STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 31 December 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 31 December 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 30 December 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 30 December 2013
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Dow Jones 16,504.29 +25.88 (0.16%)
[font color=red]S&P 500 1,841.07 -0.33 (-0.02%)
Nasdaq 4,154.20 -2.40 (-0.06%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.97% -0.01 (-0.34%)
30 Year 3.90% -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. Well, they did it--pushed the DOW to 16,500

The first feint didn't succeed, but timing it to the last minute, they managed to hit some artificial goal for themselves, no doubt to be handsomely rewarded at bonus time.

I despise this game they play with our economy, our lives. We the People have to put an end to it. I don't know how, but it's time for keelhauling the financial pirates.

[kickysnana]

2. It takes a whole lot of $$$ to disrupt, corrrupt, buy and steal elections...

The other way is all the fraud going to be spawned by the ACA cause there are no real checks and balances there yet and even if there are they get away with billions for years before they are stopped.

Most prosecutions, even investigations last 2 years, right after the next Presidential election.

(Somewhere in some GOP/Corporate tryst someone said. Alright you have two years to get us the money we need to steal this election. You will be rewarded richly and don't forget we will make sure there is no legitimate way to be successful in America unless you throw in with us.)

[xchrom]

3. World Markets Are At Six-Year Highs, And People Think They'll Keep Going Up In 2014

http://www.businessinsider.com/world-markets-are-at-six-year-highs-2013-12

LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks were ending 2013 close to six-year peaks on Tuesday and benchmark bond yields were poised for their first annual rise since 2009 as investors celebrated a pick-up in global growth with expectations of more to come.

Thanks to ultra-easy monetary policies and an improving economic outlook, equities have enjoyed a vintage year in 2013. Wall Street was on track for its best year since 1997 with a 29 percent gain, while Japan's Nikkei <.N225> ended up 56.7 percent and European shares <.FTEU3> gained 16 percent.

MSCI's all-country world equity index <.MIWD00000PUS> was flat at 407.42 points on Tuesday, having hit its highest since late 2007 at 407.65 on Monday.

The FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index of top European shares was up 0.13 percent at 1,313.52 points, on course for its best year since 2009.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/world-markets-are-at-six-year-highs-2013-12#ixzz2p3Q7uQY2

[xchrom]

4. 5 Structural Reasons Why Corporate Profit Margins Could Stay High For A Long Time

http://www.businessinsider.com/5-structural-reasons-why-corporate-profit-margins-could-stay-high-for-a-long-time-2013-12

The debate about profit margins has been raging for years now. Big bears argue that margins have to mean revert. The bulls argue that margins either aren’t all that high or needn’t necessarily mean revert. But an interesting note from Deutsche Bank argues that some portion of the higher margins is indeed structural. Their arguments makes a good deal of sense (via Deutsche Bank):

Constituent changes: 80bp of margin expansion has come from the ~5% annual constituent turnover.

Lower effective tax rate: 80 bp of margin expansion has come from S&P effective tax rate dropping by 7 pct points as share of S&P profits from foreign operations doubled.

Lower interest expense: 25 bp of margin expansion has come from lower interest rates and less leverage.

Higher foreign operating margins: 85 bp of the margin expansion has come from this and mix shift. The increase in aggregate foreign margins is from higher businesses expanding abroad and their foreign operations becoming more profitable.

Mix shift: sectors with improving or higher margins have become larger share of the S&P 500. Tech is now 20% of S&P earnings vs 12% in mid 1990s, while telecom and utilities share has dropped to 5% from 10% in mid 1990s.


Read more: http://pragcap.com/5-structural-reason-for-higher-profit-margins#ixzz2p3R0eALD

[xchrom]

5. The 'Wolf Of Wall Street' Was Real And Then Some

http://www.businessinsider.com/joshua-brown-wolf-of-wall-street-2013-12

Real quick – I finally managed to see The Wolf of Wall Street today, thought I’d write up some impressions…

For starters, I began in the business on Long Island at the tail-end of that era and I had met a lot of the guys depicted in the film while cold-calling at Duke & Company during the summer after my freshman year.

They really were dumbasses and savage maniacs, but to the young guys who didn’t know any better, they were Ferrari-driving gods.

Duke & Co was the boiler room spin-off opened and run by ex-Stratton Oakmont guys who had broken away during the regulatory troubles. I’m fairly sure that the Asian character in the movie, “Chester Ming” is meant to portray Victor Wang, one of the founders of Duke (Jordan refers to him as “the depraved Chinaman” in the book).



Read more: http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2013/12/29/my-wolf-of-wall-street-review/#ixzz2p3YFlFKr

[xchrom]

6. Gold Bulls Retrench as Price Drops Most in 32 Years: Commodities

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-31/gold-bulls-retrench-as-price-drops-most-in-32-years-commodities.html

Hedge funds got less bullish on gold for the seventh time in eight weeks as the U.S. economy strengthens and inflation fails to accelerate, driving prices to the biggest annual drop in more than three decades.

The net-long position in gold fell 12 percent to 28,702 futures and options in the week ended Dec. 24, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Short holdings gained 1.1 percent to 76,052, a three-week high. Net-bullish holdings across 18 U.S.-traded commodities climbed 4.5 percent to 768,354 contracts as copper wagers gained to a 34-month high.

Investors shunned gold in 2013, halting 12 straight years of price gains. Global equities rallied on improving growth prospects and inflation failed to accelerate, eroding demand for bullion as a preserver of wealth. Assets in exchange-traded products backed by bullion fell to the lowest since 2009 as holders including billionaires George Soros and John Paulson sold. The International Monetary Fund signaled this month the U.S. economy will expand more than forecast.

“Gold is something we avoid,” said Michael Shaoul, the chief executive officer of Marketfield Asset Management LLC, which oversees about $17 billion. “The developed economies are growing, and equities remain very interesting, so there is really no reason to be in gold.”

[xchrom]

7. Merkel Says Balanced Budget, Energy Take Priority in Third Term

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/merkel-says-balanced-budget-energy-take-priority-in-third-term.html


German Chancellor Angela Merkel said eliminating the budget deficit and completing the country’s transformation from coal and nuclear energy to renewables are the priorities of her third four-year term.

“Especially important to me is that we hand our finances over to the next generation in an orderly way” and “that we bring the energy switch to a successful conclusion,” Merkel said in her New Year’s speech, prepared for delivery later today, that was e-mailed in advance to reporters.

While Germany is doing well amid tough global competition and more people than ever have a job, the nation’s progress depends on advances in Europe and overcoming the government debt crisis plaguing the continent, Merkel said.

Merkel, who was sworn in for a third term on Dec. 17, is benefiting from an economic rebound as she aims to end net new borrowing by 2015. The chancellor is bound by constitutional rules to balance the budget by 2016 and by European Union pledges to start cutting the national debt to 60 percent of economic output from about 80 percent today.

[Demeter]

11. What a delusional woman

You think she was permanently affected when W laid hands on her?

[xchrom]

12. i'm sure she was traumatized ... or had a spell put on her. nt

[xchrom]

8. Singapore Economy Grew 3.7% in 2013, Prime Minister Lee Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-31/singapore-s-economy-grew-3-7-in-2013-prime-minister-lee-says.html


Singapore’s economic growth quickened in 2013 and the country will “do well,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.

Gross domestic product rose 3.7 percent this year, Lee, 61, said in his New Year message today. That’s in line with the government forecast of 3.5 percent to 4 percent growth and compares with the median in a Bloomberg News survey of economists for a 3.55 percent expansion.

“The European and American economies are stabilizing,” Lee said. “Asian prospects are still positive, but there are problems and tensions,” he said, citing regional geopolitical disputes.

Singapore’s economic acceleration this year has been aided by recoveries in the U.S. and Europe, while companies in the city-state adjusted to rising business costs and curbs on cheap foreign labor. The island’s trade promotion agency said in November exports will rebound in 2014 after contracting this year, easing pressure on the central bank to allow the currency to weaken to support overseas shipments.

[xchrom]

9. European Stocks Rise as Yen Pares Slump Before U.S. Data

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/asian-futures-rise-amid-dow-record-as-gold-holds-retreat.html

Stocks in Europe and Asia rose, while the yen pared its biggest annual decline versus the dollar since 1979, before a report that will probably show U.S. consumer confidence climbed this month. The Turkish lira fell.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 0.3 percent at 7:56 a.m. in New York. The MSCI Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Index added 0.3 percent, led by Chinese shares after the nation’s regulator approved the first initial public offerings in more than a year. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) futures were little changed. The yen increased 0.2 percent, after touching its weakest level since 2008 yesterday. The Turkish lira depreciated 0.7 percent, while nickel retreated 1.2 percent.

Asset purchases by the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve have supported the global economy and helped to increase the market value of world stocks by $9.5 trillion this year. The Conference Board will probably report that its gauge of U.S. consumer sentiment climbed to a three-month high in December, according to economists. China’s securities regulator approved share sales by five companies.

“There will be more talk of working together as one from central banks next year, but in terms of the global economy the reality is that a lot of economies are at different points of the cycle,” Tim Schroeders, who helps oversee about $1 billion as a money manager at Pengana Capital Ltd. in Melbourne, said by phone. “China is definitely looking to the future.”

[xchrom]

10. Aussie Dollar Gains, Paring Biggest Annual Slide Since 2008

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-31/aussie-poised-for-monthly-2013-loss-with-85-u-s-cents-in-view.html

Australia’s dollar rose, paring its biggest annual slide since 2008, as investors eased bets on further declines in the currency, which has trailed only the yen as the worst performer among major peers this year.

The Aussie has dropped against nine of the Group of 10 currency pairs this year, recording the biggest declines against the Danish krone, euro and Swiss franc. Private sector credit expanded at a slower pace than forecast last month, according to Reserve Bank data released today. Central bank Governor Glenn Stevens has indicated the currency needs to decline a further 5 percent given the economic outlook. A report tomorrow is forecast to show slower manufacturing growth in China, Australia’s largest trading partner.

“The Aussie may go down to the 85 cent target that Glenn Stevens has talked about, but I don’t see it any lower than that,” said Thomas Averill, a managing director in Sydney at Rochford Capital, a currency and rates risk-management company. “When the market starts to realize that they’re not going to see cuts coming through in Aussie rates, then the currency may well go back up again.”

The Australian currency rose 0.3 percent to 89.32 U.S. cents at 4:26 p.m. in Sydney and has dropped 1.9 percent so far this month and 14 percent this year. It rose 0.2 percent to 93.78 yen and has gained 4 percent versus the yen in 2013.

[Demeter]

13. Remembering 17 politicos who died in 2013.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/politico-obituaries-2013-why-they-mattered-101460.html

It’s rare that a collection of memorial essays can be both comprehensive and fascinating. We strove for a list that was the latter, and gathered remembrances of some of the most interesting figures in the world of politics and ideas who died this year. For insight into the reach of their influence, we enlisted the help of their friends, their colleagues, their family members and the writers who’ve covered them.

Taken together, the lives and the pursuits of these change-makers cover nearly 100 years of American history. More than half were born before 1930 and all made contributions to the upheavals that defined their age—from segregation to the civil rights movement, the heyday of print journalism to the explosion of the Internet, Vietnam to the war in Afghanistan. They are politicians, journalists, activists and more, remembered here for the things that make them unique—Judy Woodruff on the pioneering journalist Helen Thomas, for instance, Jules Witcover on his writing partner Jack Germond, Lawrence Lessig on the young tech activist Aaron Swartz.

The 17 recalled here—leaders, thinkers and gadflies alike—are bound, we discovered, not just by the fact that they were lost in 2013, but also by the indelible mark they each made on our politics.

Jack Germond, by Jules Witcover
Harry Byrd Jr., by Don Baker
Ed Koch, by Glenn Thrush
Aaron Swartz, by Lawrence Lessig
Stanley Karnow, by Bernard Kalb
Essie Washington-Williams, by Marilyn W. Thompson
Godfrey Sperling, by Rick Berke
Hugo Chavez, by Rory Carroll
Helen Thomas, by Judy Woodruff
Frank Lautenberg, by Jason Zengerle
Haynes Johnson, by Mike Allen
Lee White, by Todd S. Purdum
C. Everett Koop, by Anthony Fauci
Lindy Boggs, by Cokie Roberts
Tom Foley, by Vic Fazio
Rich Williamson, by Paul Wolfowitz
Al Neuharth, by John Seigenthaler

[xchrom]

14. Pending Sales of U.S. Existing Homes Rise Less Than Forecast

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-30/pending-sales-of-u-s-existing-homes-rise-less-than-forecast.html


Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes rose less than forecast in November, indicating higher borrowing costs are holding back the recovery in residential real estate.

A gauge of pending home sales increased 0.2 percent, the first gain in six months, after a 1.2 percent drop in October that was larger than initially reported, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1 percent advance.

Higher mortgage rates, tight lending standards and price increases driven by a limited supply of homes for sale are discouraging some prospective buyers. Further gains in hiring, household wealth and consumer confidence would help boost the housing recovery and give greater momentum to the economy.

“Next year we think housing is going to continue to grow at a fairly solid pace,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “You have a story of things getting better in the economy, better job growth, driving the numbers.”

[Demeter]

15. CFPB What Have You Done for Me Lately? The Cash America Case, For One Thing

http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2013/11/cfpb-what-have-you-done-for-me-lately-the-cash-america-case-for-one-thing-.html



The CFPB just settled an enormous enforcement action against payday lender Cash America. Under the settlement, Cash America will pay $5 million in penalties and $14 million in refunds to overcharged customers. The CFPB found that Cash America or its affiliates robo-signed documents in debt collection lawsuits, made loans to military servicemen in violation of the federal Military Lending Act, and even destroyed documents during discovery. ... the Dodd-Frank Act gives the CFPB various enforcement powers including the authority to engage in administrative enforcement actions (typically followed by a consent order) and to bring civil litigation proceedings. The CFPB is required to report all public enforcement actions to which it is a party, which is where Andy got his data, all from 2012.

During the time period of January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012, the CFPB was involved in nine public enforcement actions. Of these actions, five were administrative actions and four were litigation in Federal District court. Of the five administrative actions, three were against American Express and were consolidated into one consent order. This chart contains some of the details on these actions. SEE LINK The three largest enforcement actions taken by the CFPB in 2012 were against Capital One Bank, American Express Centurion Bank, and Discover Bank. In all three actions, the CFPB claimed that these companies were participating in misleading or deceptive practices. The damages paid to consumers in these three large actions ranged from $85 million to $200 million. The number of customers affected by each company ranged from 2 million to 250 thousand, creating an average per consumer distribution between $57 and $340.

The civil penalties ranged from $14 million to $27.5 million, which were placed in the Consumer Financial Civil Penalty Fund. This fund is used by the CFPB to provide compensation to consumers who were harmed but won’t be made whole through other sources. The CFPB can also use this money for consumer education and financial literacy programs. Andy’s chart below compares the remedies paid to the consumers and the civil money penalties that the companies paid.

http://www.creditslips.org/.a/6a00d8341cf9b753ef019b01c01c9c970d-400wi

MORE

[Demeter]

16. The NSA Paid to Steal Your Private Data

http://thiscantbehappening.net/rsapaidfordata

As the people of this country, and much of the world, observe the year-end holidays, we can look back on 2013 as the year when any illusion of genuine democracy was dashed by the remarkable revelations about the police-state surveillance that watches us. Last week, we saw a deeply disturbing stroke added to that incrementally developing picture.

In the ever-expanding and groan-provoking saga of the NSA's attack on our privacy, it was revealed that the agency paid a major Internet security firm to insert a flawed encryption formula into the company's software. The news, sparked by leaks from Edward Snowden and first reported by Reuters, raises serious questions about the security of popular encryption programs and indicates that the U.S. government was consciously involved in massive and very destructive fraud. The revelations indicate that the NSA paid $10 million to RSA, one of the most prominent encrytion software companies in the world, to include the NSA's own encryption formula in a very popular and heavily used encryption product called "Bsafe". While Bsafe offers several encryption options, the default option (the one you use if you don't specifically choose any) is the NSA's own code. The massive attack on encryption by the NSA has been reported before but this recent revelations about payments made demonstrate an intentionality to defraud and a complete disregard for the law, honesty and people's rights. RSA offered a partial and fairly weak statement of defense. The NSA has yet to comment.

"Encryption" is a computerized function, ubiquitous on the Internet, that scrambles data so it can't be read unless the reader has a "key", a small piece of computer code that the encryption program uses to "decrypt" the data and render it readable. Some of us use it to encrypt email, do Internet chat or voice-over-IP communications (an Internet telephone protocol). Most of us have probably used it to send data like credit card numbers when we purchase something. It's the thing that makes private communications on the Internet private. Nothing revealed indicates that encryption itself doesn't work. In fact, the NSA's attack on encryption is proof of strong encryption's usefulness and security. The agency didn't "crack" encryption; it apparently can't. Rather it developed its own, faulty encryption code that allowed it to read data encrypted using that code...What's disturbing is that millions of computers use Bsafe (and many more use some RSA-based encryption method). What is even more disturbing is that many of the programs that use "Bsafe" are for Androids and other cell phones: devices rapidly becoming the information device of choice for many people all over the world. But what's most disturbing is that this piece of technological flim-flam may not be limited to Bsafe or even to RSA programs. Other companies that build widely-used encryption include Symantec, McAfee, and Microsoft and experts now suspect the NSA may have bribed them as well.

...

But this a step beyond the "capture all information" programs the NSA has admitted to and been sharply criticized for: the subject of the recent report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies that found that the NSA had "over-stepped" its mandate and rights. Devising a fraudulent system of encryption, building a back-door into it and then paying companies to offer this to the public as a fool-proof, default assurance of privacy is hardly over-stepping. It's a conscious, cynical, fraudulent and extremely dangerous attack on the principle of Internet privacy, reflecting our government's complete disdain for our rights. It also demonstrates the dangers of relying on corporate-developed encryption when there are several free and open source alternatives costing nothing and involving the work of developers whose only purpose is their commitment to a free Internet. Brad Chacos of PC World wrote an article last September with several excellent suggestions but finding solutions is really a matter of doing Internet searches for this. Using those solutions now becomes not a choice but a necessity.

MORE

SEE LINK: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048248/heres-how-to-best-secure-your-data-now-that-the-nsa-can-crack-almost-any-encryption.html

[Demeter]

17. Six Ways to Keep the Government Out of Your Files

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/how-lock-down-your-data

[Demeter]

33. NSA’s ANT Division Catalog of Exploits for Nearly Every Major Software/Hardware/Firmware

http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/nsas-ant-division-catalog-of-exploits-for-nearly-every-major-software-hardware-firmware/

[Demeter]

34. Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html

[Demeter]

35. Why NSA spied on inexplicably unencrypted Windows crash reports

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/12/why-nsa-spied-on-inexplicably-unencrypted-windows-crash-reports/

MORE THAN YOU WILL EVER WANT TO KNOW ABOUT NSA

[Demeter]

40. “When You Bareback With the Internet, You Ride With the NSA”

&feature=player_embedded

YVES SMITH WRITES:



You strong>must watch this talk, even if some parts are a bit technical for mere mortals. No matter how bad you think the NSA’s information surveillance and capture is, I can just about guarantee that this will show you that it’s an order of magnitude worse than you imagined.

Jacob Appelbaum makes clear that the degree to which the NSA not only controls the Internet but on a routine basis inserts all sorts of surveillance tools into not just computers and smart phones but also communications infrastructure. He also provides an extensive list of service providers, manufacturers, and devices that have either been compromised or are active collaborators.

Appelbaum debunks the idea that you as an individual can take comfort in the idea that you are too small and insignificant to be of notice to the NSA…

If nothing else, watch the section starting at 48:30. Oh, and in case you missed it, the NSA can compromise “air gapped” (as in never connected to the Internet) computers. And don’t miss the part that starts at 56:00. And see the related Der Spiegel article ON TAO POSTED ABOVE...

[Demeter]

18. SEC pushes US insurers for details on 'captives

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/30/us-sec-insurers-captives-idUSBRE9BT03Q20131230

The U.S. securities regulator has asked life insurers to disclose the potential cost of forcibly winding down in-house insurance units known as 'captives,' whose business model has come under regulatory radar, the Wall Street Journal reported. State insurance regulators, which approve these captive units, have previously raised concerns that some companies may be covering up their financial health by moving business to such related entities, the daily reported. (link.reuters.com/kaz65v)

Insurers that have been in touch with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on this matter include MetLife Inc, Genworth Financial Inc, Hartford Financial Services group Inc, Protective Life Corp and Reinsurance Group of America, the Journal reported, citing regulatory filings and people familiar with the matter.

The newspaper quoted some insurers responding that discontinuation of captives could hurt their financial condition and force them to raise prices on certain products...Companies form a captive insurance unit if they are unable to find an outside firm to insure them against a particular business venture, or to get better coverage with lower premiums. Such captive insurers can be set up with minimal disclosures and lesser amount of assets to back up these policies than the insurers themselves. Some insurers use captives to help consolidate their hedging of the risk in minimum-income and other guarantees sold on variable annuities, the report said.

[Demeter]

19. U.S. bank watchdogs to consider Volcker rule tweak CORRUPTION CONTINUES

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/28/us-banks-volcker-trups-idUSBRE9BQ0HL20131228

U.S. bank regulators said on Friday they would consider allowing banks to hold on to certain complex securities despite a new rule limiting risky investments. The announcement came after lenders warned in a lawsuit of hefty losses from the so-called Volcker rule. The Volcker rule prohibits banks from owning hedge funds or private equity funds to reduce risk, but the ban included a type of security community banks regard as harmless. The regulators said they would now reconsider whether these instruments could be made exempt and would make a decision no later than January 15.

A change would mark the first finessing of the Volcker rule, one of the most hotly debated provisions of the Dodd-Frank law, which was designed to overhaul Wall Street after the devastating financial crisis of 2007-09. Banks had argued in court that they needed a decision before the end of the year because accounting rules would force them to write down $600 million in capital this quarter if they knew they had to sell the securities later. But the regulators indicated that a decision by the middle of January was early enough.

"The accounting staffs of the agencies believe that ... any actions in January 2014 that occur before the issuance of December 31, 2013, financial reports should be considered when preparing those financial reports," they said.

Later on Friday, the two parties said they agreed to take more time to sort out the issue, filing a joint motion in the court that gave the regulators until January 17 to react, and the banks until January 23 to reply. Originally, the deadline for regulators had been set for Monday, and that for banks on Tuesday.

At stake are so-called collateralized debt obligations backed by trust preferred securities - or TruPS CDOs - which have hybrid characteristics of both debt and equity and can get a favorable tax treatment. The Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had earlier told banks they did not immediately need to sell the assets in question. The case was filed by the American Bankers Association, in conjunction with CB&T Bancshares Inc and its Citizens Bank and Trust Co subsidiary, as well as MBT Financial Corp and its Monroe Bank and Trust Co subsidiary.

"ABA appreciates the regulators taking this important step, and our experts are studying to see if the affected banks indeed find immediate interim relief from this action," ABA president Frank Keating said in a statement.

[Demeter]

20. Could we make the Fed a public utility? By Ellen Brown

http://admin.alternet.org/economy/fed-and-populism?akid=11339.227380.cGR1xQ&rd=1&src=newsletter941597&t=22


December 23rd, 2013, marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve, warranting a review of its performance. Has it achieved the purposes for which it was designed? The answer depends on whose purposes we are talking about. For the banks, the Fed has served quite well. For the laboring masses whose populist movement prompted it, not much has changed in a century. The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 in response to a wave of bank crises, which had hit on average every six years over a period of 80 years. The resulting economic depressions triggered a populist movement for monetary reform in the 1890s. Mary Ellen Lease, an early populist leader, said in a fiery speech that could have been written today:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . Money rules . . . .Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. . . .

We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out.

That was what they wanted, but the Federal Reserve Act that they got was not what the populists had fought for, or what their leader William Jennings Bryan thought he was approving when he voted for it in 1913. In the stirring speech that won him the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896, Bryan insisted:

[We believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. . . . Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson . . . and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business.

He concluded with this famous outcry against the restrictive gold standard:

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

What Bryan and the populists sought was a national currency issued debt-free and interest-free by the government, on the model of Lincoln’s Greenbacks. What the American people got was a money supply created by private banks as credit (or debt) lent to the government and the people at interest. Although the national money supply would be printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, it would be issued by the “bankers’ bank,” the Federal Reserve...The new system was supposed to prevent bank runs, but it clearly failed in that endeavor. In 1929, the United States experienced the worst bank run in its history...The New York Fed had been pouring newly-created money into New York banks, which then lent it to stock speculators. When the New York Fed heard that the Federal Reserve Board of Governors had held an all-night meeting discussing this risky situation, the flood of speculative funding was retracted, precipitating the 1929 stock market crash.

At that time, paper dollars were freely redeemable in gold; but banks were required to keep sufficient gold to cover only 40 percent of their deposits. When panicked bank customers rushed to cash in their dollars, gold reserves shrank. Loans then had to be recalled to maintain the 40 percent requirement, collapsing the money supply. The result was widespread unemployment and loss of homes and savings, similar to that seen today. In a scathing indictment before Congress in 1934, Representative Louis McFadden blamed the Federal Reserve. He said:

Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks . . . .

The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over. . . .

Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.

These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this Country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us our hospitality by undermining our American institutions.

Freed from the Bankers' "Cross of Gold"

To stop the collapse of the money supply, in 1933 Roosevelt took the dollar off the gold standard within the United States. The gold standard had prevailed since the founding of the country, and the move was highly controversial. Critics viewed it as a crime. But proponents saw it as finally allowing the country to be economically sovereign. This more benign view was taken by Beardsley Ruml, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in a presentation before the American Bar Association in 1945. He said the government was now at liberty to spend as needed to meet its budget, drawing on credit issued by its own central bank. It could do this until price inflation indicated a weakened purchasing power of the currency. Then, and only then, would the government need to levy taxes—not to fund the budget but to counteract inflation by contracting the money supply. The principal purpose of taxes, said Ruml, was “the maintenance of a dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years. Sometimes this purpose is stated as ‘the avoidance of inflation.’”

It was a remarkable realization. The government could be funded without taxes, by drawing on credit from its own central bank. Since there was no longer a need for gold to cover the loan, the central bank would not have to borrow. It could just create the money on its books. Only when prices rose across the board, signaling an excess of money in the money supply, would the government need to tax—not to fund the government but simply to keep supply (goods and services) in balance with demand (money). Ruml’s vision is echoed today in the school of economic thought called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). But after Roosevelt’s demise, it was not pursued. The U.S. government continued to fund itself with taxes; and when it failed to recover enough to pay its bills, it continued to borrow, putting itself in debt.

The Fed Agrees to Return the Interest

For its first half century, the Federal Reserve continued to pocket the interest on the money it issued and lent to the government. But in the 1960s, Wright Patman, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, pushed to have the Fed nationalized. To avoid that result, the Fed quietly agreed to rebate its profits to the U.S. Treasury.

In The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon, published in 1973, Congressman Jerry Voorhis wrote of this concession:

It was done, quite obviously, as acknowledgment that the Federal Reserve Banks were acting on the one hand as a national bank of issue, creating the nation’s money, but on the other hand charging the nation interest on its own credit—which no true national bank of issue could conceivably, or with any show of justice, dare to do.

Rebating the interest to the Treasury was clearly a step in the right direction. But the central bank funded very little of the federal debt. Commercial banks held a large chunk of it; and as Voorhis observed, “[where the commercial banks are concerned, there is no such repayment of the people’s money.” Commercial banks did not rebate the interest they collected to the government, said Voorhis, although they also “‘buy’ the bonds with newly created demand deposit entries on their books—nothing more.”

Today the proportion of the federal debt held by the Federal Reserve has shot up, due to repeated rounds of “quantitative easing.” But the majority of the debt is still funded privately at interest, and most of the dollars funding it originated as “bank credit” created on the books of private banks. The Treasury’s website reports the amount of interest paid on the national debt each year, going back 26 years. At the end of 2013, the total for the previous 26 years came to about $9 trillion on a federal debt of $17.25 trillion. If the government had been borrowing from its own central bank interest-free during that period, the debt would have been reduced by more than half. And that was just the interest for 26 years. The federal debt has been accumulating ever since 1835, when Andrew Jackson paid it off and vetoed the Second U.S. Bank’s renewal; and all that time it has been accruing interest. If the government had been borrowing from its central bank all along, it might have had no federal debt at all today...It may be time for a new populist movement, one that demands that the power to issue money be returned to the government and the people it represents; and that the Federal Reserve be made a public utility, owned by the people and serving them. The firehose of cheap credit lavished on Wall Street needs to be re-directed to Main Street.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, author, and president of the Public Banking Institute. She is the author of Web of Debt, and a sequel, The Public Bank Solution.

[Demeter]

21. Chris Hedges | Overthrow the Speculators

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20927-chris-hedges-overthrow-the-speculators

Money, as Karl Marx lamented, plays the largest part in determining the course of history. Once speculators are able to concentrate wealth into their hands they have, throughout history, emasculated government, turned the press into lap dogs and courtiers, corrupted the courts and hollowed out public institutions, including universities, to justify their looting and greed. Today’s speculators have created grotesque financial mechanisms, from usurious interest rates on loans to legalized accounting fraud, to plunge the masses into crippling forms of debt peonage. They steal staggering sums of public funds, such as the $85 billion of mortgage-backed securities and bonds, many of them toxic, that they unload each month on the Federal Reserve in return for cash. And when the public attempts to finance public-works projects they extract billions of dollars through wildly inflated interest rates.

Speculators at megabanks or investment firms such as Goldman Sachs are not, in a strict sense, capitalists. They do not make money from the means of production. Rather, they ignore or rewrite the law—ostensibly put in place to protect the vulnerable from the powerful—to steal from everyone, including their shareholders. They are parasites. They feed off the carcass of industrial capitalism. They produce nothing. They make nothing. They just manipulate money. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged.

We can wrest back control of our economy, and finally our political system, from corporate speculators only by building local movements that decentralize economic power through the creation of hundreds of publicly owned state, county and city banks.

MORE

[Demeter]

22. Dave Barry’s Year in Review: 2013 was a zombie of a year

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/27/3830019/dave-barrys-year-in-review-2013.html

[Demeter]

23. These 10 bubbles will pop in new ‘Lost Decade’

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-10-bubbles-will-pop-in-new-lost-decade-2013-12-28

Wall Street says the last “Lost Decade,” which actually started in 2000, just ended. Sorry, but a new Lost Decade is already on the clock, and the clock is ticking. It’ll run from 2014 through the 2024 presidential election and probably longer. Worse, it’ll be marked by 10 hot bubbles that never exploded in the last Lost Decade. They’re still growing. And guaranteed to explode in America’s face...The last Lost Decade? We first spoke of Wall Street’s fake inflation-adjusted records back in a 2010 column, lamenting how Main Street’s 95 million investors had seen Wall Street, in losing trillions, squander “over 20% of your money,” adjusted for inflation, in the dot-com crash, a 33-month recession and the credit crash of 2008. Piling on trillions in new debt for future taxpayers, “Wall Street,” we said then, “will do it again.” This year the Wall Street Journal’s E.S. Browning has also been warning that “economists were unimpressed” with the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s run to record highs — which really aren’t records at all. Yes, we’ve seen dozens of these so-called records this year. A month ago, Browning noted: “An inflation-adjusted record would mean blue-chip Dow stocks have regained the real value lost in two deadening financial crises.” Yes, the DJIA finally “achieved something it hadn’t managed in nearly 14 years: It closed at a record after adjusting for inflation.” Now “investors finally could put behind them ... the sometimes-terrifying events of the past 14 years ... the Internet bubble, Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, accounting scandals such as Enron Corp., the housing bubble, collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and other costly stumbles.”

Get it? Finally, after 14 years in negative territory, Wall Street was breaking even on an inflation-adjusted basis, after suffering “two deadening crises” and “terrifying events” that wasted trillions for 95 million Main Street investors. Big deal? Stocks broke even after 14 years?

Zero-sum economics: Wall Street ‘treaded water’ for 14 long years

Then Browning’s gut punch: “It would mean that the ‘lost decade’ during which stocks never surpassed their values of the 1990s finally is over, at least for the Dow. Of course, a new inflation-adjusted high also would be a reminder that stocks have done no better than tread water since 2000.” “Drowning” would be more accurate. So we start 2014 asking why Wall Street’s stock market did “no better than tread water since 2000.” And why did Wall Street lose trillions in retirement savings for America’s Main Street investors?

Why? Because in today’s zero-sum real world, “aggressive” government stimulus policies, plus Bernanke’s “determination to keep interest rates low” were rewarding Wall Street with cheap money, while killing Main Street’s retirement stocks and downgrading the American economy. That’s how zero-sum works: Wall Street wins, Main Street loses. In fact, since the conservative political revolution a generation ago, the rich became the Super-Rich. And the income of America’s other 99% flat lined for three decades.

10 bubbles that will pop in a new Lost Decade

...Soon the political winds will shift, again, as they have time and again since 1776. A backlash will trigger a rebellion against the Super Rich who have taken over government with conservative ideologies. Here are the 10 bubbles guaranteed to explode in America’s face in the “New Lost Decade:”

1. Inequality: New pope’s radical revolution vs. America’s old capitalism

Forget politicians. Pope Francis is an anti-capitalist, socialist revolutionary. More leftist than Stiglitz and Reich. His revolutionary mantra is igniting the world: “Inequality is the root of all social ills.” The battle cry of his crusade: “As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems.” That’s the message 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide and 78 million Americans will hear for years: Yes, this is a revolution against the “absolute autonomy” of capitalism.

2. Women leaders: Hillary Clinton vs. old-guy rulers and paternalism

Politics is a numbers game. The betting odds: It’s a woman’s turn. Women outnumber men at the ballot box. Right-wing platform planks on birth control, abortion and sam- sex marriage are too radical for women voters. In the last generation women exploded with new power positions across corporate America, in Washington and as elected leaders worldwide. Old-guy rulers are panicking. Why? Odds are, a woman will take office in 2016 and stay there till 2024. Expect endless political wars, with Democrats vetoing the last gasps of the hard-right agenda of macho obstructionists, while rapidly shifting demographics change the outdated “Rules for Old Guys.” This bubble will pop.

3. Trickle-down economics are popping now

American conservatives have far more to fear from the pope than any president. The pope’s only 76 and could be “in office” beyond 2024, preaching his anticonservative battle cry, commanding an army of 200 cardinals, 5,000 bishops, and 450,000 priests and deacons, all focused on solving the “the root problem of all social ills, inequality.” The message is clear: “We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the ‘invisible hand’ of the market.” Nor “continue to defend trickle-down theories” as capitalism’s obsessive “culture of prosperity deadens us.” This bubble’s certain to pop by 2024.

4. Capitalism’s war on the environment and new carbon taxation

Big Oil’s trillion-dollar war on the environment is being seriously challenged by new power players including Michael Bloomberg; Hank Paulson, a long-time conservationist; and hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer. Their “Risky Business” project aims to “persuade investors, policy makers and the public that the consequences of unchecked carbon emissions would eventually blow away whatever short-term costs are involved in curbing the pollution.” They’re funding a study to “calculate just how much economic risk American industries and communities face as a warming atmosphere generates more storms, droughts, floods and extreme heat.” They’re pushing a new agenda. And that’s another pop!

5. Climate-change denying politicians and billionaires will finally surrender

Recently, our column “10 ways capitalists get rich destroying our oceans,” focused on a Foreign Affairs article by Alan Sielen of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography warning that “over the last several decades, human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing evolution in reverse: a return to the barren primeval waters of hundreds of millions of years ago.” Few listened. Why? For the same reasons Big Oil and the Koch brothers and China are in denial. The South China Morning Post reported on the recent United Nations and World Trade Organization conferences on climate change, explaining the reasons: “It pays China to block global deals on climate and trade. More than US$1 trillion a year is at stake if an emission deal is struck, whereas a no-deal situation will cost just US$360 billion a year.” Yes, this bubble must and will soon pop.

No. 6: Today’s anti-government, pro-individual politics screaming “me-me-me and screw the public”

7. The Glass-Steagall Act will be re-enacted, triggered by another bubble popping, a new banking failure worse than those of 2000 and 2008.

8. World leaders finally wake up from denying the unintended consequences of population growth from 7 billion to 10 million in the next generation.

9: The Pentagon will be forced into an accelerating series of conflicts as population increases and scarce resources get scarcer, adding new pressures to global inequality before it too pops.

10: New and unpredictable “black swans” will overwhelm America, triggering ... well, you tell us.

[Demeter]

24. The Best Financial Advice I Ever Got (or Gave) Wisdom from 22 successful investors.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304244904579276963442898436

LIKE THEY ARE REALLY GONNA REVEAL THEIR CRIMINALITY?

[Demeter]

25. Wells Fargo agrees to $541 million loan settlement

http://news.yahoo.com/walls-fargo-pay-fannie-mae-541-million-mortgage-162008175--sector.html

Wells Fargo & Co will pay a net $541 million to Fannie Mae to settle claims over defective home loans, completing the government-controlled mortgage company's efforts to have banks buy back troubled loans made before the financial crisis. Fannie Mae said on Monday it has reached settlements worth roughly $6.5 billion over loan buybacks with eight banks, including Wells Fargo, the nation's largest mortgage lender and fourth-largest bank by assets.

The settlements include a $3.6 billion accord in January with Bank of America Corp over loans from that bank and the former Countrywide Financial Corp. Fannie Mae Chief Executive Timothy Mayopoulos was once general counsel at Bank of America. It also includes a $968 million accord in July with Citigroup Inc.

In the Wells Fargo settlement, the San Francisco-based bank will pay Fannie Mae $541 million in cash after adjusting for credits from prior repurchases. Before adjustments, the settlement totaled $591 million.

The accord resolves substantially all repurchase claims against Wells Fargo over loans sold to Fannie Mae that were made before 2009.

[Demeter]

26. BBC server taken over by Russian hacker at Christmas

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/29/bbc-server-hacked-at-christmas?CMP=ema_565

..."Theoretically speaking, a hacker who is able to manipulate or fabricate a news story may crash financial markets, make millions, and cause billions in losses."...

[Demeter]

27. The rollout of Obamacare shows why privatization is doomed to fail.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/top-obamacare-surprises-2013-starting-health-sectors-greed?akid=11347.227380.MwAyGe&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=11&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

...Most surprising is how many stubbornly greedy players there are in the medical-industrial complex. The foremost example is how the middlemen—insurers—have seized every opportunity to gouge the public before and after insurance-buying exchanges opened this past October 1. Not only did premiums jump by double-digit amounts from coast to coast for many policyholders after the law’s passage in 2009, but this fall the industry doubled down and jacked up prices or canceled policies for hundreds of thousands of people. That’s quite a way to say thank-you to the federal government for sending them millions of new customers.

But insurers are not the only greedy sector. Hospitals—many of which are chartered as non-profits and get tax breaks—have been unmasked by astute reporters for shamelessly overcharging for just about anything that can be put in a bill. The New York Times reported that after a backyard fall, a leading San Francisco hospital charged $2,930 and $1,696, respectively, for three stitches and a dab of skin glue. The Times' detailed piece said, “There is little science to how hospitals determine the prices they print on hospital bills.”

The same point can be made about the prescription drug industry and pharmacy chains, where the retail price on labels is off the charts and bears no relation to co-pays. And there’s also the not-exactly-compassionate decision by hospitals and doctors to reject patients under Obamacare via the new state or federal exchanges. That echoes physicians refusing to take Medicaid patients, saying government reimbursements are insufficient.

It’s no surprise that the GOP is blaming Obama for everything that keeps going wrong in America’s profit-driven healthcare system. But it is surprising that these brash business decisions are being thrust upon the public with impunity, where the blame game is to tar President Obama with everything the private sector was going to do anyway—and has been doing. Obviously, the Obamacare website’s wobbly rollout was the administration’s fault, but there are some dimensions to that story that haven’t been appreciated. First is the surprisingly decrepit state of government’s information technology outside spy agencies. People who work with government always find different computer systems, outdated machines and incompatible software across counties, states and federal agencies. To get them to smoothly work together is a giant task—and signing up for healthcare is more complex than registering to vote. Moreover, the firms that know how to get big federal contracts often don’t deliver what they promise on time. Add to that the refusal by red-state governors to help the feds set up insurance exchanges by sharing their data on residents, and the botched rollout is not surprising, especially since federal agencies have been run on the cheap for years by Congress. If anything, the over-reliance on the private sector for Obamacare builds an even stronger case for a fully public system....Despite the partisan rancor, frustrating website and premium hikes, people are slowly but steadily signing up for Obamacare—because they need healthcare. But that’s not a surprise.

[Demeter]

32. Obamacare Not A Total Disaster, Continued Paul Krugman

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/obamacare-not-a-total-disaster-continued/?_r=0

ALL I CAN SAY IS: IF YOUR ONLY IDEA OF "SUCCESS" IS MEETING YOUR PROJECTED ENROLLMENT NUMBERS, THEN I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU. YOU'RE CRAZY!

[Demeter]

28. You Won't Believe Conservatives' Absurd Theories They Think Will Cure Poverty

http://www.alternet.org/economy/conservatives-and-povety?akid=11347.227380.MwAyGe&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=3&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

[Demeter]

29. US Population gains at near-historic lows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/district-population-booms-in-2013/2013/12/30/1ac8515e-7162-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html?hpid=z4



The population of the United States is growing more slowly than it has since the Great Depression in what demographers say is a reflection of the recession’s lingering effects on people’s behavior.

New population estimates released Monday by the Census Bureau show the nation added about 2.2 million residents in 2013. On New Year’s Day, the census projected, the U.S. population will surpass 317 million people, a one-year increase of 0.7 percent.

The last time the nation grew at a slower pace was in the heart of the Great Depression, from 1932 to 1937, according to an analysis by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.

The recession led more women to postpone childbirth and fewer immigrants to come seeking jobs. As a result, the nation’s growth rate, which was just shy of 1 percent as recently as 2006, began sliding after the recession began the following year. With the economic downturn officially over for four years now, some demographers expressed surprise that the population growth rate registered a decline...

WHO COULD HAVE IMAGINED!

MORE INTERESTING DATA AND TRENDS AT LINK

[Demeter]

30. FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Greek prime minister: 'no more financial aid needed after bailout'

http://www.dw.de/greek-prime-minister-no-more-financial-aid-needed-after-bailout/a-17333630

... The financially troubled country's leader announced it will leave its EU-IMF bailout agreement as planned in 2014. ...

[Demeter]

39. Wolf Richter: Cesspool Of Greek-German Corruption

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/12/wolf-richter-cesspool-greek-german-corruption.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Apparently, it has been impossible to sell Greece any weapons at all, not even a water pistol, without bribing officials at the Defense Ministry. Corruption is so pandemic that Transparency International awarded Greece once again the dubious honor of being the most corrupt country in the EU. For 2013, Greece ended up in 80th place of the 177 countries in the survey, same as China. But it takes two to tango.

And in holier-than-thou Germany, where exporting at any price is a state religion (with chart) regardless of who runs the show, the defense industry was allegedly eager to dance with Greece – supplying tanks, submarines, and other equipment that broke Greece didn’t need and couldn’t afford and that pushed it deeper into the hole.

Now there’s a confession. After four days of grilling, investigating magistrates in Athens extracted it from Antonios Kantas, General Secretary for Procurement at the Defense Ministry between 1996 and 2002. He’d been arrested in mid-December after authorities found nearly €14 million in various accounts. In his 30-page testimony, elements of which have been leaked, he admitted having pocketed €15 million in bribes since 1989 – just this one guy!

But it was a community effort that stretched across party lines. He named names, euros, and dollars, implicating 17 Greek politicians and businessmen. They include former head of procurement Yiannis Sbokos, former Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos – who, along with Sbokos, has already been condemned to years in the hoosegow for laundering the kickbacks he’d received in various arms deals – and his worthy successor, former Defense Minister Yiannos Papantoniou. And Kantas named the coddled weapons manufacturers in Germany...


GLASS HOUSES COME TO MIND, AND BLOWBACK, AND JUST DESSERTS...

[Demeter]

31. Cracks Forming In Housing Bubble II (But This Time It’s Different)

IT ALWAYS IS...UNTIL IT ISN'T


http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/12/31/cracks-forming-in-housing-bubble-ii-but-this-time-its-differ.html

If the world has learned anything at all since the financial crisis – other than that crimes at the highest levels of finance aren’t actually crimes – it is that heroic money printing and a relentless zero-interest-rate policy by central banks re-inflate asset prices, no matter what the assets are, until they form new bubbles ... and a whole new body of rhetoric about why, this time, it’s different. So, the two most determined money printers in the world, the Fed and the Bank of Japan, redoubled their efforts in 2013. To their immense credit, in a world where miracles have become awfully rare, their flood of new money sloshing through the markets has performed one miracle after another.

The Nikkei closed with a 56.7% gain for the year, the most phenomenal jump since 1972, and the highest close in six years. However, converting your loot from devalued yen into less devalued dollars might cut your gain in half. But hey, devaluing a currency only looks pretty. The S&P 500 is likely to end the year with a gain of nearly 30%, one more year of torrid gains since the March 2009 low of 756.

Then there is housing, another miracle. During the run-up to the financial crisis, a few intrepid souls called it a bubble and predicted its eventual blowup. Everyone else, including the Fed, denied the existence of the bubble, and when it did blow up, they still denied its existence. “Plateau” and “taking the froth off” were among the operative terms. Only after prices had been crashing back to earth left and right, everyone agreed: it had been crazy, the whole system had gone berserk, it had in fact been a bubble, and it blew up with horrific consequences. “Housing bubble” became the official descriptor for that phenomenon.

But what are we calling the current phenomenon? “Housing recovery.” And a phenomenon it is. The latest eye-opener, if one is still needed, was a Wall Street Journal analysis of home price data from online real-estate information site Zillow. It compared home values by ZIP Code against their respective peaks as they occurred during the 2005 – 2007 period. Turns out, home values in 10 of the largest 50 metro areas have already exceeded their bubble peaks. Number one is Palo Alto, the epicenter of Silicon Valley craziness, where home prices jumped 19% this year and are now 40% higher than they were at their prior bubble peak. San Jose is almost back to its bubble peak. San Francisco is getting closer. In total, 38% of the Bay Area ZIP Codes are now above their prior bubble peaks. More broadly, home values in 10% of the 4,400 municipalities in the largest metro areas in the country are above their bubble peaks. In Oklahoma City, they’re 13% higher; in Denver, 29.5%. Another 300 municipalities, such as Dallas and Nashville, are within 5% of their prior bubble peaks and might reach them soon. OK, location, location, location. Many areas have not yet reached their old bubble highs, and some 1,500 locations are still 25% below their bubble peaks, according to Zillow. Overall, prices remain 16% below prior bubble peaks. So, the “housing recovery” must go on, apparently, until all prior bubble peaks have been vanquished.

It has been a stunning metamorphosis: The peak of the bubble, the apogee of all the craziness that was maligned and ridiculed, has become, abracadabra, a target for the housing “recovery.” The “healing process” won’t be complete until the prior bubble in home values has been outdone around the country. This is the level of insanity to which the Fed has driven this country. But these bubble prices – at least that’s what they were called after the prior housing bubble – are slamming into higher mortgage rates. Affordability has collapsed. And even as the current housing bubble continues to inflate, just like the last one, cracks have been appearing for months. One of them widened today. The National Association of Realtors’ Pending Homes Sales Index – a precursor for actual home sales – rose a scant 0.2% in November. But it “rose” only because October had been conveniently revised down today, giving the debacle a positive spin. Compared to the October index as originally reported, pending home sales in November actually dropped 0.4%. This wasn’t a one-month fluke. And it confirmed a host of other measures. Pending home sales peaked in June, before the toxic mix of higher mortgage rates and higher prices started wreaking havoc on affordability. Then pending homes sales began to drop. By October, the fourth month in a row of declines, they’d dropped below the level of October last year, putting a damper on what had been a booming market. At the time, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun blamed “the government shutdown in the first half of last month” that had “sidelined some potential buyers.” A sharp rebound was expected in November. But that didn’t happen. In November, pending homes sales were 1.6% below last year.

“The market is flattening,” the report conceded.

SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT YEAR
MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

36. We need to talk about TED

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/30/we-need-to-talk-about-ted



In our culture, talking about the future is sometimes a polite way of saying things about the present that would otherwise be rude or risky. But have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm, and so little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what ideas can do all by themselves wrong?... it's way past time to take a step back and ask some serious questions about the intellectual viability of things like TED. So my TED talk is not about my work or my new book – the usual spiel – but about TED itself, what it is and why it doesn't work.

The first reason is over-simplification.

To be clear, I think that having smart people who do very smart things explain what they doing in a way that everyone can understand is a good thing. But TED goes way beyond that...

So what is TED exactly?

Perhaps it's the proposition that if we talk about world-changing ideas enough, then the world will change. But this is not true, and that's the second problem.

TED of course stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and I'll talk a bit about all three. I Think TED actually stands for: middlebrow megachurch infotainment ... the corollaries of placebo science and placebo medicine are placebo politics and placebo innovation. On this point, TED has a long way to go...You see, when inspiration becomes manipulation, inspiration becomes obfuscation. If you are not cynical you should be sceptical. You should be as sceptical of placebo politics as you are placebo medicine.

Problems are not "puzzles" to be solved. That metaphor assumes that all the necessary pieces are already on the table, they just need to be rearranged and reprogrammed. It's not true.

"Innovation" defined as moving the pieces around and adding more processing power is not some Big Idea that will disrupt a broken status quo: that precisely is the broken status quo.

One TED speaker said recently, "If you remove this boundary ... the only boundary left is our imagination". Wrong.

If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the hard stuff (history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities, contradictions). Bracketing it off to the side to focus just on technology, or just on innovation, actually prevents transformation. Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. This is not about "personal stories of inspiration", it's about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconceptualisation: the hard stuff that really changes how we think.

At a societal level, the bottom line is if we invest in things that make us feel good but which don't work, and don't invest in things that don't make us feel good but which may solve problems, then our fate is that it will just get harder to feel good about not solving problems.

MORE

• This article first appeared on Benjamin Bratton's website and is republished with permission. It is the text of a talk given at TEDx San Diego

[Demeter]

37. Major Social Transformation Is a Lot Closer Than You May Realize -- How Do We Finish the Job?

http://www.alternet.org/activism/major-social-transformation-lot-closer-you-may-realize-how-do-we-finish-job?akid=11347.227380.MwAyGe&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=15&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark




The current social movement that exploded onto the national scene with the 2011 Occupy Movement is following the path of successful movements so far. The social change movement in 2014 is poised to begin an exciting era of broadening and deepening the growing consensus for social and economic justice.

This week, our article for the end of 2013 focuses on where we are, i.e. at what stage of the progression of social movements do we find ourselves; and broadly outlines the next steps. Next week, our article for the new year will look more specifically at the tasks ahead for the movement in 2014 and beyond....

[Demeter]

38. Sunny, 17F windchill of 11F, light snowfall last night

Gonna hitch up the sled dogs and forage, today. See you tonight on a New Year's Eve special edition of WEE!

[Demeter]

41. Forget the foraging

Every time I go out in that cold, my lungs collapse. Wish this virus would give it up, already.

[Fuddnik]

42. Well, it's amateur night again.

Make a quick trip to the liquor store, lock the door and hide the car keys.

Drug the dogs with Benadryl, and hunker down for the evening.

In the mean time,

http://safeshare.tv/w/KkkEFRtyiS