STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 19 June 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 19 June 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 18 June 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 18 June 2013
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Dow Jones 15,318.23 +138.38 (0.91%)
S&P 500 1,651.81 +12.77 (0.78%)
Nasdaq 3,482.18 +30.05 (0.87%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.18% -0.02 (-0.91%)
30 Year 3.34% -0.02 (-0.60%) [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
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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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
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.










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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. Time to Wean the 1%, Rather

I survived another board meeting....fomenting all the way! It was evil.

(Demeter has a dark side--Eris).

[xchrom]

31. i love that image! nt

[Demeter]

2. Speaking of Weaning and such, I cut the cord today

Ever since the EuroCrash, banks had to offload stuff, shrink their liabilities.

So INGroep sold their US-based electronic banking concern, ING Direct, to Capital One.

Well, Capital One couldn't leave well enough alone. They kept changing it, and changing it, and putting in more security and more hoops. I finally decided to shed them, and shut them down Tuesday afternoon.

It got so that doing anything with them was like taking a driving test without any lessons. I couldn't do anything on line, because I could never keep up with the changes. They kept maybe one in ten of their telephone people, so waiting times ballooned from nothing up to 5 minutes. And their interest rates...don't get me started!

There was a great commercial on TV, back when I watched TV, back when at least the commercials were entertaining, where this lovely, high-maintenance woman coos: "I'm losing interest in you!" I don't remember which bank it was for, but if the shoe fits...

Enough said.

[Fuddnik]

5. Last year they bought the Union Plus credit card from HSBC.

So far no problems.

[Demeter]

7. Getting Away from HSBC must have been a mercy and a blessing

ING was so user-friendly...no bankster will ever tolerate that again!

[DemReadingDU]

21. Capital One has taken over the GM HSBC mastercard too

Capital One must be huge

[Demeter]

3. Email from Congressman Alan Grayson

You spoke, they listened.

Last month, 10,000 of us submitted comments to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), in which we objected to new so-called free trade agreements. We asked that the government not sell out our democracy to corporate interests.

Because of this pressure, the USTR finally let a member of Congress - little ole me, Alan Grayson - actually see the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a large, secret trade agreement that is being negotiated with many countries in East Asia and South America.

The TPP is nicknamed "NAFTA on steroids." Now that I've read it, I can see why. I can't tell you what's in the agreement, because the U.S. Trade Representative calls it classified. But I can tell you two things about it.

1) There is no national security purpose in keeping this text secret.

2) This agreement hands the sovereignty of our country over to corporate interests.

3) What they can't afford to tell the American public is that {the rest of this sentence is classified}.

(Well, I did promise to tell you only two things about it.)

I will be fighting this agreement with everything I've got. And I know you'll be there every step of the way.

For now, I've set up an e-mail address where you can ask me questions on this topic or other topics: [e-mail]

I'll pick a few and answer them by video.

True Blue Democrats. Get ready. We're coming.

Courage,


Paid for and Authorized by the Committee to Elect Alan Grayson

[Demeter]

8. Green Shadow Cabinet Joins Critical Struggle to Defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership

http://www.nationofchange.org/green-shadow-cabinet-joins-critical-struggle-defeat-trans-pacific-partnership-1371564754

The Green Shadow Cabinet stands united in opposition to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and is committed to defeating this Obama administration effort to enrich and empower global corporations at the expense of people and planet.

For three years, the Obama administration has engaged in 16 rounds of secret negotiations to develop the TPP. Those negotiations have included hundreds of representatives of global corporations. The TPP negotiations have excluded representatives of the vast majority of the American people. It is a fact that the TPP is global economic policy for the 1%, at the expense of the 99%.

Today, all five branches and 81 members of the Green Shadow Cabinet begin to act in concert to not only defeat the TPP, but to show America that another government with another global economic agenda is possible. There is an alternative to the corrupt political establishment that produces economic terrors like the TPP. Our Cabinet is proof of that alternative.

Daily this week, the Green Shadow Cabinet will release over a dozen statements in opposition to the TPP; these statements describe the threats posed by the TPP, and offer better alternatives. This month, our Cabinet members will begin participating in the broader movement against the TPP through actions and events across the United States and urge all Americans to join this effort. We are bringing our networks and communities into this critical struggle.

THE TPP THREATENS ALL OF US

If you oppose the industrial farming practices of Monsanto, Cargill and other giant food and agribusiness corporations, with their intense use of toxic herbicides and other harmful chemicals, production of untested genetically modified food, efforts to control the seed supply and patent life, their pollution of the water, air, soil and food supply, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you oppose the actions of the big banks and financial institutions that led to the world economic crash, exploding wealth inequality, risky investments that endanger the economic future, and their ability to dominate national economies, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you are committed to protecting the rights of working people to a living wage, the right to organize, and to safe working conditions, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you favor a free and open Internet where free speech is protected and creativity and communication flourish, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you understand that healthcare is a human right and that the inflated prices of pharmaceutical drugs should not be protected by law, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you want to see the air, waters and lands protected from toxic chemicals and pollution, and know that the ecological crisis of species extinction and environmental breakdown must be reversed, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you would live in a world where local, state, and national governments are allowed to take urgent action to deal with the global climate crisis, and to implement a Green New Deal, then you must oppose the TPP.

We look forward to working with you in the coming months to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to prevent its sister trade agreement, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, from following the same path. The first step is to stop enactment of Trade Promotion Authority legislation, also known as “Fast Track,” that would prevent Congress from holding hearings on the TPP or amending the TPP. There must be no end-run around the Constitution, or the right of the American people to petition the government for redress.

DEFENDING THE NEW WORLD

We know that another world is possible. We are building that world every day through local governments, cooperatives, community organizations, and publicly owned financial institutions.

Those who defend corporate capitalism also understand that another world is possible, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is their attempt to foreclose our new world. The TPP gives major corporations legal personhood to sue in transnational courts dominated by judges who themselves are lawyers for major corporations. Under the TPP, corporations would be able to claim that environmental, labor, financial, health and other laws cost them profits, and to extract damages from our governments - and from us as taxpayers - if they enforce those laws.

The current administration in Washington D.C. is committed to passing the TPP and to defeating America’s grassroots movement for economic democracy. The Green Shadow Cabinet is committed to defeating the TPP, and to strengthening the U.S. democracy movement. We and our allies are the many, they are the few. Let us defend our communities and our future and stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Statement of the Green Shadow Cabinet of the United States of America:

Jill Stein, President
Cheri Honkala, Vice President
Patch Adams, Assistant Secretary of Health for Holistic Health
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Government Transparency and Accountability, Director
Kali Akuno, Secretary of Racial Justice
Kris Alman, Assistant Secretary of Health for Data Privacy
Gar Alperovitz, New Economy Advisor to the President
Marc Armstrong, Secretary of Commerce
Ajamu Baraka, Public Intervenor for Human Rights
Bill Barry, Workers Rights Administration, Administrator
Roshan Bliss, Assistant Secretary of Education for Higher Education
Leah Bolger, Secretary of Defense
Steve Breyman, Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator
Mary Bricker-Jenkins, Aid to Families and Youth, Director
Ellen Brown, Secretary of the Treasury
Richard Bruno, Assistant Secretary of Health for Medical Education and Training
Shahid Buttar, Civil Rights Enforcement, Director
Lee Camp, Commissioner for the Comedic Arts
Olveen Carrasquillo, Assistant Secretary of Health for Health Equity
Claudia Chaufan, Assistant Secretary of Health for System Design
Steven Chrismer, Secretary of Transportation
David Cobb, Commission on Corporations and Democracy, Chair
Khalilah Collins, Public Intervenor for Social Justice
Christopher Cox, Political Ecology Advisor to the President
Michael Crenshaw, People's Culture Bureau, Work Progress Administration
Maureen Cruise, Assistant Secretary of Health for Community Wellbeing
Ronnie Cummins, Administrator, Food and Drug Administration
Tim DeChristopher, Emergency Climate Action Coordinator
King Downing, President's Commission on Corrections Reform, Chair
Mark Dunlea, White House Office of Climate and Agriculture, Director
Steve Early, Workers Power Administration, Administrator
Robert Fitrakis, Federal Elections Commission, Chair
Margaret Flowers, Secretary of Health
George Friday, Commission on Community Power, Chair
Bruce Gagnon, Secretary of Space
Jack Gerson, Assistant Secretary of Education for K-12
Jim Goodman, Secretary of Agriculture
Philip Harvey, Full Employment Council, Chair
Howie Hawkins, Full Employment Council, Vice Chair
Kimberly King, Secretary of Education
Charles Komanoff, Assistant Secretary for Sustainable Urban Transportation
Bruce Levine, Assistant Secretary of Health for Clinical Mental Health
Vance "Head-Roc" Levy, Poet Laureate
Ethel Long-Scott, Commission on Women's Power, Co-Chair
Sarah Manski, Small Business Administration, Administrator
Ben Manski, White House Chief of Staff
George Paz Martin, Peace Ambassador
Gloria Mattera, Assistant Secretary of Health for Public Health Education
Richard McIntyre, U.S. Trade Representative
David McReynolds, Peace Advisor to the President
Gloria Meneses Sandoval, Secretary of Immigration
Richard Monje, Secretary of Labor
Suren Moodliar, Global Democracy Programs, Director
Jim Moran, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Administrator
Carol Paris, Assistant Secretary of Health for Mental Health Systems
Sandy Perry, Secretary of Housing
Todd Price, Assistant Secretary of Education for Education Technology
Jesselyn Radack, National Security and Human Rights Advisor to the President
Jack Rasmus, Federal Reserve System, Chairman
Michael Ratner, Division of Civil, Social & Economic Rights, Director
Ray Rogers, International Labor Rights, Advisor
Anna Rondon, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs
Lewis Rosenbaum, Public Media Administration, Administrator
Daniel Shea, Veteran's Affairs: Chemical Exposure
Diljeet Singh, Assistant Secretary of Health for Women's Health and Cancer
Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Bureau of Water Preservation, Director
Robert Stone, Assistant Secretary of Health for Emergency and Palliative Care
David Swanson, Secretary of Peace
Sean Sweeney, Climate Change Advisor to the President
Clifford Thornton, Drug Policy Agency, Administrator
Brian Tokar, Director of the Office of Technology Assessment
Bruce Trigg, Assistant Secretary of Health for Drug Policy
Walter Tsou, Surgeon General
Kabzuag Vaj, Commission on Women's Power, Co-Chair
Harvey Wasserman, Secretary of Energy
Rich Whitney, Office of Management and Budget, Director
Richard D. Wolff, Council of Economic Advisors, Chair
Ann Wright, Secretary of State
Bruce Wright, Commission on Ending Homelessness, Chair
Stephen Zarlenga, Monetary Authority Board, Chair
Kevin Zeese, Attorney General

For more information please visit Greenshadowcabinet.us

[Demeter]

12. U.S. and Europe to Start Ambitious but Delicate Trade Talks

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/business/global/us-europe-trade-talks-to-start-in-july.html?_r=1&

European Union leaders and President Obama announced on Monday the start of negotiations for a far-reaching trans-Atlantic trade deal, but French indignation over recent remarks by a high-ranking Brussels official created a sideshow here at the Group of 8 meeting.

Mr. Obama said that the first round of talks would begin next month in Washington between the United States and the 27-nation Europe Union. “The U.S.-E.U. relationship is the largest in the world — it makes up almost half of global G.D.P.,” Mr. Obama said, referring to gross domestic product. “This potentially groundbreaking partnership would deepen those ties.”

But President François Hollande of France expressed disbelief at comments José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, made over the weekend. In an interview, Mr. Barroso had criticized as “reactionary” France’s insistence on protecting its film and television industries as a condition of supporting the trade negotiations.

“I do not want to believe that the president of the European Commission could have made the statements about France, or even about the artists, that were made,” Mr. Hollande said, according to the Web sites of several French news organizations.

Mr. Hollande did not appear in a media tent here at the Lough Erne Resort when Mr. Obama and Mr. Barroso — with Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and David Cameron, the British prime minister — announced the timing of the trade negotiations. French reporters said Mr. Hollande was busy preparing for his meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Aside from trade, the two-day Group of 8 meeting was likely to be dominated by the civil war in Syria. Other financial issues on the agenda were measures to clamp down on tax evasion and the legal ruses multinational companies use to limit their tax liabilities. Mr. Cameron, the host of the meeting, was by far the most effusive of the leaders who spoke about their trade ambitions. “We’re talking about what could be the biggest bilateral trade deal in history, a deal that would have a greater impact than all the other trade deals on the table put together,” he said. A trade pact between the United States and the European Union has long been an ambition of policy makers. According to the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, such a deal would allow European companies to sell an additional 187 billion euros, $250 billion, worth of goods and services a year to the United States....

[Demeter]

4. Obama, Putin Agree Never to Speak to Each Other Again by Andy Borowitz

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/06/obama-putin-agree-never-to-speak-to-each-other-again.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28140%29

LOUGH ERNE, NORTHERN IRELAND (The Borowitz Report)—The G8 summit ended today on a constructive note, with President Obama and Russia’s Vladimir Putin reaching a broad agreement never to speak to each other again.

“It’s better this way,” said Mr. Obama, frostily standing in the general vicinity of Mr. Putin for the last time ever. “We truly despise each other.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Mr. Putin, looking as though he had just smelled something bad. “My hatred of this man knows no bounds.”

According to the agreement, economic coöperation, cyber security, human rights, the war in Syria, and the New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s missing Super Bowl ring are among thirty-seven different topics that the two men will never again discuss. Additionally, at all future summits, if either Mr. Obama or Mr. Putin enters a room the other man will be obligated to leave immediately. The two men reached agreement on an unprecedented number of points, including never contacting each other via telephone or e-mail and keeping a minimum of five hundred feet away from each other’s residences.

After signing the agreement, the two men shook hands for the final time and scowled bitterly for photographers.

[Demeter]

6. S&P Debt Ratings: The Search for Meaning By Dean Baker

http://www.nationofchange.org/sp-debt-ratings-search-meaning-1371565562

S&P announced last week that it was upgrading its assessment of U.S. debt, shifting its outlook to neutral from negative, suggesting that it may restore its highest Aaa rating in the not-too-distant future. While we may all want to celebrate S&’s vote of confidence in the financial health of the U.S. government, this might be a good time to again ask what S&P was thinking when it downgraded U.S. debt. That is not a sarcastic question. When S&P downgrades a company’s debt or the debt of a government that does not issue debt in its own currency, the downgrade has a clear meaning. The downgrade means that in S&P’s assessment, it is now more likely that the downgraded company or government will not be able to pay off its debt. This means that holders of the bonds face an increased risk of bankruptcy or its equivalent, and may not get back the full value of the bonds.

However it is difficult to see what this means when applied to the United States, which does issue debt in a currency under its control. If the United States is borrowing $100 billion then it is promising to pay off its bonds with 100 billion dollars. Since the United States controls the printing of dollars, it is difficult to understand what S&P could mean when it downgraded the country’s debt. Did it mean that they thought it was possible that the United States government would forget how to print dollars? There is a plausible, albeit remote, story of default. We did see a political impasse between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress two years ago that could have conceivably led to a situation where the government would be legally prohibited from paying off its bonds due to the debt ceiling. It’s not clear that this was ever a real concern. After all, there are some legal issues surrounding the debt ceiling. (The constitution does state that the debt should be honored.) It is not clear what would happen if the president were to ignore the debt ceiling and continue to meet debt obligations and other expenditures mandated by Congress. Also, it seems difficult to believe that even if we ever did reach the ceiling and a debt payment was missed that Congress would not respond quickly to the resulting financial turmoil. In that scenario we might see bond payments delayed by a few days, but it would be difficult to view this as a default. More importantly from the perspective of the S&P downgrade, this would be entirely a political matter. The default or pseudo-default would not be the result of the government’s financial situation; it would be the result of political gridlock. If the increased possibility of this sort of political gridlock was the meaning of the S&P downgrade then it should have stated this fact explicitly. Instead it devoted most of the pages in its downgrade report to a discussion of the country’s financial situation.

Some analysts have claimed that the downgrade is based on S&Ps assessment that if the government were to continue to run large deficits then the Fed would eventually allow inflation to rise in order to reduce the real value of the debt. In this view S&P was not worried literally about default, but rather that the deficit situation would lead to higher inflation in future years. There are two problems with this view. First, if the concern was an increased possibility of future inflation, then S&P should have downgraded every bond that was denominated in dollars. If the S&P sees an increased probability that inflation will erode the value of the dollar and that it is the basis for its downgrading of U.S. debt then it should similarly downgrade every other asset that will be paid back in deflated dollars. S&P did not opt to downgrade all other dollar-denominated assets, which would imply that the downgrade had little to do with inflation. More importantly S&P has not been in the business of making inflation predictions. It did not downgrade government debt in the 1970s even as inflation rose into the double digits. Nor did it downgrade any of the bonds of private companies whose value was also being eroded by inflation at the time. In other words, if S&P’s concern was inflation and not default per se, this would be a major change in approach that it has never announced to the world.

In short, it is not easy to give meaning to S&P’s downgrade of U.S. debt. S&P could not really believe that the United States would ever be in a situation where it could not pay off dollar-denominated bonds and it doesn’t make inflation projections, so whether or not the debt burden might have led to inflation was beside the point. The most remarkable part was that this downgrade figured so prominently in budget debates over the last two years. But of course we are talking about people who took the Reinhart-Rogoff 90 percent debt cliff seriously also. That is the sorry state of the budget debate in Washington.



I'M GOING HEAVY ON THE SARCASM TONIGHT...YOU MIGHT WANT TO TAKE SOME PRE-EMPTIVE ANT-ACIDS...

[Demeter]

9. Want to Know How Your Rep. Voted on Wall Street Regs? Check the Campaign Cash By Erika Eichelberger

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/maplight-foundation-swaps-jurisdiction-certainty-act-campaign-finance

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow US banks to get out of new financial regulations by operating through their overseas arms. Financial reformers say this is dangerous because markets are global, and a bad bet made by a US bank operating in another country could easily affect banks in the US and cause the US economy to crash again. Bad for America, but good for banks that want to avoid tough new rules. Perhaps that's why lawmakers who received more money from banks and the finance industry in recent years were more likely to vote in favor of the bill. House members who supported the bill received more than twice as much in contributions from the financial industry over the past two years as lawmakers who voted against it, according to a new analysis from the MapLight Foundation, an independent research group that tracks campaign finance.

Interest groups supporting the bill, including securities and investment companies, banks, and chambers of commerce, contributed an average of 102 percent more to House members who supported the bill than to those who voted no. Check it out:



Democratic House members who voted yes on the bill received 75 percent more money from from the financial services industry than Democrats who voted no.



In 2011 and 2012, groups that supported this bill gave five times more to House members than groups that opposed the bill did. The gap was even larger for donations to Democrats. Over those two years, House Democrats received less than $250,000 from interests that opposed this measure. During the same time period, groups in favor of allowing the banks to skirt regulation gave Dems 28 times as much—close to $7 million. Here's what that looks like:



What's remarkable is that some Democrats held firm. Although the bill passed the House last week by a vote of 301 to 124, most Democrats voted against it, which financial reformers say is a significant turn of events. "A majority of Democrats voted against a pro-Wall Street bill...even though it was co-sponsored by Democrats… that was heavily lobbied by Wall Street and everyone had predicted would win by a landslide," Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, told Mother Jones after the vote last week. "I'm pretty psyched."

[Demeter]

10. Obama says Bernanke has 'stayed a lot longer' than he wanted at Fed PRONOUN PROBLEM!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/18/us-usa-obama-bernanke-idUSBRE95H02420130618

President Barack Obama hinted in an interview aired on Monday that he may be looking for a new chief of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, saying Ben Bernanke has stayed a lot longer than the current chairman had originally planned. Obama, speaking to Charlie Rose, host of a PBS interview program, compared Bernanke to longtime FBI Director Robert Mueller, who agreed to stay two years longer than he had planned and is to leave in the coming months.

"Well, I think Ben Bernanke's done an outstanding job. Ben Bernanke's a little bit like Bob Mueller, the head of the FBI - where he's already stayed a lot longer than he wanted or he was supposed to," Obama said.

Asked whether he would reappoint Bernanke if he wanted to keep the job, Obama did not answer directly. (HE NEVER DOES--HAVEN'T YOU NOTICED? DEMETER)

"He has been an outstanding partner, along with the White House, in helping us recover much stronger than, for example, our European partners, from what could have been an economic crisis of epic proportions," Obama said.

Bernanke, who has tried to nurse along the ailing U.S. economy through the 2008 financial crisis, is widely expected to step down when his second term as chairman expires at the end of January...Expanding on Obama's remarks, a White House official said Obama's remarks were reflecting his admiration for the length and depth of Bernanke's commitment to serve as Fed chair in a difficult period and at a significant personal sacrifice. Obama was making the point that Bernanke worked through the stressful financial crisis of 2008, and is in his eighth year as Fed chair, and has likely stayed longer and endured more than he might have personally have wanted to, out of a sense of duty and public service, the official said. Bernanke has been a vital and excellent partner in helping to bring the United States back from the brink of depression, the official said. No decisions have been made about any personnel decision involving the Fed, the official added. (SO, THEY HAD TO PULL SOME ANONYMOUS AIDE OUT TO COVER OVER THE GAFFE?)

Obama is said to be considering a number of monetary experts for the job, including Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, and former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. An announcement could come as early as this fall, to give the Fed nominee time to get through Senate confirmation by the time Bernanke's term ends.

[Demeter]

11. Beijing buys more bank shares to lift China's stock markets

TAKE THAT, HELICOPTER BEN! NOT EVEN A FIG LEAF!

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/06/17/china-huijin-banks-idINL3N0ET2H320130617

China's government has stepped up efforts to lift confidence in the country's flagging stock markets by buying more shares in the four biggest commercial banks, stock exchange statements showed on Monday.

Central Huijin Investment Co, which holds Beijing's investments in state-owned financial firms, spent about 363 million yuan ($59.2 million) buying bank shares on June 13, Reuters calculations based on stock exchange filings showed. This is the third time Huijin has been known to be buying shares in the secondary market since June 13, when China's stock market skidded to six-month lows after data showed the world's second-biggest economy was cooling faster than expected.

Despite China's promise to allow free markets to play a bigger role in its economy, Beijing regularly intervenes in the equity market during sell-offs by ordering Huijin or other state pension funds and insurers to invest millions or billions of yuan in shares. In its latest intervention, Huijin, a unit of China's $500 billion sovereign wealth fund, scooped up shares in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China (BoC), China Construction Bank (CCB) and Agricultural Bank of China (ABC). All four banks said in statements that they expect Huijin to further raise its stakes in them over the next six months. Just last week, Everbright Bank and New China Life Insurance said Huijin had raised its stakes in them with more than 100 million yuan in investments. Chinese media has also reported that Huijin has bought 5.2 billion yuan worth of shares in three exchange-traded funds that invest mostly in blue-chip stocks.

Such interventions usually give a fillip to share prices although the market has in the past surrendered those gains over time....Following Huijin's latest purchases, China has raised its stake in each of the four banks by 0.01 percent each and now owns 35.46 percent of ICBC, 67.74 percent of BoC, 57.23 percent of CCB, and 40.24 percent of ABC, stock exchange filings showed. ($1 = 6.1308 Chinese yuan)

[Demeter]

13. Proxy advisers hold power in say-on-pay votes, Georgeson study says

http://www.pionline.com/article/20130611/DAILYREG/130619975?AllowView=VDl3UXpKTy9DL1dCbGhMRkNQdVFEalMyams4VURPZFVFQjBG&utm_campaign=smartbrief&utm_source=linkbypass&utm_medium=affiliate


Shareholders have voted to reject the compensation of the CEO and other top executives at 20 U.S. companies in non-binding say-on-pay voting through May 17, according to a report released Tuesday by Georgeson, which provides shareholder consulting services to corporations and shareholder group....


AVALANCHE!

[Demeter]

14. BlackRock Proposes Standardized Bonds

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323566804578551743440102484.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

BlackRock Inc. is proposing a solution to declining corporate bond-trading volumes: having borrowers issue more-uniform deals. Standardization in the $5.5 trillion U.S. investment-grade corporate-bond market "looks unavoidable in the long run," the asset manager said in a paper released Monday by the BlackRock Investment Institute. As the world's largest asset manager, overseeing $3.9 trillion, BlackRock has complained that once bonds become 30 to 60 days old, they trade infrequently, making it hard to exit positions inexpensively. Making matters worse, Wall Street dealers have increased restrictions on when they can step in without a buyer immediately at hand on the other side of a trade. Richard Prager, head of BlackRock trading and liquidity strategies, said at a briefing Monday that having issuers sell bonds in uniform sizes and maturities would "promote electronic trading" and help boost trading volumes. "This would cut down the jungle of bonds" that investors have to evaluate to buy or sell, the paper said.

After a push by investors including BlackRock, parts of the interest-rate derivatives markets recently adopted standardized terms to increase the number of derivatives contracts. The problems in the corporate-bond market were a driver behind the company's move last year to introduce a trading platform it calls the Aladdin Trading Network. A spokeswoman said it has since revamped it to be a portal for clients to access other trading platforms.

Jody Lurie, corporate credit analyst at investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC, said standardizing corporate bonds could reduce the amount of time investors take to review a deal. "If a company comes to market with a bond that is more comparable to peer bonds or bonds it recently issued, it would boost trading volumes," she said.

But Thomas Deas, treasurer of chemical manufacturer FMC Corp. FMC +1.33% and chairman of the National Association of Corporate Treasurers, said the ultimate benefits weren't clear to many companies and some bank underwriters who have discussed BlackRock's idea. "They are saying it would be good for issuers, in lowering new issue premiums, but it's completely unproven," said Mr. Deas...

MORE

[Fuddnik]

15. Take that Smithfield!

A new take on 'grass-fed' meat: Pig farmer markets pork raised on marijuana

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/18/19027428-a-new-take-on-grass-fed-meat-pig-farmer-markets-pork-raised-on-marijuana?lite

By Elisha Fieldstadt

The possibilities when it comes to marketing meat made from marijuana-fed animals are close to endless, but the man who came up with the idea has decided to simply call them “Pot Pigs.”

William von Scheneidau, owner and founder of BB Ranch in Seattle, didn’t come up with the idea to feed pigs and other animals weed while sitting around a bong in the basement with his buddies.

In fact, he doesn’t even smoke, he said.

Von Scheneidau said the notion came to him when he met the owners of a weed dispensary who told him that, ever since marijuana was legalized in Washington via popular vote last year, they've had extra stems, stalks, and leaves to get rid of.

He simply asked them if he could take what they were planning to throw out, as he once did with a farmer's rotting cantaloupes.

Von Scheneidau said he has always experimented with what he fed his animals and is even currently adding beer and vodka to their troughs.

(snip)

[Demeter]

16. Oh Dear God!

There's this stuff called cocoa mulch, made from the husks of the cocoa beans.

Lady had a dog who ate mulch as a bad habit (pica), snacked on some and died, because cocoa mulch contains theobromine, as does the chocolate that comes from the cocoa beans. It's poisonous to dogs.

So, I can see that the failures in feeding drugs to pigs will lead to happy deaths....but it's unlikely that this project will be a success. Biological units like plants and animals are not perfect black boxes: inputs don't always give the desired outputs, because we cannot know what all is in those boxes and how a black box will process any particular input under any particular set of conditions....

Guess it's a good thing the Chinese bought Smithfield...to go with their melamine--poisoned baby formula.

[Fuddnik]

17. Look at the bright side.

With a Smithfield grilled ham and cheese, you can melt the ham too.

[bread_and_roses]

18. "Meet America’s Most Shameless Defender of the 1 Percent, Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw"

http://www.alternet.org/economy/greg-mankiw-and-one-percent

AlterNet [1] / By Lynn Stuart Parramore [2]

Meet America’s Most Shameless Defender of the 1 Percent, Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw

June 17, 2013 |

It’s not really news that America’s economics departments, particularly at elite institutions, are stuffed with people whose careers are founded on protecting monied interests. But it’s pretty rare when someone just comes straight out and announces the fact.

Meet Greg Mankiw, chairman and professor of economics at Harvard, one of the most influential economists in the country. As chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, he guided the economic blundering of George W. Bush. Then in 2006, he became an adviser to Mitt Romney and steered Romney's economic positions in 2012, which included some of the most shocking expressions of classism yet heard from a presidential candidate.

... Above all, Mankiw is the self-appointed Defender in Chief of the 1 percent. How do we know this? Well, because he just published a 23-page paper called “Defending the One Percent [4].” It’s helpful to understand the official propaganda line in the class war, and Mankiw has laid it out in a paper that purports to determine whether income inequality requires any intervention.

...Professor Mankiw begins by asking the reader to imagine a perfectly egalitarian society where the economy is totally efficient and everybody has the same amount of money. What happens, he asks, when a Steve Jobs pops up? Somebody smarter, more creative than everybody else? Suddenly Mr. Entrepreneur makes amazing things that everybody wants to buy, and now economic inequality has entered the egalitarian utopia. Is it fair to intervene and restore equality by penalizing Mr. Entrepreneur?

It must be said that this opening sally, with its clumsily constructed straw man, would not pass muster with a high school debating coach.

... Mankiw’s writing displays the sensibility of a young person suddenly infatuated with the writings of Ayn Rand, and in the fine tradition of Randian entrepreneur worship, he pretends that economic inequality is mostly the result of certain people being smarter and more creative than others ... In a nutshell, he argues that egalitarianism in antithetical to entrepreneurialism

I think the writer is way too timid ... she points out the obvious straw man - few people are calling for "a perfect eqalitarian society" - but implicitly accepts "entrepreneurialism" in itself as a social good. I would argue otherwise - at least as the word is commonly used in English.

World English Dictionary
entrepreneur
— n
1. the owner or manager of a business enterprise who, by risk and initiative, attempts to make profits
2. a middleman or commercial intermediary

Creativity can be a social good; artistry can be a social good, problem solving can be a social good, but none are inherently limited to an "entrepreneurial" system. And "entrepreneurialism" itself has it's down side for the social good - even aside from a system that rewards it for crushing the commons, which ours does.

[bread_and_roses]

20. "entrepreneurialism" run amok - 40,000 medical "apps"

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/06/18/192777704/patients-lead-the-way-as-medicine-grapples-with-apps

Health apps ... are turning smartphones and tablets into exercise aids, blood pressure monitors and even devices that transmit an electrocardiogram. But the explosion of apps is way ahead of tests to determine which ones work.

... Doctors aren't sure which of the roughly 40,000 do what they claim to do.

... "It's the Wild West and someone needs to come in and at least help the consumers and the clinicians and the payers sort through the forty thousand-plus apps that are already out there," says Chodor.

... Ferris ran a of apps that claim to detect skin cancer based on a picture of a mole. Only one of the apps sends the picture to a dermatologist. It was right 98 percent of the time.

Three others, say Ferris, could be dangerously wrong. "The best of them missed melanoma 30 percent of the time," she says. "The worst of them missed melanoma over 90 percent of the time."

The human brain is not designed to compare and evaluate 40,000 items. Or even some subset of that (say for diabetes). So, of course, "entrepreneurs" are looking to make money designing programs to do the evaluating. So how many of those will we have to choose from?

"Entrepreneurialism" has also given us, for instance, entire supermarket shelves - hell, half an isle - filled with artificial air fresheners - chemicals packaged in plastic - putting goddess knows what burden on the environment in the extraction of oil, the production, packaging, and disposal - so we can exercise our "choice."

This is good for us?

[Demeter]

25. That's a Pretty Blatant, In-Your-99%-Face Attitude

Time to light the torches, sharpen the pitchforks, and oil the ropes.

Where does this guy get off? Such anti-American, anti-human, feudal lord attitudes went out in the 18th century, and they are not going to be tolerated.


(edited because my fingers need glasses, and I really shouldn't touch type before breakfast and a reincarnation, let alone try to compose sentences)

[xchrom]

19. IMF CALLS FOR URGENT STEPS ON SPAIN UNEMPLOYMENT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SPAIN_FINANCIAL_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-06-19-05-33-37

MADRID (AP) -- The International Monetary Fund says recession-wracked Spain is making progress but is urging policymakers both within the country and in Europe to take "urgent action" to slash the country's crippling 27 percent unemployment rate.

An IMF report released Wednesday praised Spain's reforms for stabilizing the economy, particularly its public finances, but said unemployment was "unacceptably high and the outlook difficult."

Spain has been in recession for most of the past four years following the collapse of its once-booming real estate sector in 2008. Concerns over its public finances have also piled the pressure on the government to rein in spending.

The IMF predicted Spain's economy would see growth later this year. But it warned that despite lower sovereign borrowing costs, credit was contracting sharply and lending rates remained too high.

[Demeter]

26. Oh NOW They're Worried!

I thought they were just going to force all those young Spaniards to go to Germany for jobs...and that went over like a lead balloon! The Spaniards can't wait to get out of that Worker's Paradise!

[xchrom]

22. Machines Can't Flow: The Difference Between Mechanical and Human Productivity

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/machines-cant-flow-the-difference-between-mechanical-and-human-productivity/276969/


Workers punching the clock at the SKF roller bearing factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Library of Congress)

***SNIP


It's time to rethink productivity. More output, produced faster may be great metrics for machines, but for homo sapiens, the most powerful metric is engagement. Engagement is about process, outcomes, and quality. Engagement values the methods and the results versus focusing completely on the output.

The vascular surgeon who "slows down to speed up," operates on patients with engaged attention. He's in a flow state. When you're doing your best at a sport, like skiing, and you have that feeling of mind and body being in the same place at the same time, you're in a flow state. You can witness engaged attention when you watch children at play.

What if schools evaluated students and teachers on engagement versus today's standardized tests? Research indicates that engaged teachers are effective teachers. Engaged students aren't likely to drop out. They're likely to be cultivating every quality we could hope for: curiosity, initiative, resourcefulness, and mastery of material.

What if, at work, employees were measured on engagement? The most cutting-edge companies do this. Zappos.com and GoDaddy.com train telephone support personnel to engage with customers. This results in job satisfaction for the employee and increased customer loyalty and trust -- a desirable outcome. Companies that measure phone support staff on older productivity metrics look primarily at number of minutes on the phone and effectiveness at upselling customers -- measures of output.

[bread_and_roses]

28. goddess, we knew all this is the 60's

I despair ... even though I have a pretty good idea what happened, my emotional self keeps saying "what happened?"

[xchrom]

29. right? it's part of what being a hippie was all about -- humanizing things -- and figuring out how

to be present and mindful.

[bread_and_roses]

34. I remember

I remember "Summerhill" and "Small is Beautiful." I remember the wonderful cartoon (I wish I had it) in which an alien is facing two women gardening (the cartoon text makes it plain they are part of some sort of commune), one of whom is saying something like:

"leader? I suppose we could meet and come to consensus on someone to call "leader" ad hoc for the purpose of communicating ...."

...I remember we knew that the earth's ecosystem was a web of inter-related delicate balances and that poisoning any part of it would have repercussions .....I remember understanding that mindless, meaningless work was soul-killing. I remember the cartoon about what a wonderful day it would be when schools had enough money and the armed forces were running a bake sale for their new jets .... I remember Welfare Rights and a Guaranteed National Income and the Grey Panthers. I remember "girls say yes to boys who say no" (draft resistance). I remember a feminism that was not totally sold out to corporatism ....

[xchrom]

35. sigh...i loved my hippie days

[bread_and_roses]

39. I'm not nostalgic, X

I am angry.

[xchrom]

41. I find I am both. Nt

[Tansy_Gold]

42. me too n/t

[Demeter]

37. I think, WE are the Aliens, b&r

Space seed born (and borne) of the Space Program. A generation Lost in Space (and Time).

They may be remaking Star Trek, but they aren't remaking the 60's. No, instead the ruthless, stupid, unconstitutional crushing of Occupy harkens back to a less-enlightened time, and the Prism program to a horror known in another generation, and another continent where too many Americans died to defeat pure Evil.

Instead of sending explorers into the Final Frontier, we are sending the ashes of explorers. Instead of making peace, we are being hustled into yet another undefined, undeclared war.

Beam me up, Scottie! There's no intelligent life down here!

[bread_and_roses]

40. + 10000s, Sister (n/t)

[kickysnana]

44. "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish"

[DemReadingDU]

23. Michael Hastings remembered by Rachel Maddow

6/18/13
Michael Hastings, the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, Rolling Stone has learned. He was 33.
more...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michael-hastings-rolling-stone-contributor-dead-at-33-20130618


6/18/13 Michael Hastings remembered by Rachel Maddow
appx 5 minute video
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/vp/52247474#52247474

[DemReadingDU]

24. Fashion's Victims: An Artist's Focus On Garment Workers

6/19/13 Fashion's Victims: An Artist's Focus On Garment Workers

On Madrid's posh Gran Vía, thousands of shoppers and tourists visit the flagship stores of some of the biggest names in European fast fashion — Zara, Mango and H&M.

Suddenly, the hordes of bargain-hunters stop dead in their tracks.

Face down on the sidewalk lie the bodies of three women, buried in rubble. Silver stilettos protrude from underneath cement dust and cardboard. Designer handbags and sunglasses rest next to their lifeless hands.

Tourists gasp. A crowd forms. An off-duty nurse rushes to crouch over one of the bodies. Others call 911 or take photos. And one woman hangs back, observing from afar.

She's the Spanish artist Yolanda Dominguez, and the women sprawled on the sidewalk are alive and well. They're models — part of Dominguez' latest art installation, Fashion Victims, meant to conjure images of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh.

"The real fashion victims are not celebrities, but anonymous workers in poor conditions, in polluted countries," Dominguez, 36, told NPR afterward. "The images I saw [from Bangladesh] in the media of the limbs of the dead people under the rubble struck me so much, and I wanted to reproduce them."

more...
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/06/19/192760190/fashions-victims-an-artists-focus-on-garment-workers

Fashion Victims
video appx 3 minutes

[Demeter]

27. Such sadistic cruelty to the 1%!

I LIKE it! The Class Wars raised to another level...

[Tansy_Gold]

43. And most just turn their heads for a moment

And walk on by.

[xchrom]

30. Jail reckless bankers, standards commission urges

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22954586

Senior bankers guilty of reckless misconduct should be jailed, a long-awaited report on banking commissioned by the government has recommended.

The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards was set up by Chancellor George Osborne last year after a number of scandals involving the industry.

The cross-party group's fifth report attacked the lack of accountability of bankers and also said some bonuses should be withheld for up to 10 years.

The Treasury has welcomed the report.


***we told you so...oh and btw... if you don't take their money...it won't make any differene.

[Hotler]

33. Jail hell, hang them from the lamp post. n/t

[xchrom]

32. Cyprus leader Anastasiades attacks bank bailout terms

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22966453

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades has urged eurozone leaders to revise the terms of his country's bank bailout, in a highly critical letter.

He said the "haircut" imposed on large deposits under the 10bn-euro (£8.6bn) bailout had significantly eroded the capital kept by businesses in banks.

Losses were imposed on big deposits in Bank of Cyprus (BoC) and Laiki Bank. BoC is now in trouble, the letter said.

The letter to Cyprus's creditors, sent last week, was leaked on Wednesday.

[xchrom]

36. Letter from Nicosia: Cyprus Says It Needs More Help from EU

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/cyprus-asks-for-improvements-to-bailout-deal-a-906558.html

Less than three months have passed since the European Union, together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), assembled a €10 billion ($13.4 billion) bailout package for Cyprus to prevent the country's banking system from collapsing. But Nicosia, according to reports in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, already finds itself in need of additional help.

In a letter sent to euro-zone leaders last week, and obtained by both business dailies on Tuesday, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades says that the bailout package, which included the restructuring of the country's two largest banks, was "implemented without careful preparation" and that it has damaged the island nation's economy to a greater degree than expected.

"The economy is driven into a deep recession, leading to a further rise in unemployment and making fiscal consolidation all the more difficult," Anastasiades wrote, according to a passage quoted by the Financial Times. "I urge you to review the possibilities in order to determine a viable prospect for Cyprus and its people."

The Cyprus bailout was, if not the most expensive, certainly the most rancorous of the aid packages the euro zone has yet assembled for an ailing member state. A first deal, which called on all savers with deposits of €20,000 or more to participate in propping up the country's wobbly banks, was rejected by the government in Nicosia. It accepted a similar deal seven days later -- with only savers holding more than €100,000 in savings required to take part.

[Demeter]

38. If you can call that help.

Frankly, I'd ask the Chinese.