STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 5 July 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 5 July 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 4 July 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 3 July 2013
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Dow Jones 14,988.55 +56.14 (0.38%)
S&P 500 1,615.41 +1.33 (0.08%)
Nasdaq 3,443.67 +10.27 (0.30%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.50% +0.04 (1.63%)
30 Year 3.49% +0.03 (0.87%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.










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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Demeter]

1. Time for Constitutional Convention: the REBOOT!

If Paramont can do it with Star Trek, we can do it-- with 237 years of experience learning where the pitfalls are....PROVIDED we have democrats in charge of the process and the quality control.

And yes, the Teabaggers have some good points, too. They just cannot be in charge.

Perhaps it's time to organize some state delegations at the grassroots level. One thing I insist on: equal representation of the sexes. No more all boys games.

Furthermore, I would insist that the top 10% were barred from participating in anything except maybe an advisory capacity--maybe not even that.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. And just what "good points" would a teabagger have?

If you don't mind my asking?

[Demeter]

11. In their simple, unguarded way, they don't like NSA any more than we do

and in a democracy, it's majority rule. If the Teabaggers had some decent guidance, they could help re-establish the government on a less-fascist footing, and with proper management, they could come towards the light.

They don't think the country is doing well, either. Their theories as to why may be faulty, but their sense of wrongness isn't.

[tclambert]

14. I thought Republicans were all defending the NSA and leading the charge to vilify Snowden

as some sort of traitor. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is a fairly common right wing talking point. Or are they just OK with spying on women's vaginas? I know they don't want any oversight of what happens in corporate boardrooms where thousands or millions of people might become victims of vicious greed (wipe out pension funds, find ways to pollute the air and water without leaving evidence commoners could use in lawsuits, put dangerous chemical plants upwind of large communities, lie to stockholders with fraudulent accounting, that sort of thing). But when it comes to giving up freedoms in the supposed pursuit of imaginary terrorists, they are fine with the Patriot Act, warrant-less wiretapping, secret FISA courts, and suspending habeas corpus.

[Demeter]

15. Teabaggers are not necessarily GOP-owned

They may be fellow travelers with the GOP at present, but I think they are well aware that the GOP doesn't like or respect them.

Which gives anyone else a way to win them over. Because we need a majority of the People.

[AnneD]

38. I have thought for some time now....

Last edited Fri Jul 5, 2013, 02:07 PM - Edit history (1)

That politics is not linearn but circular. This is the classic divide and conquer ploy.

[Demeter]

3. How Unreasonable Searches of Private Documents Caused the American Revolution JUAN COLE

http://www.juancole.com/2013/07/unreasonable-documents-revolution.html



...In the New World, however, colonial authorities ignored this important case and began issuing what were called “writs of assistance,” a kind of blanket search warrant that allowed the crown’s tax authorities to try to combat smuggling by indiscriminate search and seizure. (We would now call them “National Security Letters.”) Attorney James Otis took the case of 50 merchants who sued the British crown over these overly broad warrantless searches, and his powerful speech condemning these practices was heard by John Adams, who considered it the spark that led to the American Revolution.

George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 forbade these writs of assistance. Thomas Jefferson depended heavily on that document when he authored the Declaration of Independence. When he talks about “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” one of the things he means by liberty is that the government shouldn’t be able to snoop at will through your private letters. The sentiment against warrantless searches and overly broad writs of assistance was put into the constitution by James Madison, with what became the 4th Amendment. Over time exceptions were granted to the general principle that the government cannot at will see your papers. One of these exceptions is the “plain view” principle. I.e. if you send a postcard through the mail, you’re not assured of privacy since anyone can see the message you wrote on it. America’s current national security state, which is a profound betrayal of the Constitution, holds that our email and our documents in the cloud are like postcards and thus can be examined at will by intelligence analysts and law enforcement. I doubt any ordinary Americans thinks that their email correspondence and digital documents are anything at all like a postcard.

Another exception, instituted as recently as 1979, is the stupid “third-party doctrine,” which comes out of a fascist court ruling that since you share your phone records with your telephone company, you can’t expect them to be private from the government. What? What brain-dead jurist thought that up. When I contract as a private citizen with a business for a set of legal transactions, that is none of the government’s business. A law is needed to overturn this ridiculous doctrine. We need a privacy law in the United States that would settle these issues for electronic papers and reinforce the plain language of the Fourth Amendment, which is by now almost a dead letter. The argument that we have to give away the 4th amendment because of “terrorism” is equally stupid. (King George III set aside the need for warrants and specific searches on the grounds of fighting “smuggling,” the precedent for our current use of “terrorism” for this purpose). Charles Kurzman points out that there have only been 100 terrorist plots on US soil since 2008 and that the NSA only claims to have disrupted 10 of them through electronic surveillance. There have in those 5 years been 25,000 terrorist attacks worldwide, of which the NSA claims to have foiled 50 through electronic surveillance. So they are not actually so effective that we should be eager just to abrogate a whole amendment to the Constitution over it. And, moreover, there were 70,000 violent fatalities in the United States during this period since 2008, and 20 of those were owing to terrorism.

This is why I say those willing to kick the constitution to the curb over fear of “terrorism” are sheep, not bravehearts. And the government officials who issue thousands of ‘national security letters’ for warrantless searches every year and requisition Verizon business records on millions of customers, are frankly betraying the Constitution.

[Demeter]

4. Central banks rattle euro, pound

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollar-up-vs-euro-as-draghi-set-for-center-stage-2013-07-04?siteid=YAHOOB

The Bank of England on Thursday signaled that it won’t be raising interest rates anytime soon, lifting the FTSE 100 and putting big pressure on the British pound in the process.

The European Central Bank, which didn’t budge on its main financing rate, followed up with a similar tone as President Mario Draghi vowed to keep rates low, or maybe even push them lower. This sent the euro EURUSD -0.09% sharply lower against the dollar...The ECB meeting was the first since U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed may slow the pace of its own monetary stimulus by as early as this year. That projection helped trigger a rise in government bond yields worldwide. The BOE, with newly-installed Governor Mark Carney at the helm, said the recovery is on track but it “remains weak by historical standards and a degree of slack is expected to persist for some time.”

The British pound fell 1.2% AGAINST THE DOLLAR. The Bank of England decided to keep its key lending rate at a record low 0.5% and to leave the size of its bond-buying program unchanged at 375 billion pounds ($572 billion). The euro also lost ground against the Japanese yen on Thursday, EURJPY +0.13% , buying ¥129.63 compared with ¥129.90. The euro on Wednesday marked its first loss against the yen in five sessions.

“Thus far, the U.S. dollar offers the only real safety amid higher U.S. and euro-zone yields, the latter fueled by risk aversion on bad news from the region,” wrote Dean Popplewell, a currency strategist at Oanda.

SAFETY IS A RELATIVE TERM...I FIND SAFETY IN MY RELATIVES, FOR EXAMPLE!

[Demeter]

5. ECB, abandoning tradition, commits to record low rates

http://news.yahoo.com/ecb-holds-rates-euro-crisis-threatens-return-122138150.html

The European Central Bank broke with precedent by declaring it would keep interest rates at record lows for an extended period and may yet cut further, responding to turbulence caused by the U.S. Federal Reserve's exit plan from money-printing.

Less than two hours after the Bank of England gave a steer about future interest rate moves, ECB President Mario Draghi followed suit, abandoning the euro zone central bank's customary insistence that it never precommits on policy. Draghi said the decision to issue 'forward guidance' was driven by market volatility, which took hold after the Fed last month set out a plan to begin slowing its stimulus.

"The Governing Council expects the key ECB rates to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time," Draghi told a news conference after the ECB left interest rates at 0.5 percent, calling it a "very significant step"..."50 basis points is not the lower bound," he said.

Draghi did not say exactly how long ECB rates would stay at record lows. "It's not six months, it's not 12 months. It's an extended period of time."


SOUNDS LIKE A PANIC TO ME

[Demeter]

6. ECB Says Debt Crisis Weighed on Role of Euro in Global Markets

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/ecb-says-debt-crisis-weighed-on-role-of-euro-in-global-markets.html

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said unsound public finances in the euro area have curbed the single currency’s use in global financial markets.

“In 2012 the euro-area sovereign debt crisis continued to weigh on the international use of the euro, which declined moderately in some market segments,” Draghi said in the foreword of an ECB report published today on the international role of the currency. “The persistent fragmentation of the euro-area financial system is one of the main underlying causes of these developments, as it affects the depth and liquidity of euro-area capital markets.” MORE

YA THINK? THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

[Demeter]

7. EU charges banks with blocking exchanges from derivatives market

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/01/us-eu-banks-cds-idUSBRE9600C320130701

EU watchdogs have charged 13 top investment banks with blocking exchanges' access to the lucrative credit derivatives market, hitting the sector with the latest in a growing list of regulatory headaches. Monday's move by the European Commission, which could result in hefty fines, comes as major banks also come under investigation for suspected rigging of lending benchmarks including Euribor and Libor.

The Commission said banks including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, along with financial data company Markit and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), had barred Deutsche Boerse and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange from the credit default swaps (CDS) business between 2006 and 2009. BEWARE THE MERC! OR ANYTHING OUT OF CHICAGO

CDS, which are worth more than 10 trillion euros ($13 trillion) so far this year, allow an investor to bet on whether a company or country will default on its bonds within a fixed period of time. They were originally over-the-counter (OTC) or non-exchange traded contracts, but the market is shifting to exchanges since regulatory efforts to boost transparency began. The lack of transparency on OTC products has been a key target of regulators following the 2007-2009 crisis. The CDS case is one of several opened by the EU antitrust regulator into financial services since the crisis. Banks and other companies involved could be fined up to 10 percent of their global turnover if found guilty of infringing EU rules.

"It would be unacceptable if banks collectively blocked exchanges to protect their revenues from over-the-counter trading of credit derivatives," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement on Monday.

"Over-the-counter trading is not only more expensive for investors than exchange trading, it is also prone to systemic risks."

The Commission said it had sent a statement of objections or charge sheet, which sets out suspected anti-competitive activities, to the companies and bodies concerned...

[Demeter]

8. Europe Says Trade Talks With US To Start Monday Despite Concerns Over Spy Claims

MEANING THEY'RE IN TOO DEEP ALREADY....HAVING TOTALLY UNFIT THEMSELVES FOR COMPETITION BY CHAINING EUROPE TO THE EURO, THEY WANT TO LATCH ONTO UNCLE SAM'S TEAT...TOO BAD HE'S A BULL, NOT A COW.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/07/02/europe-says-trade-talks-with-us-to-start-monday-despite-concerns-over-spy-claims/?mod=dist_smartbrief

The European Union will launch broad trade talks with the U.S. in Washington next week despite French and German concerns about reports of U.S. spying.

France and Germany had demanded that Washington respond to news reports that the National Security Agency spied on European institutions, the latest diplomatic blow-up from revelations by fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

French President François Hollande on Monday said, “we cannot have any negotiations or deals” until France and the EU get guarantees that the U.S. is not spying on its European allies. German officials said the trade talks could proceed but “only on the basis of trust.”

On Tuesday, the Brussels-based European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and lead trade negotiator, said the formal trade talks would start the week of July 8 as planned...

[Demeter]

13. So who, exactly, re-routed Evo Morales's plane?

http://www.correntewire.com/so_who_exactly_re_routed_evo_moraless_plane

Imagine if the Chinese put the screws on a couple of China-friendly African countries to refuse airspace for Obama's Air Force One because they suspected Liu Xiao Bao or some other dissident was aboard. And that the US President was forced to make an emergency landing for fuel as a result. And when he landed the local authorities forced a search of Air Force One. Major headlines, right? 24 hour carpet coverage. We'd probably have half the Pacific Fleet headed to the South China Sea. Well, that scenario is more or less what's just happened to Bolivian president Evo Morales as he tried to fly across Europe on the way home from Moscow.

Longtime Correntians will notice that all the media coverage so far--mostly from Euro sources, as the US media has relegated it to second or third tier news-- lapses into that oh-so-convenient lack of agency passive voice. For instance, from the France 24 coverage linked above:

Bolivian President Evo Morales took off from Vienna on Tuesday after being diverted {By whom?} and held up {names, please!} for more than 14 hours amid suspicions that US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board his jet.

China Daily even comes up with an interesting new locution to describe what amounts to a diplomatic airjacking: "Deroutage"! The Guardian is a little better on the cause and effect:

France and Portugal prevented the plane's passage from Russia to Bolivia on Tuesday, suspecting that whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board. Bolivian vice-president Alvaro Garcia Linera says the plane was 'kidnapped by imperialism'

What I'd like to see (I'm not holding my breath) is a reported account, step by step, of what actually happened. Why did France, Portugal (and possibly) Spain refuse, seemingly at the last minute, to let Morales' Bolivian Air Force One enter their airspace? Who made the decisions, and under whose orders? And why did anyone think that Snowden was on a plane that left from a different Moscow airport on the opposite side of the city from the one he's marooned in? I'm not expecting we'll get much truth out of anyone, but I'd at least like to see the French, Portuguese, Spanish, Austrian--and of course the US officials responsible for this outrageous action forced to account for it.

The question I'd really like to get the answer to is this: What's this 30 year old hacker got in his hard drives that is worth risking an international kerfluffle? Or is this simply the last nail in the coffin of our arrogance: that the USA has reached the point where we don't even think twice about doing whatever we want, wherever it suits us. Remember those long ago days of cover ups and covert actions? So much extra work and bother. Thank goodness those days are over. Send in the drones.

Happy fourth of July.

update, 8:28pm
From the NYT, more fuzzy agency (in italics. With all those reporters expensively posted in all those cities, why isn't anyone addressing the question of who triggered the detention of President Morales, and for what purpose?:

Mr. Snowden has been holed up at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow for more than a week, hoping to receive a positive response to the asylum requests he has made to several countries, and Mr. Morales’s remark may have set off suspicion {whose suspicion? The US? If not the US, why would any other nation be concerned about this?} that he was bringing the fugitive aboard.

After taking off from Moscow, Mr. Morales’s plane asked permission to land in France to refuel, according to Carlos Romero, the minister of government in La Paz. But France refused and denied the plane permission to enter French airspace, Bolivian officials said. Portugal had also previously refused to let the plane land for refueling in Lisbon.

Mr. Morales was finally given permission {again, by whom?} to land in Vienna, where he spent the night. Mr. Morales told reporters in Vienna that he had not met Mr. Snowden in Moscow and that he had previously known little about the case.

[Demeter]

16. Ecuador says it found a hidden microphone at its London embassy

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/03/us-britain-ecuador-microphone-idUSBRE9620JS20130703

Ecuador has found a hidden microphone inside its London embassy, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is living, and will disclose on Wednesday who controls the device, its foreign minister said.

Ricardo Patino said the microphone was found inside the office of the Ecuadorean ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ana Alban, at the time of a visit to the embassy by Patino to meet with Assange on June 16. Assange lives and works in a different room within the embassy.

The Foreign Office in London declined to comment immediately on the allegation and Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said he did not comment on security issues...

[Demeter]

17. SEE ALSO: Evo Morales’s controversial flight over Europe, minute by heavily disputed minute

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/03/evo-morales-controversial-flight-over-europe-minute-by-heavily-disputed-minute/

[Demeter]

9. Eurozone unemployment hits fresh high

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jul/01/eurozone-unemployment-record-high

Jobless rate reached 12.1% across the region in May, with youth unemployment nearing 24%...

...Seventeen members of the eurozone have higher unemployment rates than a year ago, and 10 have lower rates.

Economists had forecast an even higher unemployment rate of 12.3% for May in a Reuters poll. They warned the unemployment crisis could well get worse before it gets better...

[Demeter]

10. Venezuela Stock Market Up 144% -- Best in World

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=830612&CategoryId=10717



....The Venezuela Stock Market closed the first six months of the year up 143.96% in bolivar terms, making it number one in the world. However, because of an official rate devaluation in February, the market was only up 66.52% in official rate US dollar terms, but still the best in the world to Japan's 32% and Nigeria's 29% rise....

[golfguru]

45. How long is it since Chavez died?

[Demeter]

12. Cohen Declines to Testify in SAC Insider Case

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/sacs-steven-cohen-declines-to-testify/?_r=0


Steven A. Cohen has declined to testify before a grand jury, raising the stakes in the government’s long-running insider trading investigation into his giant hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors.

Rather than subject Mr. Cohen to wide-ranging questions from prosecutors in a grand jury setting, his lawyers have informed the government that he would assert his constitutional right against self-incrimination, according to two people briefed on the matter.

In contrast, five senior SAC executives who also received subpoenas have met with prosecutors in recent weeks, said the people briefed on the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the case. It is unclear whether those interviews were in lieu of testifying before the grand jury. The five are Thomas J. Conheeney, the firm’s president; Solomon Kumin, chief operating officer; Steven Kessler, chief compliance officer; Phillipp Villhauer, head of trading; and Anthony Vaccarino, a portfolio manager.

None of the executives have been accused of any wrongdoing. And neither the firm nor Mr. Cohen, who owns it, has been charged. Mr. Cohen, 57, has maintained that he behaved appropriately at all times...

[Demeter]

18. What REALLY Caused the Coup Against the Egyptian President

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/what-really-caused-the-coup-against-the-egyptian-president.html

Egypt’s Support for Intervention in Syria Was the Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back

The protests in Egypt against president Mohammed Morsi were – according to the BBC – the largest in history.

The Egyptian military threw Morsi out in a coup today.

Why?

Irish Times reports:

Army concern about the way President Mohamed Morsi was governing Egypt reached tipping point when the head of state attended a rally packed with hardline fellow Islamists calling for holy war in Syria, military sources have said.

***

Mr Morsi himself called for foreign intervention in Syria against Mr Assad, leading to a veiled rebuke from the army, which issued an apparently bland but sharp-edged statement the next day stressing that its only role was guarding Egypt’s borders.

***

“The armed forces were very alarmed by the Syrian conference at a time the state was going through a major political crisis,” said one officer, whose comments reflected remarks made privately by other army staff. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk to the media.

***

For the army, the Syria rally had crossed “a national security red line” by encouraging Egyptians to fight abroad, risking creating a new generation of jihadists, said Yasser El-Shimy, analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Obama had recently sent American troops to prop up Mursi, and the protesters were furious at the U.S. for backing Islamic radicals.

[Demeter]

19. China Introduces Death Penalty for Serious Cases of Pollution

http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Introduces-Death-Penalty-for-Serious-Cases-of-Pollution.html

...China has quite easily the worst pollution levels in the world. Levels of small particulate matter in the atmosphere of cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, and others, is often recorded at seven times higher than the air quality standard set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Factories in the Pearl River Delta have released so much pollution into the water that it has created a dead zone that stretches from the river mouth several miles out into the sea. A recent study by the Health Effects Institute reported that over a million people die prematurely every year in China due to air pollution.

It offers some relief then that they seem to be taking environmental crimes very seriously, after Chinese authorities have just given courts the power to hand out death sentences when dealing with cases of serious pollution.

Obviously an extreme approach, but maybe it is the only way to actually deal with the problem...

[Demeter]

20. Paul Krugman - Nobody Pays Any Attention To What I Say

JOIN THE CLUB, DR. KRUGMAN. YOU TOO CAN BE A JEWISH MOTHER....

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/nobody-pays-any-attention-to-what-i-say/


Or that’s what people keep telling me. Actually, one of the odd but revealing things about modern conservatives is the way they alternate between paranoia about the vast left-wing conspiracy and insistence that people who disagree with them are part of a tiny fringe with no real following. Joe Scarborough thinks (or thought — has he updated?) that I was all alone in questioning deficit panic; the fairly large anti-me industry has been insisting for around a decade that I’ve lost all credibility except among credulous New York liberals.

So, on the general principle that if I am not for myself, who will be for me: that left-wing rag the Wall Street Journal has a new assessment, based on some supposedly objective criteria (but not including Twitter followers) of the most influential business thinkers. They see a big change since the last time they did this, five years ago. Back then, business strategy gurus — authors of books on reengineering the search for excellence in the total quality six-sigma chaos, and all that — dominated the list. This time, the top thinkers are:

1.Paul Krugman
2. Joseph Stiglitz
3. Bill Gates
4. Michael Porter
5. Thomas Friedman
6. Eric Schmidt
7. Richard Branson
8. Malcolm Gladwell
9. Robert Reich
10. Jack Welch
11. Muhammad Yunus
12. Niall Ferguson
13. Michael Dell
14. Howard Gardner
15. Jimmy Wales

Let me say, the fact that Joe Stiglitz is up there makes me more optimistic about the world; as I’ve written in the past, he’s an insanely great economist, in ways that you really can’t comprehend unless you do economic modeling, but until now I would never have envisioned him having the kind of reach he now does.

Something else, which the WSJ doesn’t emphasize, is that the list isn’t just heavy on economists; it’s heavy on liberal economists. I don’t think that’s an accident, and I don’t think it’s purely political. The fact is that in an era of markets gone massively bad, conservative economists don’t have much to offer except excuses.

Obviously it’s not completely one-sided; going down the list a bit further I see proof that PT Barnum was right. But still, iinteresting.

I SUPPOSE HE MEANS FRIEDMAN, AND JACK WELCH...

[Demeter]

21. Fed delays swaps rule for Goldman Sachs OF COURSE THEY DID

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-delays-swaps-rule-for-goldman-sachs-2013-07-03

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - In a major concession, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday gave Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS -0.32% two more years to comply with a requirement that it divest part of its derivatives business to a separately capitalized unit. The Fed said Goldman Sachs would have until July, 2015 to comply. Known as the Lincoln Rule, after former Arkansas Democrat Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the measure was set up to have riskier credit derivatives trades take place in a separately capitalized unit so that any trading failure there would not have access to the institution's commercial bank division, which is backed by insured deposits and taxpayers through the Federal Reserve's discount window. Other agencies last month reportedly notified Bank of America Corp. BAC -0.54% and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM -0.06% and other institutions that they would have any additional 24 months to comply with the regulations. In addition, bipartisan bills have started to advance in the House and Senate seeking to transform the provision and allow some commodity, equity and credit derivatives tied to asset-backed securities (such as packaged mortgage securities) to take place in the federally-insured bank.

[Demeter]

22. You are getting sleepy....sleepy....

well, at least I am. G'night, folks.

[xchrom]

23. Portugal coalition will survive, PM says

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23194657

Portugal's prime minister says he has negotiated a "formula" to keep his coalition government intact after two resignations plunged it into crisis.

The political uncertainty had sent the interest rate on Portuguese 10-year bonds soaring above 8%, but on Friday the rate fell back to 6.8%.

PM Pedro Passos Coelho says his centre-right coalition partner has pledged to maintain its crucial support.

The government is struggling to fulfil tough bailout conditions.

[Demeter]

24. THE OBAMA-doesn't-CARE COMPENDIUM

PUTTING ALL THE EGGS HE LAID IN ONE BASKET, SO TO SPEAK...

If You Haven’t Figured Out How to Make the Employer Mandate Work Yet, How Will Another Year Help?

firedoglake.com/2013/07/03/if-you-havent-figured-out-how-to-make-the-employer-mandate-work-yet-how-will-another-year-help-2/

The most concerning aspect about the Obama administration’s decision to delay the employer mandate is the justification for the delay. The Treasury Department is basically claiming that the reporting system they originally created to try to make the poorly designed mandate work is incredibly burdensome. From the Treasury:

The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin. This is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees. Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing this transition. Just like the Administration’s effort to turn the initial 21-page application for health insurance into a three-page application, we are working hard to adapt and to be flexible about reporting requirements as we implement the law.

Here is some additional detail. The ACA includes information reporting (under section 6055) by insurers, self-insuring employers, and other parties that provide health coverage. It also requires information reporting (under section 6056) by certain employers with respect to the health coverage offered to their full-time employees. We expect to publish proposed rules implementing these provisions this summer, after a dialogue with stakeholders – including those responsible employers that already provide their full-time work force with coverage far exceeding the minimum employer shared responsibility requirements – in an effort to minimize the reporting, consistent with effective implementation of the law.

This does beg the question: if you haven’t figured out how to make it work yet, how will another year will help? It is not like the implementation process was rushed. It was one of the longest ones for a piece of legislation ever. The administration had four years to work out the kinks but still haven’t. The other major provisions the administration has previously delayed, the SHOP exchanges and the Basic Health Plan, were at least not core to the basic structure of the law. As quasi-standalone programs it is possibly justifiable to ignore them in order to focus all the limited resources on the core structural elements. The employer mandate is different. It is a core part of the basic structure of the law. It was meant to expand coverage by getting more people covered at work and to prevent a possible death spiral on the new exchanges with companies dumping the sickest employees. It is necessary to make the system work as advertised. The administration should have been heavily focused on getting it ready. It should have been a top priority.

The fact that after three years they haven’t figured out how to make it work well is worrying. The problem might not be with their previous plan to implement this provision but that the very poorly designed employer mandate is unworkable.

The politics of delaying Obamacare By Sarah Kliff

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/02/the-politics-of-delaying-obamacare/

The White House just swapped one political headache for another. By delaying a requirement that all large employers provide health insurance, the Obama administration heads off the unseemly spectacle of companies vowing to cut jobs or workers’ hours to avoid the costly mandate.

But the late Tuesday action is not a free pass: It contributes to critics’ claims that the White House does not have the ability to launch its biggest legislative accomplishment on schedule...The president’s health care law was leading to workers losing hours — or losing their jobs altogether...

Health Law Delay Puts Exchanges in Spotlight

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/business/health-law-delay-puts-exchanges-in-spotlight.html?ref=business&_r=0

Employees who now have to wait another year to get health coverage through their employer will have little recourse but to buy their own insurance at the newly created state exchanges. The Obama administration’s decision, announced on Tuesday, to delay for a year a requirement that larger employers provide insurance or pay a penalty has made the operation of the state exchanges — where individuals can shop for insurance starting Oct. 1 — more critical to the success of the new health care law.

The delay is viewed as an unspoken acknowledgment by federal officials of the size of the task ahead, according to policy experts and benefits consultants. By putting off the employer requirements, officials are in a position to concentrate on making sure the state exchanges work.

“The real focus is now getting the individual exchanges and premium tax credits up and running,” said Timothy S. Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University who closely follows the new law, known as the Affordable Care Act. In addition to the creation of the exchanges, the law’s broad market reforms of the insurance industry and the expansion of Medicaid will continue, Mr. Jost said, adding, “I just don’t see this as a game changer.”

Also still in effect is the requirement that people without insurance buy it by 2014 or face fines. Subsidies will be available for people who meet income requirements...

THE BLOG CORRENTE HAS ITS OWN COMPENDIUM, CALLED THE OBAMACARE CLUSTERFUCK:

http://www.correntewire.com/obamacare_clusterfuck


AND IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR COMIC RELIEF, THERE'S NPR'S CHIRPY CONTRIBUTION:

You Ask, We Answer: Demystifying The Affordable Care Act

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/07/01/196335133/you-ask-we-answer-demystifying-the-affordable-care-act?ft=1&f=1001

The biggest changes in health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act are set to begin less than three months from now. Oct. 1 is when people can start signing up for coverage in new state health exchanges. The policies would kick in on Jan. 1, 2014.

It can all be a little confusing, we agree. So two weeks ago, we asked what you wanted to know about the health law.

You weren't shy; our inbox was stuffed. Here are some answers. If you don't see your question, or one like it, don't despair. We'll be doing this again periodically throughout the summer and fall....



ALL OF THIS GOES TO POINT OUT VERY PAINFULLY HOW OBAMA IS NOT EVEN LBJ, LET ALONE FDR, THAT HIS "BRAIN TRUST" IS MORE ACCURATELY A "BRAIN BUST" AND WE ARE MOST DEFINITELY SCREWED UNTIL SOMEBODY IN DC GETS A CLUE (OF BOOTED OUT).

UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER, ANYONE?

[Fuddnik]

34. The FUBAR Presidency.

Or, in pilot terms, he's screwed the pooch.

You take a good idea, Universal Single Payer Healthcare, that works everywhere else in the world, and turn it into an unworkable, unpopular, bureaucratic nightmare.

[Demeter]

25. Likonomics: what's not to like; Stimulus v reform in China

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/07/stimulus-v-reform-china

JAPAN is still enjoying the effects of Abenomics, a campaign to reflate the economy named after Shinzo Abe, the prime minister. (The campaign stopped consumer prices, excluding fresh food, falling in the year to May.) China, on the other hand, is now enduring the effects of something called "Likonomics".

Pronounced lee-conomics, the term has nothing to do with Facebook's economy of endorsements. It refers instead to the emerging doctrine of Li Keqiang, China's prime minister, who has overseen the country's economy since March. The term was coined on June 27th by three economists at Barclays Capital: Yiping Huang, Jian Chang and Joey Chew.

Like the three "arrows" of Abenomics, Mr Li's strategy comprises three parts, they argue. Unlike the arrows of Abenomics, however, all of them hurt.

Likonomics stands for:

1. No stimulus. Whereas Abenomics embraces both monetary and fiscal stimulus, Likonomics champions neither. In a bracing speech to officials on May 13th, Mr Li argued that China had little scope for stimulus or government-directed investment. In China, like the United States, stimulus is now a dirty word. But it fell into disrepute for opposite reasons. In America, stimulus failed to win favour because it was too small. In China the post-crisis stimulus was discredited because it was too big.

2. Deleveraging. In China, credit, broadly defined, has been growing much faster than GDP. The stock of "total-social financing", an eclectic measure of loans, corporate bonds and a bit of equity financing, is now about 190% of GDP. Mr Li is committed to lowering this ratio, according to the Barclays economists, who cite last month's alarming cash crunch in the interbank market as evidence.

3. Structural reform. Mr Li talks a lot about the need for structural reform. "Reform is 'the biggest dividend' for China," he has said. At a May meeting of the State Council, China's cabinet, he outlined many worthwhile initiatives, from liberalising interest rates to raising utility prices. The hope is that he will flesh out these proposals at a big communist-party meeting in the autumn (the third plenum of the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party).

There is a lot to like about Likonomics, especially its third arrow. But I have some qualms about it. In particular, I worry that it reflects the growing influence of China's "pain caucus"...

[Demeter]

26. Diplomatic Immunity For Your Assets In Interesting Times!

http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/5/19/diplomatic-immunity-for-your-assets-in-interesting-times.html

Since I write so much about financial fiascos, debacles, nightmares, and entanglements, I’ve been asked by my readers about ways to protect assets in this environment. I had to disappoint them: I don’t give financial advice. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have all the answers. But I just finished reading an excellent book on precisely that topic, so I decided to review it.

Going Global 2013, A Special Report from Casey Research, starts with the premise that we live in interesting times, in a world that has, let’s say, some issues. Particularly concerning financial safety.

- There is the toxic mix of the “dubious dollar,” mauled continually by the Fed’s money-printing operations, and the gigantic US deficits and debt.

- Then there is the risk of “lightning-fast asset seizures,” such as when the IRS thinks you haven’t paid your taxes or when a government employee gets your name confused with someone on a blacklist, and suddenly your bank and brokerage accounts are locked. You might not even have access to cash to hire a lawyer to help recover your property.

- Not like it hasn’t happened before: “gold confiscation” is something the US government resorted to in 1933, and might resort to again. “Investment controls” were practiced in the US in the 1940s and 1960s; if imposed again, it might become impractical or illegal to buy or keep assets outside the US, whether for effective diversification or for taking advantage of profit opportunities.

- Already a reality, or becoming one: “Rising income taxes” and “exorbitant estate taxes and shifting rules” that make tax optimization that much more important. And finally, one of the craziest risks in the US, “predatory lawsuits” that can hit anyone, particularly those with deep pockets.

But there are strategies to deal with these risks: true international diversification. The authors – six of them, all specialists in their field – begin step by step with the simplest measures, though in today’s interesting times, even they aren’t simple anymore.

So the authors lay out how to open foreign bank or brokerage accounts – a form of currency diversification that is becoming increasingly tough for US citizens because many foreign banks no longer accept them as clients. Later in the book, they propose tactics, such as establishing a non-US Limited Liability Company (LLC), which conveys numerous advantages, including a warmer welcome at foreign banks. Such an LLC can open accounts where an American cannot; it can discourage “would-be lawsuit attackers”; and it can be crucial in estate planning. They dive into the issues of gold storage in the US vs. overseas, stock markets in other countries, and foreign annuities and life insurance. Then they move to more ambitious topics: setting up a self-directed IRA, such as an Open Opportunity IRA, which reduces the hassles of a regular self-directed IRA. It can invest internationally, buy real estate or rental property down under, for example, or get a brokerage account in Singapore.

But the “permanent solution” is an international trust that places your assets in a more benign legal environment – the arrangement can be involved and might require a leap of faith: “The only way to achieve complete protection for your wealth is to let someone else own it for you!” the authors write. Though few people have an international trust, the advantages are enormous, and the authors walk you through the ins and outs. To complete internationalization, the authors also discuss how to buy a second home in a foreign country, and how to obtain a second passport. Legally! They provide an overview over the countries that allow dual citizenship, what their rules are, and how long it takes. And they add some interesting but crucial tidbits: for example, a Singaporean passport is the only one in the world that allows for visa-free travel to China, the EU, and the US!

US taxpayers who internationalize their assets are subject to some hairy reporting requirements; the authors sort them out and provide essential information, down to the IRS forms that have to be dealt with...

[xchrom]

27. Gold Bulls Dominant as Portugal Stokes Debt Concern: Commodities

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-04/gold-bulls-dominant-as-portugal-stokes-debt-concern-commodities.html

Gold traders are the most bullish in a month after political instability in Portugal raised concern that Europe’s debt crisis will worsen and as a record quarterly drop in prices drove demand for jewelry.

Fourteen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week, with 10 bearish and three neutral, the largest proportion of bulls since June 7. While hedge funds are the least bullish in six years and holdings in exchange-traded products dropped to a three-year low, demand for physical metal has been “strong,” Standard Bank Group Ltd. said.

Gold slid 23 percent last quarter after some investors lost faith in the metal as a store of value as the Federal Reserve said it may taper stimulus. The slump into a bear market in April spurred demand for jewelry and coins around the world, and imports into Turkey, the fourth-biggest consumer, expanded to a 4 1/2-year high. Prices advanced earlier this week as two Portuguese ministers resigned, pushing the nation’s borrowing costs to the highest in seven months.

“A recovery will be tentative initially but a return of the euro zone debt crisis could spark a more sustainable rally,” said Mark O’Byrne, the executive director of Dublin-based GoldCore Ltd., a brokerage that sells and stores bullion coins and bars. “Many jewelers internationally are likely to use the recent price falls as an opportunity to stock up.”

[xchrom]

28. China Enters Nomura Danger Zone as Fed Tapers: Cutting Research

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-04/china-enters-nomura-danger-zone-as-fed-tapers-cutting-research.html

China, Hong Kong and India are in a “high-risk danger zone” because their monetary policies have stayed too loose over the past four years, according to Nomura Holdings Inc.

A June 28 report by the bank’s economists and strategists showed the average ratio of domestic private debt to gross domestic product across Asia had ballooned to 167 percent in 2012 and most of the region’s property markets are “frothy.” The debt ratio has increased by over 50 percentage points in Hong Kong and Singapore and between 30 and 40 points in Malaysia, South Korea, China and Thailand.

A measure of monetary policy based on output gaps and inflation shows that interest rates have also been persistently below what economic models suggest, and even more so if the financial cycle is accounted for, the report said.

That leaves countries financially vulnerable. Indonesia is at the lower end of the high-risk zone, while South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are in the middle-risk range, ahead of Japan. The Philippines and Taiwan seem the least prone to any economic crisis. Hong Kong is a Special Administration Region of China although it pegs its currency to the dollar.

[xchrom]

29. Russians Fight Indian Billionaires for Old Master Records

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-04/russians-fight-indian-billionaires-for-old-master-records.html


''St Dominic in Prayer," an oil-on-canvas by the 16th-century Spanish painter, El Greco. Entered from the collection of the late German philanthropist, Gustav Rau, it was sold by Sotheby's in an auction of Old Master paintings in London on July 3.

Russian-speaking buyers spent more than 15 million pounds ($22.6 million) at an auction as a record number of bidders from emerging economies bought Old Masters.

A Russian buyer, represented on the telephone, fought off an Asian underbidder to pay a top price of 9.2 million pounds at Sotheby’s London on July 3 for a canvas of St. Dominic by the Spanish artist El Greco. The price, almost double the high estimate, set an auction record for the 16th-century painter. The same buyer spent another 3.4 million pounds on a crucifixion scene by El Greco.

“Russians are getting into Old Masters,” the Amsterdam-based art consultant Johan Bosch van Rosenthal said. “They’re well-advised and are buying the triple-A lots. They’re spreading their wealth by buying top-quality in any area of the market.”

Though less fashionable than contemporary art, the market for historic works is attracting billionaire trophy hunters. The most desirable Old Masters have a reputation for being a more stable store of value than 21st-century pieces. New buyers are attracted by famous names and subjects with a modern, “crossover” appeal, dealers said.

[xchrom]

30. German Factory Orders Drop as Euro-Area Economy Struggles{SURPRISE!}

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-05/german-factory-orders-drop-as-euro-area-economy-struggles.html

German factory orders unexpectedly declined for a second month in May in a sign that the euro area’s struggle to emerge from its longest-ever recession is disrupting the recovery in Europe’s largest economy.

Orders (GRIORTMM), adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, dropped 1.3 percent from April, when they fell a revised 2.2 percent, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. Economists forecast a gain of 1.2 percent, according to the median of 42 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Orders slid 2 percent from a year ago, when adjusted for the number of working days.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said yesterday that the risks to the euro-area economy are to the downside as he gave “unprecedented” forward guidance that interest rates will stay low for an extended period of time. The economy in the currency bloc, Germany’s biggest export market, contracted in the six quarters through March. Draghi reaffirmed his prediction for a recovery at a subdued pace later this year.

“German industry still has difficulties to return to full strength,” said Carsten Brzeski, senior economist at ING in Brussels. “Still-reasonably filled order books should ensure a gradual pick-up in industrial production. However, the medium-term outlook is not yet looking rosy.”

[xchrom]

31. U.S. Employers Added More Workers in June Than Forecast

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-05/payrolls-in-u-s-increased-195-000-in-june-unemployment-7-6-.html

Employment increased more than forecast in June, wages picked up and the U.S. jobless rate held close to a four-year low as the world’s largest economy weathered the effect of higher taxes and federal budget cuts.

Payrolls rose by 195,000 workers for a second straight month, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey projected a 165,000 gain after a previously reported 175,000 increase in May. The jobless rate stayed at 7.6 percent, while hourly earnings in the year ended in June advanced by the most since July 2011.

Job gains and a rebound in housing are shoring up Americans’ finances and boosting expectations that the economy will gain momentum even after the payroll tax increased and government agencies began to cut spending. Federal Reserve policy makers have said they’ll start to trim bond purchases before the end of the year as unemployment falls.

“The job market is stronger,” said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Group in New York and the top forecaster of payrolls over the past two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “It’s a good number, especially with the upward revisions.” Fed “tapering is getting closer.”

[Demeter]

32. Cost of Living in America

https://www.mint.com/blog/trends/family-matters-the-cost-of-living-in-america-0613/?display=wide

[Demeter]

33. Duty Calls, See you this Weekend

[xchrom]

36. see ya, miss demeter

[mnhtnbb]

39. How could New York not be on the list of the top 5 most expensive cities?

I smell a rat in the data.

[Demeter]

40. They only look at certain data...probably not taxes

NY is a different way of life than most of the nation.

[kickysnana]

46. Rents have skyrocked and here housing has recovered but

all the empty houses are still not on the market so it is fake. So the -27% is just wrong as far as costs go. My kids house payments didn't go down just because house prices did, just the value of their houses.

Celebrating with $1 fast food now and then cuts the anxiety that kids have for not having the life they see on TV or think their friends have. It is a good investment. Same with a mom and/or Dad working 3 part time jobs each and still on food stamps. That Dairy Queen cake (with a coupon) enriches the party when you do not have the time to make anything special. Baking a cake and buying Ice Cream is not always all that cheap either.

Kids have to have something special to remember from childhood to get them through the teenage years and now young adult life here in America.

[xchrom]

35. SOLAR PANEL PRICE WAR CLAIMS LATEST GERMAN VICTIM

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_SOLAR_COLLAPSE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-05-05-46-00

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's Conergy AG has become the latest victim of a global solar panel price war, which has already cost tens of thousands of jobs in the country in recent years.

Hamburg-based Conergy on Friday filed for insolvency and said it hoped to find an investor to continue the business. The company, which has some 1,200 employees, specializes in planning and installing photovoltaic systems.

More than a fifth of all jobs - or about 24,000 - in Germany's once-burgeoning solar panel industry have been lost since 2011.

A recent government report found that solar industry revenue dropped to 7.34 billion euros ($9.53 billion) last year from 11.9 billion euros in 2011.

[Fuddnik]

37. Instead of tree trade agreements

We need to institute tariffs that cover the distinction between slave labor and living wages.

[Demeter]

41. AMEN!

By the way, what kind of trees are they trading?

[Fuddnik]

42. I'll give you 2 Pin Oaks for a Jacaranda.

[xchrom]

43. we all need one or more of these....

[Demeter]

44. We got fairies for that!

Look at the 147 pts they pulled...