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Tansy_Gold

(17,817 posts)
Sun Mar 31, 2013, 08:52 PM Mar 2013

STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 1 April 2013

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday, 1 April 2013[font color=black][/font]


SMW for 29 March 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 29 March 2013
[center][font color=green]
Dow Jones 14,578.54 +52.38 (0.36%)
S&P 500 1,569.19 +6.34 (0.41%)
[font color=black]Nasdaq 3,267.52 0.00 (0.00%)


[font color=red]10 Year 1.94% +0.01 (0.52%)
30 Year 3.17% +0.02 (0.63%)[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
[/center]





[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
[/center]




[div]
[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.





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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]


65 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 1 April 2013 (Original Post) Tansy_Gold Mar 2013 OP
"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song," Demeter Mar 2013 #1
Poisson d’Avril Demeter Mar 2013 #2
Ugh, tax day for me. Warpy Mar 2013 #4
That cartoon has it backwards, and a lot of the nesting is missing Demeter Mar 2013 #3
Yeah I figure there's a Tansy_Gold Mar 2013 #5
The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund marybourg Mar 2013 #6
Weeeee, I can't wait for the next bubble to pop! just1voice Apr 2013 #7
. Tansy_Gold Apr 2013 #27
Before the NASDAQ bubble popped, I stuck all my savings in a mattress. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #33
If my calculations are right.... AnneD Apr 2013 #36
Me neither. That's how I get to buy low. That's how, 25 years into retirement marybourg Apr 2013 #41
One serious illness and most "investors" go broke, not to mention losing jobs just1voice Apr 2013 #48
I'm sorry your experiences have caused you to have such a marybourg Apr 2013 #49
Sorry you lived such a sheltered life. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #51
What little I do have in the Market... AnneD Apr 2013 #50
25 years into retirement??? Tansy_Gold Apr 2013 #52
46. Nothing fishy. Did without a lot of things. Got a free college education. marybourg Apr 2013 #53
25 years back would be 1988. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #54
Started investing in stock market in '82 . Saved since marybourg Apr 2013 #62
I know all about retirement. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #64
Lots of Good Luck DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #55
Guess what. Tansy_Gold Apr 2013 #56
Now tell us how you really feel. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #58
. Tansy_Gold Apr 2013 #61
I'm sorry about that. My only intention was to show those younger marybourg Apr 2013 #63
Pop Quiz: How Big Is the Bailout Of Cyprus? PIGS WITHIN PIGS MUST READ Demeter Apr 2013 #8
Why the National Labor Relations Act Is a Weak Law Today - and How We Can Restore its Power Demeter Apr 2013 #9
Free trade and unrestricted capital flow: How billionaires get rich and destroy the rest of us Demeter Apr 2013 #10
CORROBORATION: Why Politicians are NOT Sensitive to Public Opinion on the Economy By Robert Reich Demeter Apr 2013 #11
Interestingly, the IMF is beginning to renounce its "free capital" stance. OrwellwasRight Apr 2013 #39
It's becoming obvious that tax rates have to start going into confiscatory ranges Demeter Apr 2013 #40
Some dim poster on NYTimes this morning OrwellwasRight Apr 2013 #43
I love it. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #46
Bearded Hippie? Demeter Apr 2013 #65
Simon Johnson: Money-Laundering Banks Still Get a Pass From U.S. DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #12
Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4-6 Trillion Dollars By Jim Lobe Demeter Apr 2013 #13
American Special Ops Forces Now Operating in 71 Countries Al Jazeera English Demeter Apr 2013 #14
China manufacturing activity at 11-month high in March xchrom Apr 2013 #15
UK financial regulation overhauled xchrom Apr 2013 #16
Tankan: Japanese business mood improves on weak yen xchrom Apr 2013 #17
Tech giant Panasonic ‘investigated’ for alleged bribes xchrom Apr 2013 #18
40 Years After Watergate, It's Almost Impossible to Hold Government Accountable MUST READ! Demeter Apr 2013 #19
Many believe it will take another scandal the size of Watergate, or worse, to get us back on track. Hotler Apr 2013 #30
John Dean said that all the crimes committed during Watergate are legal now. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #34
Greek Manufacturing Report Comes In Awful xchrom Apr 2013 #20
15 Charts That Should Have Saudi Arabia Terrified xchrom Apr 2013 #21
US PMI Falls Slightly To 54.6 xchrom Apr 2013 #22
Libor Suits by Bondholders Tossed Over Lack of Damages xchrom Apr 2013 #23
NYSE Announces First-Quarter 2013 Circuit-Breaker Levels DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #24
"trading halted marketwide" - I don't think so... Dark Pools will still serve 'insiders', surely. Ghost Dog Apr 2013 #35
Stockman Warns of Crash Of Fed-Fueled Bubble Economy xchrom Apr 2013 #25
Fade to black......n/t Hotler Apr 2013 #45
Ah, no. We AREN'T doing austerity, thanks Demeter Apr 2013 #57
When this bubble implodes, there may be no other choice DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #59
Even now, this country is bursting with options Demeter Apr 2013 #60
Matthew 25 Fund Inspired by Scripture Returns 27% xchrom Apr 2013 #26
Cohen Eludes U.S. as Latest Case Is Short on Evidence xchrom Apr 2013 #28
U.S. Stocks Fall as American Manufacturing Index Slips xchrom Apr 2013 #29
Developing World: Euro Loses Attraction as Reserve Currency xchrom Apr 2013 #31
Bomb from Brussels: Cyprus Model May Guide Future Bank Bailouts xchrom Apr 2013 #32
If Cyprus is the model...... AnneD Apr 2013 #38
At home, I don't see the ads, but I'm at library and this came up Demeter Apr 2013 #37
Newspapers, Delivered by Drone A province in France is piloting a non-piloted system for distributin Demeter Apr 2013 #42
The Tar Sands Disaster. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #44
Novartis loses landmark drug patent battle in India Fuddnik Apr 2013 #47
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
1. "Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,"
Sun Mar 31, 2013, 09:11 PM
Mar 2013

"A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania."

Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937)

US author, humorist, poet, & wit (1893 - 1967)


APRIL FOOLS, EVERYONE!

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
2. Poisson d’Avril
Sun Mar 31, 2013, 09:17 PM
Mar 2013
http://wordstobumble.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/april-fools-a-fish/


...I learned about the Poisson d’Avril (literally, the April Fish) and the fact that the French refer to a goldfish as a poisson rouge. Neither our instructor nor our tour guide had a clear answer as to what the French would call a fish that is actually red. Perhaps un poisson qui est rouge?

For reasons mired in speculation, the traditional French April Fools’ Day prank is to attach a paper fish (often—in my experience—either a poisson rouge or a poisson qui est rouge) to the back of your victim. When said victim discovers your knavery, you get to call him a poisson d’avril.

Silly fish.

http://soyezlabienvenuechezmoi.blogspot.com/2009/04/poisson-davril.html

The most common explanation for this tradition is the following:

In 1564, the king Charles IX modified the calender. Custom had it that the year started on April 1st, which signified the end of winter and the end of Lent. The king decided that the year would start on January 1st. Due to numerous oppositions, the law wasn't recorded in Parlement until 1567. Encouraged by this delay, the traditionalists continued to wish people "happy new year" on the first of April. In return, people would reply by giving gifts making fun of this tradition.

Wherever the tradition came from, the fish became an important means for the common people in France to show their happiness at the end of winter, and to playfully mock each other.

As a sign of friendship, I wish you all "POISSON D'AVRIL!!!!!!!" Now go out and pin paper fish on all your friends' backs.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
3. That cartoon has it backwards, and a lot of the nesting is missing
Sun Mar 31, 2013, 09:38 PM
Mar 2013

A complete picture of the entire nest (which I do not have) would be revealing and diagnostic.

Tansy_Gold

(17,817 posts)
5. Yeah I figure there's a
Sun Mar 31, 2013, 10:07 PM
Mar 2013

Poisson grand d'Avril (a.k.a. whale) in there somewhere, a Goldfish-Sachs, a Dimon, a Blankfein, a Bernanke, four or five hedge funds. . . . and of course a Timmeh (gone but not forgotten and replaced with an equally fishy, equally stinky clone).

They say a fish rots from the head down; this one is all head.

marybourg

(12,540 posts)
6. The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund
Sun Mar 31, 2013, 10:44 PM
Mar 2013

is up 11.02 for the year-to-date and 9.42 plus about 25% in dividends for the 10 year period. You're not going to be able to retire unless you invest.

 

just1voice

(1,362 posts)
7. Weeeee, I can't wait for the next bubble to pop!
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 01:19 AM
Apr 2013

"You're not going to be able to retire unless you invest."

How much did you lose in the Nasdaq bubble, the real estate bubble and the 2008 collapse? Nothing I'm sure, you're way too smart for that huh? LOL!

Over 70% of Americans retire with less than 30G saved/invested, do you spew your investment crap at them too? If only they'd all invest that huge amount of money they have to invest, which totals about ZERO DOLLARS, they'd all be rich huh?

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
33. Before the NASDAQ bubble popped, I stuck all my savings in a mattress.
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 11:18 AM
Apr 2013

And I still made out better than everyone I worked with that had a Fidelity 401k. I wasn't smart. Just scared.

Another guy at work had an investment business. He was pushing Templeton Funds really hard. I looked over the prospectus for each fund, and said to him, "every one of these funds have lost money over the last year". He said "Yeah, but they're good because they didn't lose as much as everybody else"!!!



I'll stick with the mattress and vodka futures.

AnneD

(15,774 posts)
36. If my calculations are right....
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 12:03 PM
Apr 2013

the stock market is back more or less to what it was in 2008. Now if you consider being back to where you were in 2008 as progress toward retirement, matzl tov.

I lost about 18-20% of my wealth in the dot com collapse. I kept in stock an started investing in emerging markets at that time (most in the BRIC countries). I saw everything as overheated and pulled out early in 2006-2007. I started buying precious metal, when gold was at $800 and silver at $13-15.

I have no complaints about my investment strategies and sleep very well at night. I missed the last bubble collapse and I think I will miss the next, thank you very much. The SM and the banking system have done nothing to regain my trust. Call me old fashioned but I prefer a bird in the hand than two in the bush.

Vodka futures hey...I'll drink to that.

marybourg

(12,540 posts)
41. Me neither. That's how I get to buy low. That's how, 25 years into retirement
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 01:44 PM
Apr 2013

I was able to buy a large house on a view lot that I couldn't afford when I first retired.

I lost nothing noticeable (about 8%) in the NASDAQ bubble because I owned the total stock market, not just NASDAQ stocks. In the 2008 collapse I added about $30,000 that I had in bonds to my stock market holdings, held it until it had gone up 20% and then sold ("you can be a bull or a bear; but never be a pig). That was an easy $6000. The real estate bubble didn't affect me as I had paid off my house on retirement, but it did give me the opportunity to pick up this large house I mentioned. Of course, my old house isn't going to sell for bubble price either, but since I was in it since I retired I will make a small profit.

And yes, my current good lifestyle is largely due to living slightly below my means, learning to do for myself whatever I could, saving and then investing steadily, at least since my late thirties, through good markets and bad, retiring as early as I could but continuing to live as I always had. Since I only worked a few years and my spouse was a modest earner I do credit investing for my good fortune. I have no connection with the investing industry whatsoever except as a longtime investor in Vanguard index funds. I'm sorry that you've come to believe that investing in American businesses in the only way a person of modest means can - via the stock market - is either impossible or evil - but it's a time tested route to a comfortable retirement and if I did it , I believe most people can.

 

just1voice

(1,362 posts)
48. One serious illness and most "investors" go broke, not to mention losing jobs
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 03:35 PM
Apr 2013

Your good fortune is meaningless to the millions of people who suffer through no fault of their own.

"time tested route to a comfortable retirement and if I did it , I believe most people can" LMFAO! People don't choose to get sick and lose their jobs, at which point they get preyed upon by criminal banks, criminal for-profit "health care" and a host of other corrupt industries.

It's not my beliefs that our culture of corruption exists, it's a fact ya blowhard.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
51. Sorry you lived such a sheltered life.
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 04:22 PM
Apr 2013

I planned for 30 years for my company to steal my pension. And drop my guaranteed health insurance.

We didn't even have a 401k available to us until 1997. And they went bust in 2001. Leaving thousands unemployed, no insurance, and about 30% of our pensions from the PBGC.

But hey. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

AnneD

(15,774 posts)
50. What little I do have in the Market...
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 03:45 PM
Apr 2013

is in indexed funds. But to be honest, the market is so rigged, what with high frequency trading, crooked ETF, and libor rigging.

I have gotten much smarter with my money, but the market is not where I would toss it at this time, unless I found a great company...and those are getting harder to find. Staying out of debt and hard assets and commodities are my comfort zone these days.

Tansy_Gold

(17,817 posts)
52. 25 years into retirement???
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 04:29 PM
Apr 2013

If you only "worked a few years" and you're already retired 25 years, I hate to say it, my dear, but I'm smelling something just a tad bit fishy. Did you "retire" at 40? Then I'd say you never really worked, and you can't really retire if you don't work first.

And you throw that "Vanguard index funds" around like it's a little more than just your sock drawer.

I'm thinkin' there's more to this story than meets the eye, but then I'm a struggling poor widow who never had anything to "invest." Pardon me if I blow you off.

marybourg

(12,540 posts)
53. 46. Nothing fishy. Did without a lot of things. Got a free college education.
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 04:47 PM
Apr 2013

Born at the right time. Still don't have cable tv, caller ID, smartphone, Do own taxes, hair, spouse's hair, made own clothes when I worked, never shopped in a dept store. Keep cars for many years. But most of all, I started putting something in an indexed stock fund from every paycheck in 1982 ( and every time I got a raise, I put 90% of that, even if it was only $10, away too) when the Dow was 12 HUNDRED. Now it's 14 THOUSAND! How could I NOT have done well?

marybourg

(12,540 posts)
62. Started investing in stock market in '82 . Saved since
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 06:17 PM
Apr 2013

started working when 16. Bank account, MM accts, Series E bonds. Time off for child-raising. Spouse worked entire adult life. Amazing that an ordinary fairly comfortable retirement, something my blue-collar parents and grandparents had also, should engender such skepticism. Sad, too.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
64. I know all about retirement.
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 06:28 PM
Apr 2013

I retired at 49. In 2001.

But, I have a finely tuned B.S. Detector.

What's sad is your superior attitude.

Tansy_Gold

(17,817 posts)
56. Guess what.
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 05:17 PM
Apr 2013

I can't speak for anyone else here, but I for one get sick to my stomach reading this kind of crap.

I didn't get a free college education. I had to work for it and borrow for it and I didn't finish it until I was 52 years old.

Made my own clothes -- still do, as a matter of fact -- do my own taxes, don't have a smart phone, don't do my hair at all. Haven't ever shopped in a department store unless it was a close-out sale (like when they put the summer clothes on sale for 75% off). My current vehicle is 13 years old, has 172,000 miles.

But like many working people, I never had a nickel to put into "indexed stock funds."

I don't know about anyone else, but I resent your tone, marybourg. I resent your attitude that we should have done like you did, regardless of our circumstances. You don't have any idea what it's like to go through what a lot of us do. Ugly divorces, special needs children, catastrophic illnesses.

What I resent more than anything, marybourg, and you are free to alert on me if you like and get a jury of my peers to hide this post, is your attitude of superiority for having acquired wealth you didn't work for. Your stock wealth is wealth earned by someone else, some worker who labored for lower wages so you could sock something away in your nest egg and come back to lecture those of us who weren't so lucky.



marybourg

(12,540 posts)
63. I'm sorry about that. My only intention was to show those younger
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 06:26 PM
Apr 2013

than me that it IS possible to save for their retirement. We live in a capitalist society (although I would have preferred a mildly socialist one, myself), and the way to leverage one's own earning ability is to put one's earned capitol to work also. I guess it doesn't work out for all workers at all times, but that's no reason not to try if possible.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
9. Why the National Labor Relations Act Is a Weak Law Today - and How We Can Restore its Power
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 08:01 AM
Apr 2013
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15368-why-the-national-labor-relations-act-is-a-weak-law-today-and-how-we-can-restore-its-power

Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act to restore equality of bargaining power between employees and employers. The problem Congress saw was that while employers had the right to incorporate or form partnerships, employees had no legal right to form collective organizations. That inequality of bargaining power was used to depress wages and the purchasing power of wage earners, leading to economic depressions and recessions...In the midst of the Great Depression, Congress decided it must end this inequality between employees, who had only the power of an individual, and employers, who had the legal right to become collective and pool their power by forming corporations and partnerships. That insight led Congress to enact the National Labor Relations Act to equalize bargaining power and restore prosperity to the United States.

It appears that the 1935 Congress was correct. Giving employees the right to form unions and act collectively created a counterbalance to the collective power of employers. Before the NLRA was enacted, the United States regularly went through economic “panics” roughly every 20 years...After the NLRA was enacted, we had many decades of widely shared prosperity. It was not until the early 1980s that economic collapses returned to the United States as a result of deregulation of the savings and loan industry. That collapse was triggered by easing financial regulations, but it also took place amidst declining union membership as workers faced massive restructuring and closings.

In other words, something positive happened after the NLRA was enacted and union membership was high, and it stopped working as union numbers declined. However, in the years leading up to the Great Recession, union membership - and power - declined while employers amassed ever greater wealth and power. The result was an imbalance in union bargaining and political power that led to a decline in employees' wages, benefits, job security, and working conditions in general. After the NLRA was enacted, union membership soared; so something made it easier to organize unions then. Membership grew and remained high for many decades. It remained high despite the enactment of the Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin amendments to the NLRA, both of which restricted union power. What was it that changed in recent years?

The answer to these questions matter, and not just for organizing or increasing union bargaining power and influence. Equality of bargaining power is also necessary to preserve our democratic system of governance. Collective action generated by unions encourages and enables worker involvement in the political process - and not just electoral politics. Unions also campaign for issues that make democracy and democratic engagement flourish.
These issues matter to individuals, to our communities, and to our country as a whole. It is for these reasons that we are launching a series to identify and explain how the NLRA was weakened and what we must do to reverse that process and restore equality of bargaining power and democratic governance in the 21st century. This article is the first in a series to be published weekly.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE ARTICLES...I HOPE I CAN CATCH THEM!
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
10. Free trade and unrestricted capital flow: How billionaires get rich and destroy the rest of us
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 08:08 AM
Apr 2013
http://americablog.com/2013/03/free-trade-and-unrestricted-capital-flow-how-billionaires-get-rich-and-destroy-the-rest-of-us.html

Paul Krugman makes a point in this post about Cyprus that I’d like use to make a broader and more important point. His point is that Cyprus is already off the euro and has created its own currency, the Cyprus Euro, which at the moment is pegged to the other euro at 1:1. Why is a euro in a Cyprus bank different from other euros? Because you can’t move it freely, so it has less real value...My point, though, is a little different. My point is about unrestricted free trade and capital flow in general and why understanding both is crucial to understanding:

▪ The neoliberal free-trade project, and
▪ Wealth inequality in America

...There’s a straight line between “free-trade” — a prime tenet of both right-wing Milton Friedman thinking and left-wing Bill Clinton–Robert Rubin neoliberalism — and wealth inequality in America. In fact, if the billionaires didn’t have the one (a global free-trade regime) they couldn’t have the other (your money in their pocket). And the whole global “all your money are belong to us” process has only three moving parts. Read on to see them. Once you “get it,” you’ll get it for a long time.

What does “free trade” mean?

In its simplest terms, “free trade” means one thing only — the ability of people with capital to move that capital freely, anywhere in the world, seeking the highest profit. It’s been said of Bush II, for example, that “when Bush talks of ‘freedom’, he doesn’t mean human freedom, he means freedom to move money.” At its heart, free trade doesn’t mean the ability to trade freely per se; that’s just a byproduct. It means the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint. Free trade is why factories in China have American investors and partners — because you can’t bring down manufacturing wages in Michigan and Alabama if you can’t set up slave factories somewhere else and get your government to make that capital move cost-free, or even tax-incentivized, out of your supposed home country and into a place ripe for predation.

Can you see why both right-wing kings (Koch Bros, Walmart-heir dukes and earls, Reagan I, Bush I and II) and left-wing honchos (Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Barack Obama) make “free trade” the cornerstone of each of their economic policies? It’s the song of the rich, and they all sing it. I’ve shown this video before, but it bears repeating. When you think about “free trade,” you probably think of the Walmart heirs (or Apple owners) wallowing in wealth from the world’s slave factories. But it’s a joint project by all of our owners (sorry, major left- and right-wing campaign contributors and job creators).


(1) Corporations are not people, and they don’t have ideas or will. They are empty vessels. If you took a neutron bomb to the home office of MegaCorp.com and let it rip, the building, filled to the brim with inventory and IP, would be empty of humans and a dead thing. You could wait for weeks for the offices to act; they wouldn’t.

(2) This is especially true today, since the corporation now serves a different function than it was designed for. At first, a corporation served to make its stockholders moderately wealthy — or at least wealthier.

Modern corporations serve one function only — to make the CEO class obscenely rich.



SEE THIS LINK FOR SENATOR OBAMA'S "AUDITION SPEECH" TO RUBIN AND FRIENDS FOR THE PRESIDENCY, AND ANALYSIS OF HIS SPEECH....SHOCKING!
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
11. CORROBORATION: Why Politicians are NOT Sensitive to Public Opinion on the Economy By Robert Reich
Mon Apr 1, 2013, 08:19 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.nationofchange.org/why-politicians-are-sensitive-public-opinion-same-sex-marriage-immigration-and-guns-not-economy-1364

Why Politicians are Sensitive to Public Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage, Immigration and Guns, But Not on the Economy

Who says American politics is gridlocked?

  • A tidal wave of politicians from both sides of the aisle who just a few years ago opposed same-sex marriage are now coming around to support it. Even if the Supreme Court were decide to do nothing about California’s Proposition 8 or DOMA, it would seem only matter of time before both were repealed.

  • A significant number of elected officials who had been against allowing undocumented immigrants to become American citizens is now talking about “charting a path” for them; a bipartisan group of senators is expected to present a draft bill April 8.

  • Even a few who were staunch gun advocates are now sounding more reasonable about background checks.

    It’s nice to think logic and reason are finally catching up with our elected representatives, but the real explanation for these changes of heart is more prosaic: public opinion. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds support for marriage equality at the highest in the ten years the question has been asked, with 58% of Americans in favor and 36 percent opposed. A similar swing has occurred in favor of immigration reform. A new Pew survey finds that seven-in-ten Americans (71 percent) say there should be a way for people in the United States illegally to remain in this country if they meet certain requirements, while 27 percent say they should not be allowed to stay legally. And most who favor providing illegal immigrants with some form of legal status –43 percent of the public – say they should be allowed to apply for citizenship. Support for gun control is less clear-cut, which may explain why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won’t seek a renewal of the assault-weapon ban. But polls show broad support for universal background checks, and for closing the so-called gun-show loophole.

    It’s possible that public opinion is being influenced by courageous political leaders who are urging action on these issues, but the reverse is more likely. Most politicians have a keen sense for tipping points in public opinion, when, say, support for equal marriage rights or immigration reform becomes broad-based, and advocates become sufficiently organized and mobilized to make life hell for officials who won’t change their minds.

    The exception is in the economic sphere, where public opinion seems beside the point.

  • Before January’s fiscal cliff deal, for example, at least 60 percent of Americans, in poll after poll, expressed strong support for raising taxes on incomes over $250,000. As you recall, though, the deal locked in the Bush tax cut for everyone earning up to $400,000. Yes, legislative deals require compromise. But why is it that deals over economic policy almost always compromise away what a majority of Americans want?

  • Most Americans weren’t particularly concerned about the budget deficit to begin with. They’ve been far more concerned about jobs and wages. Yet maneuvers over the deficit have consistently trumped jobs and wages.

  • Recent polls show Americans would rather reduce the deficit by raising taxes than by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, education, and transportation. Yet Congress seems incapable of making that kind of deal.

  • Some 65 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on large corporations — but both parties are heading in precisely the opposite direction.

  • Half of Americans favor a plan to break up Wall Street’s twelve megabanks, which currently control 69 percent of the banking industry. Only 23 percent oppose such a plan (27 percent are undecided). You might this would at least prompt an examination of the possibility on Capitol Hill and the White House — especially now that the Street is actively eviscerating regulations under Dodd-Frank. But our elected representatives don’t want to touch Wall Street. According to Politico, even the White House believes too-big-to-fail will soon be a closed chapter.

    Why are politicians so sensitive to public opinion on equal marriage rights, immigration, and guns – and so tone deaf to what most Americans want on the economy? Perhaps because the former issues don’t threaten big money in America. But any tinkering with taxes or regulations sets off alarm bells in our nation’s finely-appointed dining rooms and board rooms – alarm bells that, in turn, set off promises of (or threats to withhold) large wads of campaign cash in the next election.

    When political scientists Benjamin Page and Larry Bartels surveyed Chicagoans with an average net worth of $14 million, they found their biggest concern was curbing budget deficits and government spending – ranking these as priorities three times as often as they did unemployment. And – no surprise — these wealthy individuals were also far less willing than are other Americans to curb deficits by raising taxes on high-income people, and more willing to cut Social Security and Medicare. They also opposed initiatives most other Americans favor — such as increasing spending on schools and raising the minimum wage above the poverty level. The other thing distinguishing Page’s and Bartels’ wealthy respondents from the rest of America was their political influence. Two-thirds of them had contributed money (averaging $4,633) in the most recent presidential election. A fifth of them had even “bundled” contributions from others. That money bought the kind of political access most Americans only dream of. About half of these wealthy people had recently initiated contact with a U.S. senator or representative — and nearly half (44 percent) of those contacts concerned matters of relatively narrow economic self-interest rather than broader national concerns.

    This is just the wealthy of one city — Chicago. Multiply it across the entire United States and you begin to see the larger picture of whom our representatives are listening to, and why. Nor does the survey include the institutionalized wealth – and economic clout – of Wall Street and large corporations. Multiply the multiplier. Great wealth can also influence public opinion. It is possible, for example, that the piles of money spent by billionaire Pete Peterson to persuade Americans that the budget deficit is the nation’s most urgent economic problem is now paying off. Recent polls show greater concern about the deficit now than was expressed a few years ago when the deficit represented a much larger percentage of the total economy...

  • OrwellwasRight

    (5,170 posts)
    39. Interestingly, the IMF is beginning to renounce its "free capital" stance.
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 01:19 PM
    Apr 2013

    Last edited Mon Apr 1, 2013, 02:17 PM - Edit history (1)

    But those who benefit by it refuse to change their tune.

    http://www.iisd.org/itn/2013/01/14/the-imfs-new-transfers-policy-and-the-trading-system/

    In late 2012, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officially endorsed an “institutional view” on the management of capital flows. Though the IMF will continue to urge nations to eventually liberalize all capital transfers, henceforth the IMF will advise nations, under certain circumstances, to deploy capital controls on inflows and outflows of capital. In its new view the IMF pointed out that such advice may conflict with obligations that nations have under trade and investment treaties, and offered to provide a forum for reconciliation. This short note provides an overview of the new IMF view, pinpoints how it may conflict with country obligations under trade and investment treaties, and discusses remedies for reform.

    What the IMF decided

    On December 3, 2012 the IMF made public an Executive-Board approved “institutional view” on capital account liberalization and the management of capital flows. In a nutshell, the IMF’s new ‘institutional view” is that nations should eventually and sequentially open their capital accounts (IMF, 2012b). This is indeed in contrast with its view in the 1990s that all nations should be uniformly required to open their capital accounts regardless of the strength of a nation’s institutions. The IMF now recognizes that capital flows also bring risk, particularly in the form of capital inflow surges and sudden stops that can cause a great deal of financial instability. Under such conditions, and under a narrow set of circumstances, according to the new ‘institutional view’ the IMF may recommend the use of capital controls to prevent or mitigate such instability in official country consultations or Article IV reports. In other words, the IMF now sanctions staff and management to recommend the use of capital controls to nations under certain circumstances. And under a very narrow set of circumstances a nation may receive recommendations to discriminate capital flows based on residency.


    The United States Trade Representative, responsible for negotiating all trade agreements and for carrying out policy at the WTO, has yet to respond that it will adjust its negotiating goals accordingly, likely because its Wall Street and US Chamber of Commerce constituents do not want to have to deal with any restrictions on removing their money from developing countries when their economies go south -- even though such rapid extractions of money compound the problem and often eventual losses for investors, not to mention creating havoc for domestic working people.
     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    40. It's becoming obvious that tax rates have to start going into confiscatory ranges
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 01:32 PM
    Apr 2013

    for the top 10%, to prevent private capital exceeding all other things, like government, democracy, etc. No more bought and paid for elections, no more rape and pillaging communities via corporate machinations, no more Capitalism American Empire Style. No more Wall St.

    If this be communism, make the best of it.

    OrwellwasRight

    (5,170 posts)
    43. Some dim poster on NYTimes this morning
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 02:21 PM
    Apr 2013

    posted that communism is where the government takes all the wealth and keeps it for itself. I advised him to read Karl Marx before he comments again on what communism is -- I also let him know that that what he was describing was a lot closer to our current system -- in that those closest to our politicians use and abuse the system to make rules in their own favor, so they can accumulate and keep as much wealth as possible.

    Fuddnik

    (8,846 posts)
    46. I love it.
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 02:45 PM
    Apr 2013

    The only things most people think they know about Marx is that he hated God, and was a bearded hippie.

    Now to actually have read Marx........

    DemReadingDU

    (16,000 posts)
    12. Simon Johnson: Money-Laundering Banks Still Get a Pass From U.S.
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 08:29 AM
    Apr 2013

    3/31/13 Money-Laundering Banks Still Get a Pass From U.S. by Simon Johnson

    Money laundering by large international banks has reached epidemic proportions, and U.S. authorities are supposedly looking into Citigroup Inc. (C) and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

    Governor Jerome Powell, on behalf of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, recently testified to Congress on the issue, and he sounded serious. But international criminals and terrorists needn’t worry. This is window dressing: Complicit bankers have nothing to fear from the U.S. justice system.

    There may be fines, but the largest financial companies are unlikely to face criminal actions or meaningful sanctions. The Department of Justice has decided that these banks are too big to prosecute to the full extent of the law, though why this also gets employees and executives off the hook remains a mystery. And the Federal Reserve refuses to rescind bank licenses, undermining the credibility, legitimacy and stability of the financial system.
    .
    .
    I have failed to find any cases of the Fed ordering the termination of banking activities in the U.S. for a foreign bank after a criminal conviction for money laundering. Nor, for that matter, has the Fed taken action to shut down a bank that signed a deferred prosecution agreement, which, in the case of Standard Chartered (STAN), was an acknowledgment of criminal wrongdoing. Nor has it taken action when such an agreement was violated.
    .
    .
    If you or I tried to launder money, even on a small scale, we would probably go to jail. But when the employees of a very big bank do so -- on a grand scale and over many years -- there are no meaningful consequences.

    more...
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/money-laundering-banks-still-get-a-pass-from-u-s-.html

     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    13. Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4-6 Trillion Dollars By Jim Lobe
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 08:32 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.nationofchange.org/iraq-afghanistan-wars-will-cost-us-4-6-trillion-dollars-1364738329

    Costs to U.S. taxpayers of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will run between four and six trillion dollars, making them the most expensive conflicts in U.S. history, according to a new report by a prominent Harvard University researcher. While Washington has already spent close to two trillion dollars in direct costs related to its military campaigns in the two countries, that total “represents only a fraction of the total war costs”, according to the report by former Bill Clinton administration official Linda Bilmes.

    “The single largest accrued liability of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to war veterans,” she wrote in the 21-page report, ‘The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets’.

    Bilmes, who since 2008 has co-authored a number of analyses on war costs with the World Bank’s former chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz, noted that more than half of the more than 1.5 million troops who have been discharged from active duty since 9/11 have received medical treatment at veterans’ hospitals and have been granted benefits for the rest of their lives. More than 253,000 troops have suffered a traumatic brain injury. Additional costs include the replacement and repair of equipment — which wears out at an estimated six times the peace-time rate — and the accumulation of interest on money borrowed by the Treasury to finance the wars since the nearly two trillion dollars in war costs were not subject to the normal budgetary process.

    So far, Washington has paid some 260 billion dollars in interest charged on war-related borrowing, but the “potential interest cost of the U.S. war debt reaches into the trillions,” according to the report. “One of the most significant challenges to future U.S. national security policy will not originate from any external threat,” she wrote. “Rather it is simply coping with the legacy of the conflicts we have already fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

    MORE GNASHING OF TEETH AT LINK
     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    14. American Special Ops Forces Now Operating in 71 Countries Al Jazeera English
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 08:42 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.alternet.org/world/american-special-ops-forces-now-operating-71-countries?akid=10257.227380.5CzB0n&rd=1&src=newsletter817375&t=16&paging=off

    Military madness spanning the entire planet...ANOTHER ARENA BESIDES THE ECONOMY WHERE THE 99% HAVE NO SAY, WHICH WILL BRING BACK EITHER THE PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES, OR HEREDITARY ENSLAVEMENT AND SERFDOM


    The recent news of a possible shift in the operation of drones from the CIA to the Department of Defense was by and large received with a shrug. Given that the programme would likely be operated by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and under conditions of strictest secrecy, and probably launched from inaccessible "floating bases" on especially configured naval vessels, the shift is not an indicator of a change in the US' assassination policy. And to the putative victims of the drone strikes, it is largely an irrelevant organisational change. The reason, however, that the shift is of relevance more broadly is that it signals the irresistible rise of the special operations community in the post-counterinsurgency era. More than a year ago, in January 2012, President Obama inaugurated the US Defense Strategic Guidance. The document was strategically significant because it announced the "pivot to Asia" alongside continued commitments to the oil sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf. Militarily, it clearly signalled the end of large-scale invasion and occupation of troublesome or intransigent countries in favour of the kind of operations in which the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and its counterterrorism component, the JSOC, excel. This ascendancy is confirmed by the planned expansion of the SOCOM by around 7.5 percent by 2015, from 66,100 civilian and military personnel in 2011 to 71,100 by 2015.

    This expansion of the force, at a time when most US government departments - including the Pentagon itself - are contemplating possible sequestrations, speaks to the increasing importance of a force which can act in the shadows, leaving a "light footprint".

    GREAT, A SHADOW MILITARY TO GO WITH OUR SHADOW BANKING SYSTEM...ALL OUTSIDE THE OVERSIGHT AND CONTROL OF THE 99%

    A recent report by the Center for a New American Security describes the light footprints as a "minimalist" and "non-intrusive" approach to asymmetric warfare combining "air power, special operators, intelligence agents, indigenous armed groups and contractors, often leveraging relationships with allies and enabling partner militaries to take more active roles". US Special Operations Command is perfectly suited for such tasks and is increasingly consolidating its hold over the broad spectrum of military tactics it entails. Established in 1980 and 1987 respectively, JSOC and SOCOM both have their origins in the US military's failed hostage rescue mission in Iran in 1980. The most prominent operations in which the SOCOM has participated or had leading roles have included the invasion of Grenada (1983), rescue operations during the Achille Lauro hijacking (1985), the invasion of Panama and the kidnapping of Manuel Noriega (1989), the Mideast during the Gulf War (1991), the operation to arrest Mohamed Farrah Aidid in Somalia (1993), re-installation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti (1994), classified missions in Bosnia and Kosovo (1996-2002), and of course Afghanistan (2001-present) and Iraq (2003-present). AND WHAT A STELLAR, HONORABLE RECORD THAT IS! ALSO SO INCREDIBLY SUCCESSFUL--NOT.

    The USSOCOM draws from the special operators of the various branches of the US military, including the US Navy SEALs, the Army's Green Berets and the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Marine Corps' Special Operations Regiment, and the Air Force's special operators. The JSOC, the wholly classified sub-unit of the SOCOM, includes even smaller and more elite groups of the Delta Force and the US Navy's Special Warfare Development Group (or DEVGRU) which was responsible for the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But while such operations capture the attention of mainstream media and Hollywood producers, other functions of the SOCOM are less commented upon but just as important...The direct special operations approach usually includes the drone-led assassination programme, and secret special operations forays into a variety of official, unofficial and unannounced battlegrounds in countries around the world. At last count, these countries numbered 71, up from around 60 during the Bush administration. Although these operations get the press, and certainly seem to have a kind of pop culture glamour - with Hollywood clamouring to make films about special operators - the CNAS report helpfully tells us that:

    "Drones and commando raids are the 'tip of the iceberg'. Surgical strikes [sic] are only the most visible (and extreme) part of a deeper, longer-term strategy that takes many years to develop, cannot be grown after a crisis and relies heavily on human intelligence networks, the training of indigenous forces and close collaboration with civilian diplomats and development workers."


    OPERATIONS IN SPECIFIC COUNTRIES ARE LISTED AT LINK--GO READ TO SEE A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE OF WHAT IS DONE IN OUR FORMERLY-GOOD NAME, OF WHICH WE ARE GOING TO BE GUILTY FOR DOING UNAWARES, AROUND THE WORLD...

    Dr Laleh Khalili is a Reader in Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and the author of Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge 2007) and Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies (Stanford 2013).

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    15. China manufacturing activity at 11-month high in March
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:11 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21992163

    Chinese manufacturing has increased at its fastest pace in 11 months during March, indicating that an economic recovery was continuing.

    The Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) was at 50.9 in March, up from 50.1 in February, official data showed. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.

    China's economy is coming out of its worst downturn in 13 years.

    Analysts said that demand and output was being helped by a pick up in domestic demand.

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    16. UK financial regulation overhauled
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:13 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21987829

    The UK's banking regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has been abolished and replaced with two successor organisations.

    The changes mark the end of the system set up by the previous Labour government.

    From 1 April, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) will ensure the stability of financial services firms and be part of the Bank of England.

    The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is now the City's behavioural watchdog.

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    17. Tankan: Japanese business mood improves on weak yen
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:15 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21992165


    Japanese business sentiment improved in the January to March quarter, the Bank of Japan's Tankan survey has indicated.

    But the improvement was less than expected, highlighting the challenge facing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he tries to revive economic growth.

    The big manufacturers' index rose to minus 8 from minus 12 in December. A negative figure indicates pessimists outnumber optimists.

    This is first survey after recent aggressive policy moves in Japan.

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    18. Tech giant Panasonic ‘investigated’ for alleged bribes
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:18 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/01/tech-giant-panasonic-investigated-for-alleged-bribes/

    The US government is investigating whether a unit of Japanese electronics giant Panasonic Corporation paid bribes abroad to ease business deals, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

    Citing company documents, the paper said the probe is focused on Panasonic Avionics Corporation (PAC), a subsidiary based in Lake Forest, California that manufactures in-flight entertainment and communications systems for airlines.

    It said dozens of Panasonic executives and employees based in Asia, Europe and the Middle East have received US government notices that reference the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars US companies and companies listed on US stock exchanges from paying bribes to foreign government officials.

    A January 20 retention notice, which was reviewed by The Journal, told recipients to hold on to documents “concerning any benefits or gifts provided, or the payment of anything of value, by Panasonic or PAC to any airline employee or government officials”.
     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    19. 40 Years After Watergate, It's Almost Impossible to Hold Government Accountable MUST READ!
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:20 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/40-years-after-watergate-its-almost-impossible-hold-government-accountable?akid=10257.227380.5CzB0n&rd=1&src=newsletter817375&t=6

    ...The day Nixon quit, I was in Lafayette Park across from the White House taping promos for our coverage (somewhere I have a color slide of me working with our correspondent while Tom Brokaw teeters on an orange crate next to me, doing a standup). I returned to the park that night, after Nixon’s resignation speech, where a jubilant crowd celebrated his departure. When a garbage truck rolled past, they began chanting, “The moving men are here!”

    Washington was a smaller town then and Watergate had become a cottage industry. Everyone you met had a rumor to spread or a story to tell. Books about the mess sold like crazy — everything from Woodward and Bernstein’s best-selling All the President’s Men to transcripts of the White House tapes to collections of Watergate “recipes.” A friend of mine and I led Watergate tours and peddled bumper stickers on the side: one read, “Nixon Bugs Me, Too.” The other was the simpler yet eloquent “Impeach Nixon.” In those days, D.C. didn’t have cable television to entertain us. It didn’t matter: We had Nixon. Yet make no mistake — for all the general hilarity (and remember, to many, Richard Nixon had been the butt of jokes for decades before; Watergate was just the ultimate punchline), this was a true constitutional crisis. The abuse of presidential power was staggering, from the soliciting of illegal corporate campaign contributions used for hush money and delivered by bagmen, to the illicit actions of the aforementioned plumbers — an operation, by the way, that traced its roots all the way back to the early months of Nixon’s first term. Combined with the ongoing tragedy of Vietnam — including the secret bombing of Cambodia and the violent squelching of antiwar protest — Watergate shook the public’s confidence in government as it hadn’t been since the bleakest days of secession and the Civil War.

    But as several participants at the conference noted, the nation and its institutions did something about it. Committees in both the Senate and House, members of both parties cooperating with one another (!), conducted thorough investigations. In a more competitive, less consolidated news environment, a free press went on the attack (once the reporting of Woodward and Bernstein at The Washington Post, Sy Hersh at The New York Times, Jack Nelson at the Los Angeles Times and others awoke a moribund White House press corps). And the courts worked, from John Sirica, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who cracked down on the Watergate burglars and demanded the White House turn over those audiotapes, to the highest court in the land. As Fred Wertheimer of the reform group Democracy 21 remarked at the conference, “The Supreme Court understood that citizens had a constitutional right to protect their democracy from corruption.” People went to jail, lots of them — even the former attorney general of the United States, John Mitchell. Think about that. Many of them did hard time. Today, we couldn’t even get miscreant bankers to resign in exchange for their billions in bailouts, much less prosecute them for criminal behavior.

    The briefly restored public trust that followed Nixon’s departure started turning back to the cynicism that endures today almost immediately, when his successor Gerald Ford absolved Nixon of his sins with a full presidential pardon. In the years that followed, the erosion has continued. The bagmen have become the banks and Wall Street. Gridlock and intolerance have replaced bipartisanship. The efforts at campaign finance reform that followed Watergate – crushed by Citizens United and other court rulings — have dwindled to the point where, as conference panelist Trevor Potter of the Campaign Legal Center observed, we are “shockingly close again to no contribution limits.” And with 9/11 and the war on terror, including ongoing drone attacks and threats to civil liberties, Morton Halperin noted, “The public is once again accepting an imperial presidency.”

    During its conference, Common Cause presented what it called Uncommon Heroes awards to members of the House Judiciary Committee who served during the crisis, and saluted an Uncommon Heroes of Watergate Honor Roll, a bipartisan collection of “individuals from Richard Nixon’s Enemies List, members of the prosecution team, journalists and House and Senate Committee staff.” All could look back 40 years and be proud they took a stand...the Lessons of Watergate are lessons learned and lost. We’ve got to organize, get our government back and make it accountable. Many believe it will take another scandal the size of Watergate, or worse, to get us back on track. Let’s hope not. Instead, four decades in the future, let there be changes for the good America can celebrate, so we don’t wind up like those old ballplayers on the road, reliving an unforced error, again and again.


    Michael Winship is senior writing fellow at Demos and a senior writer of the new series, Moyers & Company, airing on public television.

    Hotler

    (11,354 posts)
    30. Many believe it will take another scandal the size of Watergate, or worse, to get us back on track.
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 10:23 AM
    Apr 2013

    The crimes of Wall St. are bigger and all we got was "Now is not the time to point fingers."

    Fuddnik

    (8,846 posts)
    34. John Dean said that all the crimes committed during Watergate are legal now.
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 11:23 AM
    Apr 2013

    As for Wall Street, nothing is illegal now. Unless they can find a scapegoat-sacrificial lamb like Martha Stewart.

    If you're a really ruthless prick, they'll never touch you. Or maybe get a Cabinet appointment.

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    21. 15 Charts That Should Have Saudi Arabia Terrified
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:35 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-oil-market-charts-2013-3?op=1

    Saudi Arabia needs high oil prices to function — Below $80 and the kingdom starts getting into trouble.


    But more and more people are switching to natural gas.



    Even in China, oil demand is stalling.


    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    22. US PMI Falls Slightly To 54.6
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:37 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.businessinsider.com/us-pmi-2013-4

    U.S. PMI has fallen slightly to 54.6.
    The previous month was 54.9, and analysts had expected 55.0.
    So this is a slight miss, but not a huge deal.
    Remember, in any one of these PMI/ISM-type surveys, a number above 50 is expansion, so the U.S. manufacturing economy is still clearly in expansion territory.


    Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-pmi-2013-4#ixzz2PDcW5ZpN

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    23. Libor Suits by Bondholders Tossed Over Lack of Damages
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:49 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-29/banks-win-dismissal-of-substantial-portion-of-libor-sui.html

    Banks including Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc (BARC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) won dismissal of antitrust lawsuits by plaintiffs claiming they were harmed by the rigging of the London interbank offered rate.

    In more than two dozen interrelated cases before U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York, the banks were alleged to have conspired to depress Libor by understating their borrowing costs, thereby lowering their interest expenses on products tied to the rates.

    While potential damages were estimated to be in the billions of dollars, the judge ruled the cases must be dismissed because of the inability of litigants that included brokerage Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW), pension funds and other bondholders to show they were harmed. Buchwald, whose March 29 ruling allowed some commodities-manipulations claims to proceed to a trial, said that, while private plaintiffs must show actual harm, her ruling didn’t impede governments from pursuing antitrust claims tied to attempts to manipulate Libor.

    “We recognize that it might be unexpected that we are dismissing a substantial portion of plaintiffs’ claims, given that several of the defendants here have already paid penalties to government regulatory agencies reaching into the billions of dollars,” Buchwald wrote. “There are many requirements that private plaintiffs must satisfy but which government agencies need not.”

    DemReadingDU

    (16,000 posts)
    24. NYSE Announces First-Quarter 2013 Circuit-Breaker Levels
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:50 AM
    Apr 2013

    NYSE Announces First-Quarter 2013 Circuit-Breaker Levels

    NEW YORK, March 28, 2013 -- The New York Stock Exchange will implement new circuit-breaker collar trigger levels for second-quarter 2013 effective Monday, April 1, 2013.

    Circuit-breaker points represent the thresholds at which trading is halted marketwide for single-day declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Circuit-breaker levels are set quarterly as 10, 20 and 30 percent of the DJIA average closing values of the previous month, rounded to the nearest 50 points.

    In second-quarter 2013, the 10-, 20- and 30-percent decline levels, respectively, in the DJIA will be as follows:

    Level 1 Halt
    A 1,450-point drop in the DJIA before 2 p.m. will halt trading for one hour; for 30 minutes if between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.; and have no effect if at 2:30 p.m. or later unless there is a level 2 halt.

    Level 2 Halt
    A 2,900-point drop in the DJIA before 1:00 p.m. will halt trading for two hours; for one hour if between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.; and for the remainder of the day if at 2:00 p.m. or later.

    Level 3 Halt
    A 4,350-point drop will halt trading for the remainder of the day regardless of when the decline occurs.

    Background:
    Circuit-breakers are calculated quarterly. The percentage levels were first implemented in April 1998 and the point levels are adjusted on the first trading day of each quarter. In 2013, those dates are Jan. 2, April 1, July 1 and Oct. 1.

    http://www.nyse.com/press/1364465929027.html


     

    Ghost Dog

    (16,881 posts)
    35. "trading halted marketwide" - I don't think so... Dark Pools will still serve 'insiders', surely.
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 11:34 AM
    Apr 2013

    ¶ As the stock market continues to climb, trading has increasingly migrated from established bourses like the New York Stock Exchange to private platforms, including dark pools, that are largely hidden from public view. The shift is helping big traders hide what they are doing in the markets, and regulators are worried that the development could obscure the true prices of stocks and scare away ordinary investors.

    ¶ The movement, under way for several years, has gathered force recently. The portion of all stock trading taking place away from the public exchanges hit new highs over the last few weeks, amounting to close to 40 percent on several days, up from an average of 16 percent in 2008, according to Rosenblatt Securities...

    ... ¶ In March, Australia introduced new rules to limit trading off-exchange, following the lead of Canada, which put regulations in place last fall. In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission has so far declined to act.

    ¶ The concerns are also evident in the industry itself, where a few dark pools have recently been advertising tools that promise to keep out “gaming” and “toxic” trading practices going on in other dark pools.

    ¶ Dark pools, like public exchanges, give investors a place to connect with buyers and sellers of stock, but the pools are subject to less stringent regulations than public exchanges. Often run by big banks, dark pools do not require buyers and sellers to publicly announce their intention to trade stocks, allowing traders and investors to hide behind a veil that only the operator of the pool can penetrate...

    /... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/business/as-market-heats-up-trading-slips-into-shadows.html?ref=business&_r=1h[]

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    25. Stockman Warns of Crash Of Fed-Fueled Bubble Economy
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:51 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/stockman-warns-of-crash-of-fed-fueled-bubble-economy.html

    The U.S. economy is in a bubble inflated by “phony money” from the Federal Reserve and will burst within a few years, warned David Stockman, who was budget director for President Ronald Reagan.

    In an essay published yesterday in the New York Times (NYT), Stockman wrote that the Fed’s quantitative easing policies in the aftermath of the credit crisis have flooded stock markets with cash even while the “Main Street economy” remains weak. The combination, he wrote, is “unsustainable.”

    “When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008,” wrote Stockman, a former senior managing director at Blackstone Group LP (BX) and a former Republican congressman from Michigan. “Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth.”

    Stockman, 66, is the author of “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America,” which will be published April 2.
     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    57. Ah, no. We AREN'T doing austerity, thanks
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 05:43 PM
    Apr 2013

    There's no good reason for ANYONE to do austerity, much less the US of A.

     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    60. Even now, this country is bursting with options
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 06:00 PM
    Apr 2013

    and the good ones haven't even been used for YEARS!

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    26. Matthew 25 Fund Inspired by Scripture Returns 27%
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 09:55 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-28/matthew-25-fund-inspired-by-scripture-returns-27-.html


    Mackenzie Stroh/Bloomberg Markets
    Mulholland profited in the past four years by sticking to stocks that crashed during the 2008 crisis.

    When the Matthew 25 Fund fell 40 percent in 2008, it kept Mark Mulholland awake at night.

    Mulholland, the founder and sole manager of the mutual fund -- named after a Bible passage -- says he would lie in bed thinking about the damage he had done to his investors, particularly the elderly whose nest eggs might not recover before they died. The assets he managed dwindled to $22 million from $115 million, Bloomberg Markets will report in its May issue.

    What Mulholland didn’t worry about were the stocks in his portfolio.

    “The companies we owned were so cheap that barring a total collapse of the economic system, I knew at some point we were going to make a lot of money,” he says.

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    28. Cohen Eludes U.S. as Latest Case Is Short on Evidence
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 10:17 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/sac-siege-by-u-s-seen-slowing-in-steinberg-s-indictment.html

    Looks can be deceiving when it comes to assessing the U.S. criminal investigation of SAC Capital Advisors LP founder Steven A. Cohen.

    Federal prosecutors have enjoyed a steady drumbeat of indictments over the past few years, punctuated by headline- grabbing 6 a.m. knocks at the door as Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrest the latest member of the inner circle of the $15 billion hedge fund.

    The insider trading indictment last week of SAC fund manager Michael Steinberg, a 16-year veteran of the firm, involved the most senior member of Cohen’s firm charged so far. The splash of his Good Friday arrest followed the charges last year of SAC portfolio manager Mathew Martoma, bringing to nine the number of current or former SAC traders or analysts linked to illegal trades.

    That’s a sizable universe of people who could potentially incriminate Cohen. Yet the closest prosecutors have gotten so far to implicating Cohen himself occurred in Martoma’s case, which involved an alleged 20-minute conversation Martoma had with Cohen about health stocks. The firm netted $276 million on those stocks, trading on illegal tips Martoma got, according to prosecutors. But no evidence was put forth that Cohen, who denies any wrongdoing, knew the tips were improperly obtained.

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    29. U.S. Stocks Fall as American Manufacturing Index Slips
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 10:21 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-01/u-s-stock-futures-drop-s-p-500-may-decline-from-record.html

    U.S. stocks fell, pulling the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) lower after a record high, as a report showed an index for American manufacturing slid in March.

    EBay Inc. gained 3.6 percent after Canaccord Genuity Corp. upgraded the shares to a buy. Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. climbed 1.1 percent after JPMorgan Chase & Co. added the company to its focus list. Ruby Tuesday Inc. rose 6.8 percent after Barron’s reported the casual dining chain may rise to $13 a share. General Mills Inc. fell 0.8 percent after Morgan Stanley downgraded the shares.

    The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent to 1,565.05 as of 10:06 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 9.04 points, or 0.1 percent, to 14,569.50. Trading among S&P 500 shares was 16 percent below the 30-day average at this time of day. U.S. markets were closed March 29 for Good Friday. Markets in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and most of Europe are closed today.

    “We’ve had a whole year of returns in three months,” Tim Hartzell, who helps manage about $425 million as chief investment officer at Sequent Asset Management in Houston, said in a phone interview. “U.S. equities have gained at the expense of other markets, but we may slow down as we go into the summer season.”

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    31. Developing World: Euro Loses Attraction as Reserve Currency
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 10:27 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/developing-nations-retreating-from-euro-as-reserve-currency-a-891887.html

    When the euro was first launched on Jan. 1, 1999, there were hopes in Europe that it might soon rival the US dollar as the world's premier reserve currency. And initially, it seemed that dream was not unrealistic, as countries around the world began filling their coffers with the European common currency.

    Now it looks as though that trend is beginning to reverse, though. Following years of crisis, developing countries are beginning to look elsewhere for their reserve currency needs -- and have spent the last year and a half shedding euros.
    That is the message to be gleaned from the latest installment of the regular International Monetary Fund report on currency reserves held by countries around the world. According to the report, developing economies shed some $45 billion worth of euros in 2012 and have sold close to $90 billion worth of euros since the second quarter of 2011.

    The numbers seem to indicate that the ongoing euro crisis, fueled by high sovereign debt loads in several countries belonging to the common currency union, has eroded global confidence in the euro. During the same period, US dollar holdings among developing economies have continued to rise.

    xchrom

    (108,903 posts)
    32. Bomb from Brussels: Cyprus Model May Guide Future Bank Bailouts
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 10:29 AM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/cyprus-bank-bailout-model-has-increasing-numbers-of-adherents-in-eu-a-891849.html


    Jeroen Dijsselbloem's original game plan was to just keep a low profile. When the 47-year-old Dutch finance minister became head of the Euro Group three months ago, the first thing he did was deactivate his Twitter account. In meetings of the finance ministers of the 17 euro-zone states, he let his counterparts do most of the talking. And whenever he appeared before reporters in Brussels afterwards, he would start with sentences like: "Maybe it's good, if I say something."

    Dijsselbloem seemed determined to become the most boring of all the boring bureaucrats in Brussels -- until last Monday, that is, when he did something no one would have anticipated: He detonated a bomb. The way that large depositors and creditors were being drawn into the bailout of Cypriot banks, he said, could become a model for the entire euro zone. In future aid packages, he said, one must look into whether bank shareholders, bond holders and large depositors could participate so as to spare taxpayers from having to foot the bill. He was announcing nothing less than a 180 degree about face.

    Cyprus as a model? Dijsselbloem had hardly finished his comments before international news agencies began registering its impacts. Markets around the world nosedived, the euro sank to a four-month low and EU leaders had to rush into damage-control mode, as did the man who triggered the storm himself. Dijsselbloem backtracked by saying that Cypriot banks were obviously "a special case." Germany's top-selling daily tabloid, Bild, scoffed that Dijsselbloem would get a new nickname in Brussels: "Dusselbloem," the rough equivalent of "Dimwit-bloem."

    But the ridicule might prove premature. In reality, Dijsselbloem merely expressed something that many Europeans already think. Whether at the European Parliament or in several Continental capitals, many are saying that the time is ripe for the financial sector to assume a greater share of the costs for rescuing ailing banks.

    AnneD

    (15,774 posts)
    38. If Cyprus is the model......
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 01:04 PM
    Apr 2013

    it is time to get your money out now before it can legally be stolen. If that doesn't start a rebellion, or in the very least a bank run, I don't know what will.

     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    37. At home, I don't see the ads, but I'm at library and this came up
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 12:07 PM
    Apr 2013
    http://harrydentpredictions.com/

    2013: THE YEAR THE NEXT FINANCIAL MELTDOWN BEGINS

    Harry S. Dent is a world renowned economist who studies demographic and historic trends to see major events unfolding long before the mainstream media's even has them on their radar. He accurately predicted the 1990-92 recession, foresaw the biggest Bull Market run in US history as well as Japan's Lost Decade and, most recently, sounded the early warnings about the 2008 financial crash.


    Now, it's your chance to get ahead of the curve and find out about the dubious future of gold, the DOW dropping to 3300, real estate declining another 30% and other shocking 2013 predictions that can help you make the right decisions for your family and your business.

    Get Harry's In-Depth Video Presentation When You Sign Up To The FREE Survive & Prosper Investment Newsletter!
     

    Demeter

    (85,373 posts)
    42. Newspapers, Delivered by Drone A province in France is piloting a non-piloted system for distributin
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 01:46 PM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/newspapers-delivered-by-drone/274506/

    Add one more to the list of career paths that are being obviated by robots: news delivery.

    In Auvergne, a province in central France, residents get their daily news the old-fashioned way: through newspapers. But the delivery of said newspapers, apparently, will soon be executed with the help of high tech -- because it'll be done with the help of drones.

    Auvergne's local postal service, La Poste Group, announced on its blog that it is partnering with the drone-maker Parrot to explore the wacky world of high-flying news delivery. The service will be called "Parrot Air Drone Postal," and it will make use of Parrot's quadricopter drones. To test its general feasibility, the delivery service is already being, er, piloted in Auvergne, Silicon Alley Insider reports, with a team of 20 postal workers and 20 drones. (The postal workers control the drones by a specialized app -- which they can use on iOS or Android devices.)

    This may, oui, seem like an April Fool's joke with a French twist. But the idea itself is no joke at all: Drones are hoped to replace humans in package delivery in places far beyond France. The FAA been studiously streamlining the process for public agencies to safely fly drones in U.S. airspace, with the goal of allowing for "the safe integration" of all kinds of drones -- including for commercial purposes -- by September 2015. And FedEx founder Fred Smith has been a vocal proponent of the FedEx's fleet's conversion to unmanned vehicles, on grounds of cost, efficiency, and safety. The paper boys and girls of France may be some of the first package-deliverers to have their jobs transformed by drones. But they won't be the last.

    THE WAY TO BEFUDDLE THE TOPIC OF SKYNET....SHAME! SHAME!

    Fuddnik

    (8,846 posts)
    44. The Tar Sands Disaster.
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 02:36 PM
    Apr 2013
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/opinion/the-tar-sands-disaster.html?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20130401&_r=0



    Op-Ed Contributor
    The Tar Sands Disaster
    By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON
    Published: March 31, 2013 251 Comments


    WATERLOO, Ontario

    IF President Obama blocks the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, he’ll do Canada a favor.

    Canada’s tar sands formations, landlocked in northern Alberta, are a giant reserve of carbon-saturated energy — a mixture of sand, clay and a viscous low-grade petroleum called bitumen. Pipelines are the best way to get this resource to market, but existing pipelines to the United States are almost full. So tar sands companies, and the Alberta and Canadian governments, are desperately searching for export routes via new pipelines.

    Canadians don’t universally support construction of the pipeline. A poll by Nanos Research in February 2012 found that nearly 42 percent of Canadians were opposed. Many of us, in fact, want to see the tar sands industry wound down and eventually stopped, even though it pumps tens of billions of dollars annually into our economy.

    The most obvious reason is that tar sands production is one of the world’s most environmentally damaging activities. It wrecks vast areas of boreal forest through surface mining and subsurface production. It sucks up huge quantities of water from local rivers, turns it into toxic waste and dumps the contaminated water into tailing ponds that now cover nearly 70 square miles.

    (snip)

    Fuddnik

    (8,846 posts)
    47. Novartis loses landmark drug patent battle in India
    Mon Apr 1, 2013, 03:05 PM
    Apr 2013

    Novartis loses landmark drug patent battle in India
    Source: NBC News.com

    The Associated Press , Staff – 5 hrs.
    Novartis loses landmark drug patent battle in India

    People gather at Novartis India headquarters in Mumbai April 1, 2013. India's top court dismissed Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG's attempt to win patent protection for its cancer drug Glivec.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    India's Supreme Court on Monday rejected drug maker Novartis AG's attempt to patent an updated version of a cancer drug in a landmark decision that health activists say ensures poor patients around the world will get continued access to cheap versions of lifesaving medicines.

    Novartis had argued that it needed a patent to protect its investment in the cancer drug Glivec, while activists said the drug did not merit intellectual property protection in India because it was not a new medicine. In response to the ruling, Novartis said it would not invest in drug research in India.

    The court's decision has global significance since India's $26 billion generic drug industry, which supplies much of the cheap medicine used in the developing world, could be stunted if Indian law allowed global drug companies to extend the lifespan of patents by making minor changes to medicines.

    Once a drug's patent expires, generic manufacturers can legally produce it. They are able to make drugs at a fraction of the original manufacturer's cost because they don't carry out the expensive research and development.

    Pratibha Singh, a lawyer for the Indian generic drug manufacturer Cipla, which makes a version of Glivec for less than a tenth of the original drug's selling price, said the court ruled that a patent could only be given to a new drug, and not to those which are only slightly different from the original.

    (snip)

    Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/novartis-loses-landmark-drug-patent-battle-india-1C9145349

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