep, gotta go out and buy some tequila and such.

Saturday is Stinko de Rosco or Cinco de Mayo or something. Anyway, I think it's a federal law that you have to drink margaritas that day. And I've got a couple of days of yard work to get in before then It's supposed to be 90 degrees today, so I'd better hit it, like NOW.

[Hotler]

70. mmmmmmmm! Tequila. One of the few pleasures I have left...

in life. The corporation where I work stripped me of everything else. I'm surprised they haven't taken away my health insurance because I ride motorcycles. I know, bitch, bitch, bitch......

[xchrom]

46. The scourge of our wealth divide {uk}

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/02/scourge-wealth-divide

The annual Sunday Times Rich List yields four very important conclusions for the governance of Britain (Report, Weekend, 28 April). It shows that the richest 1,000 persons, just 0.003% of the adult population, increased their wealth over the last three years by £155bn. That is enough for themselves alone to pay off the entire current UK budget deficit and still leave them with £30bn to spare.

Second, this mega-rich elite, containing many of the bankers and hedge fund and private equity operators who caused the financial crash in the first place, have not been made subject to any tax payback whatever commensurate to their gains. Some 77% of the budget deficit is being recouped by public expenditure cuts and benefit cuts, and only 23% is being repaid by tax increases. More than half of the tax increases is accounted for by the VAT rise which hits the poorest hardest. None of the tax increases is specifically aimed at the super-rich.

Third, despite the biggest slump for nearly a century, these 1,000 richest are now sitting on wealth greater even than at the height of the boom just before the crash. Their wealth now amounts to £414bn, equivalent to more than a third of Britain's entire GDP. They include 77 billionaires and 23 others, each possessing more than £750m.

The increase in wealth of this richest 1,000 has been £315bn over the last 15 years. If they were charged capital gains tax on this at the current 28% rate, it would yield £88bn, enough to pay off 70% of the entire deficit. It seems however that Osborne takes the notorious view of the New York heiress, Leonora Helmsley: "Only the little people pay taxes."
Michael Meacher MP
Labour, Oldham West and Royton

[Roland99]

49. Today's Employment Reports (unemployment claims on the decline) >>>>

* U.S. jobless claims decline 27,000 to 365,000
* Continuing claims drop 53,000 to 3.28 million
* Four-week claims average rises 750 to 383,500

[xchrom]

51. U.S. jobs report takes on outsize significance

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs-report-frenzy-20120503,0,6260525.story

WASHINGTON — On the first Friday of every month, at precisely 8:30 a.m., the Bureau of Labor Statistics flicks a switch and the latest clue about the U.S. economy — the jobs report — gets transmitted all over the world.

And then the frenzy begins.

Politicians in Washington race for the mikes to proclaim that the economy is back, or maybe falling into an abyss. Investors from Brussels to Bangkok win and lose billions. And in American factories, offices and living rooms, you can almost hear a collective groan of dismay or sigh of relief.

This Friday will be no different when the April jobs report is released.

In ordinary times, the report might be seen for what it is — a good if imperfect snapshot of the nation's labor market.

But in a presidential election year, and after 4 1/2 years of recession and grueling recovery, the data have taken on outsize significance. Many pundits say, though without conclusive proof, that the direction of the unemployment rate in the months before a presidential election is a good predictor of the outcome.

[xchrom]

54. Societe Generale quarterly profits fall 20%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17935196

French bank Societe Generale has said that its first quarter profits fell 20% as the eurozone debt crisis continued to hamper results.

Net profit for the first three months of the year fell to 732m euros ($962m; £594m), from 916m euros last year.

SocGen said a "sharp upturn in corporate and investment banking activities" had begun once the last Greek bailout had been finalised.

Shares in the bank have fallen by 60% in the past year.

In the first quarter of the year, the European Central Bank took the unusual step of lending more than 1tn euros of low-interest loans to banks.

[xchrom]

55. Spain’s unemployment prompts a look elsewhere

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/spains-unemployment-prompts-a-look-elsewhere/2012/05/02/gIQAZJWOxT_story.html

MADRID — Six months after being laid off from a surveying job, Manuel Martin has had it with Spain.

The construction industry here is moribund, he said, and he has no expectation that it will rebound anytime soon. Pausing during a bicycle ride in the suburbs of Madrid, Martin and a friend noted the for-sale signs displayed at some of the apartment buildings and point to building projects that were abandoned mid-stream.


It is even worse elsewhere in the country, and Martin said he has cast his sights on engineering jobs in Canada, Germany or oil-rich Algeria. The upcoming Olympics in Britain might even provide an escape.

“There are lots of jobs in London,” said Martin, who’s surviving so far — and making his mortgage payments — on his severance and unemployment benefits.

[Roland99]

56. April ISM services index 53.5% vs. March's 56.0% (drags markets down)

[AnneD]

60. Morning Marketeers.....

and lurkers. Guess this will be the farm report today. I sent my SIL a cheese making kit for mother's day. The bacteria in the kit needs to be refrigerated so I let her know to keep an eye out for the mail. She has a cow and a female calf (the young Jersey that was pregnant when she bought her at auction). She also has a young Holstein cow she bought at auction (that was sick but survived). These were drought cattle. Win I went there in March, we were laughing about a very young bull that tore down the fence and was hanging around the girls. My brother was not upset that the fence was torn down. He was hoping the young bull figured out how to use his equipment.

I asked SIL if her cows still had their suitor calling. She laughed and said he doesn't hang around anymore, she said she would know by mid summer if they got free stud service.

Which brings me to some terminology I need to share again with you guys. When you want you cow impregnated, you have to pay a fee for the bull to service your cow. So in the future, if you hear a politician, bankster, or CEO state that they are here to 'serve' the public, middle class or what ever-that is a red flag to hold on to your wallet or not bend over....you are about to be screwed!

I want to thank Demeter and PoD for recommending the upper peninsula of Michigan as places to locate a small self subsistence farm. I love the area up there but alas, my southern Indian husband could not tolerate the cold-so I do have to stay in the temperate climate.

I got together with my Nurse friends last night. We are all about fried this time of year and we arranged another meeting this month. One is graduating with her Master's this month. We are so proud of her. Two of us are creeping toward retirement, and two of us may be going into business together. I always enjoy our get together because , as school Nurses, we only have each other to tread through the land mine strewn field that is modern school Nursing.

One had an audit by the school of the time given to pregnant students. They wanted us to bill for time that we honestly could not. Our Nurse had greater knowledge than the district's auditor and she basically had to take him by the hand and walk him through.

Our complaints to medicare and medicaid finally reached the right ear and they are horrified at the amount of medicare/medicaid we are not billing due to SpEd not properly documenting.

I told them I could give one more year but can't say anything more after that. I think I may have a few following me.

[Demeter]

63. My 93 year old Punjabi Client Does Just Fine Here

I think the family has been here 20+ years....your husband might find it refreshing. And you can always come out of the UP for winter and I'll show you the culture in Ann Arbor and Detroit!

[AnneD]

65. I'll work on him....

but he is set in his way a bit.

[Demeter]

66. Aren't they all.

You need pictures....

[AnneD]

75. ITA....

[Hotler]

69. Fuck you Eric Holder, you worthless sack of.......

I saw him on C-Span doing a news confrence about a major Medicaid fraud bust and how every dollar they spent return $7.00 and how they arrested over a hundred people. He talked about rule of law and blah, blah, blah, blah! Hey you shit stain, show some fucking balls and arrest some of the CEO's from Wall ST.. Oh! I forgot this president said on Sixty Minutes that Wall St. did nothing wrong. Hey Holder, go talk to William Black and ask what he thinks.

[Tansy_Gold]

71. Sideways

With an ocotillo branch.

[Fuddnik]

72. Twice

[DemReadingDU]

73. +++