STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 12 September 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

Last edited Tue Sep 11, 2012, 08:44 PM - Edit history (1)

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 12 September 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 11 September 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 11 September 2012
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Dow Jones 13,323.36 +69.07 (0.52%)
S&P 500 1,433.56 +4.48 (0.31%)
Nasdaq 3,104.53 +0.51 (0.02%)



[font color=red]10 Year 1.70% +0.02 (1.19%)
30 Year 2.85% +0.02 (0.71%) [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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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
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
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent




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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]

[Demeter]

1. IRS awards UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld $104 million

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-whistleblower-104-million-20120911,0,789809.story

It pays to rat out your tax-dodging clients.

A former banker who helped wealthy Americans illegally evade taxes, and later confessed his transgressions and cooperated with the government, has been awarded $104 million in what appears to be the largest-ever whistleblower case. Bradley Birkenfeld, a globe-trotting financier at Swiss banking giant UBS, helped rich Americans set up phony companies to conceal secret Swiss bank accounts. He gave them credit cards to access their hidden cash. He once converted a U.S. client's money into diamonds, then smuggled the gems across the Atlantic in a toothpaste tube. Birkenfeld eventually changed his stripes, and gave the IRS detailed information about the inner workings of an extensive effort by UBS to lure Americans who were seeking to avoid taxes.

In 2007, he told the Justice Department something that it had suspected for years: UBS' private bank in Switzerland had helped Americans hide billions of dollars from the IRS. All told, prosecutors would later allege, UBS' private bank had $20 billion in deposits from U.S. clients.

“The comprehensive information provided by the whistleblower was exceptional in both its breadth and depth,” the IRS said in a whistleblower award document made public by Birkenfeld’s lawyers.

The bank’s extensive tax-avoidance program began unwinding in 2007 and the IRS eventually conducted an amnesty program in which several thousand Americans voluntarily disclosed their overseas accounts. To avoid prosecution, UBS paid a $780-million fine and agreed to disclose the names of 4,450 U.S. clients....Birkenfeld himself pleaded guilty to conspiracy related to the case in 2008 and went to a federal prison in January 2010. His sentence was reduced for good behavior and he was released last month.

“The IRS today sent 104 million messages to whistleblowers around the world -- that there is now a safe and secure way to report tax fraud and that the IRS is now paying awards," his lawyers, Stephen M. Kohn and Dean A. Zerbe, said in a statement. “The IRS also sent 104 million messages to banks around the world -- stop enabling tax cheats or you will get caught.”

[Demeter]

2. I wish I knew somebody I could rat out for $104M

How about....Congress! The White House! The Justice Department!

[Roland99]

19. for starters...

[AnneD]

37. The poor guy went to jail for 2 years.....

his attorney says he should not have even been prosecuted under the WB law. The law, at the bidding of the banksters, were trying to get him to recant I guess, or send a warning to future WB.

He deserves every penny of it and more, like compensation for time lost. He brought boxes of files with such juicy info. He built the case for the government.

[Demeter]

39. I'd look upon it as a spa time

Time to read, write, exercise, meditate....

[AnneD]

44. Well, I would too....

In case my pension and retirement plans do not work out, I plan to commit a Federal Crime so I get time in Club Fed. I had planned to do some white collar crime like embezzlment or theft, but they just don't prosecute for that anymore , esp if you work on WS.

[Demeter]

3. U.S. expects to earn $15.1 billion from bailing out AIG

http://news.yahoo.com/u-expects-earn-15-1-billion-bailing-aig-185318158--finance.html

The U.S. Treasury further reduced its stake in American International Group and said on Tuesday that the United States would now profit $15.1 billion from bailing out the insurer.

The underwriters to the Treasury Department's $18 billion AIG stock sale are expected to buy another $2.7 billion worth of the company's shares, boosting the returns on the U.S. government's investment. Combined, the sales reduce the Treasury's stake in AIG to 15.9 percent from 53.4 percent. The Treasury will be left with about 234.2 million shares in AIG when the offering closes. The government once held a nearly 80 percent stake in the company and pledged as much as $182.3 billion to backstop the insurer when mortgage losses forced it to come up with a lot of cash quickly.

The Treasury has been winding down its bailout programs ahead of the November presidential elections where President Barack Obama has been defending his administration's decision to bail out certain companies.

[Po_d Mainiac]

4. Getting zucked will be different this time

"We're planning on putting together a plan to fix our other plans"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-11/facebook-ceo-zuckerberg-says-performance-hinges-on-mobile-usage.html

[Demeter]

5. Watch 131 Years of Global Warming in 26 Seconds

http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/131-years-of-global-warming-in-26-seconds/

[Demeter]

6. Biggest Economic Challenge of Obama’s Second Term By Robert Reich

http://www.nationofchange.org/biggest-economic-challenge-obama-s-second-term-1347371321

GETTING ELECTED?


...The deeper question is what should be done starting in January to boost a recovery that by anyone’s measure is still anemic. In truth, not even the Jobs Act will be enough....The way to get jobs back is to get American consumers to spend again. Consumer spending is 70 percent of the nation’s economic activity. Most of it comes from the middle class and those aspiring to join the middle class. They’re the real job creators.

But here’s the problem. Middle-class consumers won’t and can’t spend because their savings are depleted, their homes are worth a fraction of what they were five years ago, their wages are dropping, and they’re worried about keeping their jobs. And they’re no longer able borrow against the rising values of their homes because the housing bubble burst — which means they can no longer pretend they’re in better financial shape than they really are.

This is the heart of our economic dilemma.

Last Thursday night at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, President Obama suggested a way to correct this, or at least not make things worse: Raise taxes on the wealthy rather than cut programs the middle class and poor depend on (such as Medicare and Medicaid), give tax incentives to companies that create jobs in the United States, and invest in education. It’s start but America’s middle class and poor need far more. They need to be able to refinance their mortgages at today’s low interest rates. They need a larger Earned Income Tax Credit – a wage subsidy for lower-paying jobs. And a higher minimum wage that’s automatically adjusted for inflation. They could use a new Works Projects Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps designed to put the long-term unemployed back to work. They need stronger unions to bargain for a larger share of the gains from economic growth. And a Social Security payroll tax that exempts the first $25,000 of income and eliminates the ceiling (now $110,100) on income subject to it. And they need an industrial policy designed to create high-wage jobs in America.

In accepting his party’s nomination for president, Obama said the “basic bargain” that once rewarded hard work and gave everyone a fair shot had come undone. He’s right. And the U.S. economy won’t return to normal until that basic bargain is remade. If Obama gets a second term, recreating that bargain — and getting enough votes from Congress to do so — will be his central challenge, and America’s.

I EXPECT KING LOG WILL BE DOING NONE OF THIS...IN FACT, I EXPECT HE WILL ACTIVELY DISCOURAGE ANY LEGISLATOR WHO TRIES.

[Demeter]

7. Farewell to Bill By Dean Baker

http://www.nationofchange.org/farewell-bill-1347371015

Bill Clinton is clearly the most talented politician of our era. It is difficult to imagine Clinton losing an election to any of the people who have run for office in the last two decades. But his skills as a politician should not prevent us from understanding the track record of his economic policies. In fact, until we get a clear understanding of these policies, it unlikely that we will be able to restore the economy to a path of sound economic growth. The mythology of Clintonomics is that Clinton took the hard steps to bring the deficit down. He cut spending and raised taxes. This supposedly shifted the budget from large deficits to large surpluses and led to a booming economy. In the late 90s we had the lowest unemployment in three decades, and we saw real wage growth up and down the income ladder for the first time since the early 70s. There was in fact much here to celebrate.

However the reality is quite different from the mythology. The reduction in the deficit was supposed to lead to an increase in investment and a fall in the trade deficit. These are the two components of GDP that increase our wealth for the long-term, the former by increasing out productive capacity and the latter by giving us ownership of more foreign assets. It turns out that the investment components of GDP actually did not increase in the Clinton boom. After we adjust for a technical issue associated with a surge in car leasing in the 90s (leased cars count as investment in the national accounts, purchased cars are treated as consumption), investment as a share of GDP increased by just 1.2 percentage points from their late 80s level...However this was more than offset by a 2.2 percentage point increase in the size of the trade deficit. As a result, at the height of the Clinton boom in 2000 these wealth increasing components of GDP were 1.0 percentage point smaller as a share of GDP than in the high deficit 1980s. Instead, the component driving the economy in the late 1990s was consumption. The stock bubble led to a surge in consumption, which rose by 3.0 percentage points as a share of GDP as savings hit what was at the time a record low. The problem with this stock bubble boom was that it was destined to go bust. There are a limited number of fools with money. At some point there was no one left to pay billions of dollars for shares of Internet start-ups that didn’t even know how they could make a profit.

This reversed the irrational exuberance that had sent the market soaring. The market tanked and the economy and the budget surpluses went with it. The recession of 2001 was officially short and mild, ending just seven months after it started. However the picture was much worse for most people in the country. The economy did not start to create jobs again until September of 2003, almost two years after the official end of the recession. The 2001 recession was hard to recover from because it was the result of the collapse of an asset bubble, just like the current recession. It is easier to recover from a normal recession, because a typical recession is brought on by the Federal Reserve Board raising interest rates to slow the economy...Higher interest rates lead people to delay buying homes and cars. This means that when the Fed wants to get the economy going again it can just lower interest rates and spark a surge in home and car buying. That sort of boost isn’t possible when the downturn is caused by the collapse of an asset bubble...When the economy did finally start creating jobs again after the 2001 recession, it was on the back of the housing bubble, which drove growth in the last decade. In effect, we used the growth of one bubble to overcome the wreckage created by the collapse of another bubble, just as an alcoholic seeks to cure one hangover by starting on the next.

There is another important part of the Clinton legacy that is impeding growth. When Robert Rubin became Treasury Secretary in 1995 he pushed a high dollar policy. He put muscle behind this policy with his control of the IMF in setting the ground rules for the bailout from the East Asian financial crisis. The harsh terms of the bailout led countries throughout the developing world to demand massive amounts of dollars. Their reserves of dollars were an insurance policy to keep them ever being in the same position as the East Asian countries. This increased demand for dollars pushed up the value of the dollar and lead to the massive trade deficits that we have seen in the last dozen years. We will not be able to get to a sustainable growth path until we reverse the high dollar policy. The dollar has to be pushed down to a level where U.S. goods are again competitive in international markets. This is a central part of the adjustment from the period of bubble driven growth.

In short, the Clinton-era policies sent the U.S. economy on a seriously wrong path. They created an absurd obsession with budget deficits, a pattern of bubble-driven growth, an incredibly bloated financial sector and an unsustainable trade deficit.

[mother earth]

23. Not sure they created an absurd obsession with budget deficits...no one has duplicated his efforts

since. I think Bill has an incredible understanding and I wonder if there will ever be his equal in the WH again. For all his faults and mistakes, if a third term were ever possible, he's the man that could've won it. The Big Dog earned his respect in the end, and rightfully so, IMHO. Had the GOP spent less time & money on their "gotcha" mania, he probably could've accomplished a lot more. Sadly we will never know.

Also, I'm not convinced we have to bring our standard of living down to be competitive, why not push for nations to bring their standards up? Why not the drive towards labor rights for every global citizen, as a human right? The issues in our own country, I've always felt, were to bring wages down & certainly pit us against third worlders.

The right path would be to get lobbyists & corporate donors OUT of our gov't. Maybe then we could be proud once again, and lead the way where it matters.

[Tansy_Gold]

41. Everything you said.

Especially about competing in the world market.

The US may have moved beyond the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in some respects, but in others it appears all we did was export that same vicious greed to Pakistan

http://news.yahoo.com/sixty-killed-factory-fire-pakistan-police-040059397.html

Why couldn't we just as easily have exported the lessons we learned?

[mother earth]

45. You are so right, there's a huge human price that's paid when it's all about profit.

[Demeter]

8. We Won the War on Poverty, Then Lost the Peace

http://truth-out.org/news/item/11460-we-won-the-war-on-poverty-then-lost-the-peace

WE WON ONE BATTLE IN THE WAR ON POVERTY, AND THEN GOT RUN OVER BY THE ENEMY....

If America could eliminate most serious poverty in the United States in the 1960s, surely we could do the same today.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty in January 1964, the poverty rate was over 19 percent. By 1972 it had fallen to less than 12 percent, and it stayed there for most of the 1970s. Anyone who says we lost the war on poverty is flat out ignoring these numbers. We won the war on poverty. What we lost was the peace. During the war on poverty, the nation's official poverty rate fell dramatically. Since the end of the war on poverty, America's official poverty rate has been stable or rising. Even worse, real poverty is even higher than the official rate suggests. The official federal government poverty line was developed in 1965 and adopted in 1969 as a dollar measure of how much it cost to live at a minimally acceptable standard of living in 1960s America. Since its official adoption in 1969, the poverty line has been updated for inflation, but not for changes in the standard of living. It still represents a dollar measure of how much 1960s Americans thought it cost to live at a minimally acceptable standard of living.

As a result, when officials say that 15 percent of Americans live in poverty today, what they're really saying is that 15 percent of Americans today live in what would have been considered poverty in the late 1960s. The poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314. News flash: We're no longer living in the 1960s. At some point we have to start having higher standards for how poor people should live than we did half a century ago.

Can you imagine 1960s Americans using a poverty line that had been set at the end of World War I? How can we still be using a poverty line that was set during the Vietnam War? Life should be better today than it was in 1969, even for poor people. Life for poor Americans sure was better in 1969 than it was in the 1920s. And the fact is that even by 1960s standards we allow an embarrassing number of Americans to live in poverty.

More than one-third of all single-mother-headed families are in poverty. One-fifth of all American children live below the poverty line.

The poverty rate for African-American children is nearly 40 percent. It has never fallen below 30 percent.

Had the poverty line been adjusted for improvements in the standard of living over the past 43 years, these figures would be even higher.

But the important question isn't how to measure poverty. It's how to end it. We might look back to the 1960s again for the answer. In his 1964 State of the Union address, President Johnson declared "unconditional war on poverty in America." The United States invested in public housing, roads, and public transportation. The federal government created Head Start both to improve education and to put people to work investing in our kids. The minimum wage was increased and expanded to cover nearly all workers. In short, Washington put people to work and ensured that working people made a respectable income....If 1960s America could eliminate most serious poverty in the United States, surely 2010s America could do the same. Our national income per person is now more than twice as high as it was in 1970. We have the money. We lack only the will.

[mother earth]

22. "We lack only the will." Truer words never spoken...if we learn or have learned anything I hope

it leads to a better way for all. No child should go hungry or lacking in a world with enough for all. There ARE enough resources and food to feed everyone, more is wasted and thrown out in a world where babies die from starvation. If you have time, "We Feed The World" is very informative in this regard. You will never look at the world the same. Some things are just WRONG, and people have the power to change this, some are trying every day.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/we-feed-the-world/

[Po_d Mainiac]

9. cheap shipping

The dry-bulk shipping market has been in the doldrums again of late (the Baltic Dry Index is again near record lows and recently had a 31-session streak of declines), no thanks in part to slack Chinese steel demand. But the Friday infrastructure-spending announcement from the country, while notably less than the amount disclosed 4 years ago, “nevertheless is a positive development for the Chinese steel sector,” says Dalhman Rose.

It adds, “Should China’s spending plan lead to a resurgence in the steel sector, charter rates should be expected to improve.” Spot rates for capesize vessels have averaged $6K/day this year, “just barely enough to meet cash operating costs,” but Dahlman says rates could bounce to $20K.

http://gcaptain.com/market-talk-capesize-rates-bounce/

Spot rates averaged $50K/day in 2009.

Note: Capesize vessels are too large to transit the Panama and Suez Canals and travel at 12-16kts (315-422mi/day) on average.

[Po_d Mainiac]

10. China And Russia Are Ruthlessly Cutting The Legs Out From Under The U.S. Dollar

They don't like that the United States has a built-in advantage of having the reserve currency of the world, and over the past several years both countries have been busy making international agreements that seek to chip away at that advantage.

Just the other day, China and Germany agreed to start conducting an increasing amount of trade with each other in their own currencies.

You would think that a major currency agreement between the 2nd and 4th largest economies on the face of the planet would make headlines all over the United States.

Instead, the silence in the U.S. media was deafening.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/china-and-russia-are-ruthlessly-cutting-the-legs-out-from-under-the-u-s-dollar

Should the House of Saud decide to join the Russian/Chinese party, the chairsatan will have managed to print the US back to the 18th century

[Demeter]

11. The C-in-C isn't helping matters

With the Predator Drones, torture, extraordinary renditions, the continuation of Gitmo and other dirty business, we don't have a friend in the world anymore.

And with Wall Street still free to prey, why should we have a friend?

[Demeter]

12. Central Bank Should Supervise All Euro Banks

YEAH, THAT'S JUST WHAT IS NEEDED! IT WILL WORK LIKE A CHARM...

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/12/160988583/eu-central-bank-should-supervise-all-euro-banks?ft=1&f=1001

The European Central Bank should be given the power to supervise all the banks in the 17 countries that use the euro and also be able to fine institutions, the European Union's executive said Wednesday. The creation of a single supervisor would be an important step toward a "banking union" — a unified playbook for all of the banks in the eurozone that is a vital part of the plan to solve the region's crippling financial debt crisis. In its proposal to solve the eurozone's financial crisis, the European Commission called for the ECB to take over supervisory roles from the member countries' individual banking regulators. The Commission also proposes the ECB should have the ability to issue — and take away — banking licenses, approve large mergers and acquisitions, investigate banks, and fine institutions that break the rules....Many banks have retrenched into their home countries, lending to fewer and fewer companies, and households and ditching investments made in other members of the eurozone — especially in Greece, Italy and Spain. That has undone much of the founding principles of the EU — to allow money to flow freely and cheaply across borders. SO, THEY THOUGHT MONEY WOULD ONLY FLOW IN ONE DIRECTION--INTO THEIR OWN NATION? AND NOW THAT IT'S REVERSED, THEY CAN'T STAND IT? AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO FIX THE PROBLEM?


The proposed banking union is one part of a strategy to restore confidence in the eurozone's financial system. Other measures: creating a European-wide system of depositors' insurance, a single method for winding down bankrupt banks and allowing the European bailout fund to directly help out banks in trouble, instead of lending money only to governments. The proposal published Wednesday morning still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and the Council, on which the heads of state and government of all 27 countries of the European Union sit. It could be a tough fight since Germany — one of the most powerful members, especially when it comes to the eurozone — has said it only wants the ECB to supervise those banks which, if they were to go bankrupt, would cause major damage to the eurozone.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has argued that if the ECB is going to be effective, it should only focus on the biggest banks, as the burden of supervising all 6,000 eurozone banks, many of which only do business in their home countries, would be too great. The commission's proposal, however, goes much further. It wants all banks, big and small, to be put under the ECB's supervision.

"What the crisis has taught us is that even medium or small banks can create lots of damage," said a European Union official, who would speak only on condition of anonymity to describe how the proposal was put together. "So it would be irresponsible to devise a system that basically says we're going to focus our attention on the large ones and the small ones just, you know, don't think about them"

Currently, the ECB is only in charge of monetary policy for eurozone countries — setting interest rates and printing money. National central banks, in most countries, have the role of supervisor, ensuring that banks in their countries follow the rules and aren't engaging in risky practices. However, the global financial crisis that began in 2007 has proved that this system has failed to properly assess risks to the banking system. The commission's proposal would see the ECB take over most of what the national supervisors do, although it would not be in charge of winding down banks that go bust. That could come later, the EU official said. The plans could heap even more responsibility on the ECB if any of the 10 countries in the European Union that don't use the euro also want to sign up to the plan.

The commission hopes its proposal will take effect Jan. 1, 2013, and slowly ramp up until it is supervising all banks by a year later. It wants it to start by covering the bigger banks and eventually add all 6,000 banks in the eurozone

[Demeter]

13. In China We (Don’t) Trust By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/opinion/friedman-in-china-we-dont-trust.html

... When there is trust in society, sustainable innovation happens because people feel safe and enabled to take risks and make the long-term commitments needed to innovate. When there is trust, people are willing to share their ideas and collaborate on each other’s inventions without fear of having their creations stolen. The biggest thing preventing modern China from becoming an innovation society, which is imperative if it hopes to keep raising incomes, is that it remains a very low-trust society.

I’ve been struck at how many Chinese businesspeople and investors have volunteered that point to me this week. China is caught in a gap between its old social structure of villages and families, which created its own form of trust, and a new system based on the rule of law and an independent judiciary. The Communist Party destroyed the first but has yet to build the second because it would mean ceding the party’s arbitrary powers. So China has a huge trust deficit.

To see what happens when you introduce just a little more trust in this society, spend a day, as I just did, participating in the “AliFest” — the annual gathering of thousands of Chinese entrepreneurs who are linked together in the giant Chinese e-commerce Web site Alibaba.com. Founded in 1999, Alibaba says its sales this year could top eBay and Amazon.com combined. This happened, in part, because it has built trusted, credible markets of buyers and sellers inside China, connecting consumers, inventors and manufacturers who would have found it hard to do transactions before.

Alibaba has three major businesses: Taobao.com and Tmall.com, which together constitute a giant online marketplace where anyone in the world can go to buy or sell anything — from Procter & Gamble selling toothpaste to Chinese companies offering their engineering prowess. The Tao companies this year are expected to move some $150 billion in merchandise between buyers and sellers, mostly in China....


INTERESTING ARTICLE

[Roland99]

14. German court rules on ESM

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/karlsruhe-decision-german-taxpayer-pillage-can-continue-conditions

[westerebus]

20. The Whitehouse did ask for cooperation until they won the (s)election.

Activist judges strike again!

[Roland99]

21. Asmussen was hard-selling late yesterday in Europe, imo, to persuade the German court

RTRS-WHEN ASKED WHETHER ECB WILL HOLD BONDS TO MATURITY ECB'S ASMUSSEN REFERS TO ECB STATUTES, SAYS ECB CAN BE ACTIVE BY BUYING AND SELLING BONDS AS PART OF MONETARY POLICY

RTRS - ECB'S ASMUSSEN SAYS IF THE CONDITIONALITY IS NOT GIVEN THE ECB CAN NOT BUY BONDS OF A COUNTRY



esp. that last one there.

[DemReadingDU]

15. 4 Years After Bankruptcy, How Is Lehman Faring?

9/12/12
4 Years After Bankruptcy, How Is Lehman Faring?
Renee Montagne and Adam Davidson

Four years ago this week, the Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. The sudden collapse sent shock waves around the world and brought on the worst of the financial crisis. But for Lehman Brothers, the story doesn't end there.

appx 5 minute audio at link
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/12/160989359/4-years-after-bankruptcy-how-is-lehman-faring

[Roland99]

16. Florida pseudo-Christian pastor Terry Jones involved in backing film which sparked riots

http://www.tampabay.com/news/world/gainesville-pastor-terry-jones-promoted-film-that-sparked-unrest-in-libya/1251112

I hate that dumbass m--- f---

[Warpy]

35. I'm not surprised he's in there

as one of the people who are so twisted up with hate for Muslims that they'd fund a propaganda piece.

I'm just surprised they heard of this in Bengazi before much of anyone heard about it here.

I suppose it's one of those things they show the kiddies at Jesus Camp to dehumanize a billion people in the world.

[Roland99]

17. US August Import Prices >>>>

* U.S. AUGUST NON-PETROLEUM YEAR-OVER-YEAR IMPORT PRICE DECLINE STEEPEST SINCE NOVEMBER 2009
* U.S. AUG PETROLEUM IMPORT PRICES +4.1 PCT VS JULY -2.1 PCT
* U.S. AUG EXPORT PRICES +0.9 PCT (CONSENSUS +0.4 PCT) VS JULY +0.4 PCT (PREV +0.5 PCT)
* U.S. AUGUST IMPORT PRICES INCREASE FOR FIRST TIME IN 5 MONTHS
* U.S. AUG IMPORT PRICES +0.7 PCT (CONS. +1.4 PCT) VS JULY -0.7 PCT (PREV -0.6 PCT)

[Roland99]

18. US Futures happy with German court decision

S&P 500 +0.4%
DOW +0.3%
NASDAQ +0.6%

[Roland99]

24. FDIC: 10 million households have no bank account

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fdic-10-million-households-have-no-bank-account-2012-09-12?siteid=rss

More than a quarter of American households lack access to full banking services or have no bank account while nearly 10 million U.S. households have no checking or savings accounts at all, according to a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. survey released Wednesday. The FDIC said one in five U.S. households, or 24 million households, with 51 million adults, are considered "underbanked" because they use problematic alternative services such as payday loans or overdraft programs. These services provide quick cash but carry high fees or triple-digit interest rates. About 17 million adults live in households with no bank account

[DemReadingDU]

26. Maybe those are the smart people, n/t

[Hugin]

29. I wonder if I'm in that statistic.

I don't have a "Bank Account".

I am a member of a Credit Union where I perform all of my Financial Services.

[DemReadingDU]

30. I think it means no financial institution.

Just deal in cash, money orders to pay bills.

or get a money card from WalMart. Just have your paycheck to be deposited to this card to buy stuff and pay bills:

https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/walmart/getacardnow

[AnneD]

38. I use my CU too....

I am so loyal it is unreal. But I use cash and an envelope system to keep my finances on track. I just use checks for bills I mail in.

That has do more to improve my bottom line than anything else.

[Hugin]

25. Is there any reason other than the Kochs are desperate that gas went up $0.20/gal locally yesterday

Anybody catch the links in GD linking the Kochs, Enron, CTFC, and Chase with the invention of the derivatives and lack of regulation on the Gasoline Futures Market?

[DemReadingDU]

27. I was wondering that myself

Our gas went up 0.24/gal. Crazy. No news that I was aware of until possibly this morning when we found out the ambassador to Libya was killed along with 3 staff. Protestors also in Egypt.

Or could have been those Gasoline Futures Market.

[Hugin]

34. You are probably correct.

Goes up like lightning... Goes down in geologic time.

Gasoline prices have never really reflected the true lows from a couple of months ago.

It's rigged.

[Hugin]

28. If so, here it is...

"Koch Bros 'Gone to Great Lengths' to Keep Gas Prices High, Ryan/Romney and Corporate Media Benefit"

"They Koch brothers set up a system where they can pilfer from all of us through oil speculation, and they are giving the ill gotten gains to Romney and Ryan and the stupid ass corporate media so they will lie to us and help steal elections. And these bastards have the nerve to blame Obama for high gas
prices?!!

Koch Brothers introduced speculation.


October 6, 1986: First oil derivative is introduced to Wall Street by traders at Koch. Koch Industries executive Lawrence Kitchen devised the “first ever oil-indexed price swap between Koch Industries and Chase Manhattan Bank.” At the time, such derivatives had been limited to currency markets, and the shift of creating a synthetic financial instrument based on the value of crude oil was revolutionary. For an agreed-upon period, an oil swap is a contract where one party makes payments based on a fixed oil price, and the other party makes payments back based on the changing spot price of oil. In July of 2009, EnergyRisk magazine, a publication for commodity traders, posted a piece exploring the very first oil derivatives and Koch’s role in developing them.

– 1990-1992: Koch, along with several oil companies and Wall Street speculators, form a coalition lobbying group to deregulate oil speculation. A coalition called “The Energy Group” is organized to press the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to allow oil derivatives to be traded off the NYMEX or any other regulated exchange. Participants in the coalition include Koch, Enron, Phibro (a powerful commodity speculator firm recently sold from Citigroup to Occidental Petroleum), J. Aron & Co (a commodity trading division of Goldman Sachs), BP, and other companies.

– January 21, 1993. Wendy Gramm makes first major move to deregulate oil speculation. “On the final day of the Bush administration, January 21, 1993, Wendy Gramm … approved the rule exempting key energy futures contracts from government regulation and returned a great chunk of the energy market to the grand old days of unregulated futures trading,” writes author Antonia Juhasz in the book Tyranny of Oil. The move mirrored the demands made by Koch’s lobbying coalition, The Energy Group. Gramm, the wife of then-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), leaves the Commodity Futues Trading Commission and a month later joins the board of directors of Enron.

– December 12, 2000: Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), after being lobbied by Koch and Enron, creates the infamous “Enron Loophole” vastly deregulating the oil speculation market. On the night of December 12, 2000, Gramm attaches a 262-page amendment to the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which is then attached to an omnibus spending bill that is signed into law by President Clinton before leaving office. The Gramm amendment, which received absolutely no public scrutiny or committee hearings, radically expands and codifies the energy deregulation agenda began by Gramm’s wife during the first Bush administration.




Koch Brothers are making a killing on oil speculation."

Care of: RepublicansRZombies

More @: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021308480

[Demeter]

40. Same Problem Here

My solution: Sam's Club and Costco. They are at $3.82, while everyone else is $4.12 or more.

[Roland99]

31. Inventory Restocking Is Back

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/inventory-restocking-back

The "if we build it, they will come" economy is back - or is it failing? That's the circular question that the biggest jump in wholesale inventories in six months leaves many asking. The most telling answer that perhaps this Keynesian 'build-it' program is failing is the near three-year high in the Inventory/Sales ratio having risen three months in a row. This is the biggest three-month build in inventories relative to sales in three-and-a-half years. The Circle of life goes on; stack inventories; stuff channels; start free-credit.

[Roland99]

32. Oil suplies up a surprise 2 million bbls

* Oil turns lower after surprise supply increase
* Oil supplies up 2 million barrels: EIA

[Hugin]

33. So, it'll be back down $0.20/gal by the time I go home?

[Roland99]

36. now that's a DUzy!

[Roland99]

42. September 2012 U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook

http://freddiemac.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=12329&item=132787

Freddie Mac (OTC:FMCC) released today its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for September showing consumers and businesses have become more energy efficient thereby dampening the negative impact of recent fuel-price spikes on the economy. Moreover, monetary policy is unlikely to be affected by short-term fuel-price inflation, thus allowing for an extended and favorable interest-rate environment.

Outlook Highlights

Between 1973 and 2011, energy consumption fell by 0.3 percent (annualized) to 314 million BTUs per capita.
Fuel economy of passenger cars has also improved, rising from an average of only 13.4 miles per gallon (MPG) in 1973 to 22.6 MPG in 2008.
Measured relative to square footage, homes built since 2000 have fuel costs that are about 30 percent lower than that of homes built before 1960.
Anticipate a favorable interest-rate environment to remain at least through the end of this year to help energize the housing market.
Comparing the first seven months in 2012 with the same period in 2011, home sales are up 8 percent and housing starts have rebounded by 19 percent. Further, second-quarter national house-price indexes have recorded a gain on a year-over-year basis.

[Roland99]

43. Fannie Mae: Construction Jobs a Major Drag on Recession and Recovery

http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/09122012_job_losses_econ_recovery.asp

The September issue of Fannie Mae's Housing Insights says little specific about housing, focusing instead on changes in average and aggregate earnings during the last five business cycles. Fannie Mae's economists use a decomposition method to disentangle effects of employment changes within industries (the "employment effect&quot and average earnings growth within industries) the "earnings effect&quot on aggregate wage trends.

The analysis found that the massive job losses during the Great Recession (December 2007 to June 2009) followed by a slow and choppy recovery would be expected to have suppressed wage gains more than in earlier business downturns. In fact, the analysis finds that real average earnings started to grow during the recession, surpassing the level at the beginning of the recession and remaining above that level after three years of recovery and are now 2.9 percent greater than at the start of the recession. By contrast, real average earnings during the same period in the previous four recoveries remained below, or at best stayed about even with levels at the beginning of the associated recession.

However, real aggregate earnings summed across all employees tell a very different story than average earnings per employee. Real aggregate earnings are still 0.9 percent below the pre-recession level whereas at the same stage in recovery aggregate earnings were 2 to 3 percent higher in three earlier recessions and were substantially the same during the recovery from the 2000 cycle. The 1970's recession is a particularly strong contrast as aggregate wages fell 11.2 percent but came back so strongly that three years after the recession they had increased 2.9 percent.

much more (and charts) at the link.