STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 10 September 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 10 September 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 9 September 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 9 September 2013
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Dow Jones 15,063.12 +140.62 (0.94%)
S&P 500 1,671.71 +16.54 (1.00%)
Nasdaq 3,706.18 +46.17 (1.26%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.91% +0.03 (1.04%)
30 Year 3.85% +0.03 (0.79%)[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. John Kerry really put his foot in it

He flips off a sarcastic scenario, and everyone takes him up on it: Russia, Syria, Eurozone....anyone with brains and a sense of history. Meanwhile, President Oblivious is flogging his doomed war game, and nobody is buying.

Either this is failing one's way to success, or there really is 11th dimensional chess being played here.

What they don't get, these would-be warmongers, is that the Boomers are Peaceniks, from birth after WW2 we are born to peace, by experiences of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and more, we are schooled to oppose war, and we raised our children the same way. Some of those children are raising THEIR children to peace now.

It ain't ever going back to the gung-ho days of imperialism.

Ain't gonna study war no more, Ain't gonna study war...

[Demeter]

3. NOW, IF ONLY WE COULD DO THE SAME FOR WHITE COLLAR CRIME--LIKE CORPORATE CONTROL FRAUD

[Demeter]

4. Your Labor Day Syria Reader, Part 2: William Polk

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/your-labor-day-syria-reader-part-2-william-polk/279255/

...Polk wrote this just before President Obama switched from his go-it-alone policy and decided to seek Congressional approval for a Syrian strike. It remains relevant for the choices Congress, the public, and the president have to make. It is very long, but it is systematically laid out as a series of 13 questions, with answers. If you're in a rush, you could skip ahead to question #7, on the history and use of chemical weapons. Or #6, about the under-publicized role of drought, crop failure, and climate change in Syria's predicament. But please consider the whole thing when you have the time to sit down for a real immersion in Congress's upcoming decision. It wouldn't hurt if Senators and Representatives read it too...


Probably like you, I have spent many hours this last week trying to put together the scraps of information reported in the media on the horrible attack with chemical weapons on a suburb of Damascus on Wednesday, August 21. Despite the jump to conclusions by reporters, commentators and government officials, I find as of this writing that the events are still unclear. Worse, the bits and pieces we have been told are often out of context and usually have not been subjected either to verification or logical analysis. So I ask you to join me in thinking them through to try to get a complete picture on what has happened, is now happening and about to happen. I apologize for both the length of this analysis and its detail, but the issue is so important to all of us that it must be approached with care.

Because, as you will see, this is germane in examining the evidence, I should tell you that during my years as a member of the Policy Planning Council, I was “cleared” for all the information the US Government had on weapons of mass destruction, including poison gas, and for what was then called “Special Intelligence,” that is, telecommunications interception and code breaking.

[JF note: This is the list of questions around which the rest of the essay is structured.] I will try to put in context 1) what actually happened; 2) what has been reported; 3) who has told us what we think we know; 4) who are the possible culprits and what would be their motivations; 5) who are the insurgents? 6) what is the context in which the attack took place; 7) what are chemical weapons and who has used them; 8) what the law on the use of chemical weapons holds; 9) pro and con on attack; 10) the role of the UN; 11) what is likely to happen now; 12) what would be the probable consequences of an attack and (13) what could we possibly gain from an attack.

1: What Actually Happened

On Wednesday, August 21 canisters of gas opened in several suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus and within a short time approximately a thousand people were dead. That is the only indisputable fact we know...

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

5. Obama Is No JFK MJ Rosenberg

http://mjayrosenberg.com/2013/09/08/obama-is-no-jfk/




I am reading an amazing book about John and Robert Kennedy. It is called Brothers: The Hidden History Of The Kennedy Years. The author is David Talbot, the prolific journalist and creator of Salon.

The most striking thing about JFK is that after less than two years (i,e, after the Cuban Missile Crisis), he figured out how the U.S. government worked (he no longer trusted the CIA, FBI or the Pentagon) and dramatically shifted policies. By 1963, he had decided to get out of Vietnam (he actually pulled troops out), had decided to reach out to Castro (rather than seek his overthrow) and, most important of all, to end the Cold War. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which ended the atmospheric testing that was causing leukemia in kids Utah and Nevada and worldwide, was the first huge step to come to terms with the Soviets.

By June 1963, Kennedy had set out on a new course which he outlined in the best speech of his life: The American University Speech.

World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor, it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors...Let us reexamine our attitudes toward the Soviet Union.…

For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

At the same time that he was giving this speech, top officials in the administration and close Kennedy friends were directly in touch with the Soviet and Cuban governments seeking ways to make sure that there would never be a repeat of the 1962 crisis. Kennedy got it, not all of it or he would have survived his term, but enough of it to begin changing the world.

There is no evidence Obama gets it at all. He is now planning to launch an attack on the Middle East advocated by the same people who gave us the Iraq war. He is about to appoint as head of the Federal Reserve, the very same official whose policies gave us the economic collapse of 2008. If he has learned anything since becoming president, it is hard to know what it is. Kennedy stopped trusting the system, understanding that he didn’t run it. Obama thinks he does and that, although it is far from perfect, all it will take to fix it is some tinkering around the edges.

Kennedy was on the way to becoming a truly great man and president. Obama began his presidency already appearing to be just that and has grown smaller in office.

It’s just sad.

RIP. JFK. Even in our grief, we had no idea how catastrophic your murder would turn out to be. Fifty years and counting, the country’s loss looms ever larger.

[AnneD]

35. I always remember the line from Jerry McQuire...

"talent is like popcorn, sometimes it pops, sometimes it doesn't". The Roosevelt's, Truman, and Kennedy did-Obama didn't.

[Demeter]

46. Kerry Shocked to Be Taken Seriously by Andy Borowitz

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/09/kerry-shocked-to-be-taken-seriously.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28164%29

Secretary of State John Kerry said today that he was “shocked and flabbergasted” that the Russians heeded his suggestion about Syria’s chemical weapons, telling reporters, “After four decades in public life, this is the first time someone has taken me seriously.”

“Whether as a senator, a Presidential candidate, or Secretary of State, I’ve devoted countless hours to thunderous and droning speeches that people have consistently tuned out,” he said. “So naturally, to be listened to all of a sudden came as something of a shock.”

But after the novelty of not being ignored wore off, Mr. Kerry said, the Russians’ assertion that he had said something worth paying attention to “seemed like a trick.”

“You mean to tell me that after decades of spewing mind-numbing rhetoric I all of a sudden blurted out an idea worth acting on?” he said. “It doesn’t pass the smell test.”

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney welcomed the Russians’ engagement in the Syria crisis, but warned that “further actions based on John Kerry’s remarks will not be tolerated.”

“We ask the Russians to be constructive participants in this process,” he said. “And taking John Kerry seriously is a clear violation of international norms.”

[Demeter]

2. Inside the End of the U.S. Bid to Punish Lehman Executives

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/inside-the-end-of-the-u-s-bid-to-punish-lehman-executives/



At a closed-door meeting in early 2011, Wall Street regulators were close to throwing in the towel on their biggest case. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s eight-member Lehman Brothers team, having hit one dead end after another over the previous two years, concluded that suing the bank’s executives would be legally unjustified. The group, noting that prosecutors and F.B.I. agents had already walked away from a parallel criminal case, reached unanimous agreement to close its most prominent investigation stemming from the financial crisis, according to officials who attended the meeting, which has not been reported previously. But Mary L. Schapiro, the S.E.C. chairwoman, disagreed. She pushed George S. Canellos, who supervised the Lehman investigation as head of the S.E.C.’s New York office, to explain how executives who presided over the biggest bankruptcy in United States history could escape without a single civil charge.

“I don’t get it,” she said during a tense exchange with Mr. Canellos in her private conference room in Washington, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly. “Why is there no case?” she continued, staring at Mr. Canellos, instructing him to continue investigating whether Lehman misled investors. “The world won’t understand.”

She was right. Five years after Lehman’s collapse hastened a worldwide economic panic, the government faces lingering questions about the decision to spare executives like Richard S. Fuld Jr., who ran Lehman for 14 years until its demise. Not a single senior executive from any Wall Street bank faced criminal charges from the crisis, either. And the government’s deadline for filing most charges will expire this month, the anniversary of Lehman’s collapse, providing a reminder of the case and its unpopular outcome.

Federal prosecutors and the S.E.C. have never officially announced their decision to close the Lehman investigation. But a New York Times examination of the case, based on interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and officials involved in the inquiry and a review of bankruptcy court documents, pulls back a curtain on private deliberations and clashing philosophies surrounding the decision not to bring charges. The S.E.C. quietly reached the decision in 2012 after officials sparred for months over whether Lehman omitted “material” information in disclosures to investors, an important legal standard. Mr. Canellos argued that the omissions were not material. And those who questioned that reasoning — like Ms. Schapiro, as well as some accountants and enforcement officials — acquiesced to Mr. Canellos’s team, which was closest to the evidence.

The S.E.C. also debated the culpability of top Lehman executives. But Mr. Canellos’s team argued that Mr. Fuld did not know that Lehman was using questionable accounting practices despite testimony from another Lehman executive that suggested otherwise. Ms. Schapiro did not override his judgment after S.E.C. officials cautioned her that it could be unethical for a political appointee like herself to do so. Mr. Canellos also had the backing of Robert S. Khuzami, who ran the S.E.C.’s enforcement unit at the time. But at a 2011 meeting of senior S.E.C. officials, Lorin L. Reisner, then the No. 2 enforcement official, suggested preparing a draft of potential charges so the agency could have a concrete document to review. Mr. Canellos’s team balked, officials who attended the meeting said. Mr. Canellos, the officials said, instead proposed that the S.E.C. publish a report that would publicly explain the decision to forgo charges. Ms. Schapiro and other S.E.C. officials rejected that option, concerned that Mr. Canellos’s first draft was too sympathetic to Lehman. While declining to comment on the Lehman case specifically, an agency spokesman said: “There are healthy discussions and debate about legal and factual issues at many levels of the agency in investigations of significance. But in the end decisions are based on the evidence and the law.” The S.E.C.’s decision came in stark contrast to a report by Lehman’s bankruptcy-court examiner, who accused executives of using an accounting gimmick to “manipulate” the balance sheet.

“There were many instances where the S.E.C. had information and didn’t act,” the examiner, Anton R. Valukas, a former federal prosecutor who is now chairman of Jenner & Block, said in an interview.

I THINK IT'S A BAD TIME TO BE MR. CANNELLOS---MUCH MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

6. Fed can’t afford to ignore emerging markets: Lagarde CALL FOR "UNCLE SUGAR"

OF COURSE, IF "UNCLE STUPID" WOULD DO SOME SMART STUFF FOR A CHANGE, THE EMERGING MARKETS WOULD ALSO BENEFIT. ALL MARKETS WOULD.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101017478

The Federal Reserve cannot afford to ignore the risk of fallout in emerging markets from the winding down of its $85 billion-a-month bond buying program, said Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

"Very negative spill-over effects on the emerging market economies could very much backfire on other economies. So to assume that [the] domestic economy is totally isolated, that a country is an island, would not be the right approach," Lagarde told CNBC on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum in northern Italy over the weekend.

"Without necessarily changing the mandate, without reviewing the terms of references, and maybe without even acknowledging it, I cannot believe that central bankers do not take into account what's happening elsewhere in the world," she said....

BELIEVE IT, BABY

[Demeter]

7. Taxing hard-up Americans at 95%: America’s welfare state is not working nearly as well as it should

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21585010-americas-welfare-state-not-working-nearly-well-it-should-taxing-hard-up-americans



AFTER her son was born in 2008, Melissa Devilma—homeless, jobless and alone—needed help. The welfare system stepped in: she received $478 in cash and $367 in food stamps each month, along with housing assistance that lowered the rent on her two-bedroom apartment in Boston to $131. Including health care, taxpayers subsidised her to the tune of $33,000 annually. Ms Devilma used the money to go to college and earn a bachelor’s degree. She wants to get off the dole. But she says that many of the other welfare recipients she knows are reluctant to seek work or an education. Life in the system is hardly gold-plated, but it is comfortable enough. Even Ms Devilma admits that, if it were not for her son and the recent expiry of her cash aid, she would rather live on welfare than take an entry-level job at McDonald’s, which she considers unsuited to her level of education. As it is, she would take any job “just so I have that little money to provide for him”.

Policy wonks have long debated the extent to which welfare discourages work. Clearly, it can. In very poor countries, where the choice is either to work or to starve, people work long, back-breaking hours growing food. In rich countries, government safety nets limit how far anyone can fall. Yet these nets are hard to design. Welfare states must balance the desire to keep people out of penury with the equally humanitarian desire to not let them drift into lives of indolence and despair. America’s last big welfare reform was in 1996, when Bill Clinton and a Republican-led Congress put time limits on cash benefits and tightened the requirement that able-bodied claimants must seek work. The results have been impressive. The number of people receiving cash benefits under what is now called the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programme fell from 12.3m people a month in 1996 to 4.1m in 2012. Employment among single mothers rose sharply.

But some worry that welfare is once again encouraging idleness. Paul Ryan, the Republicans’ congressional budget guru, frets that America’s safety net could become “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency”. A recent study by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, tried to add up what a jobless single mother with two children might receive in each state from seven types of benefit: TANF, food stamps, Medicaid (health care for the cash-strapped), housing assistance, utilities assistance, emergency food aid and the programme for Women, Infants and Children. There was huge variation between states. Such a mother might receive a whopping $49,175 worth of benefits in Hawaii, the most generous state, but only $16,984 in Mississippi, the least. Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes, the study’s authors, argue that welfare is too generous. In 39 states, their hypothetical single mother would make more from benefits than a secretary does from work. In 11, she would make more than a first-year teacher. For many Americans, says Mr Tanner, not working is a “rational alternative” to working.

Critics cite two objections to Cato’s methodology. First, most people on welfare do not receive all the benefits that its hypothetical single mother does. For example, only 15% of those receiving TANF benefits also receive housing benefit, which forms a huge part of the Cato package. (True enough, says Mr Tanner, but since there is usually a waiting list for housing benefit, the long-term unemployed are far more likely to receive it.) Second, in comparing the rewards of work and welfare, the Cato study fails to take proper account of the fact that many benefits keep flowing even after the recipient has found work. In 2011 roughly 86% of children receiving Medicaid came from working families, according to the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a left-leaning think-tank. Most able-bodied adults in households with children that receive food stamps work. Measuring the benefits that flesh-and-blood Americans actually receive is difficult because the system is unbelievably complex. Cato counts 126 separate federal anti-poverty programmes, including 72 that provide “cash or in-kind benefits to individuals”. The states have many more. Some parts of the system make little sense. For example, the food-stamps programme is run by the Department of Agriculture; not because it has any logical connection with welfare, but because Congress long ago yoked food stamps to farm subsidies so that urban and rural lawmakers would vote for each other’s pet handouts...The federal government’s main tool for making work pay is the earned-income tax credit (EITC), a negative income tax that tops up the earnings of low-paid workers. For example, a single mother with one child will receive a credit that rises to $3,250 a year as she approaches $9,600 in earnings. This will remain steady until she makes $17,500, at which point it starts to be phased out. Embraced by both parties, the EITC is considered a success. The CBPP estimates that, along with a similar child tax credit, it lifted 9.4m people out of poverty in 2011. But it does funny things to marginal tax rates: in the phase-out period relatively low-paid workers keep shockingly little of each extra dollar they earn...

THE FAILURE OF CHOOSING THE WRONG PARENTS...

[Demeter]

8. Left behind: Stories from Obamacare’s 31 million uninsured

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/08/left-behind-stories-from-obamacares-31-million-uninsured/?hpid=z3

Every month, a hundred or so people crowd the lobby of the Arlington Free Clinic, clutching blue tickets to enter a health-care lottery. Uninsured and ailing, they hope to be among the two dozen who hit the jackpot and are given free care.

Some might think the lottery’s days are numbered, given that the insurance expansion under President Obama’s health-care law is taking effect in January. But clinic officials say the lottery will stay because demand for their services is likely to be as high as ever. “We will be business as usual,” said Nancy Sanger Pallesen, the clinic’s executive director.

The Affordable Care Act, the most sweeping health care program created in a half century, is expected to extend coverage to 25 million Americans over the next decade, according to the most recent government estimates. But that will still leave a projected 31 million people without insurance by 2023. Those left out include undocumented workers and poor people living in the 21 states, such as Virginia, that have so far declined to expand Medicaid under the statute, commonly called Obamacare.

“The law will cut the number of the uninsured in half,” said Matthew Buettgens of the Urban Institute. “This is an important development, but it certainly isn’t the definition of universal.”

MORE

[Demeter]

9. Where’s the next Lehman?

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21584975-five-years-after-maelstrom-september-2008-global-finance-safer-still-not-safe

THE bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, an American investment bank, in 2008 turned a nasty credit crunch into the worst financial crisis in 80 years. Massive bail-outs from governments and central banks staved off a second Depression, but failed to prevent a deep recession from which many rich economies have yet fully to recover. Five years after that calamity, two big questions need to be answered. Is global finance safer? And are more crises on the horizon?

The quick answers are yes, and yes. Global finance looks less vulnerable because reforms to the financial industry have made it more resilient, and because America, the country at the heart of the Lehman mess, has got rid of much of the excess debt and righted many of the imbalances in its economy. Today’s danger zones are elsewhere. They are unlikely to spawn a collapse on the scale of 2008. But they could produce enough turmoil to hit growth hard.

The three harbingers of the apocalypse

The disaster of September 2008 had many causes, as the first of our series of “schools briefs” (see article). But, put crudely, Lehman’s demise spawned catastrophe because it combined three separate vulnerabilities. The underlying one was a surge in debt, particularly in the financial sector, brought on by a housing bubble. The ensuing bust was made more dangerous because of the second weakness: the complex interconnections of securitised finance meant that no one understood what assets were worth or who owed what. Lehman’s failure added a third devastating dimension: confusion about whether governments could, or would, step in as finance failed. A rule of thumb for spotting future disaster is how far those weaknesses—a debt surge, ill-understood interconnections and uncertainty about a safety net—are repeated...

MORE

[Demeter]

10. That's enough reminiscing for me

not all anniversaries are happy ones.

It's supposed to hit 94F tomorrow and Weds. Send cooling winds and copious showers this way, please!

And sweet dreams, all!

[xchrom]

11. China data boosts stocks as Syria diplomacy cools oil

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-markets-global-idUSBRE96S00E20130910

(Reuters) - World shares climbed to a near one-month high and oil and government bonds slipped on Tuesday, helped by receding expectations of U.S.-led military action against Syria and after better-than-expected Chinese data.

Riskier assets saw a strong start in Europe after Monday's comments from U.S. President Barack Obama that Russia's plan to put Syrian chemical weapons under international control could be a breakthrough in the crisis. They were followed by upbeat industrial and retail figures from China.

Asian shares ended at a 3-month high and the feel-good factor continued in Europe where early gains of 0.6 - 1 percent on London's FTSE .FTSE, Germany's Dax .GDAXI and Paris's CAC 40 .FCHI pushed the FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 up 0.6 percent.

Oil fell to $113 a barrel, its lowest in two weeks, while safe-haven U.S. and German government bonds and gold and other precious metals were also back-pedaling.

[xchrom]

12. IMF chief says bank union needs to be completed quickly

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-imf-lagarde-banks-idUSBRE9890B120130910


(Reuters) - International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde urged euro zone governments on Tuesday to make quick progress on their proposed banking union, to put the bloc's crisis definitively behind it.

European efforts to construct a joint backstop for the region are stumbling ahead, with France and Germany split on key pillars of the system, which is supposed to rebuild confidence in the euro zone's banks.

"We very much think of the euro area as a beautiful ship that has been built, nurtured .. for the soft seas, but which is not yet completely finished for the rough ones," Lagarde said at a conference in Paris.

"A lot has been done in relation to banking union. If I have a message today it is that that particular part of the ship needs to be finished, needs to be completed and speed is of the essence."

[xchrom]

13. Japan PM Abe moves toward tax hike, orders economic stimulus

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-japan-economy-tax-idUSBRE9890D020130910

(Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered his government on Tuesday to craft measures to bolster the economy to cushion the impact of an increase in the national sales tax.

Buoyed by data showing the world's third-biggest economy recovering briskly and a successful trip to secure the rights to host the 2020 Olympic Games, Abe wasted no time in preparing the groundwork for the April tax increase.

He told cabinet ministers to "compile strong measures as a package, including growth strategies, by the end of this month," Economy Minister Akira Amari told reporters.

The timing means the measures will be decided by October 1, when the premier is to formally rule on the tax increase, Tokyo's first meaningful step to contain its ballooning public debt - considered key to maintaining investor confidence.

[xchrom]

14. Exclusive: EU lawyers say transaction tax plan is illegal

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-eu-transactiontax-idUSBRE9890F620130910

(Reuters) - A plan to tax financial transactions in 11 European Union member states from 2014 is illegal, the bloc's lawyers have concluded, dealing what could be a final blow to the measure as proposed.

The findings set out in a 14-page legal opinion obtained by Reuters will make it harder to press ahead with a measure aimed at making banks pay about 35 billion euros a year to make up for receiving taxpayer aid during the 2007-09 financial crisis.

The report is encouraging for Britain, which is the EU's biggest financial center and is opposed to the tax. Britain, and several other EU states, refused to participate, leaving the 11 to go it alone and raising questions about how it would work without full participation.

Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia were planning to adopt the tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives, repurchase agreements and securities lending.

[Demeter]

15. The Torture Continues

[xchrom]

17. !

[Demeter]

18. Classic Calvin and Hobbes

http://assets.amuniversal.com/55298ca0807d01302581001dd8b71c47?width=900

[Fuddnik]

41. I have that problem myself.

[xchrom]

16. Greece says primary budget surplus means it on track to hit EU-IMF targets

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-greece-budget-idUSBRE9890CS20130910

(Reuters) - Greece said on Tuesday its budget was in surplus, not counting interest payments, and that it was on course to hit fiscal targets and fulfill conditions to seek additional debt relief from its international lenders.

The central government had a primary budget surplus of 2.92 billion euros ($3.87 billion) between January and August, the finance ministry said.

It compares with an interim target for a deficit of 2.5 billion euros in the period, it said.

Reaching a primary surplus this year is the main goal of the debt-laden country's government. Hitting that target would trigger a clause in its international bailout allowing Athens to seek additional debt relief from its lenders.

[AnneD]

36. I hear that bank depositors....

might be in for a Cypress style haircut.

[xchrom]

19. Here's When Total Payrolls Will Finally Exceed Their Pre-Recession Peak

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-when-total-payrolls-will-finally-exceed-their-pre-recession-peak-2013-9

Almost two years ago I posted a graph with projections of when payroll employment would return to pre-recession levels (see: Sluggish Growth and Payroll Employment from November 2011).

In 2011, I argued we'd continue to see sluggish growth (back in 2011 many analysts were forecasting another US recession - those forecasts were wrong).

On the graph I posted two lines - one with payroll growth of 125,000 payroll jobs added per month (the pace in 2011), and another line with 200,000 payroll jobs per month. The following graph is an update with reported payroll growth through August 2013.

The dashed red line is 125,000 payroll jobs added per month. The dashed blue line is 200,000 payroll jobs per month. Both projections are from November 2011.

Read more: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/09/update-when-will-payroll-employment.html#ixzz2eUJSJOsV

[Demeter]

23. I don't know...I think we will hit a catastrophe before March

like maybe October?

It's nice to have a dream, though.

Just think, if the stimulus had been 3 times as large, we could be out of recession by 2012!

Oh, for a time machine....

[xchrom]

24. i'm just naive.... we were NEVER going to get a Main Street stimulus.

i realize that...now.

[Tansy_Gold]

31. Oh, come on! ;-)

As soon as Summers and Rubin and Geithner joined the team? You knew; you were just in denial.

[xchrom]

34. i was on my barge -- enjoying grapes peeled just for me.

[Demeter]

42. Don't be an asp!

(if they can do these horrible puns, so can I)

[xchrom]

45. !

[Demeter]

20. U.S. regulators in talks with EU on energy price probe

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/06/us-oil-probe-idUSBRE9850VV20130906

U.S. regulators are in talks to join European officials in their investigation of the oil markets, a European politician said, as both sides hunt for signs that trading benchmarks have been compromised.But while the European Union has already raided the offices of major oil companies and price publisher Platts, the U.S. derivatives regulator has yet to launch a formal probe, two people familiar with the matter said.

&quot The European Commission) is talking to regulators in the different member states and to the U.S.," Arlene McCarthy, vice-chair of the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee, told Reuters.

"They are talking to the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and the Department of Justice, so there's quite a level of co-operation going on there," she said.

The European probe is likely to last until next May and is on a similar scale to the probe into the Libor interest rate benchmark, McCarthy said.

The EU executive in May raided the offices of oil majors BP, Shell and Statoil as well as price reporting agency Platts in an investigation of suspected manipulation of oil prices. The CFTC, a leading actor in the Libor scandal in which three large banks have so far paid fines, is also monitoring energy markets for any sign that people in the industry have manipulated benchmarks. The agency, whose powers have been vastly expanded by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, has stepped up the pace of seeking information from market parties about the issue, one commodity industry source said. That effort started as long ago as a year, predating the EU probe, but the agency has not found sufficient evidence to press for a more formal investigation, two people familiar with the situation said.

"There are some folks ... that really just don't like it and would like to push through some sort of enforcement action on it, but I'm not aware that it's actually made it to enforcement yet," one of the two sources said.

YEAR-LONG PROBE

The CFTC's surveillance unit, which does not have the power to subpoena, is carrying out the monitoring. A more formal probe would need to be done by the agency's enforcement division, but this usually requires approval by the four commissioners. McCarthy also said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was looking into energy price manipulation, a development that had earlier been reported by Bloomberg.

.......................


Platts, a unit of McGraw-Hill, provides clients with energy price benchmarks set by reporters based on oil prices collected from market participants. Its assessments are used in the pricing of the bulk of a $2.5 trillion market in physical and derivatives deals. In Europe, investigators need to sift through a huge amount of information, which means the investigation will take around a year from its inception, the lead case worker on the probe had indicated to McCarthy, she said.

"I don't think it's unlike the Libor-type investigation. They're going through thousands of pages of electronic evidence that they've picked up. It could a year because of the amount of information."
....

"They're going back to 2007 and going through emails and chats (instant messages). That's a lot of material. There are four people on the team working on it," McCarthy said, adding that the information could lead investigators to broaden the scope of their enquiries.

"If you look at the Libor investigation, the chatroom stuff led them to information they weren't expecting," she added.

In May a Hungarian ethanol producer said it had complained to the European Commission about the fact that Platts would not let it play a role in the price-setting process.

After the raids, "they had a complaint from a new entrant, and the complaint fitted in with what their suspicions were", McCarthy said.

A NEW SCANDAL! JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS!

[xchrom]

21. Here's An Ugly Spanish House Price Chart

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-an-ugly-spanish-house-price-chart-2013-9

Via Markit, here's a chart of the year-over-year change in Spanish house prices going back over 10 years.

What's striking is how relentless the declines are years after the bubble started bursting, Spain is still looking at prices that are down 10% from the year before.

The good news, we suppose, is that last year prices were falling at a 15% annual rate. So, green shoots!



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-an-ugly-spanish-house-price-chart-2013-9#ixzz2eUK9RYar

[Demeter]

24. Until they get rid of the euro, I don't want a castle in Spain or anywhere

afflicted by the nightmare that is Merkel....

[xchrom]

26. i was thinking we might lose our Mistress Tansy to Spain...nt

[Tansy_Gold]

32. I still get weekly updates on the market

I just don't have time to look at 'em!!

I love where I am, but yes, there's a big part of my heart in Spain.

[Demeter]

33. Maybe in a couple of years

(if the euro disappears)

I could go joint in on a purchase....although a timeshare might be more practical.

My heart really is north of here, though. I'd love to meet a nice, single man in his 50's with a thriving orchard on Lake Michigan....

[AnneD]

37. How cold are the winters there...

My heart is in the Northwest. Mountains and woods.

[DemReadingDU]

39. I'm not going anywhere

I hate moving.

[Tansy_Gold]

40. I would only go

If someone else did the moving. The packing. The sorting. The moving. The unpacking. The putting away. I have too much shit to do it myself.

And I'm never buying another fixer-upper. NEVER.

[Demeter]

43. I'd go the two-adddress route

a pied a terre in Ann Arbor, an escape hideaway in Harbor Springs....

[xchrom]

22. 3 Key Chinese Economic Indicators Just Beat Expectations

http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-indicators-beat-expectations-2013-9

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's annual industrial output rose 10.4 percent in August, beating market expectations, while retail sales rose 13.4 percent, official data showed on Tuesday.
Fixed-asset investment, an important driver of economic activity, rose 20.3 percent in the first eight months from the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast industrial output to rise 9.9 percent and retail sales to rise 13.2 percent. Fixed-asset investment for the January-August period was seen up 20.2 percent.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-indicators-beat-expectations-2013-9#ixzz2eUKls5wb

[xchrom]

27. BofA Cuts Jobs as Mortgage Slump Ensnares JPMorgan, Wells Fargo

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-10/bofa-cuts-jobs-as-mortgage-slump-ensnares-jpmorgan-wells-fargo.html

Mortgage lenders including Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) that feasted on refinancings as interest rates reached all-time lows are now warning that the drop in demand may be steeper than expected.

Even Bank of America Corp., which fell to fourth in U.S. mortgages last year as it scaled back after buying Countrywide Financial Corp., is reducing capacity further as surging interest rates crimp demand. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm is eliminating 2,100 jobs and closing 16 offices by Oct. 31, said two people with direct knowledge of the plan.

Home lenders are tempering forecasts after interest rates rose amid signs the Federal Reserve may scale back stimulus efforts. Wells Fargo, the top U.S. home lender, said yesterday that third-quarter originations may fall 29 percent to $80 billion. JPMorgan, ranked No. 2, said it expects to lose money on home lending in the second half as volumes drop as much 40 percent from the year’s first six months.

“There was speculation, I’m sure by Wells but a lot of other people, that there would be second-quarter momentum that would carry through to the third quarter,” said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance in Bethesda, Maryland. Yesterday’s comments and Bank of America’s job cuts show “that some of that stuff appeared very quickly in terms of people dropping out of the market. That clearly doesn’t bode well.”

[xchrom]

28. Crop Insurers’ $14 Billion Some See as Money Laundering

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-10/crop-insurers-14-billion-some-see-as-money-laundering.html

Former American International Group Inc. chief Maurice “Hank” Greenberg has a new business partner: the U.S. taxpayer.

Greenberg’s Starr Indemnity & Liability Co. is one of 18 companies approved to get federal cash for insuring farmers against loss of crops or income. Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the nation’s fourth-largest bank by assets, Zurich-based Ace Ltd. (ACE) and units of American Financial Group Inc., (AFG) Deere & Co. (DE) and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (ADM) all enjoy similar public backing.

The government subsidies show how a program created to safeguard the nation’s farmers has evolved into a system that in most years all but guarantees profits for insurers. In 2012, taxpayers spent $14 billion paying more than 60 percent of farmers’ insurance premiums, the companies’ operating costs and the lion’s share of claims triggered by a historic drought, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“What we’ve got is a money-laundering operation,” says Harwood Schaffer of the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural Policy Analysis Center. “It looks like we’re doing a free market thing and it’s not free market at all.”

[xchrom]

29. The Power of Egoism: Merkel Re-Election Campaign Stalls the EU

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/german-election-stalls-most-major-european-union-projects-a-921318.html

In his victory speech in November of last year, US President Barack Obama called Vice President Joe Biden a "happy warrior." It immediately caught on, trending in Twitter and leading political pundits to recall that the phrase had once been used as a nickname for Vice President Hubert Humphrey. In US jargon, the phrase denotes a politician who shies away from no political battle. The most important trait is a readiness to go on the attack, sometimes to the point of brazenness.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has exhibited both in the current international debate over Syria. At the G-20 summit, she initially refused to sign a Syria resolution critical of the country's autocrat Bashar Assad despite the willingness of other large European Union member-states to approve the document. Later, she ended up signing it after all. And now, she's trying to play down the strange back and forth -- instead attacking her partners, who she accuses of disregarding the rest of the EU.

"I do not think it is right when five large countries agree to a common position when the other 23 cannot be present, with the knowledge that all 28 would be sitting together 24 hours later," Merkel said at an election campaign event in Düsseldorf on Sunday.

Her message? Merkel is positioning herself as the champion of the smaller EU member states, who are in danger of being steamrolled by giant countries like Britain or France.

[Demeter]

30. "Why look abroad, when you can be steamrolled in the comfort of your own Continent"

"by a nation with legendary steam-rolling abilities and centuries of dissatisfied subjects!"


I used to have some respect for Angela. Maybe it was just in contrast to W. And Berlusconi. And Blair. And so forth--Sarkoma, the Greeks...etc. What a crop of losers those years gave us!

[AnneD]

38. The crop report isn't that great here either...

with the exception of Warren and a few others, it is pretty pitiful.

[Demeter]

44. well, we are in a global drought--climate change--scenario

And the political farmers haven't caught up with the genetic drift in the hayseeds...

[AnneD]

51. Clever post...

[antigop]

47. Bill Black: The SEC enforcement team's propaganda campaign

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/bill-black-not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper-the-sec-enforcement-teams-propaganda-campaign.html

The New York Times has one of those “inside” stories that unintentionally demonstrate the collapse of justice and financial reporting. This genre involves the media reporting gravely (and uncritically) the administration’s claims that its failure to prosecute any elite for the largest and most destructive financial frauds in history actually demonstrates the exceptional ethical rectitude of the non-prosecutors and non-enforcers. Journalists, unlike alchemists, can transmute dross into gold. In the NYT’s account a pathetic failure of competence, integrity, and courage at the SEC is reimagined as a fantastic triumph of vigor and ethics on the part of the SEC enforcement attorney who refused to seek to hold Lehman’s senior officers accountable for their violations but otherwise became the scourge of elite frauds. In the end, he is promoted for his dedication to “justice” and is now the anti-enforcement leader of the SEC’s enforcement group.

“Justice” became an oxymoron in the Bush and Obama administration. It now means that the elite frauds that became wealthy through their crimes that drove our financial crisis should enjoy de facto immunity from prosecution. The NYT, however, pictures the SEC as an ultra-aggressive enforcer that virtually never fails to take on the elite CEOs leading the control frauds. The entire piece is one extended leak by the SEC’s enforcement leadership which has been severely criticized for its failure to recover the fraudulent profits that elite Wall Street bankers obtained by running the control frauds. The puff piece, with no critical examination, presents these key statements.

The S.E.C. … has brought civil cases against 66 senior officers in cases linked to the financial crisis. The agency also extracted nine-figure settlements from banks like Goldman Sachs. According to new research by Stanford University’s Securities Litigation Analytics, the S.E.C. has declined to charge individual employees in only 7 percent of its securities fraud cases.

My article is the first installment of a three-part series of articles correcting the NYT propaganda. This installment deals with these three sentences quoted above. Someone carefully constructed them to maximize the misleading nature of the statements. The “66 senior officers in cases linked to the financial crisis” is a phantom number without a source or useful definitions that falls apart as soon one looks at the SEC’s claims.

[Demeter]

48. I posted the NYT article he mentions yesterday

i think

[antigop]

49. posted again for reference

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/inside-the-end-of-the-u-s-bid-to-punish-lehman-executives/?_r=0

[Demeter]

50. Maybe on the Weekend?

I can't find it...glad you did.

maybe I imagined posting it after reading it....who knows?