STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 22 June 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 22 June 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 21 June 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 21 June 2012
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Dow Jones 12,573.57 -250.82 (-1.96%)
S&P 500 1,325.51 -30.18 (-2.23%)
Nasdaq 2,859.09 -71.36 (-2.44%)


[font color=green]10 Year 1.61% -0.02 (-1.23%)
30 Year 2.68% -0.04 (-1.47%) [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
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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
6/14/12 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.


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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]

[wilsonbooks]

1. Love seeing oil close off the charts

Would be nice to think that the speculators are still long but they are probably now making money on the ride down.

[Demeter]

2. I have contempt for both / RACHEL MADDOW EXPLAINS IT ALL "F&F"

Last edited Fri Jun 22, 2012, 08:00 AM - Edit history (1)

Congress should be holding his feet to the fire on the mortgage fraud, the undeclared wars, the predator drones, the violation of habeas corpus and most of the Constitution, etc.

This Fast and Furious nonsense probably started with W, but like everything else, Obama didn't give us even a hope of a change.

So, it's all good. Or at least, uniformly bad, as usual.

AS FOR THE CONTRTEMPS, RACHEL MADDOW EXPLAINS IT ALL--AND WHAT A MESS IT IS!

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/47898261#47898261

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. +1

[Demeter]

77. I cannot BELIEVE the mindless support Holder is getting on DU3

The presumption that Holder is going to protect the election and voters and the Democrat Party...it's priceless humor that leaves me in tears....of despair.

[Tansy_Gold]

81. Oh, I can believe it. There is much crazy goin' around. n/t

[girl gone mad]

87. This group is an island in the sewer. n/t

[Demeter]

3. Quiz: What Kind of Liberal Are You?

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-liberal-quiz.htm

It's supposed to be in fun, but there's a grain of truth in the polling...

I am a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite, a proud member of what's known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-centric thought reign supreme.

[Loge23]

61. I plead guilty

For being:
Social Justice Crusaders, also known as rights activists—believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.

[DemReadingDU]

65. Cool Quiz

Result: Working Class Warrior

You are a Working Class Warrior, also known as a blue-collar Democrat or Occupier. You believe that the little guy is getting screwed by conservative greed-mongers and corporate criminals, and you're not going to take it anymore.


What other possibilities are there?

Edit to link for other types of Liberals
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-liberal-types.htm

[Fuddnik]

66. I'm a New Left Hipster

You'd think I'd grow up already!


You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, a Netroots activist, or a Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservative hatriots must be exposed and mocked for every fanatical, puritanical, paranoid, fact-allergic, reality-challenged, obstructionist ideal for which they stand.

[Tansy_Gold]

86. Is anyone surprised

that I'm a social justice "crusader"? (I don't like that word, but that's the one they used.)

[Demeter]

4. The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia By Matt Taibbi MUST READ

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620#ixzz1ySRgxlgU

How America's biggest banks took part in a nationwide bid-rigging conspiracy - until they were caught on tape

Someday, it will go down in history as the first trial of the modern American mafia. Of course, you won't hear the recent financial corruption case, United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, called anything like that. If you heard about it at all, you're probably either in the municipal bond business or married to an antitrust lawyer. Even then, all you probably heard was that a threesome of bit players on Wall Street got convicted of obscure antitrust violations in one of the most inscrutable, jargon-packed legal snoozefests since the government's massive case against Microsoft in the Nineties – not exactly the thrilling courtroom drama offered by the famed trials of old-school mobsters like Al Capone or Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo.

But this just-completed trial in downtown New York against three faceless financial executives really was historic. Over 10 years in the making, the case allowed federal prosecutors to make public for the first time the astonishing inner workings of the reigning American crime syndicate, which now operates not out of Little Italy and Las Vegas, but out of Wall Street.

The defendants in the case – Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm – worked for GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric. Along with virtually every major bank and finance company on Wall Street – not just GE, but J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia and more – these three Wall Street wiseguys spent the past decade taking part in a breathtakingly broad scheme to skim billions of dollars from the coffers of cities and small towns across America. The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. By conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, the banks systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes – from "virtually every state, district and territory in the United States," according to one settlement. And they did it so cleverly that the victims never even knew they were being ­cheated. No thumbs were broken, and nobody ended up in a landfill in New Jersey, but money disappeared, lots and lots of it, and its manner of disappearance had a familiar name: organized crime.

In fact, stripped of all the camouflaging financial verbiage, the crimes the defendants and their co-conspirators committed were virtually indistinguishable from the kind of thuggery practiced for decades by the Mafia, which has long made manipulation of public bids for things like garbage collection and construction contracts a cornerstone of its business. What's more, in the manner of old mob trials, Wall Street's secret machinations were revealed during the Carollo trial through crackling wiretap recordings and the lurid testimony of cooperating witnesses, who came into court with bowed heads, pointing fingers at their accomplices. The new-age gangsters even invented an elaborate code to hide their crimes. Like Elizabethan highway robbers who spoke in thieves' cant, or Italian mobsters who talked about "getting a button man to clip the capo," on tape after tape these Wall Street crooks coughed up phrases like "pull a nickel out" or "get to the right level" or "you're hanging out there" – all code words used to manipulate the interest rates on municipal bonds. The only thing that made this trial different from a typical mob trial was the scale of the crime...USA v. Carollo involved classic cartel activity: not just one corrupt bank, but many, all acting in careful concert against the public interest.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620#ixzz1yU48T8NO

LENGTHY BUT IMPORTANT!


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620#ixzz1yU3zLCb1

[Demeter]

5. ANOTHER VARIATION ON THE THEME: Finance and the Mafia State

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/finance-and-the-mafia-state.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

The argument advanced by the historian Philip Bobbitt that a transition is occurring in world politics from the nation state to the market state has long appealed as a snapshot of what is occurring in world politics. It is, as with any thesis about a large subject, far too simple to reflect accurately all that is happening, but it is nevertheless a fine starting point. As we witness the political travails plaguing southern Europe, it gives us a useful analytic to trace the outline of what is happening. That, at least, is what I used to think. I am starting to wonder if something very different is happening. Several tensions seem to be occurring that suggest that the transition to a “market state” is problematic at best. The first, and most obvious, is the resilience of nationalism, or at least approximations of it. Max Walsh commented in the AFR that the Europe experiment was designed to mitigate the effects of nationalism:

The EC is about buying time. This was the strategy originally favoured by Jean Monnet, the “founding father” of “modern” Europe. Monnet judged that unification between the previously hostile nations of Europe would never be delivered through the ballot box. Instead, he advocated, it could be achieved by incrementally transferring more and more government functions from national to European administrations.

The EC has been successful in increasing its writ by stealth.

The delaying is just papering over the absurdity of enforcing a union that does not have underlying cultural support, yet purports to be “democratic”. As the historian Anthony Beevor points out the rise of nationalism in Greece – anti Nazi slogans against Merckel, for example — is a gloomy portent. Europe is already falling apart and likely to revert to nationalism of some sort:

“The great European dream was to diminish militant nationalism,” he says. “We would all be happy Europeans together. But we are going to see the old monster of militant nationalism being awoken when people realise how little control their politicians have. We are already seeing political disintegration in Europe.

Meanwhile, the nationalism of America, Russia and China is much as it has been. Military systems are national, and will remain so. The current geo political battle is over Central Asia, both for reasons of military positioning and for its economic significance, the reserves of gas. There is no sign of a fading nation state, as John Chan reports:

“In Beijing, Russian and Chinese leaders publicly stated their opposition to the drive by the US and its allies towards military intervention in Syria. In a joint statement, Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao declared: “Russia and China are decisively against attempts to regulate the Syrian crisis with outside military intervention, as well as imposing… a policy of regime change.”

Writing in the official People’s Daily, Putin declared: “Without the participation of Russia and China, without considering Russia and China’s interests, no international matter or issue can be discussed and implemented.” Russia and China have blocked UN resolutions for sanctions against Syria.

Both Russia and China have a great deal at stake in opposing US machinations in the Middle East. Russia has longstanding ties with Syria. Moreover Putin and Hu are well aware that the drive for regime change is also directly against Syria’s main ally, Iran, that is confronting threats of war from the US and its allies. China and Russia have significant economic interests in Iran.”

It could be argued that this is just transition, but the problems of the “market state” go much deeper. Bobbitt’s argument is largely justified with reference to commerce: international trade and glottalization, although he does mention the capital markets. But what is evident with the series of financial crises over the last 15 years, which used to occur mainly in developing countries but which are now consuming the developed economies, is that the markets that have the real power are financial markets. And these are stateless. Worse, they have taken over the role of the state to set the rules of money in a deeply pernicious fashion. Indeed, we can go further. Global financial markets have become destroyers of states, not a new kind of state. That the traders rely, as citizens, on some sort of state structure to live, is merely an irrelevance, an inconvenient aside. As I have argued before, it is impossible to deregulate financial markets because money is rules about value and obligation. So what happened instead when financial markets were “deregulated” is that the governments’ role as the setter of rules was handed over to traders, who made up their own rules: more than $700 trillion of derivatives, intense high frequency trading and so on. It results in a weird contradiction: governments trying to save their systems from the new rules being created by the traders, yet the traders relying on the state’s rules about finance to overlay their games of meta money. Meta money traders have to have conventional share trades between buyers and sellers to apply algorithms to manipulate the markets at high speed.

You need conventional commerce in commodities to use derivatives to play commodity futures, for example. It is why governments are constantly attacked by players in the financial markets who are simultaneously hard at work exploiting those “errors” to make money. Meta hypocrisy to accompany the meta money, I suppose. The tsunami of this meta money, which is borderless, stateless and has no thought for its effect on governments or polities, still relies for its very existence on the rules set up by governments. And as has been obvious since the GFC, governments and tax payers are expected to clean up the mess when it inevitably all goes wrong. That can be done once. When it goes wrong a second time, the firepower will not be there, as is increasingly evident in Europe. The conventional rules will have been weakened too much by the rules invented by the traders of meta money.

MORE

[just1voice]

80. Further proof that the U.S. markets are completely rigged

It's a great article and ends with this:

"...Get caught rigging interest rates in 50 states, and the government goes right on handing you billions of dollars in public contracts."

[Demeter]

6. IMF challenges Berlin’s crisis response

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday challenged Berlin’s game plan for pulling the eurozone out of its crisis by advocating a series of short-term fixes that the German government has resisted.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief, said eurozone leaders needed to prevent the single currency from deteriorating further by considering the resumption of bond buying by the European Central Bank and pumping bailout money directly into teetering banks.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/2SRI11/JEZTMM/JQU4J/IIT4F9/JEMPKW/FW/t?a1=2012&a2=6&a3=21

[Demeter]

7. Moody's downgrades biggest global banks

Fifteen of the biggest global banks were downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday, adding to pressure on their borrowing costs and triggering multi-billion dollar collateral calls.

Morgan Stanley, seen as the most vulnerable, escaped the three-notch downgrade that Moody’s had threatened but saw its rating cut from A2 to Baa1, three notches above “junk”.

Stock markets fell as anticipation of the downgrades, which came after US markets closed, added to fears over the global economy. Shares in Bank of America, Citigroup and RBS fell by more than 3 per cent by the closing bell. The
S& P 500 closed down 2.2 per cent at 1,325.51.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/NJ48V4/XBAN6/4CI1QS/NJXTIO/E4/t?a1=2012&a2=6&a3=21

[willing dwarf]

17. Moody's, an honest broker? Go on!

It kills me to see how these rating agencies can wield so much power. When I think how they were all in bed with each other before the derivatives episode, and surely still are, then one needs to wonder what they are puffing up or bringing low and to what end. Is Moody's in anyway impartial or reliable? The heft of their opinions and downgrades is too much. You'd think there would be a set of measures available to all which would determine the rating of banks, currencies, corporations. But its all so cloak and dagger, "man behind the curtain". And by this, lives are ruined, economies rise and fall.

[Demeter]

19. Moody’s Cuts Credit Ratings of 15 Big Banks By PETER EAVIS and SUSANNE CRAIG NYT

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/moodys-cuts-credit-ratings-of-15-big-banks/

...Citigroup and Bank of America, which have struggled to fully recover from the financial crisis, were among the hardest hit. After the downgrades, the banks stand barely above the minimum for an investment grade rating, a level also known as junk and a sign of the difficult business conditions they face.

Executives at the banks argued on Thursday that the new ratings failed to reflect the safeguards and changes that they had put in place in recent years. The cuts come at a time of tumult within the industry. Banks have struggled to improve their profits against the backdrop of the European sovereign debt crisis, a weak American economy and new regulations. The downgrades may amplify their problems. With lower ratings, creditors could charge the banks more on their loans. Big clients may also move their business to less-risky companies, further crimping earnings. As bank profits falter, consumers could also be affected. Companies often try to make up for lost revenue by passing costs on to customers. In the face of new regulations, banks have raised fees and other sources of income to bolster their business.

Moody's downgrades are part of a broad effort to make its analysis more rigorous. During the financial crisis, Moody's and its rivals got a black eye for placing high ratings on mortgage bonds that later imploded. Moody's approach reflects its belief that large banks have weaknesses that could still hurt their creditors. But some analysts feel that Moody's is playing a game of catch-up. The latest actions, say critics, are backward-looking and do not consider the measures that banks have taken to strengthen themselves, including raising capital and getting out of certain risky businesses like proprietary trading.

"I feel that Moody's action is five years too late," said Gerard Cassidy, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets....Now, bank executives will try to convince their creditors and large customers that Moody's has overreacted. MORE

[Demeter]

20. Wall Street set to rise as banks grab spotlight

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-street-set-to-rise-as-banks-grab-spotlight-2012-06-22?siteid=YAHOOB

U.S. stocks on Friday were poised to bounce back from the prior session’s drop, even as the mood darkened in Europe after Moody’s Investors Service slashed the credit ratings of several banks...

“The question now is whether stocks can find a foothold or fall further ahead of the weekend?” said David Morrison, an analyst for GFT Markets.

“Investors have had to contend with a full skip-load of bad news this week,” he explained. “Economic data from the U.S., Europe and China has worsened; the debt crisis across Europe continues to deteriorate and the U.S. Federal Reserve held back from expanding its balance sheet through further asset purchases.”

DOW FUTURES AT +52 AT 7 AM EDT

[Ghost Dog]

27. London financial stocks shrug off downgrades

London’s banking stocks brushed off news of Moody’s downgrade to credit ratings across the global sector on Friday, making up opening losses to rally in afternoon trade.

HSBC was 0.5 per cent higher at 562.1p after it defied expectations for a two-notch downgrade ahead of the long-awaited announcement to receive only a one-notch cut.

Barclays was downgraded by two notches but its stock rose 0.6 per cent to 203.6p as traders doubted the news would have much significant market impact.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which received a one-notch downgrade, gained 0.7 per cent to 245.1p, off a session low over the morning which took it to 234.27p. RBS, which faces the prospect of having to post £9bn in collateral after the cut, hit back over Moody’s decision, saying it was “backward looking”.

Nonetheless, Moody’s action leaves the affected companies likely to face increased funding costs in the already stressed capital markets, which prompted the long-awaited review in the first place...

/... http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/39a0a442-bc36-11e1-a470-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1yWKFPhuU


- Oh, so now suddenly if the City says so, those rating agencies aren't so infallible nor so implacable after all.

[Ghost Dog]

33. Banks up in Europe too:

... The Spanish IBEX 35 index XX:IBEX +1.20% outperformed most of the European bourses and jumped 1.4% to 6,866.90. Bankia SA ES:BKIA +8.46% surged 10.2%, Banco de Sabadell SA ES:SAB +7.12% jumped 5.9% and Banco Popular Español SA ES OP +7.73% rose 5%.

The banking sector was also higher elsewhere, shaking off a fresh round of downgrades from Moody’s Investors Service, which late Thursday slashed the credit ratings on 15 major financial firms. See: Moody's cuts ratings on 15 financial firms.

“A lot of this was already discounted by the markets,” Gijsels said. “This is the first positive sign for the banking sector — that it doesn’t go down too much on bad news anymore is a positive for the market.”

Major French banks in the downgrade batch, Credit Agricole SA FR:ACA +1.59% gained 2%, Société Générale SA FR:GLE +1.38% rose 1.8% and BNP Paribas SA FR:BNP +0.38% took on 1.2%...

/... http://www.marketwatch.com/story/europe-stocks-slump-after-bank-downgrades-2012-06-22?link=MW_Nav_NV

[Ghost Dog]

68. UK risk watchdog set to ease bank buffers

LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - The Bank of England's risk watchdog looks set to allow lenders next week to free up billions of pounds from their cash buffers and help haul the economy out of recession.

The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) meets on Friday and publishes recommendations for regulatory action on June 29. Some members have dropped heavy hints on what to expect as part of a wider UK effort to get more credit flowing into companies.

The FPC, chaired by BoE Governor Mervyn King, is tasked with spotting broad risks such as asset bubbles that could destabilise the financial system. It plugs a pre-crisis supervisory gap and advises on action regulators should take.

King said last week "the need for banks to hold large liquid asset buffers is much diminished, and I hope regulators around the world will take note".

/... http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/22/boe-fpc-idINL5E8HLA1520120622

[Demeter]

8. ECB to relax loan rules for Spanish banks

The European Central Bank is expected to give Spanish banks a much-needed boost with a significant loosening of rules on collateral required to obtain its liquidity, which could be followed by steps to reduce the role of credit-rating agencies.

The concession, which could be announced as early as Friday, would allow Spanish banks to make greater use of asset-backed securities when drawing ECB funds. The move – coming as European authorities and Madrid draw up plans to recapitalise the country’s banks – will help to offset a possible liquidity squeeze caused by downgrades by credit rating agencies.

The decision by the ECB’s 22-strong governing council is part of a review of collateral rules aimed at ensuring liquidity continues to flow to sound eurozone banks – and to reduce its reliance on external bodies such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/UXDMSS/QNK0HI/6ADGM/KQBX39/5VTXGP/YT/t?a1=2012&a2=6&a3=21

[Ghost Dog]

69. ECB loosens lending rules to ease funding stress

(Reuters) - The European Central Bank is to start accepting a wider range of collateral in its lending operations and assets of a lower quality, it said on Friday, its second such move in six months to neutralise growing funding pressures on struggling banks...

...The changes, which will be worth over 100 billion euros and come into force in the coming weeks, cover a range of assets.

The ECB said it will start accepting residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, securities backed by loans to small and medium-sized firms, car loans and leasing and consumer finance ABS, rated as low as BBB-...

... The move is the latest in a string of changes to ECB lending rules since the start of the crisis and the second loosening of its standards in just over six months to combat intensifying funding pressures on struggling euro zone banks.

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/06/22/uk-ecb-collateral-idUKBRE85L0R020120622

[Demeter]

9. THE "SCIENTIFIC" EXPLANATION OF TODAY'S MARKET

&feature=player_embedded#!

In this series of slow motion clips, you can see that if you hold a Slinky by one end and drop it, the bottom end doesn't actually move until the top end catches up with it. ...the bottom of the Slinky JUST. DOES. NOT. MOVE. Here's the scientific explanation:

The explanation that "it takes time for the bottom of the slinky to feel the change" might work ok, but it isn't the best.

Then why doesn't the bottom of the slinky fall as the top is let go? I think the best thing is to think of the slinky as a system. When it is let get, the center of mass certainly accelerates downward (like any falling object). However, at the same time, the slinky (spring) is compressing to its relaxed length. This means that top and bottom are accelerating towards the center of mass of the slinky at the same time the center of mass is accelerating downward.

SEE ALSO: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2007/ph210/kolkowitz1/

[Demeter]

10. From Greece to Spain: The Spreading Crisis By Mike Whitney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31661.htm

”The Greek economy is truly broken. The circuits of credit are so badly damaged that even efficient, profitable firms have been cut out of the capital markets …. Moreover, the new spending cuts… will give the forces of recession another boost. To cut a long story short, there is no doubt that such loosening up will simply prolong the agonising death of the Greek social economy.”

–Yanis Varoufakis, economist, University of Athens

The Greek electorate has changed captains on the Titanic, but the ship is still sinking. So what difference did the elections make? None. Unemployment is still rising, the deficits continue to widen, and the economy is in tatters. Everything is fundamentally the same as before, with one exception, the victor (New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras) remains firmly committed to staying-the-course and meeting the terms of the bailouts, whereas, the loser (Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras) rejects the austerity measures laid out in the Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) and promises to renegotiate the agreement with the troika. (The European Commission, the IMF, and the European Central Bank) Samaras’s slim victory means that Greece will get more financial aid (loan installments), but will be required to implement another round of savage cuts to social spending, this time in the amount of $11.5 billion. These cuts will further inhibit growth, which will reduce tax revenues leading to even bigger budget deficits. When the government is unable to hit its deficit targets, (as everyone expects) then EZ policymakers will suspend the bailouts and the crisis will flare up again.

It’s a vicious circle that can only end one way, with Greece leaving the eurozone and returning to the drachma. So, what happens next?

New Democracy leaders will try to cobble together a coalition government with other “pro bailout” parties (like PASOK) while trying to win meager concessions to extend the length of existing loans and reduce the rates on others. Some analysts think that the troika will try to be more flexible on the terms of the bailouts to reduce growing social unrest, but that doesn’t seem likely. German chancellor Angela Merkel nixed the idea of greater forbearance or debt reduction just hours after the election results were announced. Here’s the account from Reuters:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday a new Greek government had to meet commitments made to international lenders.


Speaking to reporters at a Group of 20 leaders’ meeting, Merkel said any loosening of agreed reform pledges after Sunday’s narrow election victory for Greece’s pro-bailout parties would be unacceptable.” (Reuters)

Merkel is not going to cut Greece any slack. Either the deficit targets are reached and Greece complies with its obligations, or the loans will be cut off. “Either pay up or get out”: that’s the massage from Berlin. Judging by the reaction in German newspapers, Merkel’s hardline approach is wildly popular across the political spectrum. Just look at these clips from Monday’s editorials. This is from the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

“The Greek electorate is obviously divided. But the country needs a government that has the power and courage to pass and implement the unavoidable reforms: a government that can convince the people that their country needs a fundamental renewal. It won’t be easy to form such a government — ‘not easy’ being a gross understatement. The coming days will show just how difficult it will be.”

This is from the Financial Times Deutschland:

“The Greeks must provide clear affirmation of reforms. They don’t just owe this to their fellow Europeans, from whom they are accepting aid, but also to themselves. The population must understand that there can be no going back to the pre-crisis state of affairs.”

Finally, from the conservative Die Welt:

“Chancellor Merkel insists on shared responsibility. She emphasizes that austerity and reforms are the way to solve Europe’s debt crisis. This clarity is even making many Germans uneasy. And yet these conclusions, which are actually banal, are being made within a political context that is increasingly volatile.

Germany is showing strength, without trying to dominate, and yet it is punished by being despised. If Angela Merkel were to change course, if she were to buckle to criticism, then it would really not be good for Europe or for Germany.”

Reforms, reforms, reforms. German pundits love reforms, which is why they admire their reform-minded chancellor, Frau Merkel. But where have these reforms–which are more commonly called “austerity measures”–worked? In which country has debt consolidation, structural adjustment, privatization, and union busting led the way out of recession to a strong recovery?
 
Ireland? Spain? Portugal? Italy? The evidence suggests that Merkel’s policy doesn’t work which is why many of the world’s leading economists have blasted austerity as counterproductive. So how is it that these “experts” still think they are right when 2 years of experience demonstrates that they’re wrong? Just look at bond yields. Just look at the banks. Just look at unemployment. Just look at GDP. By every objective standard, the policy has failed. This is no longer a debatable point. The facts speak for themselves.

On Tuesday, while leaders of the world’s major economies met in Los Cabos, Mexico for a G20 summit, a failed auction of Spanish debt set off alarms reminding the gathering that the crisis was still unresolved. Here’s the story from Reuters:

“Spain paid a euro era record price to sell short-term debt on Tuesday, pushing it closer to becoming the biggest euro zone country to be shut out of credit markets.


The soaring borrowing costs highlight the shortcomings of a June 9 euro zone deal to lend Spain up to 100 billion euros ($126 billion) for its banks. They also illustrate how Europe’s problems run much deeper than Greece, brought back from the brink of default in Sunday’s parliamentary election….” (Reuters)

Spanish 10-year bond yields remain above 7 percent at present after hitting a high of 7.28 percent yesterday. Economists think that anything above 7 percent is unsustainable. So, while one fire has been doused in Greece another has broken out in Spain. It’s only a matter of time before the European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi will be summoned to reopen the Securities Market Program (SMP) and resume buying Spanish debt to push down bond yields and avoid a meltdown.

Why is the crisis spreading? And why has it shifted to Spain, after all, up until 2007, the Spanish government’s balance sheet looked better than Germany’s. They had lower public debt, had never broken the EZ’s deficit rules, and had consistently ran budget surpluses. So why Spain?
 
The problem isn’t Spain. Nor is it Ireland, Greece, Portugal or Italy. It’s the monetary union itself. The EZ’s creators were warned that a monetary union outside a fiscal and political union would not work, but they proceeded anyway. Now they’re trying to correct their error by inflicting pain on the members, (internal devaluation) because the only other choice they have is to create a United States of Europe, which would require public referenda in all 17 countries. They know that their chances of success in that effort would be quite small, so they’re not even going to even try, which why the band-aid remedies will continue until one member leaves and the race for the exits begins.

*****************************************************************************************

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [e-mail].

[Demeter]

11. The Genius of Mutual Indebtedness

#!

[Demeter]

12. Austerity Kills: How the EuroCrisis is Being Used to Break the Social Contract

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/austerity-kills-how-the-eurocrisis-is-being-used-to-break-the-social-contract.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

One aspect of the Eurocrisis that has not gotten the attention it deserves is the way it is destroying not just jobs, but the very underpinnings of society. People who took actions that were prudent at the time are increasingly at the mercy of forces beyond their control. And this isn’t a tsunami-type disaster but a man-made one whose severity is worsened by the callous attitudes of the European elites.

We’ve featured stories from time to time on how Greece is unraveling. Suicides have increased sharply. Garbage is not being picked up. Public transportation is largely a thing of the past. Even though Greece always had a large black market, more people are resorting to barter, which shrinks the tax base.

And in some ways worst of all, the health care system is on the verge of collapse. Critical medicines are not being imported and hospitals are short of basic supplies. Not only are people dying unnecessarily due to their inability to get drugs and operations, but worse, the breakdown of healthcare greatly increases the risk of a public health crisis. How many children are being vaccinated, for instance? What happens when curable but silent killers such as syphilis go untreated? Key excerpts from a Reuters story (hat tip Aquifer):

Greece’s rundown state hospitals are cutting off vital drugs, limiting non-urgent operations and rationing even basic medical materials for exhausted doctors as a combination of economic crisis and political stalemate strangle health funding….

Greece imports nearly all its medicines and relies heavily on patented rather than cheaper generic drugs, making it vulnerable to a funding squeeze that would grow sharply worse if it were forced out of the euro after elections on Sunday.

Long queues have been forming outside a handful of pharmacies that still provide medication on credit – the rest are demanding cash upfront until the government pays up a subsidy backlog of 762 million euros, or nearly $1 billion.

“We’re not talking about painkillers here – we’ve learned to live with physical pain – we need drugs to keep us alive,” Mitta, a petite former marathon runner and herself a cancer survivor, said in a voice shaky with emotion…

A doctor at the university hospital in the northwestern Athens suburb of Chaidari cites a lack of basic examining room supplies in her own department, such as cotton wool, catheters, gloves and paper used to cover the examining table.

The shortage of paper, which is thrown out after each patient has used it, means corners have to be cut on hygiene.

“Sometimes we take a bed sheet instead and use it for several patients,” said Kiki Kiale, a radiologist specialising in cancer screening. “It’s tragic but there’s no other solution.”

And the targeting of the health care system was no accident:

Greeks have long had to give medical staff cash “gifts” to ensure good treatment. Nevertheless the health system was considered “relatively efficient” before the crisis despite a variety of problems including a fragmented organisation and excess bureaucracy, according to a 2009 report for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But it has been unable to respond to the growing crisis. The European Union and International Monetary Fund, which provided a 130 billion euro lifeline to Greece in March, have demanded big cuts to the system as part of a wider package of austerity measures.

Greece has been told to reduce health care from its current 10% of GDP to below 6%. Imagine what would happen if the US were told to cut its medical expenditures by over 40% in a one or two year period. And if the IMF boot were put on the US neck, and we were told to get medical spending down to 6% of GDP, we’d need to reduce it by 2/3.

&feature=player_embedded

[Demeter]

25. Legal move threatens EU rescue fund

A German opposition party has asked the highest court to suspend ratification of the €500m European Stability Mechanism

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/73UJGG/4CUIKW/T10SH/WTMS4I/TUQ06E/LE/t?a1=2012&a2=6&a3=22

[Demeter]

13. Trans-Pacific Partnership Documents Show Trade Treaty Could Grow Much Larger Than NAFTA

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/15/trans-pacific-partnership-documents-show-trade-treaty-could-grow-much-larger-than-nafta/

Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach has an analysis of that leaked document from the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and it’s really even worse than anticipated.

The leaked text provides stark warnings about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring without press, public or policymaker oversight. It reveals that negotiators already have agreed to many radical terms granting expansive new rights and privileges for foreign investors and their private corporate enforcement through extra-judicial “investor-state” tribunals.

Although TPP has been branded as a “trade” agreement, the leaked text shows that TPP would limit how signatory countries may regulate foreign firms operating within their boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms. The leaked text reveals a two-track legal system, with foreign firms empowered to skirt domestic courts and laws to directly sue TPP governments in foreign tribunals. There they can demand compensation for domestic financial, health, environmental, land use laws and other laws they claim undermine their new TPP privileges.

The leak also reveals that all countries involved in TPP talks – except Australia – have agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of such foreign tribunals, which would be empowered to order payment of unlimited government Treasury funds to foreign investors over TPP claims.

Wallach writes that there are 600 “corporate advisors” to the TPP, which have full access to the documents and the negotiators. Meanwhile, the public, the press, and even lawmakers have to learn about the terms of the deal through leaks like this. And then there’s this trap door:

The TPP may well be the last trade agreement that the U.S. negotiates. This is because the TPP, if completed, would have a new feature: it would be open for any other country to later join. TPP offered an opportunity to develop a new trade agreement model that could deliver the benefits of expanded trade without undermining signatory nations’ domestic public interest policies or establishing special privileges for foreign corporations. President Obama campaigned on fixing these investment rules to protect the public interest. Unfortunately, Public Citizen’s analysis of this text shows that the U.S. positions do not reflect the changes that candidate Obama pledged to remedy this regime’s threats.

So while the countries involved in this deal – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – are not substantially bigger than the two involved in NAFTA, when you have this turnkey feature, it’s basically a model for a global trade deal that puts corporate interests over national sovereignty.

Some other exciting tidbits:

• The deal forbids participating nations to apply financial transaction taxes or capital controls.
• Health and land use policies, government procurement decisions, regulatory permits, intellectual property rights and regulation of financial instruments such as derivatives would all be subjects open for corporations to go to the international tribunals and subvert national rules.
• “The foreign tribunals would be staffed by private sector lawyers who rotate between acting as ‘judges’ and representing corporations suing governments, posing major conflicts of
interest.”
• Investors have the right to claim damages from governments based on their own expectations of how they should be treated, in terms of regulations or permitting.
• “U.S. negotiators alone are pushing for foreign investors to have greater rights than domestic investors with respect to disputes relating to procurement contracts with the signatory governments, contracts for natural resource concessions on land controlled by the national government, and contracts to operate utilities.”

This is basically a NAFTA-style deal that the whole world can eventually plug into. The only alibi I’ve seen so far is that this won’t prevent the establishment of regulations. But the investor-state relations provisions in NAFTA have already led to $300 million in payouts from governments to corporate investors. Obviously, if governments want to avoid the payouts, they have to change their environmental, public health, or financial regulations.

Josh Eidelson has some reactions from labor:

Celeste Drake, a trade policy specialist for the AFL-CIO, said the federation has voiced concerns with U.S. officials that the language could be used to attack labor regulations like mandatory overtime or maternity leave. She says “they have not shared our concerns, but have also not presented a compelling argument regarding why such challenges could not happen under our existing investment language.” Given Obama’s campaign rhetoric about reining in over-broad investor rights like those in NAFTA, said Drake, “definitely, it’s a disappointment.” She said the AFL-CIO hopes that negotiators from other countries will seek “to put in text that would be friendlier to human beings than what the traditional U.S. text is.” [...]

“This is what happens when you get an administration that is pretty much in the lap of corporate America,” said Chris Townsend, the political action director for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America and a longtime Obama critic. “That’s who they perform for, and that’s who most of them will go to work for after they lose the election in November.”

AND THERE YOU AVE IT, FOLKS. THE ENSLAVEMENT OF THE 99%

[Demeter]

14. The Government’s Plan to Steal Your Money By Simon Black

There are consequences to being flat broke. There are consequences to investing any level of confidence in a financial system underpinned by debt and the creation of paper currency. There are consequences for ignoring reality and pretending that everything is normal. This is one of them: European officials have flat-out admitted that they were discussing rolling out a series of harsh capital controls across the continent, including bank withdrawal limits and closing down Europe’s borderless Schengen area. Some of these measures have already been implemented sporadically; customers of Italian bank BNI, for example, were all frozen out of their accounts starting May 31st, upon the recommendation and approval of Italy’s bank regulator. No ATM withdrawals, no bill payments, nothing. Just locked out overnight.

In Greece, the government has taken to simply pulling funds directly out of its citizens’ bank accounts; anyone suspected of being a tax cheat (with a very loose interpretation in the sole discretion of the government) is being relieved of their funds without so much as administrative notification. It’s no wonder why, according to the Greek daily paper Kathimerini, over $125 million per day is fleeing the Greek banking system. European political leaders aim to put a tourniquet on this wound in the worst possible way.

So what are capital controls?

Simply, capital controls are policies that restrict the free flow of capital into, out of, through, and within a nation’s borders. They can take a variety of forms, including:

— Setting a fixed amount for bank withdrawals, or suspending them altogether
— Forcing citizens or banks to hold government debt
— Curtailing or suspending international bank transfers
— Curtailing or suspending foreign exchange transactions
— Criminalizing the purchase and ownership of precious metals
— Fixing an official exchange rate and criminalizing market-based transactions

Establishing capital controls is one of the worst forms of theft that a government can impose. It traps people’s hard-earned savings and their future income within a nation’s borders. This trapped pool of capital allows the government to transfer wealth from the people to their own coffers through excessive taxation or rampant inflation… both of which soon follow. The thing about capital controls is that they’re like airline baggage fees; ultimately, all governments want to do it, they’re just waiting on the first guy to impose them so that they can shrug their shoulders, stick it to the people, and blame ‘industry standards’. Moreover, capital controls were a normal part of the global economic landscape for most of the 20th century, right up to the 1970s. It’s been a long time coming for governments to return to that model.

Since the inception of The Sovereign Man, it has been a constant theme for us to talk about the increasing threat of capital controls. Your money, your savings, your livelihood are all under attack by insolvent governments, and it’s critical to take steps to reduce your exposure. When European financial leaders all openly admit that they’re making plans to establish continent-wide capital controls, it really begs the question — what additional warning sign does one need? The dominos have already started falling. Iceland. Ireland. Greece. Spain. Portugal. Italy. Cyprus. Soon even France and the rest of Europe. And it will come to the United States as well. There are over 15 trillion reasons why. So what are the most critical steps to take now?

1) Buy precious metals and store in a secure jurisdiction.
Holding gold and silver overseas is a great way to (a) ensure your savings is protected against inflation, and (b) ensure that your precious metals cannot be confiscated in the event that gold ownership is criminalized in your home country. I strongly recommend Singapore, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi as three potential safe jurisdictions for your gold and silver.

2) Open a foreign bank account.
For funds that need to be maintained within the financial system (as opposed to precious metals), make sure you have a safe home for your money abroad in a safe, well-capitalized bank.

3) Have a place to go overseas.
Economic turmoil brought on by governments stealing people’s savings generally does not bode well for social stability. If things get hairy, you’ll want to have a place to wait it out. And you don’t want to be deciding on the location while you’re packing your bags.

Read more: The Government’s Plan to Steal Your Money http://dailyreckoning.com/the-governments-plan-to-steal-your-money/#ixzz1yUHVIEme

GIVEN THE PREVIOUS POST...I SINCERELY DOUBT THAT THESE "SAFEGUARDS" WILL PROTECT EVEN THE TOP 10%, UNLESS THEY ARE THE OVERLORDS....

[Demeter]

15. Anybody Have a Theme for the Weekend?

There's always the Solstice, I suppose....

[Ghost Dog]

23. Signs of Impending Doom

- Public announcement GEAB N°66 (June 19, 2012) - http://www.democraticunderground.com/111616490

LEAP/E2020: Red alert / Global systemic crisis – September-October 2012

GEAB N°66 is available! Red alert / Global systemic crisis – September-October 2012: When the trumpets of Jericho ring out seven times for the world before the crisis


The progression of world events unfolds in accordance with the anticipations mapped out by LEAP/E2020 during these last few quarters. Euroland has finally come out from its political torpor and short-termism since François Hollande’s election (1) as France’s president and the Greeks have just confirmed their willingness to resolve their problems within Euroland (2) thus contradicting all the Anglo-Saxon media and Euro sceptics’ “forecasts”. From now on, Euroland (in fact the EU minus the United Kingdom) will therefore be able to move forward and create a true project of political integration, economic efficiency and democratization over the 2012-2016 period as LEAP/E2020 anticipated last February (GEAB N°62. It’s positive news but, for the coming six-month periods, this “second Renaissance” of the European project (3) will really be the only good news at world level.

All the other components of the global situation are in fact pointed in a negative, even catastrophic, direction. Here again, the main media are starting to echo a long-standing situation anticipated by our team for summer 2012. Indeed, in one form or another, more often on the inside pages than in big headlines (monopolized for months by Greece and the Euro (4)), one now finds the following 13 topics:

1. Global recession (no engine of growth anywhere / end of the myth of the “US recovery”) (5)

2. Growing insolvency of the Western banking and financial system and henceforth partially recognized as such

3. Growing frailty of key financial assets such as sovereign debts, real estate and CDSs underpinning the world’s major banks’ balance sheets

4. Fall off in international trade (6)

5. Geopolitical tensions (in particular in the Middle East) approaching the point of a regional explosion

6. Lasting global geopolitical blockage at the UN

7. Rapid collapse of the whole of the Western asset-backed retirement system (7)

8. Growing political divisions within the world’s “monolithic” powers (USA, China, Russia)

9. Lack of “miracle” solutions as in 2008 /2009, because of the growing impotence of many of the major Western central banks (Fed, BoE, BoJ) and States’ indebtedness

10. Credibility in freefall for all countries having to assume the double load of public and excessive private debt (8)

11. Inability to control/slow down the advance of mass and long-term unemployment

12. Failure of monetarist and financial stimulus policies such as “pure” austerity policies

13. Quasi-systematic ineffectiveness henceforth of the alternative or recent international closed groups, G20, G8, Rio+20, WTO,… on all the key topics of what is no longer in fact a world agenda absent any consensus: economy, finances, environment, conflict resolution, fight against poverty…

... According to LEAP/E2020... this second half of 2012 will really mark a major inflection point of the global systemic crisis and the answers to it.

In fact, it will be characterized by an event which is very simple to understand: if, today, Euroland is able to address this period in a promising fashion (9), it’s because, these last few years, it has gone through a crisis of an intensity and depth unequalled since the beginning of the European construction project after the Second World War (10). From the end of this summer all the other world powers, led by the United States (11), will have to face an identical process. It’s at this cost, and only at this cost, that they will subsequently, in a few years, be able to start a slow recovery towards the light.

But today, after having tried all means of delaying the payment on the due date, the hour of payment arrives. And, as with everything, the ability to put off the inevitable comes at a high price, namely the bigger shock of adjusting to the new reality. In fact, it’s a question of the endgame for the world of before the crisis. The seven blasts of the trumpets of Jericho marking the September October 2012 period will cause the “Dollar Wall’s” last sections and the walls which have protected the world as we know it since 1945 to collapse.

The shock of the autumn 2008 will seem like a small summer storm compared to what will affect planet in several months.

In fact LEAP/E2020 has never seen the chronological convergence of such a series of explosive and so fundamental factors (economy, finances, geopolitical…) since 2006, the start of its work on the global systemic crisis. Logically, in our modest attempt to regularly publish a “crisis weather forecast”, we must therefore give our readers a “Red Alert” because the upcoming events which are readying themselves to shake the world system next September/ October belong to this category...

... Four Middle Eastern geopolitical factors and three economic and financial elements are involved at the heart of the coming shock:

1. Iran/Israel/USA: The war too far will really happen

2. The Assyrian bomb: the Israeli-American-Iranian match put to the Syria-Iraq powder keg

3. The AfPak chaos: the US army and NATO, hostages in an exit from an increasingly difficult conflict

4. The Arab Autumn: the Gulf countries swept away in the turmoil.

5. United States: « Taxargeddon » will begin from summer 2012 – The US economy in free-fall by autumn

6. Major bank insolvencies due in September-October 2012: The City-Wall Street version of Bankia

7. The untenable irresponsibility of QE in summer 2012 - the US, British and Japanese central banks out of the game

...

/... http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-66-is-available-Red-alert-Global-systemic-crisis-September-October-2012-When-the-trumpets-of-Jericho-ring-out_a11079.html

[Demeter]

26. We Do That All The Time

The "Theme" is how we survive...a distraction, a form of mental escape, the right-brain's compensation for forced left-brain dominance...

[Ghost Dog]

31. Can't we still have an eschatological theme, though?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse

How about a tongue-in-cheek review of some of the weirder of our societies' 'apocalyptic 2012 end times' memes that are so masssively portrayed on youtube and the rest of the net and appear to influence US politics to quite an extent.

... And, any thoughts on that summer US "Taxmargeddon" reference?

[Demeter]

34. Hmmm.....

It's summer...beach time, blankets on the sand, boom box blasting, frivolous reading materials and burgers and beer...

Not that I get to do any of that, mind you. It was too hot to even go to the pool this week. (I don't tolerate heat very well, and I hate to faint or stroke out in public).

Can I get back to you on that? Science fiction is FULL of end-of-the-world scenarios, but it's been quite a while since I was current on them...it would take a bit of research, and I have a lot of condo work this weekend...

If nothing else comes up, I'll be spinning Beach Boy platters....

[Ghost Dog]

60. Mmm. Summer makes me think of the 0.1% getting together at house and yacht parties

in all the right places and, you know, colluding...

Hedge fund stars ponder "moment of truth" in Monaco

MONACO | Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:32pm IST (Reuters) - Tucked into corners of Monaco's plush Meridien hotel and on lonely tables in sun-kissed bars overlooking the Mediterranean, anxious hedge fund managers contemplate the next six months that could make or break their careers...

... Many managers refused to give up the trappings of yesteryear's success, enjoying Louis Constant champagne at 140 euros a pop and hosting lavish client dinners - as many as three per night, one delegate confided.

Attendees sported designer handbags from the likes of Karl Lagerfeld and Celine and many forked out 260 euros a night to stay at the luxury Fairmont hotel, on the famous hairpin bend in the Monte Carlo Grand Prix course.

But this year's conference had a different tone from usual, with British historian Niall Ferguson making bold predictions including another major war, potentially in the Middle East.

GLG's Jamil Baz reckoned the current financial crisis had "not even started"...

/... http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/21/hedgefunds-gaim-mood-idINDEE85K08020120621?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FINbusinessNews+%28News+%2F+IN+%2F+Business+News%29

[Demeter]

28. Welcome to the 1930s By Paul Krugman

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9908-welcome-to-the-1930s

Martin Wolf is shrill (and rightly so).

"Before now, I had never really understood how the 1930s could happen," the Financial Times columnist wrote in an op-ed published on June 5.

"Now I do. All one needs are fragile economies, a rigid monetary regime, intense debate over what must be done, widespread belief that suffering is good, myopic politicians, an inability to co-operate and failure to stay ahead of events."

Right on cue, the European Central Bank declined to cut interest rates, or announce any other policies that might help. Because what possible reason might there be to take action? Survey data suggest that the euro area economy is really plunging now, plus Spain is on the brink. What about inflation? It's falling fast — which is a bad thing under the circumstances. I don't think there's any conceivable economic logic for the E.C.B.'s decision. It can only, I think, be understood as some kind of refusal to admit, even implicitly, that past decisions were wrong.

Like Mr. Wolf, I'm starting to see how the 1930s happened...

If we're talking about a broader fiscal union or something, what is it about the imminent collapse of the whole system that the Germans supposedly don't understand? Is there any conceivable way that cutting the repo rate by 50 basis points will somehow undermine actions that would otherwise happen?

What does make sense, maybe, is a two-part explanation: First, the E.C.B. is unwilling to admit that its past policy, especially its past rate hikes, were a mistake. Second — and this goes deeper — I suspect that we're seeing the old Joseph Schumpeter "work of depressions" mentality: the notion that all the suffering going on somehow serves a necessary purpose and that it would be wrong to mitigate that suffering even slightly. This doctrine has an undeniable emotional appeal for people who are themselves comfortable. It's also completely crazy given everything we've learned about economics these past 80 years. But these are times of madness, dressed in good suits.

[Demeter]

29. The World's 99% Knows Capitalism Is Failing and Believes That Change Is Possible

http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/9907-the-price-of-inequality-99

In Joseph E. Stiglitz's new book, "The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future," the Nobel Prize-winning economist argues that there is a price to be paid for economic inequality...

**************************************************************************************

There are moments in history when people all over the world seem to rise up, to say that something is wrong, to ask for change. This is what happened in the tumultuous years 1848 and 1968. Each of these years of upheaval marked the beginning of a new era. The year 2011 may prove to be another such moment...A youth uprising that began in Tunisia, a little country on the coast of North Africa, spread to nearby Egypt, then to other countries of the Middle East. In some cases, the spark of protest seemed at least temporarily doused. In others, though, small protests precipitated cataclysmic societal change, taking down long-established dictators such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. Soon the people of Spain and Greece, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and other countries around the world, had their own reasons to be in the streets.

Throughout 2011, I gladly accepted invitations to Egypt, Spain, and Tunisia and met with protesters in Madrid's Buen Retiro Park, at Zuccotti Park in New York, and in Cairo, where I spoke with young men and women who had been at Tahrir Square. As we talked, it was clear to me that while specific grievances varied from country to country and, in particular, that the political grievances in the Middle East were very different from those in the West, there were some shared themes. There was a common understanding that in many ways the economic and political system had failed and that both were fundamentally unfair.

The protesters were right that something was wrong. The gap between what our economic and political systems are supposed to do - what we were told they did do - and what they actually do became too large to be ignored. Governments around the world were not addressing key economic problems, including that of persistent unemployment; and as universal values of fairness became sacrificed to the greed of a few, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, the feeling of unfairness became a feeling of betrayal.

....Three themes resonated around the world: that markets weren't working the way they were supposed to, for they were obviously neither efficient nor stable; that the political system hadn't corrected the market failures; and that the economic and political systems are fundamentally unfair. While this book focuses on the excessive inequality that marks the United States and some other advanced industrial countries today, it explains how the three themes are intimately interlinked: the inequality is cause and consequence of the failure of the political system, and it contributes to the instability of our economic system, which in turn contributes to increased inequality—a vicious downward spiral into which we have descended, and from which we can emerge only through concerted policies that I describe below....

SEE LINK FOR MORE

[Fuddnik]

44. Cupcakes.

Little Debbie will be delivering cupcakes this week-end. Either to me, or Anne D.

Either way I'm battening down the hatches. I just fixed the doors on the sheds, that got ripped off in a severe thunderstorm. Just gotta secure them a little more today.

[Demeter]

47. Cupcakes?

I don't catch your drift...I'm all at sea!

[Fuddnik]

59. So is the future Debby. In the Gulf of Mexico.

Soon to be a tropical storm.

[Roland99]

76. With many of the models taking it right over my head!

[Roland99]

57. We had taco cupcakes for dinner last night!

The girls learned how to make them at the YMCA camp this week.

[Demeter]

72. I hope it tasted better than it sounds..do you want to post a recipe?

[Roland99]

75. I'll try and get the recipe and post it up here next week (or in W.E.)

They weren't bad.

Kinda like a mini taco salad with broken up pieces of taco shells with the beef and cheese and cooked in a regular muffin pan...then add toppings!

[DemReadingDU]

93. Sounds good! Not sure I would call them cupcakes

maybe mini-taco casseroles

[Loge23]

62. The Solstice should be noted.

But the emerging theme today seems to organized crime - has that already been covered?

[Demeter]

71. No, We Never Did a RICO Retrospective

and god knows, it's a perennial theme for Hollywood. Not so sure about popular music, but there's some....

Well, can I save that for next weekend? I really do have to do the equivalent of a theme paper or maybe even thesis this weekend...

This weekend--sun and fun

Next weekend---guns and no butter

Post 4th of July--the end of the human race

So mote it be!

[Demeter]

18. When Men Are Less Moral Than Women

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-men-are-less-moral-than-woman&print=true

If males feel their masculinity may be at stake, they are more likely to cut ethical corners...What do Barry Bonds, Bernie Madoff, and James Murdoch have in common? They were all, in their respective areas, in it to win it – whatever the cost. Their appetite for success apparently disabled the moral compass that would have otherwise kept their dishonesty, greed, and hubris in check.

The magnitude of these highly publicized ethical infractions may lead one to wonder whether folks like Barry, Bernie, and Jimmy were absent the day their kindergarten teachers talked about lying, cheating, and stealing. Recent research, however, suggests that ethical violations are somewhat predictable, that in fact there are specific circumstances, contexts, and individual characteristics that beckon us away from the moral high road.

One of the most notable risk factors for ethical laxity is one that all of the above offenders share: Being a man. A number of studies demonstrate that men have lower moral standards than women, at least in competitive contexts. For example, men are more likely than women to minimize the consequences of moral misconduct, to adopt ethically questionable tactics in strategic endeavors, and to engage in greater deceit. This pattern is particularly pronounced in arenas in which success has (at least historically) been viewed as a sign of male vigor and competence, and where loss signifies weakness, impotence, or cowardice (e.g., a business negotiation or a chess match). When men must use strategy or cunning to prove or defend their masculinity, they are willing to compromise moral standards to assert dominance....Shall we blame it on testosterone, the Y chromosome, or other genetic differences? The current evidence doesn't point in that direction. Instead, a recent series of studies by Laura Kray and Michael Haselhuhn suggests that the root of this pattern may be more socio-cultural in nature, as men - at least in American culture - seem motivated to protect and defend their masculinity. These scientists suggest that losing a "battle," particularly in contexts that are highly competitive and historically male oriented, presents a threat to masculine competency. Apparently manhood is relatively fragile and precarious, and when it is challenged, men tend to become more aggressive and defensive. So a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. To ensure victory, men will sacrifice moral standards if doing so means winning.

To test this theory, Kray and Haselhuhn conducted several experiments in which they examined not only the kinds of moral decisions made by men and women, but also the personal and situational factors that influenced those decisions....A final study used the aptly-named SINS scale (self-reported inappropriate negotiation strategies), which assesses individuals' willingness to violate ethical principles in a variety of negotiation settings. Once again, men were more willing than women to engage in shady tactics: they were more accepting of techniques like making false promises, misrepresenting information, and sabotaging their opponents. This was especially true for men who believed that negotiation prowess was an innate and integral part of their masculine nature – that good negotiators are born, not cultivated. Men who believed that their negotiation skills were a fundamental, fixed part of their identity had higher SINS scores than those who believe that negotiation tactics could be learned or developed. Before we uniformly cast men as self-serving, cut-throat schemers devoid of moral backbones, it is important to consider the fact that these investigations all used competitive negotiation scenarios, where strong men have, stereotypically, been successful. Failure in these historically male-dominated situations is associated with diminished financial status, threat to professional rank, and - at least to some - weakness. It is possible that women may demonstrate similar vulnerabilities to their moral standards when faced with dilemmas that challenge their feminine competency or identity, or in arenas were women are (stereotypically) expected to be successful (e.g., skill as a mother, navigating social interactions, effectiveness as a writer). Nonetheless, these findings suggest that if ethical standards are a significant factor in your choice of financial advisors or real estate agents, it may be safer to go with Bernadette than with Bernie.

[Tansy_Gold]

32. When aren't they?

Culturally, boys have always been pushed into a power-over mindset. Boys who don't are called "girly men," and women who try are called ball-busting bitches.

Culturally, the three examples cited in this snippet of areas where women are "stereotypically" expected to be successful all involved cooperation -- or a power-to mindset, which is the antithesis of competition.

This theory is nothing new.

[westerebus]

83. I'd like to invoke my 5th amendments rights at this time. n/t

[Demeter]

21. JPMorgan’s Connections to the House Finance Committee

http://www.nationofchange.org/jpmorgan-s-connections-house-finance-committee-1340202952

...JPMorgan has two in-house lobbyists with connections to the House Financial Services committee.

Rick Lazio joined JP Morgan in 2004 as chief of government relations. He previously served as a congressman from New York from 1993-2000, and sat on the committee.

Tom Koonce is a lobbyist for JP Morgan and formerly a legislative director for Brad Miller, D-N.C., who sits on the committee. There are also three former congressional staffers with committee ties at firms currently lobbying for JPMorgan:

Collins Lionel is a lobbyist at Jones, Walker et al., and a former staff member on the committee. JPMorgan hired the firm this year.

Nicholas Leibham, who works JPMorgan lobbying firm K&L Gates, was formerly an aide to Gary L. Ackerman, D-N.Y., another committee member.

Bart Gordon also works at K&L Gates. He's a former Democratic congressman from Tennessee who, back in the 1980s, sat on the committee. Data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics also shows how representatives on the committee have benefited from the generosity of JPMorgan's employees and PACs. In the 2012 election cycle, JPMorgan's PACs and employees have so far given $168,000 to members of the committee. About 80 percent of that came from one of the bank's PACs.

JPMorgan's PAC and employees have been the second-largest contributors to committee chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., since 1993, donating a total of $119,000 to the congressman's campaigns — $11,000 so far this election cycle. (These numbers don't include contributions to Super PACs or other outside groups.)

The committee's vice-chair, Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, has received a relatively modest $50,000 from JPMorgan since 2003. Overall, commercial banks have been his largest.

Other big Republican career recipients include Steve Stivers of Ohio, who has only served since 2010 but has already received more than $70,000.

On the Democratic side, JPMorgan's PAC and employees have given ranking member Barney Frank, D-Mass., $84,500 since 1989, making them his donor overall.

JPMorgan is number one for Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., with more than $100,000 since 1993.

Despite the hearings, neither the House nor Senate is actually conducting investigations of JPMorgan's losses. But the Department of Justice is, along with five of JPMorgan's regulators — the FDIC, SEC, CFTC, OCC and the Fed...DETAILS AT LINK

[Demeter]

22. Dimon in the Rough: How Wall St Aims to Keep US Regulators Out of Its Global Betting Parlor

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9887-dimon-in-the-rough-how-wall-street-aims-to-keep-us-regulators-out-of-its-global-betting-parlor

By Robert Reich
...

“If JPMorgan overseas operates under different rules than our foreign competitors,” warned Jamie Dimon, chair and CEO of JP Morgan, Wall Street would lose financial business to the banks of nations with fewer regulations, allowing “Deutsche Bank to make the better deal.”

This is the same Jamie Dimon who chose London as the place to make highly-risky derivatives trades that have lost the firm upwards of $2 billion so far – and could leave American taxpayers holding the bag if JPMorgan’s exposure to tottering European banks gets much worse. Dimon’s foreign affair is itself proof that unless the overseas operations of Wall Street banks are covered by U.S. regulations, giant banks like JPMorgan will just move more of their betting abroad – hiding their wildly-risky bets overseas so U.S. regulators can’t control them. Even now no one knows how badly JPMorgan or any other Wall Street bank will be shaken if major banks in Spain or elsewhere in Europe go down. Call it the Dimon loophole. This is the same Jamie Dimon, by the way, who at a financial conference a year ago told Fed chief Ben Bernanke there was no longer any reason to crack down on Wall Street. “Most of the bad actors are gone,” he said. “O]ff-balance-sheet businesses are virtually obliterated, … money market funds are far more transparent” and “most very exotic derivatives are gone.”

One advantage of being a huge Wall Street bank is you get bailed out by the federal government when you make dumb bets. Another is you can choose where around the world to make the dumb bets, thereby dodging U.S. regulations. It’s a win-win. Wall Street would like to keep it that way. For two years now, squadrons of Wall Street lawyers and lobbyists have been pressing the Treasury, Comptroller of the Currency, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, SEC, and the Fed to go easier on the Street for fear that if regulations are too tight, the big banks will be less competitive internationally. Translated: They’ll move more of their business to London and Frankfurt, where regulations are looser.

Meanwhile, the Street has been warning Europeans that if their financial regulations are too tight, the big banks will move more of their business to the US, where regulations will (they hope) be looser. After the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (a global financial regulatory oversight body) came up with a new set of rules to toughen bank capital and liquidity requirements, European officials threatened to get even tougher. They approved a new system of European regulatory bodies with added powers to ban certain financial products or activities in times of market stress. This prompted Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, to issue — in the words of the Financial Times — “a clear warning that the bank could shift its operations around the world if the regulatory crackdown becomes too tough.” Blankfein told a European financial conference that while Europe remains of vital importance to Goldman, with less than half of the bank’s business now generated in the U.S., the introduction of “mismatched regulation” across different regions (that is, tougher regulations in Europe than in the U.S.) would tempt banks to search out the cheapest and least intrusive jurisdiction in which to operate.

“Operations can be moved globally and capital can be accessed globally,” he warned.

Someone should remind Dimon and Blankfein that a few years ago they and their colleagues on the Street almost eviscerated the American economy, and that of much of the rest of the world. The Street’s antics required a giant taxpayer-funded bailout. Most Americans are still living with the results, as are millions of Europeans. Wall Street can’t have it both ways – too big to fail, and also able to make wild bets anywhere around the world. If Wall Street banks demand a free rein overseas, the least we should demand is they be broken up here.

[Demeter]

24. LIARS AND ETHICS--ANOTHER SCENARIO

[Tansy_Gold]

84. Liars and ethics -- the Rmoneys and their horses version

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002843096#top

Thanks to Kpete in GD, this one is all about how the Rmoneys drugged a horse they were selling:


<snip>

Romney and her trainers sold the horse, Super Hit, in 2008 for $125,000. And Super Hit had what a prominent veterinarian described as a staggering quantity of drugs in its system at the time of its examination before being sold, according to a toxicology report that's part of the lawsuit over the horse's condition.

<end snip>


It should be noted that SMWers DO NOT take kindly to people who abuse animals. NO, NOT AT ALL.

[Demeter]

30. Story of the Housing Crash Recession That Politicians Don’t Want to Tell By Dean Baker

http://www.nationofchange.org/story-housing-crash-recession-politicians-don-t-want-tell-1340201541



The economy is certain to occupy center stage in the presidential race this fall. Unfortunately neither Governor Romney nor President Obama are likely to give us an accurate account of the economic problems we are now facing. Romney’s efforts seem intended to convince the public that President Obama has turned the country into the Soviet Union, with government bureaucrats shoving aside business leaders to take the commanding role in the economy. He will have lots of money to make this case, which he will need since it is so far from reality. Corporate profits are at their highest share as a percentage of the economy in almost 50 years. The share of profits being paid in taxes is near its post-World War II low. The government’s share of the economy has actually shrunk in the Obama years, as has government employment. Perhaps Romney can convince the public that the private sector is being crushed by burdensome regulation and taxes, but that has nothing to do with reality.

Unfortunately President Obama’s economic advisors have not been much more straightforward with the American people, never offering a clear explanation of why the economy has taken so long to recover. They have pointed out that economies often take long to recover from the effects of a financial crisis like to the one we experienced in the fall of 2008, but that is not an explanation for why we have not recovered. The basic story is actually quite simple. The housing bubble had been driving the economy prior to the recession. It created demand through several channels. A near-record pace of housing construction added about 2 percentage points of GDP to annual demand or more than $300 billion in the current economy. The $8 trillion in ephemeral housing wealth created by the bubble led to a huge surge in consumption. Tens of millions of people borrowed against bubble-generated equity or decided that they didn’t need to save for retirement. When house prices were going up 15-20 percent a year, the house was doing the saving. The result was a huge consumption boom on the order of 4 percent of GDP or $600 billion a year.

In addition, there was a bubble in non-residential real estate that followed in the wake of the housing bubble. This raised non-residential construction above its normal levels by close to 1 percent of GDP or $150 billion a year. Adding these sources of demand together, the bubble generated well over $1 trillion in annual demand at its peak in 2005-2007. When the bubble burst, this $1 trillion in annual demand vanished as well. That is the central story of the downturn.

To recover we must find some way to replace this demand; however that is not easy. People will not go back to their old consumption patterns because they know they need to save more. Tens of millions of people have much less wealth than they expected at this point in their lives after they saw the equity in their homes largely vanish. Tens of millions of baby boomers are approaching retirement with almost nothing but their Social Security to support them. Given the huge loss of wealth from the collapse of the housing bubble it is not reasonable to expect consumption to rise to fill the demand gap. It doesn’t make much more sense to expect investment to do the job. Historically, investment in equipment and software has been close to 8 percent of GDP. It is pretty much back to that level today. To fill the demand gap created by the collapse of the housing bubble the investment share of GDP would have to nearly double to 14 percent. This would be almost impossible to imagine at any time, but it is especially far-fetched at a time when much of the economy is operating far below its capacity. Businesses are unlikely to spend a lot of money expanding their facilities when the existing capacity is sitting idle regardless of how nice we are to job creators...

CLICK LINK FOR CONCLUSION!

[xchrom]

35. i hope every one had a good Summer Solstice this week

BLESSED BE to all of you!

[Demeter]

39. I took a friend out to dinner

(because I didn't want to cook)

And unfortunately, ate too much.

[xchrom]

46. where did you guys go? was it good? and what did you have?

and truth be told - that's more than i did -- though i am having a solstice feast on sunday.

bar b que ribs.

[Demeter]

49. Red Lobster--I had a coupon

and The Kid doesn't like seafood....the lobster and shrimp and asparagus on linguini is what I always order...even though coconut shrimp is so tempting...

I know...with all the variety in the area, I went there? Well, I wanted real food, you know. And I didn't want to spend a fortune, nor pay for parking downtown. And I didn't want strange spices, or chichi decor. And NOT Burger King.

[xchrom]

50. clams and linguini are always my weak spot.

the clams done in lots of white wine and garlic -- and good bread to sop up the sauce with.

your evening sounds wonderful -- i'd eat too much as well.

[Hotler]

48. Thank you Chrom. Blessed are the peace makers. n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

70. Indeed. n/t

[Demeter]

36. What Is Wrong With Our Education System? Almost Half the Population Doesn't Accept Evolution

WELL, WHAT THEY REJECT IS THE ENTIRE SCIENTIFIC METHOD--OBSERVE, RECORD, TEST AND VERIFY. AND THEY REJECT EVEN THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ASPECTS OF ARITHMETIC, LET ALONE THE HIGHER MATHEMATICS.

AND LOGIC? NOT EVEN ARISTOTELIAN!

scientific method:

A method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypothese.

http://www.google.com/search?q=SCIENTIIFIC+METHOD+DEFINITON&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&client=firefox-a#hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=zrO&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&q=scientific+method&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=VGXkT6aIOYqs9AT22-nmCQ&ved=0CGgQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=24bd4001b4cd61d4&biw=1024&bih=647

http://www.alternet.org/story/155976/what_is_wrong_with_our_education_system_almost_half_the_population_doesn%27t_accept_evolution?akid=8967.227380.n4VFDe&rd=1&t=9


Rejecting evolution expresses more than an inability to think critically; it relies on a fundamentally paranoid worldview.

Do you know what the worst thing about the recent Gallup poll on evolution is? It isn’t that 46 percent of respondents are creationists (“God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last ten thousand years or so”). Or that 32 percent believe in “theistic evolution” (“Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”). Or that only 15 percent said humans evolved and “God had no part in this process.” It isn’t even that the percentage of Americans with creationist views has barely budged since 1982, when it was 44 percent, with a small rise in the no-God vote (up from 9 percent) coming at the expense of the divine-help position (down from 38 percent). Or that 58 percent of Republicans are creationists, although that does explain a lot.

It’s that the proportion of college graduates who are creationists is exactly the same as for the general public. That’s right: 46 percent of Americans with sixteen long years of education under their belt believe the story of Adam and Eve is literally true. Even 25 percent of Americans with graduate degrees believe dinosaurs and humans romped together before Noah’s flood. Needless to say, this remarkable demonstration of educational failure attracts little attention from those who call for improving our schools.

My brilliant husband, a sociologist and political theorist, refuses to get upset about the poll. It’s quite annoying, actually. He thinks questions like these primarily elicit affirmations of identity, not literal convictions; declaring your belief in creationism is another way of saying you’re a good Christian. That does rather beg the question of what a good Christian is, and why so many think it means refusing to use the brains God gave you. And yes, as you may have suspected, according to the Pew Research Center, evangelicals are far more likely than those of other faiths to hold creationist views; just 24 percent of them believe in evolution. Mormons come in even lower, at 22 percent, although official church doctrine has no problem with evolution.

Why does it matter that almost half the country rejects the overwhelming evidence of evolution, with or without the hand of God? After all, Americans are famously ignorant of many things—like where Iran is or when World War II took place—and we are still here. One reason is that rejecting evolution expresses more than an inability to think critically; it relies on a fundamentally paranoid worldview. Think what the world would have to be like for evolution to be false. Almost every scientist on earth would have to be engaged in a fraud so complex and extensive it involved every field from archaeology, paleontology, geology and genetics to biology, chemistry and physics. And yet this massive concatenation of lies and delusion is so full of obvious holes that a pastor with a Bible-college degree or a homeschooling parent with no degree at all can see right through it. A flute discovered in southern Germany is 43,000 years old? Not bloody likely. It’s probably some old bone left over from an ancient barbecue. To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, has installed a holographic exhibit of Lucy, the famous proto-human fossil, showing how she was really just a few-thousand-year-old ape after all....

"RIGHTEOUS" RANT

[Demeter]

38. THE TROUBLING CONCLUSION

....many of the major challenges facing the nation—and the world—are scientific in nature: climate change and energy policy, for instance. “To have a near majority essentially rejecting the scientific method is very troubling,” .... And to have solidly grounded science waved away as political and theological propaganda could not come at a worse time. “Sea-level rise” is a “left-wing term,” said Virginia state legislator Chris Stolle, a Republican, successfully urging its replacement in a state-commissioned study by the expression “recurrent flooding.”....

[Demeter]

43. We Are Approaching the End of Society As We Know It -- And That May Be a Good Thing

http://www.alternet.org/story/155968/system_failure%3A_we_are_approaching_the_end_of_society_as_we_know_it_--_and_that_may_be_a_good_thing?page=entire

Paul Gilding talks about his new book, "The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring on the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World."

****************************************************************************************
Paul Gilding says it's time to stop worrying about climate change; global crisis is no longer avoidable. He believes the Great Disruption started in 2008, as spiking food and oil prices signaled the end of Economic Growth 1.0 based on consumption and waste. Coming decades will see loss, suffering and conflict, but he believes the crisis offers us both an unmatched business opportunity as old industries collapse to be replaced by new ones, and a chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability....


THAT RIGHT AWAY SETS OFF ALARM BELLS...BUT READ IT AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF...

[Roland99]

37. Umm...Banks downgraded, Europe markets down, US futures giddy!

[DemReadingDU]

58. Bank Investors Dismiss Moody’s Cuts as Years Too Late

6/22/12 Bank Investors Dismiss Moody’s Cuts as Years Too Late

Downgrades of Morgan Stanley (MS), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and 13 other global banks, announced by Moody’s Investors Service after months of speculation about dire fallout, were met instead by rallies in stocks and bonds.

The cost to protect Morgan Stanley’s debt against losses dropped, and the shares rallied as much as 4.6 percent in extended trading yesterday after the ratings firm cut the bank by two levels rather than a threatened three grades. Credit- default swaps tied to Bank of America Corp., which was lowered to within two levels of junk along with Citigroup Inc. (C), also improved, along with those of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)

“American banks are stronger today than they were three years ago,” said Gerard Cassidy, a bank equity analyst with RBC Capital Markets, adding that market prices have long reflected concerns raised by Moody’s. “Yes, their ratings are lower, but is Citi tomorrow going to have to pay an extra 50 basis points for commercial paper? I don’t think so.”

The prospect of downgrades had weighed on banks since Moody’s said Feb. 15 it was reviewing 17 banks with capital- markets operations because of fragile confidence and tighter regulations that pinched revenue. Pressure mounted as Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis intensified and cast doubt on the health of some of the continent’s lenders.

By the time the results came out four months later, investors such as Thornburg Investment Management Inc.’s George Strickland said, the worst-case scenario for downgrades was already reflected in securities prices.

more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-21/credit-suisse-cut-3-levels-as-moody-s-downgrades-biggest-banks.html

[Demeter]

73. Premature Victory Lap--last economy standing

Which, given the global nature of the economy, as decreed by those transnational corporations, doesn't mean a thing.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

[xchrom]

40. Spain Is Surging. Germany Is Tanking. This Is What It All Means.

http://www.businessinsider.com/spain-up-big-germany-down-big-2012-6

If you want to watch an interesting proxy for the changing dynamics in Europe, just watch the Spanish market vs. the German market.
Here we represent it via EWP (The Spain ETF) vs. the EWG (the German ETF).




For several days now, Spain has been pushing higher against Germany.
And today, Spain is up 1% while Germany is down 1%.
This tell you a lot.
First of all, Germany's economy, as we've been writing about is cracking (finally) as all of its export markets are deteriorating.
More importantly, there's a growing sense that Germany is going to be on the hook, in some way or another, for the debts of its peers.
So even if the economy deteriorates, the Spanish market benefits from the fact that it may not go completely bust.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/spain-up-big-germany-down-big-2012-6#ixzz1yWdW4ApU

[xchrom]

41. NIALL FERGUSON: The Fate Of Europe Is Riding On 'The Psychological State Of One German Woman'

http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-the-fate-of-europe-2012-6

***SNIP{or snark}

He laid the blame for EU leaders' unwillingness to submit to broader changes in the structure of their monetary union at the feet of one German Chancellor.
"It's Angela Merkel who's in denial about the problem of monetary union," he said. "The only question you need to ask...is about the psychological nature of a German woman...I'm serious about this! Sometimes history boils down to the [ideology] of a single person."
Unlike fellow panelist Martin Wolf, however, Ferguson took an optimistic view of the outcome of this economic disaster, which he argued will start with a series of bank runs. "The Germans pay either way. They pay if it breaks apart, they pay if it stays together" Ferguson said. "In the end they will flinch...it wont fall apart but it will come scarily close to doing so."

"The only way out of this is federal institution," he continued. "You start with something like deposit insurance to prevent bank runs in Greece and Spain," and then embark on bank recapitalization and eventually end up with something like eurobonds.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-the-fate-of-europe-2012-6#ixzz1yWedcwih

[Demeter]

45. Angela is not alone, of course

Angela is speaking the consensus of the German people, the German press, and the German banksters. Since these are the people who put her in office, she is being faithful to her constituency.

The fact that they are all WRONG is not her problem...she is a political hack, not a stateswoman, a presider, not a leader.

[westerebus]

82. Well she could put up a "mission accomplished" poster over the Brandenburg Gate.

Or better still " The Euro STOPS here. "

Oh, wait it does.

No one in the EU hasn't cheated. Cooked the books. Or worse.

How is this Merkel's fault?

The G20 leaders, oxymoron that, want the Germans to roll over for the banks.

How does that help the Germans?

We complain every day about the bank bail-out bill that was forced on us.

What am I missing here?

[Ghost Dog]

63. ...

One country poses an existential threat to Europe – and it is not Greece, Italy or Spain. Every serious proposal to resolve the euro crisis since 2009 – haircuts for bank bondholders, more realistic fiscal consolidation targets, jointly guaranteed eurobonds, a pan-European bailout fund, quantitative easing by the European Central Bank – has been vetoed by Germany, and this pattern looks likely to be repeated next week.

Nobody should be surprised that Germany has become the greatest threat to Europe. After all, this has happened twice before since 1914. To state this unmentionable fact is not to impugn Germans with original sin, but merely to note Germany’s unusual geopolitical situation. Germany is too big and powerful to coexist comfortably with its European neighbors in any political structure ruled purely by national interests. Yet it isn’t big and powerful enough to dominate its neighbors decisively, as the U.S. dominates North America or China will dominate the Far East.

Wise German politicians recognized this inherent instability after 1945 and abandoned the realpolitik of national interest in favor of the idealism of European unification. Instead of trying to create a “German Europe” the new national goal was to build a “European Germany.” Unfortunately, this lesson seems to have been forgotten by Angela Merkel. Whatever the intellectual arguments for or against German-imposed austerity or the German-designed fiscal compact, there can be no dispute about their political import. Merkel’s stated goal is now to create a “German Europe,” with every nation living, working and running its government according to German rules.

Merkel doubtless believes that she is helping Europe when she maternally instructs the Greeks, Italians and Spaniards to “do their homework” and so become good little Germans. But like its less benign predecessors, this effort to impose German hegemony is guaranteed to fail. Europe’s leaders must therefore start considering a previously unmentionable question, perhaps as soon as next week’s summit, if the euro crisis intensifies. This question is not whether Europe will agree to live under German leadership, but whether Germany will agree to live under EU leadership – or whether the other nations must form a united front against Germany to prevent the destruction of Europe, as they have repeatedly in the past...

/...more: http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2012/06/20/can-the-rest-of-europe-stand-up-to-germany/

[westerebus]

85. Then they should ask Germany to leave the EU.

No, better yet.

They should demand Germany comply to EU demands or face sanctions.

Existential threat is right up there with religious authority akin to the political will to make the world free for democracy.

I don't think she much cares if the voters in ( place name of country here ) like German policy.

London making bailout offers to anybody with out conditions?

[xchrom]

42. Universities And Modern Economics Are The Great 21st Century Delusions

http://www.businessinsider.com/university-and-modern-economics-are-the-great-21st-century-delusions-2012-6

But the overarching delusion that will define the 21st century is modern economics. People worship at the gospel of economics. The same PhD’s who missed every warning sign of every crisis are hauled out to advise Presidents, Prime Ministers and make policies.
A great trader named Colm O’Shea explains the problem in Hedge Fund Market Wizards.

A grad student showed me a notebook full of ridiculous equations proving his obscure theory. To me, economics is no more mathematical than medicine. You can’t explain the human body with an equation; and you can’t explain mass human behavior with an equation.
The whole mathematical model is built on the theory that people will do what’s in their best interest. It’s nonsense but guides virtually every policy decision in the world.
This is the endgame. Some of the ideas are wonderful. At its core, capitalism is the best system but economic dogmatism has built a disastrous currency union and is allowing nations to accumulate debt that will hinder far wiser future generations.


Read more: http://www.forexlive.com/blog/2012/06/22/university-and-modern-economics-are-the-great-21st-century-delusions/#ixzz1yWgIRMUI

[Demeter]

52. Dogmatism is the Ultimate Weapon of Destruction from Within

When critical thinking goes out the window, so does everything else.

Well, off to Reality, where I will try to think critically without being TOO critical...

[xchrom]

53. my inner Bitchy Queen never manages that...

She is always ready to complain and criticize.
much worse than my mother.

[tclambert]

88. But some of us really like dogs.

[bread_and_roses]

91. "capitalism is the best system" -?

I don't think so. If the writer believes that ... he hasn't much to say to me.

As for "The whole mathematical model is built on the theory that people will do what’s in their best interest" - aside from other problems, as far as I can see in that model "best interest" means "best interest" as defined by the free-marketers to mean their best economic interests where "economic interest" is defined to mean the greatest aggregation of individual goods and wealth."

A bit narrow, that.

[xchrom]

51. Spain’s De Guindos will request bank bailout “immediately”

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/22/inenglish/1340366115_469713.html

Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said this morning that he will send the formal request for a banking rescue package “immediately” after pressure from his European colleagues to clear up investor confidence-sapping doubts over the situation. On Thursday De Guindos had refused to be pinned down on the date of the official request, saying that it would happen in the coming days.

Today he stuck to his line that the letter was a “mere formality,” adding that the important thing was that there had been advances on the final terms of the bailout in the Eurogroup meeting between EU economy and finance ministers. “We now have an action plan, which I think is fundamental, based on the valuations performed by the independent bodies.”

On Thursday the results of two independent auditors contracted by Spain to evaluate the situation of its banking sector were made known. Oliver Wyman said the sector would need an injection of between 51 billion and 62 billion euros, while Roland Berger cited a more conservative 51.8 billion.

Earlier this month the European Union agreed to prepare a 100-billion-euro rescue package for Spain’s banks, which are laboring under the effects of the country’s real estate bust amid a recession. The initial framework was that the loan would be passed to the Spanish government’s FROB bank rescue fund, therefore counting officially as more debt for the state. After that announcement on June 10, Spain’s risk premium shot up and secondary-market terms on its benchmark 10-year sovereign bond this week soared over the seven-percent mark, considered the red alert for an unsustainable situation in terms of debt financing.

[Demeter]

54. The EU and ECB are really sick bastards

always holding the carrot just out of reach while simultaneously beating the **** out of the donkey...

[xchrom]

55. Merkel Isolated in Race for Euro Crisis Solution

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/euro-crisis-enters-crucial-phase-before-next-week-s-summit-a-840398.html

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as has likely become clear to all by now, is not a fan of the quick fix. Even as the European common currency appears to be collapsing around her -- and the insults flung in her general direction mount -- she refuses to budge.

Time, however, is not one of the luxuries that the euro zone enjoys -- at least according to her host for Friday's preparatory "mini-summit" ahead of the European Union meeting on June 29. In an interview appearing in several leading European papers on Friday morning, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti warned of the consequences should the EU summit at the end of this month fail to reach far-reaching resolutions to calm the financial markets.
"There would be progressively greater speculative attacks on individual countries, with harassment of the weaker countries," he said. "A large part of Europe would find itself having to continue to put up with very high interest rates that would then impact on the states and also indirectly on firms. This is the direct opposite of what is needed for economic growth."

Monti's sentiments are shared by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and French President François Hollande, both of whom will also take part in the Friday meeting in Rome. The trio is demanding a departure from Merkel's slow and steady austerity course in favor of collectivized euro-zone debt and a greater emphasis on turning around Europe's flailing economy.

[xchrom]

56. German Property Market Soars Amid Euro Crisis

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-real-estate-market-soars-amid-euro-crisis-a-838437.html

At first glance the two story office building tucked away in the town of Nordhausen seems unremarkable. The boxy building north of Erfurt, the capital of the eastern German state of Thuringia, is painted yellow and comes with a parking lot. Though part of the first floor already has a reliable renter, another part suffered fire damage earlier this year. Still, it's in a desirable location.

In a catalog for an auction early this month in central Berlin, the property was listed for €48,000 ($60,355). But by the end of an intense 15-minute bidding war between two remote buyers and a gentleman in the back of the airy atrium, it went for almost double the asking price: €90,000 ($113,166). The top bidder turned out to be an investor from western Germany.
"It is an example of what real estate can fetch when it's good," says Carsten Wohlers of Plettner & Brecht, the property brokerage that ran the auction. About 90 percent of the 53 properties listed were sold, a 10 percent improvement over last year, he says. Organizers also noticed that more buyers called in bids rather than coming in person, though Wohlers attributes that as much to the good weather as the ongoing European Football Championship.

The auction is just one example of how, even as housing market recovery in the United States, Spain and other struggling countries muddles along, Germany's real estate market has taken off. After years of stagnating, German prices for both residential and commercial real estate began rising again in 2009. Buoyed by trouble in other euro crisis countries, German property has become a safe haven for both German and international investors looking for a secure place to store their money.

[DemReadingDU]

64. Video - Behind the scenes at a McDonald's photo shoot

6/19/12 Video - Behind the scenes at a McDonald's photo shoot
Isabel B from Toronto asked "Why does your food look different in the advertising than what is in the store?"

6/22/12 Watch McDonald's Make A Supermodel Out Of A Quarter Pounder

If you think supermodels are the only ones who get gussied up and airbrushed during photo shoots, think again. Food companies use stylist magic that can cost big bucks, too, but mere mortals like us rarely get to see how that magic is made.

In a novel marketing move, McDonald's Canada recently posted a You Tube video of Marketing Director Hope Bagozzi responding to a customer's question about why the famous burgers looks better in front of the lens.

As the British marketing blog The Drum describes it, Bagozzi guides the viewer through the steps of how the marketing firm they've hired is "painstakingly reconstructing a store bought quarter pounder with cheese with surgical precision."

Using the same ingredients as McDonalds does, watch as condiments move forward in the frame, microscopic bun holes are fixed, and the cheese is Photoshopped into an even melt. Of course the process takes hours, rather than minutes, to produce one burger, so it's not likely to be coming to a franchise near you.

The video has racked up over three million hits since it was posted June 19.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/06/22/155562782/watch-mcdonalds-make-a-supermodel-out-of-a-quarter-pounder

[Roland99]

67. I need to give my daughter some grief!

She's been working in a McD's for about a year now.

[Demeter]

74. Poor thing!

My condolences to her and you.

[Fuddnik]

78. I just drove past the gas station.

$3.09

I had better fill up later with a potential tropical storm cooking in the Gulf.

[Demeter]

79. $3.52 in the cheap spots

big whoopie.

[tclambert]

89. Some more malefactors of great wealth:

Timothy S. Durham, 49, the former chief executive officer of Fair Financial Company, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud. James F. Cochran, 56, the former chairman of the board of Fair, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud. Rick D. Snow, 48, the former chief financial officer of Fair, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.

From Daily Kos on June 22.

[Tansy_Gold]

90. Oooh, oooh, oooh, I will add them to the wall of shame!

Thanks!

[DemReadingDU]

92. My Indiana family knows Durham, same age as my brother, went to school with him

Not a close family friend, but still shocking to find out that Durham was running a Ponzi.