STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 30 August 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 30 August 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 29 August 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 29 August 2013
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Dow Jones 14,840.95 +16.44 (0.11%)
S&P 500 1,638.17 +3.21 (0.20%)
Nasdaq 3,620.30 +26.95 (0.75%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.76% -0.06 (-2.13%)
30 Year 3.71% -0.06 (-1.59%) [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.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.








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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. More like a nightmare, actually, as both jobs and freedom evaporate in the New World Order

Well, we have survived another week, and another month, mostly.

I don't have a theme on tap, but I'd like to learn about Syria. It seems a timely topic, on the eve of destruction, to find out what it is we are obliterating...

[AnneD]

30. Survived this first week of school .....

but barely.

This is hat I had to deal with, aside from the usual confusion, forgotten meds, misplaced shot records, demands for vision and hearing for those being ARDED due yesterday. This week, I had a student that was rescued from a human trafficking ring just before summers end go home from the first day of school and start cutting herself. It falls on me to get her into home schooling and another student that I learned was diagnosed a diabetic last year and I am just now hearing this. But the cherry on the sundae was the student that tased another. If I could make a list of the top five students most likely to bring a gun to campus and blow us all away, this student would be on the short list.

Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep and am looking forward to a long weekend. Knitting and adult beverages will be the order of the day.

[Demeter]

35. Into the trenches, indeed

Take care of yourself, too, AnneD. You won't do anyone any good if you don't survive.

[AnneD]

41. If I ever wrote an autobiographical book....

about School Nursing, people would classify as fiction because they would think I was making it up.

As a CPR teacher cautioned us-How good will your CPR be if you arrive to the victim out of breath.

[Demeter]

2. March on Washington, follow-up articles.

Merrill Lynch in Big Payout for Bias Case

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/merrill-lynch-in-big-payout-for-bias-case/



Merrill Lynch, one of the biggest brokerage firms on Wall Street, has agreed to pay $160 million to settle a racial bias lawsuit that wound through the federal courts for eight years, including two appeals to the United States Supreme Court. The payout in the suit, which was filed on behalf of 700 black brokers who worked for Merrill, would be the largest sum ever distributed to plaintiffs in a racial discrimination suit against an American employer. Merrill, which was acquired by Bank of America after the suit was filed, also agreed to take advice from black employees on how to improve their chances of succeeding as brokers...The pool of money, available to all black brokers and trainees at the firm since May 2001, is larger than those offered by other corporations sued by employees for racial bias, including Texaco and Coca-Cola, Ms. Friedman said. It also dwarfs recent payouts by other Wall Street firms, including $16 million that Morgan Stanley agreed to pay in 2008 to settle a suit brought by black and Hispanic brokers...

“This is a somewhat heroic story because these plaintiffs just kept fighting and fighting,” said John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School. “This is like a triple-overtime win.”

Among the many twists in the case was the admission in a deposition by Merrill’s first black chief executive, E. Stanley O’Neal, that black brokers might have a harder time because most of the firm’s prospective clients were white and might not trust their wealth to brokers who were not...When the suit was first filed in 2005, only about one of every 75 brokers at Merrill was black and most of them were considered poor producers. The lead plaintiff, George McReynolds, contended that black brokers received little help from their managers early on and were often ostracized by co-workers. The unequal treatment compounded their disadvantages year after year, he contended. Mr. McReynolds, a longtime broker in Nashville, still works for Merrill eight years after taking the daunting step of suing his employer. Now 68, he said he hoped to fill a seat on the leadership council that Merrill has agreed to create to advise the firm on hiring and mentoring of blacks.

“It’s been a long journey,” Mr. McReynolds said in an interview last week. “There were a number of years where we didn’t know where it was going.” But, he added: “I never gave up. As long as it was alive, I thought we had a chance.”

He said some of his co-workers were wagering on the outcome of his case. “I found out they bet against me a couple of times,” he said. For several years, his quest appeared quixotic. He hired Ms. Friedman, whose firm had pressed a class-action lawsuit against Merrill on behalf of brokers who were women who accused it of sex discrimination. Merrill resolved each of those women’s claims individually. Ms. Friedman said that as many as 1,200 current and former Merrill employees could share in the racial discrimination payout. (As much as one-fifth of the money could go to the lawyers.) But in the beginning, the only name on the lawsuit was Mr. McReynolds. Persuading colleagues to join him was complicated by how scattered Merrill’s black brokers were: despite a global network of 14,000 brokers, the firm did not have a single black broker in more than 25 states...The pool of money, available to all black brokers and trainees at the firm since May 2001, is larger than those offered by other corporations sued by employees for racial bias, including Texaco and Coca-Cola, Ms. Friedman said. It also dwarfs recent payouts by other Wall Street firms, including $16 million that Morgan Stanley agreed to pay in 2008 to settle a suit brought by black and Hispanic brokers....

MUCH MORE AT LINK


How Dr. King Shaped My Work in Economics By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/how-dr-king-shaped-my-work-in-economics/



I had the good fortune to be in the crowd in Washington when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his thrilling “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963. I was 20 years old, and had just finished college. It was just a couple of weeks before I began my graduate studies in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The night before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, I had stayed at the home of a college classmate whose father, Arthur J. Goldberg, was an associate justice of the Supreme Court and was committed to bringing about economic justice. Who would have imagined, 50 years later, that this very body, which had once seemed determined to usher in a more fair and inclusive America, would become the instrument for preserving inequalities: allowing nearly unlimited corporate spending to influence political campaigns, pretending that the legacy of voting discrimination no longer exists, and restricting the rights of workers and other plaintiffs to sue employers and companies for misconduct?

Listening to Dr. King speak evoked many emotions for me. Young and sheltered though I was, I was part of a generation that saw the inequities that had been inherited from the past, and was committed to correcting these wrongs. Born during World War II, I came of age as quiet but unmistakable changes were washing over American society.

As president of the student council at Amherst College, I had led a group of classmates down South to help push for racial integration. We couldn’t understand the violence of those who wanted to preserve the old system of segregation. When we visited an all-black college, we felt intensely the disparity in educational opportunities that had been given to the students there, especially when compared with those that we had received in our privileged, cloistered college. It was an unlevel playing field, and it was fundamentally unfair. It was a travesty of the idea of the American dream that we had grown up with and believed in.

It was because I hoped that something could be done about these and the other problems I had seen so vividly growing up in Gary, Ind. — poverty, episodic and persistent unemployment, unending discrimination against African-Americans — that I decided to become an economist, veering away from my earlier intention to go into theoretical physics. I soon discovered I had joined a strange tribe. While there were a few scholars (including several of my teachers) who cared deeply about the issues that had led me to the field, most were unconcerned about inequality; the dominant school worshiped at the feet of (a misunderstood) Adam Smith, at the miracle of the efficiency of the market economy. I thought that if this was the best of all possible worlds, I wanted to construct and live in another world....historical reminiscing...I turned 70 earlier this year. Much of my scholarship and public service in recent decades — including my service at the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration, and then at the World Bank — has been devoted to the reduction of poverty and inequality. I hope I’ve lived up to the call Dr. King issued a half-century ago.

He was right to recognize that these persistent divides are a cancer in our society, undermining our democracy and weakening our economy. His message was that the injustices of the past were not inevitable. But he knew, too, that dreaming was not enough.

[Demeter]

3. ANOTHER GOVERNMENT BARRIER FALLS

I.R.S. to Recognize All Gay Marriages, Regardless of State

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/us/politics/irs-to-recognize-all-gay-marriages-regardless-of-state.html

All legally married same-sex couples will be recognized for federal tax purposes, regardless of whether the state where they live recognizes the marriage, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday. The federal rules change is one of many stemming from the landmark Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. That ruling found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits, but left open the question of how the federal government would actually administer those benefits.

“Imagine a pair of women who marry in Albany and then move to Alabama,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote at the time of the decision. “May they file a joint federal income tax return? Does the answer turn on where they were married or where they live?”

As of the 2013 tax year, same-sex spouses cannot file federal tax returns as if they were single. Instead, they will have to opt for filing as “married filing jointly” or “married filing separately.” The location of their marriage — as long as it is legal — or residence does not matter: a same-sex couple who marry in Albany and move to Alabama will be treated the same as a same-sex couple who marry and live in Massachusetts.

“Today’s ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax-filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in a statement. “This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change.”

The Treasury said that the ruling applies to “all federal tax provisions where marriage is a factor, including filing status, claiming personal and dependency exemptions, taking the standard deduction, employee benefits, contributing to an I.R.A., and claiming the earned income tax credit or child tax credit.”

The ruling applies to all legal marriages made in the United States or foreign countries. But it does not extend to civil unions, registered domestic partnerships or other legal relationships, the Treasury said. Same-sex spouses will be able to file as married couples for the 2013 tax year, the Treasury said, and will also be able to file amended returns for certain prior tax years, meaning that many couples might be eligible for refunds.


Same-sex couples may be owed tax refunds

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/same-sex-couples-celebrate-then-call-a-cpa-2013-06-26?siteid=YAHOOB

For same-sex couples, tax time has long been burdensome, confusing, and expensive. Now it will still be burdensome, confusing, and expensive, but merely in the same ways it is for everyone else.

For years, many couples have had to prepare as many as four tax returns—some of which never got filed – in order to make the calculations necessary to contend with disparities between state and federal laws on gay marriage. Now they can file joint federal tax returns, even if the state they live in does not recognize their marriage. (However, today’s ruling does not apply to registered domestic partnerships, civil unions or other similar formal relationships recognized under state law.)

After years of missing out on some of the deductions and credits allowed for heterosexual couples, many same-sex couples will also be collecting refunds. The IRS says it is accepting amended returns for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 tax years. “It’s wonderful news that same-sex couples are finally being given the recognition they deserve,” says Kenneth Weissenberg, a partner at accounting firm EisnerAmper, who estimates he and his husband Brian Sheerin could collect a refund check of $5,000 after refiling their 2011 return as a married couple. “In some cases, you’ll save money.” (The couple filed for an extension, so they still have until Oct. 15 to file their 2012 tax return.)

But there is still some confusion over how same-sex marriages will be treated by states that don’t recognize them. Some couples who are now able to file joint returns at the federal level may still have to file separate state tax returns. And some states that don’t currently permit same-sex marriages but define a person’s state tax filing status by their federal filing status may still end up recognizing gay marriages for tax purposes, says Weissenberg. “Some states could say they’re going to decouple filing status from the federal status,” he says.

Some couples may want to call their accountants to re-evaluate their estate plans, exemptions, deductions and employee benefits. Here is a look at some key topics to consider. SEE LINK

[Demeter]

4. Feds Say 'Unbanked' Can Buy Insurance With Prepaid Debit Cards OH, JOY! OH FABJOUS DAY!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/08/29/216888921/feds-say-unbanked-can-buy-insurance-with-prepaid-debit-cards?ft=1&f=1001

The Obama administration said Wednesday that it is moving ahead with a rule that would requiring health plans to accommodate households that don't have traditional bank accounts.

One in four of the uninsured people eligible for federal insurance subsidies doesn't have a bank account, released earlier this year by the tax preparation firm Jackson Hewitt. The report dubbed people without connections to traditional financial institutions the "unbanked."

An estimated 8.5 million people without health coverage would have difficulty getting tax credits to help them buy insurance on marketplaces that open Oct. 1, if health plans barred certain payment methods. Those include cashier's checks, money orders and prepaid debit cards that are popular with low-income households.
Millions of people who rely on check-cashing stores, like this one in New York City, could run into trouble buying health insurance.

The , issued Wednesday, requires insurance companies to accept "paper checks, cashier's checks, money orders, replenishable pre-paid debit cards, electronic funds transfer from a bank account, and an automatic deduction from a credit or debit card."

Health plans won't have to accept cash. The feds figured that was too complicated.

[jtuck004]

11. "..."paper checks, cashier's checks, money orders, replenishable pre-paid debit cards, electronic

funds transfer from a bank account, and an automatic deduction from a credit or debit card..."

It's not complicated. Every single one of those allows someone else to make a profit from your labor without lifting much more than a finger onto a keyboard - time millions of people.

As opposed to cash, which would be harder for them to skim their vigorish from.

Everyone must think the people are stupid, but we aren't. Thieving bastards.

[Demeter]

12. You have another point there

Mine was on the whole concept of "too complicated". Have you seen what one goes through to qualify for this new tax scheme / health care lottery? The odds stink, too.

...and don't forget, the "hoovering up" of one's personal data will continue with this process...

[jtuck004]

13. I think it's setting up to be a nightmare for a whole lotta folks, especially

the complexity for those that may need it the most.

But maybe it's like the financial stuff being done, knowing it's all going to fall apart, it must, and just trying to delay enough to keep it from being apparent, hoping not to be the person/party in office that last crank of the jack-in-the-box causes it to implode.

[Demeter]

5. DON'T CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA

Argentina to offer debt swap changing bond payments

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/26/argentina-debt-idUSE6N09G01C20130826

Argentina will offer a bond swap on restructured sovereign debt to shift payments to Buenos Aires, President Cristina Fernandez said on Monday, in an attempt to avoid the impact of U.S. court rulings that threaten to interrupt payments.

The voluntary swap covering debt in all foreign markets would only take place if Argentina's ongoing appeals of the U.S. court rulings are rejected, a government source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Argentina on Friday lost its appeal of a U.S. court order requiring it to pay $1.33 billion to hedge funds that refused to accept steep discounts when the nation restructured its debt in the years following a massive default in 2002.

The 93 percent of bondholders who accepted restructurings in 2005 and 2010, receiving less than 30 cents on the dollar, worry that Argentina's refusal to pay bond "holdouts" in the face of the court orders could result in a freeze on the payment of restructured bonds.

Argentina bond risk up as proposed debt swap undercuts U.S. ruling

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/27/argentina-debt-risk-idUSL2N0GS0RC20130827

Argentina's borrowing costs rose on Tuesday as an attempt to move the country's debt beyond the reach of foreign law risked aggravating U.S. federal courts that are judging its defense against holdout bondholders. President Cristina Fernandez offered on Monday to exchange foreign debt for bonds paying in Buenos Aires, which would skirt a U.S. court decision requiring her government to pay $1.3 billion to creditors who have rejected debt restructurings. Argentina has so far avoided a debt crisis thanks to the restraint of judges, who last week surprised some observers with a stay order delaying implementation of their decision pending review by the Supreme Court.

"The fear is that Argentina is trying to avoid the court's ruling," said Alejo Costa, the head of strategy at investment bank Puente in Buenos Aires. "If Argentina tries to defy the court and judges lift their stay order, we have a problem."

If Argentina refuses to pay holdouts despite a judge's active order, courts could block payment of creditors who participated in the country's 2005 and 2010 debt restructurings. That would throw some $28 billion of foreign debt into technical default, triggering Argentina's second debt crisis in a little over a decade and threatening a recovery in South America's third-biggest economy. Argentina's risk premium rose 37 basis points to 1,113 basis points, according to J.P.Morgan's EMBI+ index, representing a rising spread in the yield between the Argentine bonds and comparable U.S. Treasuries. The country's five-year credit default swaps jumped as much 350 basis points early on Tuesday, before settling to an 85 basis-point rise. Argentina's dollar-denominated discount bond fell 4 percent in the Buenos Aires over-the-counter market. U.S. courts have repeatedly rebuked the attitude of officials in Argentina, which 2nd Circuit Judge Barrington Parker has called a "uniquely recalcitrant debtor."

"Argentina's officials have publicly and repeatedly announced their intention to defy any rulings of this Court and the district court with which they disagree," Parker wrote in a ruling against the country on Friday.

[Demeter]

6. Currency Spikes at 4 P.M. in London Provide Rigging Clues

GEE, SHERLOCK HOLMES LIVES! THINK HE COULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT US MARKETS?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-27/currency-spikes-at-4-p-m-in-london-provide-rigging-clues.html

In the space of 20 minutes on the last Friday in June, the value of the U.S. dollar jumped 0.57 percent against its Canadian counterpart, the biggest move in a month. Within an hour, two-thirds of that gain had melted away. The same pattern -- a sudden surge minutes before 4 p.m. in London on the last trading day of the month, followed by a quick reversal -- occurred 31 percent of the time across 14 currency pairs over two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. For the most frequently traded pairs, such as euro-dollar, it happened about half the time, the data show. SEE GRAPH AT LINK

The recurring spikes take place at the same time financial benchmarks known as the WM/Reuters (TRI) rates are set based on those trades. Now fund managers and scholars say the patterns look like an attempt by currency dealers to manipulate the rates, distorting the value of trillions of dollars of investments in funds that track global indexes. Bloomberg News reported in June that dealers shared information and used client orders to move the rates to boost trading profit. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority is reviewing the allegations, a spokesman said.

“We see enormous spikes,” said Michael DuCharme, head of foreign exchange at Seattle-based Russell Investments, which traded $420 billion of foreign currency last year for its own funds and institutional investors. “Then, shortly after 4 p.m., it just reverts back to what seems to have been the market rate. It adds to the suspicion that things aren’t right.”
Global Probes

Authorities around the world are investigating the abuse of financial benchmarks by large banks that play a central role in setting them.


THIS IS AN ENORMOUS REPORT...SEE LINK

WHO SAYS INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IS DEAD?

[Demeter]

7. China to expand credit asset securitization pilot program

TURN BACK, O MAN, FORESWEAR THY FOOLISH WAYS

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/28/us-china-economy-securitisation-idUSBRE97R0HA20130828

China will expand a pilot program for securitizing credit assets, state radio cited the State Council as saying on Wednesday, as the government looks for ways to clean up bad debt. The council, China's cabinet, decided at a regular meeting to steadily push ahead with the pilot scheme, with the precondition that risk would be strictly controlled.

It said high quality asset-backed securities (ABS) products could be traded on the stock exchange to provide more investment options for investors. High risk assets will be excluded from the pilot program. It did not elaborate on what specific kinds of assets would be in the pilot program.

China relaunched a program to develop ABS last year after it was interrupted by the 2008-2009 financial crisis, but progress has been slow.

The central bank had said earlier this year that it would push forward asset securitization. The government has been trying to rein in rapid credit growth amid concerns over a rise in bad debts.

[jtuck004]

14. Oh, hell yes. This is better than bombing them. Is Goldman consulting with them?

"... with the precondition that risk would be strictly controlled"



I would bet 1% of the people think it's a good idea. That's about the number we had...

[Demeter]

8. WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES--PLEASE STAND BY---

Nasdaq, NYSE at odds on outage cause as SEC seeks facts

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/27/uk-nasdaq-halt-nyse-idUKBRE97Q04M20130827

U.S. regulators have asked Nasdaq OMX Group and NYSE Euronext to come up with a timeline of LAST Thursday's three-hour trading disruption, but the rival exchange operators have been unable to agree on the details, according to several sources familiar with the situation on Monday. Five days after a glitch that paralysed Nasdaq-listed stocks for three hours on all U.S. markets, Nasdaq and NYSE have a different understanding of what happened in the period preceding and during the blackout, with each side blaming the other for the outage, according to the sources. At the centre of the disagreement is the role of Arca, NYSE's fully electronic stock market. The blackout, which saw trading in about 3,200 Nasdaq-listed stocks such as Apple Inc, Google Inc and Facebook Inc grind to a halt, was preceded by connectivity problems between Arca and the Nasdaq-operated Securities Information Processor (SIP). The SIP consolidates stock prices and distributes them to the market.

What's not clear is whether the problem at the SIP was caused by issues at Arca or technical flaws at the processor.

The inability of the two largest U.S. stock markets to come to a common understanding on what caused one of the worst market disruptions in recent memory underscores the complexity of the highly fragmented market and the difficulty of preventing future glitches. It could further damage investor confidence in markets, which have been roiled by a succession of high-profile technical glitches in recent years. Much is at stake for the two exchange operators. Nasdaq and NYSE have a lock on the U.S. primary listings business and compete fiercely to woo companies to list on their respective markets. Major market debuts - Wall Street watchers have been tweeting about the possibility of a Twitter IPO for months - are huge public relations boons for exchanges.

MORE PRESSURE FROM RIVALS

The exchange operators are also coming under more pressure from rivals. On Monday, BATS Global Markets and Direct Edge said they would merge, in a deal that would vault the new company ahead of Nasdaq in U.S. stock trading. NYSE, which is being taken over by IntercontinentalExchange, is the No. 1 U.S. stock exchange operator. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has held several conference calls to get to the bottom of Thursday's glitch, with Chair Mary Jo White calling on Wall Street leaders to help ensure the "continuous and orderly" functioning of securities markets. The agency asked Nasdaq and NYSE to come up with a timeline of events during one such conference call over the weekend, the sources said...

BLAME GAME

Last week, Nasdaq Chief Executive Bob Greifeld told CNBC that the lesson to be learned from the outage was that the exchange needed to get better at "defensive driving" when dealing with other "market participants". Sources close to Nasdaq said Greifeld was referring to Arca. Nasdaq believes Arca's connectivity problems ultimately led to a freeze in the SIP, prompting the exchange to shut down the connection just before the processor froze, they said. Because of Arca's repeated attempts to connect to the SIP, the processor's memory reached capacity, its servers were overwhelmed, and it was unable to revert to backup systems, they said. But people close to NYSE said while Arca had difficulties connecting to the SIP, such connection problems between exchanges are routine. So if the problem caused the SIP to shut down, it only exposed a flaw in Nasdaq's systems, they said. NYSE believes that Arca's connection was inadvertently shut down for 15 minutes by Nasdaq, and that it was back up and running for 45 minutes without a problem before Arca voluntarily shut it down at Nasdaq's request, the sources said.

"Whether Arca was the catalyst or someone else was the catalyst, it was a disaster waiting to happen," said one person familiar with NYSE's thinking.

U.S. SEC to meet exchange heads September 12 over Nasdaq outage

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/27/uk-nasdaq-halt-sec-idUKBRE97Q0Q120130827

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will meet with heads of the major exchanges on September 12 to discuss last week's Nasdaq trading outage, the regulator said on Tuesday. The meeting with SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White would address "the market dissemination system involved in last week's halt, as well as other critical market systems and infrastructure issues," the SEC said.

Nasdaq (NDAQ.O) halted trading in the thousands of stocks listed on its platforms last Thursday, including such familiar names such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O), Google Inc (GOOG.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O). It had done so after learning that a system that consolidates stock prices coming in from different trading platforms, known as the Securities Information Processor, was not disseminating price quotations. The SEC has asked Nasdaq and NYSE Euronext (NYX.N) to come up with a timeline of the three-hour debacle, but the rivals have been unable to agree on the details, Reuters reported on Monday. SEE ABOVE

The outage is part of a series of high-profile trading glitches. On Monday, exchange operator Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) halted trading on its derivatives platform Eurex for an hour after technical problems. Also last week, a technical problem at Goldman Sachs (GS.N) resulted in a flood of erroneous orders in U.S. equity options markets. And on August 6, BATS Global Markets faced an outage that lasted nearly an hour. It was also another black eye for Nasdaq, which in May agreed to pay $10 million to settle SEC charges over its mishandling of the flotation of Facebook.

White has pledged to move ahead aggressively with proposed reforms that would hold exchanges, clearing agencies and certain "dark pool" trading venues more accountable for preventing outages and other technical problems.

Eurex Futures Exchange Halts Trading on Technical Glitch

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/eurex-futures-exchange-halts-trading-on-technical-glitch.html

A technical glitch halted trading on Eurex, Europe’s largest derivatives market, for about 60 minutes, adding to this month’s tally of exchange breakdowns following a three-hour shutdown of the Nasdaq Stock Market. The bourse first said it was investigating “technical issues” in a post on its website at 8.30 a.m. Frankfurt time today, with data compiled by Bloomberg showing no prices for futures on the benchmark Euro Stoxx 50 Index and Germany’s DAX Index from about 8:15 a.m. Trading resumed at 9:20 a.m., Frankfurt-based Eurex said in a separate statement.

“It added to the concern about electronic markets you’ve seen recently,” Christoph Hock, an equity sales trader at Alpha Wertpapierhandels GmbH in Frankfurt, said by phone today. “It wasn’t really a catastrophe because the U.K. is closed for a bank holiday and volumes are relatively thin compared to a normal Monday. But it adds to the recent problems.”

The volume of shares changing hands in Euro Stoxx 50 companies was 24 percent less than the 30-day average, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The glitch comes after a three-hour shutdown of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.’s U.S. markets on Aug. 22 and a software error on Aug. 20 that caused Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to send unintentional options orders. The disruption prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to push for rules requiring executives to improve the reliability of their technology.

Israel, China

Yesterday, an errant trade on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange briefly wiped out almost the entire value of Israel Corp., the holding company controlled by billionaire Idan Ofer. In China, on Aug. 16, a trading error at Everbright Securities Co. spurred a 53 percent surge in volumes and a swing of more than 6 percent in the Shanghai Composite Index. The Tel Aviv bourse canceled transactions in Israel Corp. shares after the stock plunged 99 percent to 2.1 shekels before rebounding to 1,550 shekels. A trader at a bank made a mistake typing an order and asked the exchange to annul the trade once he realized, a spokeswoman at the Tel Aviv stock exchange said. The trader was fined 10,000 shekels ($2,800), said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named.

“We’ve had the hiccups and fat fingers in Nasdaq, China, Israel,” Hock said. “You have more and more trading errors and problems at exchanges. If exchanges don’t do it, regulators will at some point come in with better circuit breakers.”

New System

Eurex, a unit of Deutsche Boerse AG (DB1), dominates trading of interest-rate derivatives and lists futures contracts based on the German bund. The exchange moved to a new trading system last year and last week said it planned to enter the foreign-exchange market for the first time, seeking to expand into an asset class dominated by Chicago-based CME Group Inc. In November 2009, a breakdown forced Eurex to halt trading for more than 90 minutes. A glitch at NYSE Euronext (NYX)’s Liffe derivatives exchange in October last year interrupted transactions in some equity and commodities derivatives. A “connectivity issue” lasting more than six hours stopped trading on Spain’s MEFF futures market in November. Deutsche Boerse shares fell less than 0.1 percent to 53.63 euros at 1:37 p.m. in Frankfurt.

[Demeter]

38. Nasdaq says software bug caused trading outage

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/nasdaq-halt-glitch-idUSL2N0GU1HZ20130829

Nasdaq OMX Group's massive trading halt last week was due to a software bug and other internal technology issues triggered by problems at NYSE Euronext's Arca exchange that led a key backup system to fail, the exchange operator said on Thursday.

Nasdaq said it was "deeply disappointed" by the three-hour outage on Aug. 22, and while it pointed to connection problems between rival NYSE's electronic exchange Arca and the Nasdaq-run system that receives all traffic on quotes and orders for Nasdaq stocks, it took ultimate responsibility for the glitch.

"Our backup system did not work," Bob Greifeld, Nasdaq's chief executive, said in an interview.

"There was a bug in the system, it didn't fail over properly, and we need to work hard to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said, referring to the inability of the system to fully revert to backup mode

.

New York Stock Exchange parent NYSE declined to comment.

Nasdaq said it was in the process of identifying potential design changes to make the Securities Information Processor, or SIP, more resilient, "including architectural improvements, information security, disaster recovery plans and capacity parameters." The exchange plans to present its initial recommendations for change to the SIP governing committee, made up of U.S. exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, within 30 days.

Nasdaq said that on the morning of Aug. 22, Arca connected and disconnected to the SIP more than 20 times, eating up capacity. It said the SIP's capacity was further eroded as Arca sent a stream of inaccurate stock symbols to the SIP, generating numerous rejection messages. Each data port connecting to the SIP can handle 10,000 messages per second, Nasdaq said. But in this case, the traffic from Arca was more than double that, the exchange said.

"The confluence of these events vastly exceeded the SIP's planned capacity, which caused its failure and then revealed a latent flaw in the SIP's software code," the Nasdaq report said.

This software flaw prevented the processor's built-in backup system from resetting properly, delaying the return of data. With the system degraded, the exchange said it decided to halt trading to ensure fair market conditions. Nasdaq said it took 30 minutes to resolve the problem and then nearly three more hours to test and evaluate scenarios to reopen the market in a fair and orderly manner.

"Nasdaq OMX is deeply disappointed in the events of Aug. 22 and our performance is unacceptable to our members, issuers and the investing public," the exchange said. "While getting to 100 percent performance in all of our activities, including our technology is difficult - it is our objective."

[Demeter]

9. ECB Says Private Sector Loans Continue Fall as Economy Revives THAT'S A RECOVERY?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/ecb-says-private-sector-loans-continue-fall-as-economy-revives.html



Lending to companies and households in the euro area fell for a 15th month in July, extending the longest credit contraction on record, even as signs of economic recovery in the region increase. Loans to the private sector dropped 1.9 percent from a year earlier, the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank said today. That’s the steepest decline on record. Adjusted for loan sales and securitization, lending contracted 1.4 percent in July. ECB President Mario Draghi said on Aug. 1 that credit will lag the recovery in the real economy. The 17-nation euro area emerged from recession in the second quarter, posting 0.3 percent growth after six quarters of contraction. Economic confidence in the region is forecast to rise in August to the highest level in 17 months, according to a Bloomberg News survey before a report tomorrow.

“When we see a turnaround in investment then we should see credit picking up, particularly in Germany, perhaps by November or December,” said Annamaria Grimaldi, an economist at Intesa Sanpaolo SpA in Milan. “In the case of Italy and Spain, it’s a much more delicate issue and depending on deleveraging the dynamic of credit could be more sluggish.”

Germany’s gross domestic product climbed 0.7 percent in the three months ended June from the prior quarter. Italy’s economy shrank 0.2 percent and Spain contracted 0.1 percent. Both nations have been in recession for two years. The rate of growth in M3 money supply, which the ECB uses as an indicator for future inflation, slowed to 2.2 percent in July from 2.4 percent in June, according to today’s data. Economists had expected a decline to 2 percent, according to the median of 28 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. M3 grew 2.5 percent in past three months from the same period a year earlier. M3 is the broadest gauge of money supply and includes cash in circulation, some forms of savings and money-market holdings.

[Demeter]

10. That's it for spleen-venting tonight

See you all in the morning, or at least, on the Weeekend!

[xchrom]

15. Euro zone morale climbs in shadow of record unemployment

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/30/us-eurozone-economy-idUSBRE97T0A320130830

(Reuters) - Optimism in the euro zone's economy improved sharply in August but stubbornly high unemployment, in particular in the bloc's weaker countries, highlighted the fissure separating the recovering north from the struggling south.

The confidence of business managers polled by the European Commission rose for its fourth successive month in the euro zone, the EU executive said on Friday. The positive trend was particularly strong in Germany and the Netherlands but was also seen in Italy, France and Spain.

The measure of sentiment across the bloc in August, based on business orders, industrial confidence and other factors such as companies' hiring plans, increased by 2.7 points to 95.2.

Such rising confidence has inspired some to predict that the 17 countries using the euro have overcome a crisis that was triggered by banks' investment in risky mortgage debt and later drove some states to the brink of bankruptcy.

[xchrom]

16. U.S., Switzerland forge bank settlement deal amid tax probe

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/30/us-usa-tax-switzerland-idUSBRE97S14B20130830


(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has signed an agreement with the Swiss government to allow some Swiss banks to pay penalties to avoid or defer prosecution stemming from a long-running probe of tax dodging by Americans using Swiss bank accounts.

The settlement program will apply to about 100 second-tier Swiss banks, provided they agree to disclose certain previous hidden assets of U.S. customers. It will be open only to banks not already under U.S. criminal investigation.

The deal is a step forward in a three-year U.S. effort to pierce the shroud of Swiss bank secrecy, but some details of the program raise questions about its potential for rooting out U.S. tax evaders, tax lawyers and watchdog groups said.

Under the program, eligible banks would pay penalties and disclose account information about U.S. customers in order to avoid prosecution, the department said on Thursday.

[AnneD]

34. Is that...

forge as to build as a blacksmith or foundry or forge as in to steal by fraud.

Oh, it is about the US government and foreign banks...never mind.

[xchrom]

17. India's Singh highlights bright side of crashing rupee

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/30/us-india-economy-singh-idUSBRE97T09J20130830

(Reuters) - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought to soothe worries about the Indian economy on Friday, telling parliament that the crashing value of the rupee was part of a needed adjustment that would make Asia's third-largest economy more competitive.

The speech was the veteran economist's first substantial comment to parliament since the rupee suffered its steepest ever monthly fall in recent weeks, bringing back memories of a 1991 balance of payments crisis that made Singh famous.

Reading from a written statement, the prime minister promised his government would reduce the "unsustainably large" current account deficit undermining the currency.

"Clearly we need to reduce our appetite for gold, economize the use of petroleum products and take steps to increase our exports," he said.

[xchrom]

18. {here we go again}Scandinavia’s Weakest Nation Finds Welfare Habits Too Costly

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-30/scandinavia-s-weakest-nation-finding-welfare-habits-unaffordable.html

Scandinavia’s weakest economy can no longer afford the kinds of entitlements its citizens were raised on, according to Danish Finance Minister Bjarne Corydon.

“We live in a world of global competition for jobs,” the 40-year-old minister said in an interview in Copenhagen. “For any finance minister wanting to be taken seriously, it’s something to deal with. That requires a modernization of the welfare state.”

Denmark this week cut its economic forecast and predicted a widening budget deficit. The AAA rated nation, whose economy contracted 0.2 percent in the first half, needs to contain welfare spending or risk losing the respect of investors, Corydon said. Danes, who like Swedes and Norwegians, are used to generous jobless pay as well as state-financed education and health care, need to learn that those privileges come at a cost, he said.

“We could spend more if we were willing to pay the price,” Corydon said. “But the price would be to create distrust and uncertainty.” Denmark’s challenge now is to ensure its welfare habits don’t leave it unable to compete with populations that work harder at a lower cost, he said.

[Demeter]

31. F*** the Investors

F*** the 1%'s opinion of the finance minister. Build your own economy to be sustainable, don't go chasing exports.

Make your local industry suffer, if they think they are going to decamp.

And for God's sake and your reputation as a nation, pay the price. It's worth it. Whose distrust and uncertainty are we talking here? Hot money?

Competition isn't the way to go.

[xchrom]

19. Finland Agrees on $11.9 Billion Plan to Pay for Aging Costs

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-29/finland-agrees-on-11-9-billion-of-measures-to-bolster-economy.html

Finland’s six-party government, presiding over the worst-performing economy in the Nordic region, agreed on a 9 billion-euro ($11.9 billion) plan that includes boosting employment and productivity by 2017 to ensure it has money to pay for its aging population.

The government will push through enough measures to close a sustainability gap of 4.7 percent of gross domestic product, Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said at a press conference in Helsinki yesterday.

“Finland is at a crossroads,” Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen said yesterday. “Either we let the welfare society wither or we defend it decisively.”

Finland’s economy has failed to exit its second contraction in four years, even as the German and French economies pulled the 17-member euro area out of its longest recession in the second quarter. Demand for Finnish exports has waned, prompting companies to cut jobs and reducing domestic spending.

[Demeter]

32. That's what you get for a Euro.

[xchrom]

20. South Africa’s Biggest Gold Worker Union to Start Strike

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-30/south-africa-s-biggest-gold-worker-union-to-start-strike.html

The National Union of Mineworkers, which represents 64 percent of gold miners in South Africa, plans to start a strike over pay from the nightshift of Sept. 3, the Chamber of Mines said.
The strike will affect workers at companies including AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Sibanye Gold Ltd., Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HAR) and Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI)
“The employers will continue to make plans in anticipation of strike action to ensure the continuation of essential services,” the Johannesburg-based industry body said in an e-mailed statement today. “Employers remain open to discussions.”
The Chamber has offered to boost pay by between 6 percent and 6.5 percent for about 142,000 workers covered by the talks while the NUM wants starting salaries increased by as much as 60 percent. Other unions operating in the industry have also rejected the pay offer while they are yet to serve a strike notice.

[xchrom]

21. Fuel Supply-Demand Deficit Widens Without Iran, EIA Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-29/fuel-supply-demand-deficit-widens-without-iran-eia-says.html

Excluding Iran from the global oil market increased the shortfall between worldwide supply and demand, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

Global petroleum use averaged 2.2 million barrels a day more than output in July and August when Iran is excluded from the calculations, the EIA, the Energy Department’s statistical arm, said in a report today. Iran can help reduce the deficit by 1.5 million barrels a day as the country’s production outpaced demand, the EIA said.

The examination of oil and fuel supplies and prices outside of Iran came as the U.S., the U.K. and other Western countries debate a military strike against Syria, an ally of Iran, after Syria’s government allegedly used chemical weapons against civilians. Iran is facing European Union sanctions against its oil exports aimed at stopping the country’s nuclear programs.

Global petroleum production excluding Iran averaged 85 million barrels a day in July and August and consumption averaged 87.2 million, the EIA said. Iran produced 3.4 million barrels a day of fuels and used 1.9 million.

[xchrom]

22. ALBERT EDWARDS: We've Heard The Final Tweet Of The Global Canary In The Coalmine

http://www.businessinsider.com/albert-edwards-emerging-market-final-tweet-2013-8

Albert Edwards, the uber-bearish strategist at Societe Generale, is warning clients that the ongoing devastation in the emerging markets is a sign of bad things to come.
"At the risk of being called a crackpot again, I repeat my forecasts of 450 for the S&P, sub-1% US 10y yields and gold above $10,000," wrote Edwards in a note subtitled: EM Rout Is Merely The Final Tweet Of The Canary In The Coal Mine.*

From his note:

The emerging markets ‘story’ has once again been exposed as a pyramid of piffle. The EM edifice has come crashing down as their underlying balance of payments weaknesses have been exposed first by the yen’s slide and then by the threat of Fed tightening. China has flip- flopped from berating Bernanke for too much QE in 2010 to warning about the negative impact of tapering on emerging markets! It is a mystery to me why anyone, apart from the activists that seem to inhabit western central banks, thinks QE could be the solution to the problems of the global economy. But in temporarily papering over the cracks, they have allowed those cracks to become immeasurably deep crevasses...

Edwards's note included a chart showing how the S&P 500 in 2013 was on the same trajectory as it was in 1987 right before it crashed.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/albert-edwards-emerging-market-final-tweet-2013-8#ixzz2dS0KIERi

[xchrom]

23. Markets Are Down Across Europe

http://www.businessinsider.com/european-markets-august-30-2013-2013-8

Markets are down across Europe.
Britain's FTSE 100 is down 0.6%.

France's CAC 40 is down 0.8%.

Germany's DAX is down 0.9%.

Spain's IBEX is down 1.1%.

Italy's FTSE MIB is down 1.0%.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/european-markets-august-30-2013-2013-8#ixzz2dS2QhwtX

[xchrom]

24. America's Retirement System Faces Three Train Wrecks

http://www.businessinsider.com/financial-advisor-insights-august-29-2013-8

In an interview with Morningstar Jack Bogle of Vanguard said America's retirement system faces "three train wrecks." "Social Security—you all know about that. It’s just underfunded. It could be funded with things that people wouldn’t even notice: a change in the cost of living adjustment, which the administration has proposed. They’re simple things that end up being completely controversial. I’m not proposing reducing the payments, but making the payments appropriate to the circumstances. That, along with a little older retirement age and larger minimum Social Security distributions, and the problem would be solved.

"The defined benefit plan, which is a vanishing kind of figure in the retirement system, is grotesquely underfunded. The states are a bigger problem than the corporations. They’re using an 8% future return. I will say, unequivocally, they are not going to get an 8% future return. Not with bond interest rates around 2%, depending on what you’re looking at, to 2.5%, and stocks likely to return about 7%, and that’s before costs.

"The third leg of this retirement stool is the defined contribution plan. The problem with it is we’ve taken a thrift plan and turned it into a retirement plan. What does it need to be fixed? We need to be much stricter on withdrawals. If we allow people to say, “I’ve got a sick child and my wife wants a new living room rug and I need to take some money out.” How are you ever going to have a good retirement doing that? Social Security wouldn’t amount to anything if you could take your money out whenever you felt like it. It’s just a system that has too much flexibility."

Has 2013 Really Been A Bond Market 'Slaughter'? (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Investors that have loaded up on long-term U.S. government bonds have taken a hit, but all the yelling about a bond market slaughter is overdone according to Cullen Roche of Pragmatic Capitalism. The aggregate bond market though hasn't done too much and the iShares Aggregate Bond Index is down about -2.5%.

***i can't tell you i understand any of this.
i grew up in an era of pension plans. and that has colored my understanding of retirement.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/financial-advisor-insights-august-29-2013-8#ixzz2dS599iQg

[Demeter]

33. Boggle Bogle

He's an ass.

[xchrom]

25. Poet Seamus Heaney passes away aged 74

http://www.thejournal.ie/ddd-1061259-Aug2013/?utm_source=shortlink




IRISH POET AND playwright Seamus Heaney has died at the age of 74.

He was one of Ireland’s best known and best-loved poets, often compared to W.B. Yeats.

The Nobel literature laureate recently suffered from ill health, and was reported to have collapsed earlier this week.
Tributes are pouring in for the 74-year-old, who leaves behind his wife Marie and three children.

Awards

Heaney had been awarded numerous prizes and received many honours for his work, most notably winning the Nobel prize for literature in 1995 “for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past”.

The writer and lecturer also received the Golden Wreath of Poetry (2001), T. S. Eliot Prize (2006) and two Whitbread prizes (1996 and 1999).

He was both the Harvard and the Oxford Professor of Poetry and was made a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1996.

[xchrom]

26. In 'Human Chain,' Nobel-Winning Poet Seamus{pbs interview}

[Ghost Dog]

40. .

... And after the commanded journey, what?
Nothing magnificent, nothing unknown.
A gazing out from far away, alone.

And it is not particular at all,
Just old truth dawning: there is no next-time-round.
Unroofed scope. Knowledge-freshening wind...

- http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/heaney.php

[xchrom]

27. Poverty significantly saps our mental abilities say researchers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23881780

***SNIP


Varying ability

Dr Anandi Mani, from the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (Cage) at the University of Warwick, UK, set the farmers cognitive tests at each stage of the cycle and found that mental acuity varied with their income.

"With the sugarcane farmers, we are comparing the same person when he has less money to when he has more money. We're finding that when he has more money he is more intelligent, as defined by IQ tests," said Dr Mani.

The study aimed to rule out other confounding factors like nutrition, health, physical exhaustion and family commitments.


The researchers also tried to limit the influence of factors related to stress, but measuring biomarkers such as blood pressure and heart rate.

[AnneD]

42. In other news today

water is wet.

[xchrom]

28. Brazil GDP beats expectations for second quarter

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23901453

Brazil's economy grew by 3.3% year-on-year in the second quarter, according to official new state figures.

The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) also said that the economy grew by 1.5% in the quarter from the previous one.

That number was above economists' predictions of 0.9%.

Finance Minister Guido Mantega earlier this month reduced 2013 growth targets to 2.5% from an already reduced 3.0%, and for 2014 down to 4.0% from 4.5%.

[xchrom]

29. Japan consumer price rises pick up pace on energy costs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23894279

Consumer prices in Japan rose at the fastest pace in nearly five years in July, as policymakers' attempts to end deflation appeared to pay off.

Consumer prices, excluding food, rose by 0.7% from a year earlier.

However, the faster inflation was mainly stoked by the rising cost of fuel imports due to a weak yen, rather than by an increase in domestic demand.

Japan has been trying to end years of deflation, or falling prices, seen as a major drag on its economic growth.

[Demeter]

36. HERE WE GO AGAIN!

[Demeter]

37. HERE WE GO AGAIN: White House, Republican senators give up on budget talks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/white-house-republican-senators-give-up-on-budget-talks/2013/08/29/5f6f3384-10f7-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html?hpid=z5

The Obama administration and a group of Republican senators abandoned efforts Thursday to hammer out a budget deal and avoid a showdown over the national debt, saying they had failed to resolve their long-standing dispute over taxes.

“It’s very evident that there just isn’t common ground at present and we’ve all agreed there’s no reason for these talks to continue,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said after attending the group’s final session at the White House.

Asked what happens next, Corker said, “I have no idea.”

HOW ABOUT A LOCKOUT OF THE SENATE? FIRE THEIR ASSES FOR NOT DOING THE WORK THEY WERE HIRED TO DO!

[Fuddnik]

39. I agree.

Send all the assholes home. Pink slips, no pay. Collect unemployment you vipers.

They won't even be able to get a job as a lobbyist, since there's nobody to lobby. Actually, it might kill the whole industry, which is a good thing. Well, except for all the lobbyists working for the Administration.

Send Boner and Gohmert back to working for the carnival geek show they came from.

[DemReadingDU]

43. +++

They want to cut the food stamp program and head start program, yet always find money to go to war.

[Fuddnik]

44. Bank of America lays off 1,000 in Beachwood; bank closes 3 mortgage offices in Ohio.

Speaking of vipers
-----------------------------------------------------------

BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- Bank of America notified about 1,000 workers in Beachwood Thursday that they will lose their jobs as of Oct. 31 as the company closes its mortgage and consumer banking office.

Also closing Oct. 31: the bank's 55-person office in Independence and its 100-person office in Cincinnati. Workers were notified earlier today, said company spokesman Terry Francisco.

In Beachwood, about 660 of the jobs are in home loans fulfillment -- most of them working in refinance -- and 350 to 400 more are in customer service for consumer banking. The Independence and Cincinnati offices both involved home loans.

Employees will keep their jobs until Oct. 31.

Workers are being given severance packages. There are few opportunities for transfers because North Carolina-based Bank of America doesn't have any other similar operations locally -- only its Merrill Lynch investment offices.

(snip)

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/08/bank_of_america_lays_off_1000.html#incart_river_default#incart_m-rpt-2#incart_special-report#incart_m-rpt-2

[DemReadingDU]

45. Norman Solomon:The Growing Campaign to Revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

4/4/13 Norman Solomon:The Growing Campaign to Revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize that President Obama received 40 months ago has emerged as the most appalling Orwellian award of this century. No, war is not peace.

George Carlin used to riff about oxymorons like "jumbo shrimp," "genuine imitation," "political science" and "military intelligence." But humor is of the gallows sort when we consider the absurdity and tragedy of the world's most important peace prize honoring the world's top war maker.

This week, a challenge has begun with the launch of a petition urging the Norwegian Nobel Committee to revoke Obama's Peace Prize. By midnight of the first day, nearly 10,000 people had signed. The online petition simply tells the Nobel committee: "I urge you to rescind the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to Barack Obama."

Many signers have added their own comments.

Click to read comments...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/the-growing-campaign-to-r_b_3007189.html?utm_hp_ref=tw


To Revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, Lots of people have signed today
http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7647

[Fuddnik]

46. Signed.

I dare someone to post that in Jonestown.

[Tansy_Gold]

47. I may be crazy

But I ain't stupid.

[mrdmk]

48. If President Obama start a war in Syria, this will be posted by me!

I have a clean record......