STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 6 December 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 6 December 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 5 December 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 5 December 2013
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Dow Jones 15,821.51 -68.26 (-0.43%)
S&P 500 1,785.03 -7.78 (-0.43%)
Nasdaq 4,033.16 -4.84 (-0.12%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.87% +0.02 (0.70%)
30 Year 3.91% +0.01 (0.26%)[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.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.








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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. You know, the thought of Obama's drones made me sick

and now, I'm just sick of drones in general. And although I'm a trained engineer, I'm developing strong anti-technology proclivities. Alas, I am a neo-Luddite!

Or perhaps more accurately, I believe that ethics overrides the Wow factor, or should. And then there's the whole question of "green-ness". Is that the lowest impact, greenest way to do something? Is it recyclable, no-landfill, no toxics? Is it safe? Necessary? Good for the general econmy and the average man or woman?

Just because we CAN, SHOULD we?

[DemReadingDU]

5. No we shouldn't

Too many issues. Besides, I think it was about getting people to talk about Amazon, then buying stuff from Amazon rather than Walmart.

[Demeter]

30. Drone On! by Tom O'Donnell

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2013/12/drone-on.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%287%29



It seems like every time you open the paper or accidentally see a foreign news broadcast, people are talking about drones. Just Google “drone” and look at the sheer number of results. Don’t actually look at the results; look at the number of results. Yes, drones are a certified international phenomenon. (Just like the Beatles!) But as ubiquitous as they are overseas, unmanned aerial vehicles are currently underutilized here on the home front. No matter what your business or personal needs are, though, we feel confident that drones are the solution.

1. Book Delivery:You’ve placed your order; now it’s time to step outside onto your lawn. Soon, you hear a high-pitched clicking noise somewhere in the sky, miles above your head. You don’t see anything, but that sound means it’s time to dive out of the way. Now check the crater where you were just standing: it’s the new Clive Cussler! This is the future of the publishing industry.
   
   
2. E-Book Delivery: Our drones can also be used to easily drop proprietary e-readers on a populace that is generally unwilling to make the switch. Targets will find it much harder to complain about how e-books “aren’t tactile enough” while their roof is pelted loudly with hundreds of Kindles.
   
   
3. Pizza Delivery: Thirty minutes or less? Try receiving your pizza in thirty seconds or less, courtesy of a Joint Direct Attack Munition that has been specially modified to shoot pizzas at four thousand miles per hour (this keeps them warm). Don’t forget to thank your deliveryman. Just because he’s sitting at a computer in Arlington, Virginia, doesn’t mean he can’t hear you. He can hear you. He can always hear you.
   
   
4. Home Security: Want to know where your kids are? How about your wife? How about your wife’s new boyfriend? How about his wife and kids, who don’t even know anything about any of this? How about his parents in Indiana? Wouldn’t they be pretty disappointed to learn that their only son is making a mockery of the marriage vows he swore before God and man? What if a drone left them a note that explained everything, and we mean everything? Wouldn’t that make your home more secure?
   
   
5. Special Events: Do you wish there was an easier way to liven up a child’s birthday or bar mitzvah? Maybe you should call Droney, the loveable drone with the rad attitude! By placing a simple clown nose and a pair of sunglasses onto one of our drones, we can instantly create an adorable character that will delight children of all ages. Your kids will laugh as Droney does loop-de-loops or just hovers ominously above the party, making strangely little noise. Droney loves to play games, too, like hide-and-seek or pin-a-single-large-tail-somewhere-in-the-general-vicinity-of-the-donkey.
   
   
6. Pet Care: Taking your dog outside at all hours of the day is a hassle. Why not let us do the work? Simply attach your pet’s special nylon harness to one of our unmanned aerial vehicles and let us “walk” him around the block several hundred times in the same five minutes it would take you to do it once. In terms of sheer mileage covered, it’s a no-brainer. Not recommended for older pets.
   
   
7. Dentistry: Need a troublesome tooth removed? No problem. Just stand by an open window and smile, fully exposing the tooth that you have clearly marked with a large red X. Do not move your head. Do not stop smiling.

These are just a few potential applications of drones in the private sector, but the possibilities are limitless. I truly believe that that in the next three to five years, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles will revolutionize every aspect of the way we do business in this country. And I’m not just saying that because there are dozens of them silently watching me deliver this presentation from an altitude of six thousand feet! --- I’m smiling but that wasn’t a joke. I need all of you to clap. For the love of God, everyone clap.

[Fuddnik]

2. McDonald's gives workers advice on tipping au pairs, trainers, dog-walkers

Have the devolved into the dumbest corporation in America? The world? I know there's a lot of competition, but the seem to be breaking out of the pack.

--------------------------------------------------------------

McDonald's gives workers advice on tipping au pairs, trainers, dog-walkers
Katie Little CNBC
3 hours ago

Fast-food giant McDonald's has committed another employee advice blunder, listing pricey suggestions for tipping au pairs, personal fitness trainers and pool cleaners on its worker resource website.

This advice comes as fast-food workers from 100 cities across the nation push for $15-an-hour pay, a far cry from the wages most earn, in a mass strike on Thursday.

The tipping guide from etiquette maven Emily Post on McDonald's website lists several high-ticket suggestions for givers during the holiday season, including "a gift from your family (or one week's pay), plus a small gift from your child" for an au pair, "one day's pay" for a housekeeper and "cost of one cleaning" for a pool cleaner.

The site also lists suggestions for dog walkers, massage therapists and personal fitness trainers.

(snip)

The tone-deaf advice is the latest is a series of gaffes surrounding its employee resource site. Last month, McDonald's suggested employees get out of holiday season debt by returning unopened purchases. Earlier, it published a budget guide that included no money for heat and $20 a month for health care.

Update: The McDonald's tipping article appears to have been removed by mid-afternoon Thursday following CNBC's post.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/mcdonalds-gives-workers-advice-tipping-au-pairs-trainers-dog-walkers-2D11702467

[tclambert]

3. Ooh, but how much should a McDonald's worker tip his chauffeur?

Or his concierge doctor?

[Fuddnik]

4. Probably the same as he tips his personal shopper.

[Demeter]

6. I think they should STFU before they end up in real deep trouble

Last edited Fri Dec 6, 2013, 07:11 AM - Edit history (1)

and maybe investigate their PR department for industrial sabotage.

Although, I suppose it's too late now.

Maybe it's a comedy stunt?

What do they put in that special sauce, anyhow?

Is the Romney campaign going corporate?

[Demeter]

7. How Tesla Batteries Are Powering an Energy Revolution MUST READ

IF YOU WANT TO SELL ME TECHNOLOGY, SELL ME SOMETHING I WANT!

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/how-tesla-batteries-are-powering-an-energy-revolution/282056/

Those Tesla Motors lithium-ion battery packs aren’t just powering electric luxury sports sedans for the 1 percent any more.

They’ve started appearing in a small number of California homes to store electricity generated by rooftop solar panels, and beginning today SolarCity, the Silicon Valley solar installer, will start providing Tesla batteries for businesses that want to cut their utility bills. A big box retailer like Walmart could charge up a Tesla battery pack with cheap energy produced by its SolarCity rooftop photovoltaic array and then tap that power when demand—and electricity rates—spike.

That would let them minimize paying their local utility high “demand charges” for electricity when they need it most. And the cost of the SolarCity’s system, called DemandLogic? Effectively zero, according to SolarCity, since the monthly payments for energy storage would be less than the money saved by not forking over cash to the utility.

And if that sounds like a threat to century-old monopoly utilities, it is. “Our business model is to become the energy company of the 21st century,” SolarCity chief executive Lyndon Rive told The Atlantic. “You’re still connected to the grid but the grid would be your secondary provider and the primarily provider would be your solar system and your storage device.”...

[Demeter]

8. Ex-aide says Madoff workers duped investor's account postmortem

MORE FRAUDULENT APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-aide-says-madoff-workers-duped-investor-39-001333735--sector.html

To hear his former aide tell it, even a client's death posed no problem for Bernard Madoff as he perpetrated his massive Ponzi scheme. Testifying in a trial in New York on Wednesday, the former aide, Frank DiPascali, said an estate lawyer wrote Madoff's firm a letter in 1995 seeking the account balances for the late Jacques Amsellem, who had been a Madoff client since the 1970s.

Madoff typically decided how much money each account should earn in a given year, and Amsellem's account showed too high a balance at the time of his death, DiPascali said. So two of his employees, Joann Crupi and Annette Bongiorno, wrote up false statements for a new account with losses to counterbalance the unintended gains.

"It's like musical chairs," DiPascali told jurors in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

DiPascali, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government, was testifying in the trial of Bongiorno, Crupi, and three other former employees who are charged with helping Madoff pull off the fraud. The five defendants, who also include back office director Daniel Bonventre and computer programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, have said they were duped by Madoff into believing that his business was legitimate. Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence, claimed he acted alone in masterminding the scheme, which unraveled in 2008 and cost customers an estimated $17 billion.

In his second full day of testimony, DiPascali described various ways in which the five defendants participated in the scheme, revealing a staggering level of detail required to keep the scheme hidden from outsiders. For instance, he said, Bonventre and O'Hara spent months creating forged copies of documents from a securities clearinghouse, the Depository Trust Co. The false records showed that Madoff's firm held billions of dollars in stocks and bonds that did not actually exist, in order to give credence to fake trades that propped up his clients' positions. Madoff insisted on using a specific type of paper to match that used by the clearinghouse, while O'Hara worked hard to imitate the precise font and layout on the real documents, DiPascali said. DiPascali recalled a meeting in which Madoff stood by a window, holding up a document and its forged counterpart to the sunlight, as Bonventre and other staffers looked on.

"He was remarking how great it was," DiPascali said.

RIGHT THERE, THE FRAUD IS ACKNOWLEDGED

[Demeter]

14. ANOTHER PONZI: Amid the pain, swindler's victims get a small victory

18 YEARS IN PRISON, INSTEAD OF THE 8 THE STATE WANTED...SOME VICTORY, EH?

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-1206-victims-plea-20131206,0,5760086.story?track=rss

[Demeter]

9. Keeping Shareholders in the Dark

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/opinion/keeping-shareholders-in-the-dark.html



Protecting investors and ensuring proper corporate governance are the essence of the mission of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But you wouldn’t know that from the recent actions of the agency and its chairwoman, Mary Jo White...Last week, the S.E.C. unwisely removed from its regulatory agenda a plan to consider a rule to require public companies to disclose their political spending — even though the case for disclosure is undeniable. Basic investor protection requires that shareholders know how corporate executives are spending shareholder money. Good corporate governance requires that companies are transparent about their use of corporate resources. Shareholders know this and have demanded disclosure.

Even before 2010, when the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United opened the floodgates for corporate political spending, shareholder proposals requesting information on such spending were growing. Since the ruling, those requests have increased along with the political spending. Trade associations and politically active tax-exempt groups are not required to disclose their donors, but there is mounting evidence that much of the money they spend is from companies that want to influence elections in secret, without fear of alienating shareholders, customers or legislators they target for defeat. The drive for a rule mandating disclosure of corporate political spending began with a petition to the S.E.C. in 2011 from 10 corporate and securities law professors, laying out the legal basis for a new rule. The petition has garnered more than 600,000 comments — more than any other petition or rule in the agency’s history. Most comments are in favor; they include a letter of support from some Democrats in Congress and one from institutional investors who together manage nearly $700 billion.

Equally important, the Supreme Court in Citizens United assumed a role for shareholders in monitoring corporate political spending. It stated that “prompt disclosure of expenditures” would help shareholders hold corporations accountable. It also said that disclosure would help shareholders determine if the corporation’s spending “advances the corporation’s interest in making profits.”

Opponents of the rule, including Republican lawmakers, some conservative academics and trade associations, have said that the S.E.C. should not be involved in issues of campaign finance or free speech. But that is not the point. Without disclosure, shareholders have no way to assess whether corporate political spending benefits them, and every reason to believe it is fraught with risks to the corporate brand, business reputation, the bottom line and, by extension, shareholder returns...


DAMN SKIPPY!

[Demeter]

10. How to get $100 discount on an ounce of gold

I FIGURE IT'S A SCAM OR MAYBE A JOKE...

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-get-100-discount-on-an-ounce-of-gold-2013-12-04?siteid=YAHOOB

When the light turns green and the dull-witted motorist in front of me just sits there, I’ll wonder if he’s worried that the light isn’t green enough. With the price of gold about 35% off the all-time high set in 2011, investor sentiment is bleak — but for shareholders of Central Fund of Canada, a closed-end fund whose portfolio consists of gold and silver bullion, it apparently isn’t bleak enough.

The fund CEF had a net asset value — the intrinsic worth of the gold and silver it owns — of $14.29 a share on Monday, but its closing share price that day was $13.16, almost 8% lower, according to investment researcher Morningstar Inc.

For anyone who bought the fund that day, it was like buying gold GCG4 for about $100 an ounce less than its $1,222 closing price.

This discount to NAV isn’t the largest that Central Fund of Canada has ever had, but it’s certainly an outlier. Looking at average monthly deviations from NAV to smooth out the spikes, the discount has been about 5% for two months, far wider than for most of the last five years, a period in which a 5% premium has been the norm...


MAYBE PEOPLE ARE WONDERING IF PHYSICAL GOLD IS REALLY THERE, AND WHETHER THEY WILL EVER SEE IT.

[Demeter]

11. 10 things your boss won’t tell you: Why one in four workers dislikes his or her boss

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-your-boss-wont-tell-you-2013-12-02?pagenumber=10

1. “Yes, I’m reading your emails … and your IMs.”

2. “I’m looking for someone younger. And cheaper.” AND STUPID ENOUGH TO DO WHAT I TELL HIM, WITHOUT QUESTION

3. “I know when you’re faking the flu.” AND I DON'T CARE IF YOU ARE REALLY SICK, EITHER

4. “Your kid? Your problem.”

5. “I could be your best friend…”

For the six out of 10 workers who say they’ve considered a boss a friend, this won’t come as a surprise: Being the boss’s pal, or pet, comes with perks. Some bosses play favorites in obvious ways, like giving a particular subordinate the plum assignments or pushing upper management for his raise. Others are more subtle, seeming to treat all employees equally. But then they’ll offer more guidance to a favored worker, or make sure she is introduced to the “right” people, says New York City-based career and executive coach Roy Cohen. And as long as the relationship works, everyone can benefit: Good relationships tend to lead to higher worker engagement; compatibility can help a worker get a raise or a promotion; everyone likes to work with people they like and trust....

6. “…Or your worst enemy.”

Just as a good relationship with your boss can bolster your career, a lousy one can tank it. Or worse. One study found that, in incidences of workplace bullying, the boss is the bully 72% of the time. Nearly half of people who were bullied at work suffered stress-related health problems, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute...

7. “I don’t promote based on performance.”

8. “I’m shallow.”

As if being thin and attractive weren’t its own reward, being both helps workers get ahead at work, too. The opposite is also true: People who are unattractive or overweight are punished for it at the office. In spite of the fact that in most professions, attractiveness has no bearing on performance, many bosses subscribe to the notion that “what is beautiful is good,” according to a psychology researcher from Hofstra. As a result, in a study by Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State University, good-looking people (as rated by staff assisting with the research) earn 3% to 8% more than average-looking people, who, in turn, earn 5% to 10% more than those rated “plain.”...

9. “I don’t have time for you.”

10. “It’s all about me.”

AND THAT DOESN'T EVEN START TO COVER IT...WHAT ABOUT JOB ASSIGNMENTS THAT BREAK THE LAW, DEFRAUD THE CUSTOMER, ENDANGER THE VERY PLANET WE LIVE ON, ETC....

[Demeter]

12. 6 Signs Our Culture Is Sick With Greed By RJ Eskow

http://www.alternet.org/economy/6-signs-our-culture-sick-greed


The United States of the 1960s was a nation filled with optimism. For many (though definitely not all) Americans it was a time of opportunity. Education was affordable, families could live comfortably on a single adult income, and the country seem to be on an endless upward trajectory of prosperity. We were expanding in every way, so rapidly that only the depths of space seemed able to contain the people we were about to become. The fantasy of wealth seemed somehow different in that context. Today we’re a nation being preached to by “bipartisan” corporate politicians who lecture us on the impossibility of even the selfishness of expecting a livable Social Security income in our old age. Or a living wage in our working years. Or an affordable education, so our children can live a better life economically than we did. Yet we're more infatuated with the fruits of unproductive greed today, it seems, then we were back then. Here are six signs that our culture is sick with greed.

1. There’s still no public shame in profiting off Wall Street fraud.

2. Greedy CEOs still have credibility in the media.

3. Executives are now trained to rip people off.

4. And then there’s Kanye.

5. Insight and spirituality are being commercialized ….

6. … and so is kindness to our fellow human beings.


Soul Sickness

Today there are countless signs that our culture is sick with greed...Today’s national culture of greed is also an expression of pain and fear. It’s more terrifying than ever to try to survive on a middle-class income. Most people live one or two paychecks away from disaster. Very few of us feel that we have any real control over our own fate. The lives of reality show stars and rappers are merely the most obvious of our escapist fantasies.

But as long as we live in a fantasy world, we won’t be working to change the real one. True happiness is found in a life lived with meaning. It’s not just that I can’t afford that car. We can’t afford it. We can’t afford to live in a world where our only aspiration is to accumulate wealth, irrespective of how it’s accumulated, while ignoring the flourishing of the human spirit in its artistic, idealistic and intellectual aspects.

“The love of possessions is a sickness with them,” said Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe. People are losing their lives in the pursuit of wealth and possessions. They’re dying from gunshot wounds and heart attacks, in gang battles and in solitary hospital beds. And it’s getting worse. The symptoms are appearing, not just in ourselves, but in the planet we call home. If we don’t cure it soon, it could prove fatal for all of us.



RJ Eskow is a writer, business person, and songwriter/musician. He has worked as a consultant in public policy, technology, and finance, specializing in healthcare issues.

[Demeter]

13. What You Don’t Know About Mortgages

I SUPPOSE IT WOULD BE IMPOLITIC FOR THE NYT HEADLINE EDITOR TO FINISH THE PHRASE...

What You Don’t Know About Mortgages COULD KILL YOU!


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/opinion/what-you-dont-know-about-mortgages.html?_r=0



Thanks largely to new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, taking out a mortgage is not the risky business it was during the bubble. But it is still the largest and most complex financial transaction in the lives of most people. And it still involves inherent imbalances in expertise between lenders and borrowers, including the use of intermediaries who may or may not be trustworthy. In short, conditions for abuse still exist.

That is why the bureau’s new and long-awaited mortgage disclosure forms are important. It is also why they are disappointing. Required by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the new forms use an easy-to-read format to disclose complex terms; in addition to clear entries of principal, interest and closing costs, there is information on prepayment penalties and other complicated loan features. But the forms fall short in the crucial task of helping consumers assess and compare the total cost of various loans. Without that information, it is difficult for borrowers to know whether they are getting the best deal.

What’s needed, as the National Consumer Law Center has pointed out, is prominent display of the loan’s full annual percentage rate, a single measure of the cost of credit that incorporates the interest rate, closing costs and other fees. On the new forms, that number is not reported until Page 3. Worse, it is calculated in a way that understates the loan’s cost, because it omits the cost of title insurance and some other closing charges.

Both the bureau and the Federal Reserve had earlier proposed to include all closing costs in the annual percentage rate. The bureau says it changed its mind because including all costs might reduce the availability of certain kinds of loans. That may be true, but the loans it would restrict, in general, would be higher-priced loans, which would be subject to more regulation than lower priced ones. So lenders who resist regulation may resist offering them — which is as it should be. Better disclosure in itself does not restrict access to credit and, in fact, has been linked to reductions in the cost of credit because transparency fosters competition among lenders. ...

[Demeter]

15. IRONY ALERT: David Brooks Opines on Suicide Causes and Preventions

IT'S PEOPLE LIKE DAVID BROOKS WHO SET UP THE GAME SO THAT SUICIDE SEEMS LIKE A REASONABLE OPTION....

The Irony of Despair By DAVID BROOKS

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/opinion/brooks-the-irony-of-despair.html

We’ve made some progress in understanding mental illnesses over the past few decades, and even come up with drugs to help ameliorate their effects. But we have not made any headway against suicide.

According to the World Health Organization, global suicide rates have increased by 60 percent over the past 45 years. The increase in this country is nothing like that, but between 1999 and 2010, the suicide rate among Americans between 35 and 64 rose by 28 percent. More people die by suicide than by auto accidents.

When you get inside the numbers, all sorts of correlations pop out. Whites are more likely to commit suicide than African-Americans or Hispanics. Economically stressed and socially isolated people are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not. People in the Western American states are more likely to kill themselves than people in the Eastern ones. People in France are more likely to kill themselves than people in the United Kingdom.

But people don’t kill themselves in bundles. They kill themselves, for the most part, one by one. People who attempt suicide are always subject to sociological risk factors, but they need an idea or story to bring them to the edge of suicide and to justify their act. If you want to prevent suicide, of course, you want to reduce unemployment and isolation, but you also want to attack the ideas and stories that seem to justify it....

[Demeter]

16. HOW SO?

http://assets.amuniversal.com/f457e3f03f4f01314e02001dd8b71c47



http://assets.amuniversal.com/92b41da039c6013149c0001dd8b71c47

[Demeter]

17. DILBERT EXPOSES THE LIMITATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY

[Demeter]

18. New report exposes lies used to justify Detroit bankruptcy By Thomas Gaist

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/22/detr-n22.html



A report issued Wednesday by the New York City-based liberal think tank Demos is a devastating refutation of the arguments used by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to throw the city of Detroit into bankruptcy.

The Demos report charges that the financial numbers used by Orr and other advocates of bankruptcy were grossly inflated, and that the real causes of Detroit’s cash flow shortfall were parasitic loans and other financial schemes pushed on the city by the banks and other powerful creditors.

Data assembled in the report adds to the already overwhelming evidence that the city of Detroit’s July 19 Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing was not driven by economic necessity but by political considerations...

AND YET, THE JUDGE BOUGHT THE GOP ARGUMENT...OR MAYBE THE GOP BOUGHT THE JUDGE...

[Demeter]

19. How to Replace Obamacare JAMES C. CAPRETTA and ROBERT E. MOFFIT

WARNING--AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE AND HERITAGE FOUNDATION SUPPORTED!

www.aei.org/files/2012/12/12/-constructing-an-alternative-to-obamacare-key-details-for-a-practical-replacement-program_171532844111.pdf

http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/how-to-replace-obamacare



When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly known as "Obamacare&quot was signed into law in the spring of 2010, congressional opponents vowed that the fight was not over. The most disastrous features of the new law would not take effect until 2014, leaving time for a concerted campaign to avert catastrophe. The way to spend that time, these opponents argued, was working to "repeal and replace" the law that Congress had just enacted. The "repeal and replace" formulation quickly caught on, but it was not without its critics. That Obamacare should be "repealed" was obvious, given how strenuously conservatives and many independents objected to the new law. But "replace"? Hammering out the details of a new health-care law might easily stir controversy and sow discord, thereby undermining the push for "repeal."

This concern is not unfounded. But repeal will not be enough, for a simple reason: Although Obamacare would worsen many of the problems with our system of health-care financing, that system clearly does call out for serious reform. Despite the widespread public antipathy toward the new health-care law, simply reverting to the pre-Obamacare status quo would be viewed by many Americans, perhaps even most, as unacceptable. After all, a repeal-only approach would leave many of the most grievous flaws in our system of financing health care unaddressed. Chief among them would be steadily rising health-care costs, driven by the same misguided government policies that so evidently demand reform.

If the problems that are today obvious to the public had been addressed by market-oriented policies over the past few decades, there would have been no political opening through which to ram Obamacare. Instead, these problems were allowed to fester; by 2009, they had become so acute that there was strong sentiment, even among some business-oriented conservatives, that "something had to be done." And as the 2010 congressional debate over Obamacare reached its climax, this sentiment — that some action, even an imperfect one, would be better than nothing — likely played a large role in enabling the health-care law to pass. PURE DELUSION ALERT!

This history suggests that, now that Obamacare is with us, the law cannot be reversed without a credible proposal for what should take its place. Those reforms must account for both the strengths and the weaknesses of our health-care system, and must solve the problems that contributed to the demand for Obamacare in the first place. There is room for debate about the particulars of these reforms, and different components of our health-care system will call for different kinds of fixes. What any effective solution must involve, however, is the creation of a true market in health coverage — one that drives efficiency through competition, and places health-care decisions in the hands of consumers and taxpayers, where they belong.

WHAT NEEDS FIXING

PILLARS OF REFORM

TAX REFORM AND HEALTH REFORM

IMPROVING HEALTH CARE FOR THE VULNERABLE (MEDICAID, AKA CHARITY)

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR A CHANGE

IN OTHER WORDS, MORE FREE-MARKET, UNREGULATED CLAPTRAP

James C. Capretta is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Robert E. Moffit is a senior fellow in the Center for Policy Innovation at the Heritage Foundation.

[Warpy]

37. "widespread public antipathy toward the new health care law????"

Maybe at the cocktail parties and 3 martini lunches this asshole goes to.

I'm hearing a lot of pleasant surprises out there.

[xchrom]

20. GERMAN ORDERS DISAPPOINT, BUT GROWTH FORECAST UP

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-12-06-07-12-43

BERLIN (AP) -- German industrial orders dropped unexpectedly sharply in October, according to data released Friday, but the central bank raised its growth forecast for the country's economy on healthy domestic demand fueled by low unemployment.

Orders dropped 2.2 percent compared with the previous month, the Economy Ministry said. That followed a downwardly revised 3.1 percent increase in September and continued a pattern of volatile and choppy demand this year.

The October performance was worse than the decline of 1 percent or less that economists had forecast, and the ministry said the number of bulk orders was below average after spiking in September. Demand declined across the board - orders from inside Germany were off 2 percent, those from elsewhere in the eurozone slid 1.3 percent and there was a 2.9 percent drop in demand from other countries.

Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING, noted, however, that new orders have risen by roughly 5 percent since the beginning of the year. "The underlying trend is slightly positive," he said.

[xchrom]

21. US AVERAGE RATE ON 30-YEAR LOAN AT 4.46 PCT.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MORTGAGE_RATES_GLANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-12-05-18-06-47

Average U.S. mortgage rates rose sharply this week, making home-buying slightly less affordable.
Here's a look at rates for fixed and adjustable mortgages this week and over the past year:
Current avg. Last week 52-week high 52-week low
30-year fixed 4.46 4.29 4.58 3.32
15-year fixed 3.47 3.30 3.60 2.56
5-year adjustable 2.99 2.94 3.28 2.56
1-year adjustable 2.59 2.60 2.71 2.53
All values in percentage points
Source: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey

[xchrom]

22. CYPRUS TO ASK FOR NEW GAS SUPPLY BIDS

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/cyprus-ask-new-gas-supply-bids

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus says it will launch a new round of bids to supply the bailed-out country with natural gas to meet domestic needs until it can tap its own offshore reserves.

Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis said Friday it will be a seven-year contract with the option of extending it by three more. An earlier round yielded no deal.

U.S. firm Noble Energy in October expressed interest in pumping gas to Cyprus from a field off the country's south coast, but the project will take time. Noble and its Israeli partners Delek and Avner are looking to develop the field, estimated to hold 3.6 trillion to 6 trillion cubic feet of gas.

[Roland99]

23. Nov Jobs - +203,000. Unemployment down to 7.0% from 7.3%

* Change in manufacturing payrolls: 27,000, above expectations for 10,000
* Average hourly earnings growth: 0.2%, in line with expectations
* Average weekly hours worked: 34.5, in line with expectations
* Underemployment rate: 13.2%, down from 13.8% in October
* Labor force participation rate: 63.0%, up from 62.8% in October

[DemReadingDU]

28. Down to 7%.

7% unemployment seems, well, too good to be true.

[Roland99]

29. esp with the LFPR going up, too?

Something smells and it ain't what I had for breakfast.

[xchrom]

24. Autumn Statement: Growth 'hides disappointing news'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25258963

Higher UK growth forecasts "hide some more disappointing news for the chancellor", warns the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

It says the increased growth is just a result of growth coming a bit sooner than had been expected.

The think-tank warns things like free school meals are unfunded after 2015.

It says the pace of cuts in public service spending will accelerate from 2.3% a year between 2011 and March 2016 to 3.7% a year until early 2019.

[xchrom]

25. Book-Cooking Bank Gets to Keep Cooked Books

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-05/book-cooking-bank-gets-to-keep-cooked-books.html

Here's a not-so-comforting lesson for investors, courtesy of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Just because the SEC says a company's earnings were fraudulent doesn't mean the company will ever be required to correct them.

The SEC this week accused Fifth Third Bancorp of committing accounting fraud during the height of the 2008 financial crisis. The company agreed to pay a $6.5 million penalty to settle the agency's claims.

The funny part: Fifth Third, which is Ohio's largest bank, has never acknowledged to this day that its numbers were in error. The SEC isn't requiring it to do so now. A Fifth Third spokesman, Larry Magnesen, said the company considered whether it needed to do a financial restatement and decided it didn't.

Reasonable people might disagree about whether Fifth Third committed fraud. Per the usual protocol, Fifth Third neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegations. Yet it's beyond belief that the company never had to set the record straight about its financial statements. Fifth Third first disclosed the SEC's investigation in its 2010 annual report. So the bank has had a few years to revise its figures.

[Demeter]

31. I heard on NPR yesterday that they are big in Pay Day Loans

Figures.

[xchrom]

26. Volcker-Rule Critic Raskin Seen as a Voice for Consumers

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-06/volcker-rule-critic-raskin-seen-as-a-voice-for-consumers.html

When Federal Reserve governors voted in 2011 on the Volcker rule ban on banks’ proprietary trading, Sarah Bloom Raskin was alone in opposition. For her, it wasn’t tough enough.

Raskin will be among the regulators voting next week on the final version of the rule, which is likely to be stricter than the original proposal. Later this month, the Senate may decide whether to confirm her as the Treasury Department’s No. 2 official and its highest-ranking woman ever.

Raskin, a Harvard Law School graduate, has criticized the speculative bets banks make with their own capital as an “activity of low or no real economic value.” As Maryland’s top financial regulator from 2007 to 2010, she took on payday lenders and helped write legislation giving homeowners more time to avoid foreclosure. That record suggests that at Treasury she’ll be hard on the financial industry and protective of consumers.

“She’ll have the fortitude to ask the uncomfortable questions,” said Dennis Kelleher, who is president of Washington-based Better Markets Inc., a non-profit group that backs stricter bank regulation, and is a former chief counsel to the chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. Her initial dissent on the Volcker rule shows “she was ahead of everybody else,” he said.


Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin has criticized the speculative bets banks make with their own capital as an “activity of low or no real economic value.”

[xchrom]

27. Deutsche Bank to Shrink in Commodities as Revenue Slides

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-06/deutsche-bank-to-shrink-in-commodities-as-revenue-slides.html

Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) is cutting about 200 commodities jobs, joining the world’s largest financial firms in reducing headcount to the lowest since 2009 as prices for everything from energy to metals head for the first annual drop since the recession.

Europe’s top investment bank will exit dedicated energy, agriculture, dry bulk and base metals trading and transfer its financial derivatives and precious metals desks to the fixed income and currencies division. The move will have “no material impact” on earnings, the bank said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Total headcount in commodity units at the 10 largest banks stood at the lowest since at least 2009 as of September, according to analytics company Coalition.

Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank is joining JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Morgan Stanley in cutting back after investors pulled a record $34.1 billion from commodity funds globally since last December and prices tracked by Standard & Poor’s head for their first annual drop since 2008. The Federal Reserve is reviewing banks’ control of raw-material assets and regulators are demanding they set aside more reserves to cover potential losses.

“Commodities is a cyclical business,” said George Kuznetsov, the head of research at Coalition, a London-based analytics company. “Banks with a higher focus on institutional clients will scale their businesses back to key products, while larger corporate franchises will continue to be active across a broader set of products.”

[westerebus]

34. Rest assured there is no on going investigations...

If the global economy is growing? why would a major bank drop its trading desk with the exception of PM's and the paper attached to them?

Fixed income and currencies? PM's are now fixed income or/and currency? Who knew?

[Demeter]

32. somebody sure has big money riding on a 16K DOW

They goosed it good at opening....

[Warpy]

38. They'll let it drop like a rock after the Xmas feeding frenzy

I see big money moving back into commodities already. That's likely to increase after the consumer buying frenzy.

Until then, let the suckers think they've gotten rich quick via their 401-K plans.

[Demeter]

33. Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Thinking of AnneD:



Thinking with my tummy:



It's funny, but after a helping of turkey, mash potatoes and gravy, I'm hungry an hour after...

[Demeter]

35. Don't look now, but one of my posts (a sob story) is 4th on Greatest Page

and still climbing.

[Demeter]

36. dupe