STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 2 November 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday, 2 November 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 30 October 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 30 October 2015
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Dow Jones 17,663.54 -92.26 (-0.52%)
S&P 500 2,079.36 -10.05 (-0.48%)
Nasdaq 5,053.75 -20.53 (-0.40%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.14% -0.03 (-1.38%)
30 Year 2.92% -0.03 (-1.02%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
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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
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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
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Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
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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.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts
08/03/15 Former City (London) trader Tom Hayes found guilty of rigging global Libor interest rates. Each fo eight counts carries up to 10 yr. sentence.
08/21/15 Charles Antonucci Sr, former pres. Park Ave. Bank sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for bribery, fraud, embezzlement, and attempt to steal $11MM in TARP bailout funds, as well as $37.5MM fraud on OK insurance company. To pay $54MM in restitution and give up additional $11MM.
09/21/15 Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn apologizes for VW cheating on air quality standards with emission testing avoidance device. Stock drops 20%, fines may total $18B.
09/22/15 Stewart Parnell, CEO Peanut Corp. of America, sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling salmonella-tainted peanut butter that killed nine.





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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. I'll drink to that!

I'm having vin with the coq au vin, and becoming intoxicated from the perfume of the musk roses. It was so sunny and warm (63F) Sunday that a third blossom opened this weekend, and it's overwhelming in here!

I want to tell the rosetrees to pace themselves...I hope I can get enough sun all winter to keep them setting buds. More leaves are breaking out, means more strength and food, and watering!

As for me, the artificial sunshine of vitamin D supplements seems to be having some positive effect on the recovery...to actually be strong enough to cook! It's about time! the election is Tuesday, after all...

So... Don't expect to see me Tuesday. I'll be locked up in a room with very few people, doing makework until 8 PM....I've called the precinct workers, cooked enough food for the duration, need to start laundry and get trash out, and pack enough distraction for the day.

In the meanwhile, let's see how much trouble I can get into, tonight.

[Demeter]

2. Beware The Fine Print: In Arbitration, a ‘Privatization of the Justice System’

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/business/dealbook/in-arbitration-a-privatization-of-the-justice-system.html

..Over the last 10 years, thousands of businesses across the country — from big corporations to storefront shops — have used arbitration to create an alternate system of justice. There, rules tend to favor businesses, and judges and juries have been replaced by arbitrators who commonly consider the companies their clients, The Times found.

THINK ISDS FROM THE TPP GONE LOCAL

The change has been swift and virtually unnoticed, even though it has meant that tens of millions of Americans have lost a fundamental right: their day in court.

“This amounts to the whole-scale privatization of the justice system,” said Myriam Gilles, a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. “Americans are actively being deprived of their rights.”

All it took was adding simple arbitration clauses to contracts that most employees and consumers do not even read. Yet at stake are claims of medical malpractice, sexual harassment, hate crimes, discrimination, theft, fraud, elder abuse and wrongful death, records and interviews show...

IMPORTANT! MUST READ

[Demeter]

3. The Mystery of the Vanishing Pay Raise

IT'S NOT A MYSTERY, IT'S THEFT!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/sunday-review/the-mystery-of-the-vanishing-pay-raise.html

AMID the global economic turmoil and seesawing markets, millions of Americans have one overriding question: When will my pay increase arrive? The nation’s unemployment rate has fallen substantially since the end of the Great Recession, sliding to 5.1 percent from 10 percent in 2009, but wages haven’t accelerated upward, as many had expected.

In fact, the labor market is a lot softer than a 5.1 percent jobless rate would indicate. For one thing, the percentage of Americans who are working has fallen considerably since the recession began. This disappearance of several million workers — as labor force dropouts they are not factored into the jobless rate — has meant continued labor market weakness, which goes far to explain why wage increases remain so elusive. End of story, many economists say.

But work force experts assert that economists ignore many other factors that help explain America’s stubborn wage stagnation. Outsourcing, offshoring and imports exert a steady downward tug on wages. Labor unions have lost considerable muscle. Many employers have embraced pay-for-performance policies that often mean nice bonuses for the few instead of across-the-board raises for the many.

Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, noted, for instance, that many retailers give managers bonuses based on whether they keep their labor budgets below a designated ceiling. “They’re punished to the extent they go over those budgets,” Professor Cappelli said. “If you’re a local manager and you’re thinking, ‘Should we bump up wages,’ it could really hit your bonus. Companies have done this in order to increase the incentive to hang tough on budgets, and it works.”

MORE

[Demeter]

4. Why more Americans are considering ‘green’ funerals

A LACK OF THE GREEN

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-more-americans-are-considering-green-funerals-2015-10-29?siteid=YAHOOB

...Welcome to the world of “green funerals.” Interest in environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional funeral and burial practices, services and products is booming, death-care industry groups and companies say, as aging Americans increasingly consider them.

“People don’t want the funeral they saw their grandmother or their parents had,” said Darren Crouch, president of Passages International, a green funeral products wholesaler in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “They’re looking for something completely different.”

Welcome to the world of “green funerals.” Interest in environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional funeral and burial practices, services and products is booming, death-care industry groups and companies say, as aging Americans increasingly consider them.

“People don’t want the funeral they saw their grandmother or their parents had,” said Darren Crouch, president of Passages International, a green funeral products wholesaler in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “They’re looking for something completely different.”

MORE

[Demeter]

5. Cleveland Clinic CEO: Gene testing set for 'breakthrough'

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/30/gene-testing-set-for-major-breakthrough-clinic-ceo.html



Forget plastics. The future, to paraphrase a famous line from the classic 1967 movie "The Graduate," is one word: genes.

Last week, the Cleveland Clinic held its 10th annual Medical Innovation Summit, where more than 100 physicians and scientists name the 10 most important innovations they see coming in 2016.

While faster vaccine development was at the top, advances in testing centered around the unique genetic profile of humans was next. The field is generating a lot of excitement in both medicine and technology.

"One of the things that we're seeing across the entire spectrum of health care is genomics," Cleveland Clinic President and CEO Toby Cosgrove told CNBC's "On the Money."

Cosgrove joined the Cleveland Clinic as a heart surgeon in 1975, and now leads the $6.2 billion dollar health-care system. He calls gene testing "a huge breakthrough."

Physicians and scientists "are beginning to genomically test cancer and find out what drugs that particular cancer will be responsive to. And we've seen some amazing results as a result of that," Cosgrove told CNBC in an interview with "On the Money."

MORE

[Demeter]

6. Is your employer killing you?

http://fortune.com/2015/04/13/is-your-employer-killing-you/

...People spend a lot of their time at work and, unsurprisingly, what happens in the workplace profoundly influences people’s mental and physical health. So if you think your job may be killing you, recent research suggests you just might be right.

It’s not simply overwork, which the Japanese call Karoshi and the Chinese call Guolaosi, that is a problem, although excessive work hours do adversely affect health. Aside from the numerous colorful cases such as the Merrill Lynch intern working in London who collapsed and died after working 72 hours straight, a report from the Chinese Labour Bureau cited an estimate that one million Chinese die from overwork each year, and a study of California employees reported a positive relationship between work hours and self-reported high blood pressure.

After a Harvard Business School graduate told me about going on antidepressants within a few weeks of starting work at a high-tech company, a senior person who worked at an organization providing health care described how she and colleagues coped with workplace stress by becoming addicted to alcohol and drugs. Another individual from television news related that she gained 60 pounds after she took on a new, more stressful job with more travel. So I decided to find out if there was systematic evidence that work environments really can be hazardous to people’s health.

Harvard Business School Professor Joel Goh, my Stanford colleague Stefanos Zenios, and I conducted a meta-analysis—a statistical procedure that analytically combines the results of, in this case, more than 200 studies—to explore the effects of 10 workplace conditions on four health outcomes: mortality (death), having a physician-diagnosed medical condition such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or other illness, and self-reported physical and mental health problems. Research shows that self-reported physical health predicts subsequent mortality and illness.

The 10 workplace conditions included some that affected people’s level of stress, such as work-family conflict, economic insecurity (fearing for one’s job and income), shift work, long working hours, low levels of organizational justice (fairness), an absence of control over one’s work, and high job demands—and one factor, whether the employer provided health insurance, that, particularly prior to the passage of the affordable care act, affected people’s access to health care.

Unsurprisingly, extensive epidemiological evidence shows that stress has both a direct effect on health and also affects individual behaviors such as smoking, overeating, drug abuse, and alcohol consumption that in turn affect an individual’s health and mortality...

FILE UNDER NSS

[Demeter]

7. DEVIL'S NIGHTS CONCLUSION: Anti-arson campaign keeping fires in Detroit to 52 over 3-day weekend

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/antiarson-campaign-credited-with-keeping-fires-in-detroit-to-52-over-3day-halloween-period/36193008

...Only 52 fires were reported between Thursday and midnight Sunday, with about two dozen believed to have been suspicious in origin, Mayor Mike Duggan's office said in a news release. Last year, 97 fires were reported...

WHICH IS A NEAT TRICK, SINCE IT'S NOT EVEN 7 PM SUNDAY, YET....

[Demeter]

8. Offshoring the Economy: Why the US is on the Road to the Third World by Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/30/offshoring-the-economy-why-the-us-is-on-the-road-to-third-world/

On January 6, 2004, Senator Charles Schumer and I challenged the erroneous idea that jobs offshoring was free trade in a New York Times op-ed. Our article so astounded economists that within a few days Schumer and I were summoned to a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, DC, to explain our heresy. In the nationally televised conference, I declared that the consequence of jobs offshoring would be that the US would be a Third World country in 20 years.

That was 11 years ago, and the US is on course to descend to Third World status before the remaining nine years of my prediction have expired.

The evidence is everywhere. In September the US Bureau of the Census released its report on US household income by quintile. Every quintile, as well as the top 5%, has experienced a decline in real household income since their peaks. The bottom quintile (lower 20 percent) has had a 17.1% decline in real income from the 1999 peak (from $14,092 to $11,676). The 4th quintile has had a 10.8% fall in real income since 2000 (from $34,863 to $31,087). The middle quintile has had a 6.9% decline in real income since 2000 (from $58,058 to $54,041). The 2nd quintile has had a 2.8% fall in real income since 2007 (from $90,331 to $87,834). The top quintile has had a decline in real income since 2006 of 1.7% (from $197,466 to $194,053). The top 5% has experienced a 4.8% reduction in real income since 2006 (from $349,215 to $332,347). Only the top One Percent or less (mainly the 0.1%) has experienced growth in income and wealth.

The Census Bureau uses official measures of inflation to arrive at real income. These measures are understated. If more accurate measures of inflation are used (such as those available from shadowstats.com), the declines in real household income are larger and have been declining for a longer period. Some measures show real median annual household income below levels of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Note that these declines have occurred during an alleged six-year economic recovery from 2009 to the current time, and during a period when the labor force was shrinking due to a sustained decline in the labor force participation rate. On April 3, 2015 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics neoconthreatannounced that 93,175,000 Americans of working age are not in the work force, a historical record. Normally, an economic recovery is marked by a rise in the labor force participation rate. John Williams reports that when discouraged workers are included among the measure of the unemployed, the US unemployment rate is currently 23%, not the 5.2% reported figure.

In a recently released report, the Social Security Administration provides annual income data on an individual basis. Are you ready for this?

In 2014 38% of all American workers made less than $20,000; 51% made less than $30,000; 63% made less than $40,000; and 72% made less than $50,000. The scarcity of jobs and the low pay are direct consequences of jobs offshoring. Under pressure from “shareholder advocates” (Wall Street) and large retailers, US manufacturing companies moved their manufacturing abroad to countries where the rock bottom price of labor results in a rise in corporate profits, executive “performance bonuses,” and stock prices.

MORE

[Demeter]

9. HIS CONCLUSION:

It is a reasonable conclusion that a social-political-economic system so incompetently run already is a Third World country.

[Demeter]

10. What Would It Take to Have an Economy Full of Good Jobs Again?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/what-would-it-take-to-have-an-economy-full-of-good-jobs-again/412954/

Looking back a few generations to the postwar era, there was what could be described as a golden age of work for many Americans. This was a time when homeownership was on the rise, unemployment was low, and the middle class grew. Back then, many workers remained with one company for the duration of their careers, and could count on retirement benefits that allowed them to live comfortably beyond them.

This golden age was limited in its reach. It was the result of an artificially constrained labor market, in which the best jobs were preserved for white men, and people of color and white women were frequently excluded from high-status, high-paying occupations. As George Lipsitz describes in his excellent book How Racism Takes Place, the racial and gender divisions of the labor force were simultaneously buttressed by government policies that maintained residential segregation—the effects of which persist to the present day.

In more recent years, however, work has changed substantially. People rarely spend their entire career at one company; switching jobs is much more commonplace, even expected. Organizations are often less hierarchical. Many employees now work on short-term projects as contractors, in arrangements that can offer them flexibility, but do not include benefits such as health, dental, or life insurance, not to mention employer-subsidized retirement plans. The sociologist Arne Kalleberg argues that, increasingly, the occupational opportunities out there consist primarily of “bad jobs”—those that offer few benefits, low wages, and preclude the sort of economic stability that employment provided in previous generations. Put another way, the subpar jobs and wages that before the civil-rights movement were typically restricted to black Americans have become more common for everyone else now.

This shift came about for a number of reasons. The sociologist Jake Rosenfeld’s research documents how the decline of unionization has, among other things, exacerbated racial wage gaps that had been starting to close as the civil-rights movement removed some legal barriers separating minorities and good jobs. Don Tomaskovic-Devey and Ken-Hou Lin show how the rise of America’s financial sector has worsened economic inequality. At the same time, tight regulation of corporations and policies, such as affirmative action, that are intended to address discrimination have become less popular politically.

These macro-level shifts have had a marked impact on individual workers’ lives. The rise of contract, at-will work leaves many with tenuous job security. Workers in low-wage retail occupations, for instance—one example of the “bad jobs” Kalleberg references—can also find themselves subject to irregular hours and wage theft, making it extremely difficult to support themselves and families in these jobs. The decline of unionization (and the absence of labor protections in many states) contributes to workers’ lack of power relative to previous years...

[Demeter]

11. BERNIE'S CONCLUSION: IT WOULD TAKE A REVOLUTION

And who am I to disagree?

[Demeter]

12. We Mapped the Uninsured. You'll Notice a Pattern. (OBAMACARE)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/31/upshot/who-still-doesnt-have-health-insurance-obamacare.html

Two years into Obamacare, clear regional patterns are emerging about who has health insurance in America and who still doesn’t.

The remaining uninsured are primarily in the South and the Southwest. They tend to be poor. They tend to live in Republican-leaning states. The rates of people without insurance in the Northeast and the upper Midwest have fallen into the single digits since the Affordable Care Act’s main provisions kicked in. But in many parts of the country, obtaining health insurance is still a problem for many Americans.

These trends emerged in an analysis we undertook with the help of two organizations that are closely monitoring the progress of the health law. Last year, we used similar data to show the the substantial effects Obamacare had on reducing the number of Americans without health insurance. This year, the same groups updated their estimates of where America’s uninsured live, and the change is a lot less drastic. States that were late to expand Medicaid, including Pennsylvania and Indiana, showed substantial reductions in their uninsured residents compared with last year. In other places, the changes have been more modest. In a few — like Mississippi — things appear to have gotten worse, with fewer people having health insurance this year than last.

“This year it’s more of a state-specific story,” said Ed Coleman, the director of data and analytics at Enroll America, an organization devoted to finding uninsured people and signing them up for insurance. Enroll worked with the data firm Civis Analytics to produce the numbers in our map. “There was a pronounced drop pretty much everywhere last year, and we don’t see that pattern again this time around.”

SEE GRAPHIC AT LINK---AND REMEMBER, IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, BECAUSE THAT'S THE WAY OBAMACARE IS DESIGNED.

[Demeter]

18. Why Obamacare Co-Ops Are Failing At A Rate Of Nearly 50%

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2015/10/29/why-obamacare-co-ops-are-failing-at-a-rate-of-nearly-50/

Forbes Staff

Cooperative health insurers (or co-ops) created under a federal grant and loan program in the Affordable Care Act seem to be falling like dominoes.

It started in February, when CoOportunity Health, which operated in Iowa and Nebraska, was ordered into liquidation. In July, Louisiana’s insurance department announced it was shuttering that state’s co-op. The following month brought news that Nevada’s co-op would also close. On September 25, New York ordered the shutdown of Health Republic Insurance of New York, which had the largest enrollment of all of the co-ops. Then, within the space of a week in mid-October, the number of failures doubled from four to eight, as state insurance regulators announced that they were closing the co-ops in Kentucky, Tennessee, Colorado and one of the two in Oregon. Last week came news that South Carolina’s co-op will be closed, followed this week by the announcement that Utah’s co-op is also being shut down.

In sum, of the 24 Obamacare co-ops funded with federal tax dollars, one (Vermont’s) never got approval to sell coverage, a second (CoOportunity) has already been wound down, and nine more will terminate at the end of this year.

So what is behind this, so far, 46% failure rate?

To start with, the program was a Congressional exercise in not merely reinventing the wheel, but doing a bad job of it.

Far from being a new idea, member-owned insurance companies—called “mutual” insurers—have a long history. For instance, life insurer Northwestern Mutual has been in business for over 150 years. Health insurers organized as mutual companies include, among others, Blue Cross plans in 10 states. Indeed, one of them, Florida Blue, converted into a policyholder-owned mutual company just last year. If having more health insurers owned by their policyholders was the goal, then there was no need for federal government action.

On the other hand, if the goal was to increase competition by stimulating the creation of new health insurers, then the ACA’s co-op program was, like other parts of the legislation, badly designed....

THAT'S A FEATURE, NOT A BUG!

[Demeter]

19. Obamacare Is A Disaster: Co-Op Insurers Across America Are Collapsing, And Now There Is Fraud

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-30/obamacare-disaster-co-op-insurers-across-america-are-collapsing-and-now-there-fraud

Two weeks ago we reported that in what at the time was still a rather isolated incident, Colorado's largest nonprofit health insurer (aka co-op), Colorado HealthOP is abruptly shutting down, forcing 80,000 Coloradans to find a new insurer for 2016.

At the time, we said that the health insurer had been decertified by the Division of Insurance as an eligible insurance company because the cooperative relied on federal support, and federal authorities announced last month they wouldn't be able to pay most of what they owed in a program designed to help health insurance co-ops get established.

In other words, one of the 24 co-ops funded with Federal dollars and created to give more policyholders control over their insurers - especially those who wished to stay away from various corporate offerings, had failed simply because the government was unable to subsidize it: the same government that spends $35 billion in global economic "aid" but can't support its most important welfare program.

Fast forward to today, when we learn that another co-op, this time New York's Health Republic Insurance - the largest of the nonprofit cooperatives created under the Affordable Care Act - is not only shuttering, but was engaging in fraud. The fate of Health Republic Insurance was first revealed a month ago when the WSJ reported it would shut down after suffering massive losses "in the latest sign of the financial pressures facing many insurers that participated in the law’s new marketplaces."

The insurer lost about $52.7 million in the first six months of this year, on top of a $77.5 million loss in 2014, according to regulatory filings. The move to wind down its operations was made jointly by officials from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; New York’s state insurance exchange, known as New York State of Health; and the New York State Department of Financial Services.

In a statement, Health Republic said it was “deeply disappointed” by the outcome, and pointed to “challenges placed on us by the structure of the CO-OP program.”

Health Republic has about 215,000 members, with about half holding individual plans and half under small-business coverage, a spokesman for the insurer said.

Today we learn that not only was this largest Co-op insolvent, it had also committed fraud. According to Politico, the collapsing insurance company that is creating headaches for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, misled state and federal officials about its finances, and will not be able to remain in business through the end of the year as originally hoped...

[Demeter]

13. Russia threatens Ukraine over debt repayment

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/30/news/russia-ukraine-debt/index.html

Ukraine has negotiated a deal that significantly reduces its debt load and delays some upcoming payments.

But Russia is not cooperating.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said he expects the embattled nation to fully repay a $3 billion loan in December -- with no discount -- even after other creditors agreed to slash what they are owed by Ukraine by 20%.

"The Ukrainian authorities ha[ve] been repeatedly informed by the Russian side that Russia expects debt payment in full and on time," Siluanov told Russian state-run media.

If Ukraine can't pay up, Siluanov said Russia will take legal action.

MORE

[MattSh]

15. CNN is an ass...

And that's about the nicest thing I can say about this...

Ukraine has negotiated a deal with other lenders. They have not negotiated a deal with Russia. CNN, if they have two working brain cells to rub together, knows this.

[Demeter]

16. You are far too generous to CNN

crediting them with TWO working brain cells. The only functional one they have is too busy appeasing the PTB.

[antigop]

14. The Pact Between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich (reform Social Security and Medicare)

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/05/29/the-pact-between-bill-clinton-and-newt-gingrich

While there were dozens of reform plans circulating around Washington, ranging from minor tinkering to radical overhaul, there was a growing consensus around "middle ground'' proposals that combined some structural changes in the retirement age with some form of private accounts. There were also hopeful signs that the public was ready for a serious discussion about Social Security reform. An August 1997 survey by Clinton pollster Mark Penn found that 73 percent of Democratic voters favored some form of privatization, and support was especially strong among younger workers. Independent polls also showed that many young people believed that without significant change the programs would not be able to provide for them in their old age.

Given the high risk involved, Clinton realized that he could not undertake this without bipartisan support, and, Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles reflected, "He knew to do this he needed to work with Gingrich.'' He was confident that he could hold moderate and conservative Democrats and bring enough Republicans to the table to make significant reform. The danger, however, was that Republicans would seize the surplus and use it for tax cuts. Some of Clinton's advisers suggested that he make a surprise announcement of a total overhaul of Social Security in the 1998 State of the Union speech. Mindful of the healthcare debacle, Clinton rejected this option, believing it was important to bring Gingrich and other Republican leaders into the discussions. He also wanted to engage in a public education campaign that would make people aware of the sacrifices that would be necessary. Instead of coming out with a detailed plan, he would establish guidelines for the discussion. "Save Social Security First'' was the slogan he developed to describe his strategy, making clear that he would reserve all of the budget surplus until Congress produced a viable reform package.

The president reached out early on to two of the most powerful Republicans in the House: Gingrich and Bill Archer. As chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Archer would have control over any plan to reform Social Security. While Clinton talked privately with Archer, Bowles reached out to Gingrich. Initially, Gingrich, who had been burned before on Social Security, was reluctant to get out in front on the issue.

It did not take long, however, for Gingrich to recognize the potential of a possible Social Security reform package. Bowles provided Gingrich with the same assurances that the president offered to Archer. The president would take the political heat for controversial proposals. Politically, the president and the speaker were closer than anyone realized. They recognized that their parties needed to change in response to new circumstances. They both believed that any effort to update Social Security would require government to incorporate some measure of choice, and that meant some form of privately managed account.

[Demeter]

17. I think I am going to be sick

that does it! As far as I'm concerned, all Clintons are dead to me.

We should see that Monica gets a Medal of Freedom.

[Hotler]

21. I wish I could buy you a drink. We think alike.

Have a good week.

[Demeter]

20. Happy November and Happy Monday, all!

Another bright sunny day, touch of frost but high in 60's ahead. Lots of stuff to prepare, so I guess I'd best get at it.