STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 8 July 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday, 8 July 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 5 July 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 5 July 2013
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Dow Jones 15,135.84 +147.29 (0.98%)
S&P 500 1,631.89 +16.48 (1.02%)
Nasdaq 3,479.38 +35.71 (1.04%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.74% +0.05 (1.86%)
30 Year 3.71% +0.07 (1.92%)[font color=black]


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

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 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. CONSTITUTIONAL SUBTHREAD

FROM THE ACLU:
Federal Judge: Only Powered-Off Cell Phones Deserve Privacy Protections MAY 15TH

http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/federal-judge-only-powered-cell-phones-deserve-privacy

A federal magistrate judge in New York recently ruled that cell phone location data deserves no protection under the Fourth Amendment and that accordingly, the government can engage in real-time location surveillance without a search warrant. In an opinion straight from the Twilight Zone, magistrate judge Gary Brown ruled two weeks ago that “cell phone users who fail to turn off their cell phones do not exhibit an expectation of privacy.”

The case in question involved a physician who the DEA believed had issued thousands of prescriptions for pain killers in exchange for cash. In March of this year, the DEA had obtained a warrant for his arrest, and, not knowing where he was, sought an order from magistrate judge Brown forcing the phone company to provide real-time data identifying the location of the physician’s phone.

Although the DEA agents requested a search warrant and the judge found that there was probable cause to believe that the cell phone location data would assist in the location and apprehension of an individual for whom there was already a valid arrest warrant, the judge later published a 30-page opinion further stating that he didn’t think the government needed to seek a search warrant in the first place.

Don’t Want the Government Tracking You? Turn Your Phone Off

In his puzzling opinion, the judge squarely criticizes people naive enough to expect privacy while also leaving their cell phones on when they’re not using them.

Given the ubiquity and celebrity of geolocation technologies, an individual has no legitimate expectation of privacy in the prospective location of a cellular telephone where that individual has failed to protect his privacy by taking the simple expedient of powering it off.

…

As to control by the user, all of the known tracking technologies may be defeated by merely turning off the phone. Indeed—excluding apathy or inattention—the only reason that users leave cell phones turned on is so that the device can be located to receive calls. Conversely, individuals who do not want to be disturbed by unwanted telephone calls at a particular time or place simply turn their phones off, knowing that they cannot be located.

The Catch-22 here is that the only people who the judge believes would have any reasonable expectation of privacy are those whose phones are turned off (and thus, not generating any location data that the government could access, even with a warrant). And it ignores the necessity of keeping your cell phone turned on for communicating with family or for work.

That consumers are dumb enough to willingly share their location using the “Girls Around Me” app (which the judge specifically calls out by name, although the wrong one), only further justifies covert, warrantless government surveillance:

Given the notoriety surrounding the disclosure of geolocation data to retailers purveying soap powder and blue jeans to mall shoppers, the police searching for David Pogue’s iPhone and, most alarmingly, the creators and users of the Girls Around You app, cell phone users cannot realistically entertain the notion that such information would (or should) be withheld from federal law enforcement agents searching for a fugitive.

This is, in a word, ridiculous. There is a big difference between location information you knowingly share with a select group of friends (or, in fact, the world) and information collected about you without your knowledge or consent. Someone might be happy to share their location with a few friends by “checking in” using Foursquare while at a music festival, but not want law enforcement to access that same information. And, they would still reasonably expect that their location a week later while at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or abortion clinic should remain private. Sharing location data isn’t and shouldn’t be all or nothing.

We are also baffled by the judge’s willingness to tie a reasonable expectation of privacy to the use of a cell phone power button. We’re not sure if the judge has watched the Onion’s spoof news video describing a fictional “Google Opt Out Village” for people who don’t want to be tracked by the advertising company, but the logic in his opinion is consistent with the absurdity of that spoof. If you don’t want Google to track you, stop using all modern technology and move to a remote village. If you don’t want the government to covertly track your phone, turn it off and leave it off. What could be simpler, right?

BESIDES, A "DEAD" CELL PHONE HAS NO MORE NEED OF PRIVACY THAN A DEAD BODY DOES...



FBI sued over secretive facial recognition program JUNE28

http://rt.com/usa/disclose-facial-program-recognition-387/

Soon the FBI will be done building a database containing the photographs, fingerprints and other biometric data for millions of Americans, but the agency has been far from forthcoming with the details. A new lawsuit filed this week aims to change that. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group based out of California, sued the United States Department of Justice this week for failing to comply with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed last year by the EFF. The Federal Bureau of Investigation received no fewer than three FOIA requests from the EFF last year for details about its state-of-the-art Next Generation Identification program, or NGI, a system that will store personally-identifiable data for millions of Americans and foreign nationals to act as what the FBI has called a "bigger, faster and better" version of what law enforcement already uses. But while the bureau has indeed already been using fingerprint information to track down potential terrorists and troublemakers for years, the EFF’s main concern revolves around what sort of space-age face recognition abilities NGI will be able to employ.

The FBI previously acknowledged that NGI will “house multimodal biometrics records like palm prints and iris scans” in one master system, as well as facial imaging information and intelligence about scars, marks and tattoos. Eventually, the agency said, it hopes to incorporate technology to track down people using only their voice. For now, though, the EFF is interested in what the facial recognition infrastructure will be able to do, and is demanding the FBI fesses up.

“NGI will change almost everything about how the FBI treats photograph submissions,” the complaint filed this week reads. Citing government documents, the EFF says that the system will allow “the increased capacity to retain photographic images, additional opportunities for agencies to submit photographic images and additional search capabilities, including automated searches.”

“The proposed new system would also allow law enforcement ‘to collect and retain other images (such as those obtained from crime scene security cameras’ and from family and friends) and would allow submission of ‘civil photographs along with civil fingerprint submissions that were collected for noncriminal purposes,’” the EFF continues.

When all is said and done, the FBI will be able to use NGI to scan millions of entries in a single database to find someone based off of a single photograph, and the EFF fears that could send things down a slippery slope.

“Governmental use of face recognition — and the potential for misuse — raises many privacy concerns,” the EFF says in the lawsuit. Using statements already made by the FBI about the program, the EFF presents an argument about why they should be worried that’s hard to counter.

“The FBI has also stated in a public presentation given at a national biometrics conference that it wants to use its facial recognition system to 'identify unknown persons of interest from images' and 'identify subjects in public datasets,'” the complaint continues. “In the same presentation, the FBI included a graphic image that implied the Bureau wanted to use facial recognition to be able to track people from one political rally to another.”

Another digital watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, previously alleged that NGI system could be integrated with other surveillance technology in order to enable “real-time image-matching of live feeds from CCTV surveillance cameras.” Obtaining information about how the FBI will manage and operate this information has been a priority for the EFF for over a year now, and the failure to comply with those FOIA requests has finally prompted the organization to ask a court to intervene.

"NGI will result in a massive expansion of government data collection for both criminal and noncriminal purposes," EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch said in a statement this week. "Biometrics programs present critical threats to civil liberties and privacy. Face-recognition technology is among the most alarming new developments, because Americans cannot easily take precautions against the covert, remote and mass capture of their images."

The EFF is asking the court to enforce the FOIA requests sent last June and July, which could compel the FBI to disclose information about the face-recognition program and any plans to merge civilian and criminal records in a single database. They are also asking for the total number of face-recognition capable records currently in the database and an assessment of what number the agency expects to have when it rolls out the program in 2014.

"Before the federal government decides to expand its surveillance powers, there needs to be a public debate," Lynch said. "But there can be no public debate until the details of the program are presented to the public."

In a July 18, 2012 assessment, the FBI reported that the program was “on scope, on schedule, on cost and 60 percent deployed.” The program is being put together by contractors Lockheed Martin, who are expected to rake in $1 billion from the government by the time the NGI system is finally up and running. The FBI previously admitted that they found 7,380 records that were "potentially responsive” to one of the EFF’s request, but has yet to deliver actual information pursuant to any of the three FOIA submissions filed, prompting the nonprofit to allege the FBI is “dragging its feet."

"FBI has not explained to the public how NGI or IAFIS's system design would ensure that civil submissions are not 'tainted' by criminal submissions or explained why it is necessary to combine the two types of data," the EFF wrote in the complaint.

Obamacare Will Collect and Share Americans' Data 'Without the Consent of the Individual'

J.D. Tuccille JUNE25

http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/25/obamacare-will-collect-and-share-america

If you were starting to fret that the National Security Agency was the only government body that cared enough to stalk you, fret not! It turns out that the concerned folks slapping together Obamacare exchanges plan to hoover up your personal information in something called a Data Services Hub in order to determine your privileges and exemptions under the new government health care regime. Even better, officials intend to share your data with federal and state agencies, private contractors and consultants, explicitly without asking for your leave to do so. John Merline of Investors Business Daily reports:

The Health and Human Services Department earlier this year exposed just how vast the government's data collection efforts will be on millions of Americans as a result of ObamaCare.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., asked HHS to provide "a complete list of agencies that will interact with the Federal Data Services Hub." The Hub is a central feature of ObamaCare, since it will be used by the new insurance exchanges to determine eligibility for benefits, exemptions from the federal mandate, and how much to grant in federal insurance subsidies.

In response, the HHS said the ObamaCare data hub will "interact" with seven other federal agencies: Social Security Administration, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Defense and — believe it or not — the Peace Corps. Plus the Hub will plug into state Medicaid databases.

And what sort of data will be "routed through" the Hub? Social Security numbers, income, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, and enrollment status in other health plans, according to the HHS.

The Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provides some reassurances for those concerned by such concentration of personal information.

For all marketplaces, CMS is also building a tool called the Data Services Hub to help with verifying applicant information used to determine eligibility for enrollment in qualified health plans and insurance affordability programs. The hub will provide one connection to the common federal data sources (including but not limited to SSA, IRS, DHS) needed to verify consumer application information for income, citizenship, immigration status, access to minimum essential coverage, etc. CMS has completed the technical design, and reference architecture for this work, is establishing a cross-agency security framework as well as the protocols for connectivity, and has begun testing the hub. The hub will not store consumer information, but will securely transmit data between state and federal systems to verify consumer application information. Protecting the privacy of individuals remains the highest priority of CMS.

No stored consumer information? Privacy is the "highest priority"? Well, that's all right, then. Except ... Damn it. Government agencies often say one thing publicly, and quite aother privately. Merline points out that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services portrayed the Data Services Hub in a somewhat different light in an obscure regulatory notice filed on February 6, 2013:

In accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974, CMS is establishing a new system of records titled, ``Health Insurance Exchanges (HIX) Program,'' to support the CMS Health Insurance Exchanges Program established under provisions of the Affordable Care Act (PPACA) ... The system of records will contain personally identifiable information (PII) about certain individuals who apply or on whose behalf an application is filed for eligibility determinations for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through an Exchange, and for insurance affordability programs.

So, the database "will contain personally identifiable information" after all. And just how "highest priority" is the privacy of the stored data?

ROUTINE USES OF RECORDS MAINTAINED IN THE SYSTEM
A. Entities Who May Receive Disclosures Under Routine Use

These routine uses specify circumstances, in addition to those provided by statute in the Privacy Act of 1974, under which CMS may release information from the HIX without the consent of the individual to whom such information pertains. ...

Among the listed "entities who may receive disclosures under routine use" without your consent are federal agencies, state agencies, agency contractors, consultants, CMS grantees and non-profit entities operating exchanges for states. Those are just the entities authorized to have access to your information, As we know, employees of government agencies from local police departments to the Internal Revenue Service have a history of misusing databases for fun and profit.

[Demeter]

7. NSA leaks raise concerns on background checks

YEAH, SURE, BLAME IT ON THE BACKGROUND CHECKS....MEANING YOU DIDN'T HAVE SNOWDEN'S BALL IN A VISE....BACKGROUND CHECKS ARE NOT PERSONALITY ASSESSMENTS, NOR TESTS OF ETHICAL TENDENCIES...

http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-leaks-raise-concerns-background-checks-125811096.html

Before Edward Snowden began leaking national security secrets, he twice cleared the hurdle of the federal government's background check system — first at the CIA, then as a systems analyst at the National Security Agency. Snowden's path into secretive national security jobs has raised concerns about the system that outsources many of the government's most sensitive background checks to an army of private investigators and pays hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts to companies that employ them.

"You can't outsource national security," said Robert Baer, a former CIA veteran who worked in a succession of agency stations in the Mideast. "As long as we depend on the intel-industrial complex for vetting, we're going to get more Snowdens."

The company with the biggest share of contracts is under a federal investigation into possible criminal violations involving its oversight of background checks, officials familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. Even with fresh congressional scrutiny, the federal government appears wedded to the incumbent screening system. Nearly three-quarters of the government's background checks are done by private companies, and of those, more than 45 percent are handled by the U.S. Investigations Services, or USIS, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the agency overseeing most of the government's background checks.

USIS, which started out with 700 former government employees in 1996 and is now run by a private equity fund, dominates the background check industry, taking in $195 million in government payments last year and more than $215 million already this year. The OPM turned to private security screeners in the late 1990s because of growing backlogs that were snarling the government's hiring process. A force of 2,500 OPM investigators and more than 6,700 private contract screeners has sliced into those backlogs, reducing the time it takes on average for background screening by 9 percent in 2010.

As of 2012, more than 4.9 million government workers held security clearances. Senior federal appointments are still carefully investigated by FBI agents, and the FBI and the CIA still maintain strong in-house screening staffs to vet their own sensitive positions. But privatization efforts started during the Clinton administration keep farming out work to contractors. The Defense Department turned over its screening work to OPM in 2004 and even intelligence agencies that conduct their own investigations relegate some checks to private companies. The OPM's success has come with mounting government expenditures. The average cost of a background investigation rose from $581 in 2005 to $882 in 2011, according to the Government Accountability Office. At the same time, a $1 billion "revolving fund" paid by federal agencies for most background checks has remained off-limits to outside audits. The White House pledged only recently to provide money for an inspector general's office audit of the fund in the 2014 budget. The inspector general appointed to watch over the OPM, Patrick McFarland, said at a Senate hearing last month that there were problems with Snowden's most recent screening before he was hired to work for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. as an NSA computer systems analyst. McFarland did not specify the problems, but he said Snowden was screened and approved last year by USIS.

McFarland's office, aided by the Justice Department, is investigating whether USIS exaggerated the extent of its internal reviews of background checks, said two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the two-year inquiry. Ray Howell, a spokesman for USIS, declined to confirm or discuss the investigation. The company recently said in a statement that it was "not aware of any open criminal case against USIS." Howell did say the company "is cooperating and will work closely with the government to resolve the matter." Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., cited the "criminal investigation" of USIS during a June 21 hearing by a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee. Drew Pusateri, a staff spokesman, said McCaskill "stands by her characterization to the subcommittee that we were informed the company is the target of criminal investigation." McCaskill and other senators are pressing for more answers on Snowden's screenings and USIS' performance. The Washington Post reported that the investigation is focused on whether USIS skipped mandatory internal reviews for at least half its cases between 2008 and 2012 and did not notify the OPM. USIS said it performed nearly 2 million background checks for the government in 2011 alone. The Post also reported, citing anonymous sources, that McFarland's office is considering advising the OPM to sever its massive government contract with USIS.

USIS is one of three top security companies — the others are KeyPoint Government Solutions Inc. and CACI Premier Technology Inc. — working under a five-year contract with the OPM worth a total of $2.4 billion.

YOUR KEYSTONE KOPS AT WORK

[Demeter]

8. Will a wave of leakers undercut America’s national security? FABIUS MAXIMUS

http://fabiusmaximus.com/2013/07/08/leakers-52123/

Summary: Will hordes of Americans working for security services become leakers, undercutting the government’s wall of secrecy and endangering national security? Before we attempt an answer, let’s examine why people become leakers — and who becomes leakers.

.
Why aren't there more leakers?

Why aren’t there more whistleblowers?

Why become a leaker?

Two of the most prominent recent leakers are of Generation X: Bradley Manning (born 1987) and Edward Snowden (born 1983). They grew up hearing stories about the civil disobedience of the 1960s and 1970s. That turned out well for many of the perps.

Angela Davis became a Professor at UC Santa Clara
Bill Ayers became Professor of Education at U-IL Chicago.
Abbie Hoffman and Daniel Ellsberg became famous
Mark Felt had a successful career in the FBI (until he was busted for violating civil rights)

To many people growing up with these stories, they are heroes. And they (many of them) escaped with few ill consequences. But these Generation X misunderstand this history. These deeds were done by Boomers against the Greatest Generation. In famous trials, such as the Chicago Seven (18 February 1970), juries of the Greatest Generation showed them mercy and understanding.

But the Gen X goes up against hanging juries of the Boomers, who show neither mercy or understanding — but only deference to the government, no matter how outlandish the lies. Bradley Manning was abused in jail for two years before his court martial, and can expect a long sentence. Boomer President Obama has dusted off the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute leakers, who he fiercely prosecutes. Considering the trend, the increasing efforts to locate and severely punish leakers, the romance associated with this form of civil disobedience will soon wear off. Only the bravest will risk it.

.

Given the massive crackdowns by our security services on the Occupy Movement, I suspect that mass civil disobedience will remain a needless fear of our governing classes — until some future day when the embers of liberty find suitable tinder.
Boomer justice

Boomer justice

Who leaks?

Outcast, oddities. Hence the fascination with the personal lives of Manning and Snowden. And the incessant mockery of them by courtiers like Michael Cohen and Steven Metz. Why don’t dozens, hundreds, or thousands of nice stable organization men throw away their families and careers to illegally release vital information to an uncaring American public?

It a mystery of our time, pondered by fools.

Meanwhile government lackies focus our attention on the personal eccentricities of the brave but often somewhat strange people who sacrifice themselves to bring us knowledge.


OF ALL THE INBOXES IN ALL THE WORLD...THIS CRAP HAS TO LAND IN MINE. HAVE AT IT, MARKETEERS.

[DemReadingDU]

13. ACLU: The Ten Most Disturbing Things You Should Know About the FBI Since 9/11

7/7/13 The Ten Most Disturbing Things You Should Know About the FBI Since 9/11

As Congress considers the nomination of James B. Comey to lead the FBI for the next ten years, lawmakers should examine measures to rein in a bureau that has undermined civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. This is a false trade off: we can be both safe and free.
1. USA Patriot Act Abuse
2. 2008 Amendments to the Attorney General's Guidelines
3. Racial and Ethnic Mapping
4. Unrestrained Data Collection and Data Mining
5. Suppressing Internal Dissent: The FBI War on Whistleblowers
6. Targeting Journalists
7. Thwarting Congressional Oversight
8. Targeting First Amendment Activity
9. Proxy Detentions
10. Use of No Fly List to Pressure Americans Abroad to Become Informants

more text at link...
http://www.aclu.org/ten-most-disturbing-things-you-should-know-about-fbi-911

[Demeter]

14. The NSA's mass and indiscriminate spying on Brazilians GLEN GREENWALD

"BRAZIL--WHERE THE NUTS COME FROM"....CHARLIE'S AUNT.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/07/nsa-brazilians-globo-spying

As it does in many non-adversarial countries, the surveillance agency is bulk collecting the communications of millions of citizens of Brazil...the NSA has, for years, systematically tapped into the Brazilian telecommunication network and indiscriminately intercepted, collected and stored the email and telephone records of millions of Brazilians. The story follows an article in Der Spiegel last week, written by Laura Poitras and reporters from that paper, detailing the NSA's mass and indiscriminate collection of the electronic communications of millions of Germans. There are many more populations of non-adversarial countries which have been subjected to the same type of mass surveillance net by the NSA: indeed, the list of those which haven't been are shorter than those which have. The claim that any other nation is engaging in anything remotely approaching indiscriminate worldwide surveillance of this sort is baseless. As those two articles detail, all of this bulk, indiscriminate surveillance aimed at populations of friendly foreign nations is part of the NSA's "FAIRVIEW" program. Under that program, the NSA partners with a large US telecommunications company, the identity of which is currently unknown, and that US company then partners with telecoms in the foreign countries. Those partnerships allow the US company access to those countries' telecommunications systems, and that access is then exploited to direct traffic to the NSA's repositories. Both articles are based on top secret documents provided by Edward Snowden; O Globo published several of them.

The vast majority of the GuardianUS's revelations thus far have concerned NSA domestic spying: the bulk collection of telephone records, the PRISM program, Obama's presidential directive that authorizes domestic use of cyber-operations, the Boundless Informant data detailing billions of records collected from US systems, the serial falsehoods publicly voiced by top Obama officials about the NSA's surveillance schemes, and most recently, the bulk collection of email and internet metadata records for Americans. Future stories in the GuardianUS will largely continue to focus on the NSA's domestic spying.

But contrary to what some want to suggest, the privacy rights of Americans aren't the only ones that matter. That the US government - in complete secrecy - is constructing a ubiquitous spying apparatus aimed not only at its own citizens, but all of the world's citizens, has profound consequences. It erodes, if not eliminates, the ability to use the internet with any remnant of privacy or personal security. It vests the US government with boundless power over those to whom it has no accountability. It permits allies of the US - including aggressively oppressive ones - to benefit from indiscriminate spying on their citizens' communications. It radically alters the balance of power between the US and ordinary citizens of the world. And it sends an unmistakable signal to the world that while the US very minimally values the privacy rights of Americans, it assigns zero value to the privacy of everyone else on the planet.

This development - the construction of a worldwide, ubiquitous electronic surveillance apparatus - is self-evidently newsworthy, extreme, and dangerous. It deserves transparency. People around the world have no idea that all of their telephonic and internet communications are being collected, stored and analyzed by a distant government. But that's exactly what is happening, in secrecy and with virtually no accountability. And it is inexorably growing, all in the dark. At the very least, it merits public understanding and debate. That is now possible thanks solely to these disclosures.

[Demeter]

15. Come Saturday Morning: Reclaiming Our LIBERT-E

http://firedoglake.com/2013/07/06/come-saturday-morning-reclaiming-our-libert-e/

Democratic United States Representative John Conyers and his Republican colleague Justin Amash don’t agree on a lot of things. But they are, like most of us, united in being aghast at all the government snooping being done to us, for us, against us, and on everyone else in the world. Unlike most of us, they’re in a position to do something about it — or at the very least shame those Beltway officials who would perpetuate this snooping.

To that end, they’ve introduced H.R. 2399, the “Limiting Internet and Blanket Electronic Review of Telecommunications and Email Act,” or the LIBERT-E Act for short.

Here’s how it would work:

The first reform, in Section 2 of the LIBERT-E Act, modifies access to certain records for foreign intelligence and terrorism investigations. Specifically, Section 2 would amend Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to prevent the mass collection of records that are not explicitly relevant to an authorized foreign intelligence investigation, terrorism investigation, or covert intelligence activities.

Presently, to obtain a court order under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, the government only needs to show that the records are “relevant” to an investigation. News reports suggest, however, that the government’s view of what is “relevant” includes the records of every telephone call. Section 2 of the LIBERT-E Act would raise the relevancy standard for the government to one requiring “specific and articulable” facts on a given investigation. In addition, Section 2 mandates that for any records to be collected they must be material to the investigation and pertain only to the individual under investigation.

Simply put, the government should be required to show that the records it seeks are in fact material to a particular concern.

The second set of reforms that the LIBERT-E Act puts into place deals with transparency. For too long, a secretive FISA court has essentially rubber-stamped all of the NSA’s surveillance requests. Section 3 of the LIBERT-E Act requires the Attorney General to make available to the public unclassified summaries of significant decisions by the FISA court, within 180 days of Congress receiving them. At the Congressional level, Section 3 also mandates that the Attorney General makes all information provided to the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees available to every Member of Congress. Both of these measures will take the entirety of the decision-making process out of the backroom and provide needed public, as well as Congressional, oversight.

Sounds good to me. Of course, that’s probably why you’re only hearing about this now, from this blog post — because it’s such a good idea that no TV news program would touch it.

Let’s see if we can spread the word and do an end run around the censorship.

I'D PREFER A MORE PERMANENT SOLUTION...BLOW UP THE DATA STORAGE, IMPEACH THE ENABLERS FOR VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION, AND REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION TO UPDATE ITS 18TH CENTURY LANGUAGE TO THE CHALLENGES OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY.

[Demeter]

18. Customs & Border Protection Logged Eight-Fold Increase in Drone Surveillance for Other Agencies

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/customs-border-protection-significantly-increases-drone-surveillance-other

Recently released daily flight logs from Customs & Border Protection (CPB) show the agency has sharply increased the number of missions its 10 Predator drones have flown on behalf of state, local and non-CPB federal agencies. Yet, despite this increase—eight-fold between 2010 and 2012—CBP has failed to explain how it’s protecting our privacy from unwarranted drone surveillance.

EFF received the three years of flight logs, a 2010 “Concept of Operations” report about the Predator program, and other records in response to our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency. In that lawsuit we asked for specific information on the agency’s program to loan out its drones to local, state and federal agencies.

According to the documents, CBP already appears to be flying drones well within the Southern and Northern US borders, and for a wide variety of non-border patrol reasons. What’s more — the agency is planning to increase its Predator drone fleet to 24 and its drone surveillance to 24 hours per day / 7 days per week by 2016.

As the Concept of Operations report notes, CBP’s goal is that its drone data will be “persistently available” (p. 21) and interoperable (p. 29) — not just within CBP, but to other agencies, and also possibly to other countries. CBP plans that its “UAS will provide assured monitoring of entities along land borders, inland seas, littorals and high seas with sufficient frequency, continuity, accuracy, spectral diversity, and data content to produce actionable information.”

MORE AT LINK BUILDING TO:

Conclusion

While these documents provide Americans with important information about CBP’s drone program and the agency’s plans for expanding that program, they raise more questions than they answer. CBP needs to tell Americans where—specifically—it’s flying its drones, which agencies it’s flying its drones for, what it does with the data it collects, and what policies it has in place (if any) to protect our privacy rights. Also, as we’ve detailed in a separate blog post, CBP needs to assure the public that it will not equip its Predators with any weapons—lethal or otherwise. Without first addressing these issues, the agency—and Congress—should halt the expansion of CBP’s Predator drone program.

[Demeter]

2. Americans pay 3x more for gas than Russians JUNE28

http://rt.com/business/russian-american-gas-3-384/

The average price of NATURAL gas for Americans is almost three times more than what Russians, according to Gazprom Senior Financial Director Andrey Kruglov. The company’s annual shareholder meeting, which coincides with the company’s 40th anniversary, was held at the Moscow headquarters on Friday. Russian customers pay 2,429 ($74.25) per 1,000 cubic meters on the Russian domestic market. This price is 22 percent lower than corporate customers, according to Kruglov, and is almost one third of what American customers pay.

According to the Federal Tariff Service, the price of gas, excluding reducing coefficients, should be 7,900 rubles ($241.5) for 1,000 cubic meters, so Gazprom is selling for almost a third of market value. The company loses big on domestic gas sales, and over the next five years could lose $60 billion on the subsidized prices, Mikhail Korchemkin, director of East European Gas Analysis told Vedomosti Thursday. Under fire for gas prices in Europe, Deputy CEO Aleksandr Medvedev wrote it will stand by the Gazprom rate, as it “is in our interest to keep gas competitive”...MORE

[Demeter]

3. The Cruel Gap Between CEO Pay and the Stagnant Minimum Wage RALPH NADER

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/the-cruel-gap-between-ceo_b_2868557.html

Walmart CEO Mike Duke makes approximately $11,000 an hour. Think about that -- $11,000 every hour. Think about an hour of your day, the tasks you accomplish, and the compensation you receive from your employer. If you are an average American worker, you could add up all your daily work hours and that of your close friends, family, and fellow coworkers and it still won't even come close to what Mike Duke makes in a single hour of his work day. He was the 46th highest paid CEO in America in 2012, according to Forbes.

American CEO's are the highest paid in the world. As of 2011, Corporate CEO's in America make 340 times what the average worker makes. As a comparison, in 1980, CEO pay was only 42 times more than the average worker. For decades now, the compensation packages of the top one percent have been steadily increasing -- income inequality is a runaway train, with the divide between the corporate oligarchy and the average citizen growing larger and larger every year. Even in the aftermath of the Wall Street induced economic crash, CEO pay continued to grow. The wages of the middle and lower class have suffered and stagnated at the hands of corporate leadership, regardless of business performance or shareholder value. The top dogs are rewarded by rubber-stamping company boards.The phrase "income inequality" has become a gross understatement -- it might be more fitting to call it "income tyranny," as corporate America has created a new class of CEO monarchy, who believe they are entitled to everything and accountable to no one. Perhaps nothing illustrates this issue better than their suppressing their federal minimum wage -- stagnant at $7.25 an hour; and far behind the minimum wage in 1968, which inflation adjusted, would be $10.50 today. Moreover, worker productivity has doubled since 1968.

The defense from the corporate world is that such enormous pay packages are necessary to attract the top talent in the business world and to reward them for their efforts. The people of Switzerland don't buy it -- after billions in losses by banking giant UBS and the cutting of thousands of jobs by pharmaceutical company Novartis, nearly 68 percent of Swiss voters supported a referendum to give shareholders the final say on executive compensation. American CEO's should take note of this reaction by an outraged citizenry...

OH, BELIEVE ME, RALPH, THEY DID...SEE CONSTITUTIONAL THREAD, ABOVE

[tclambert]

6. Has anyone suggested a way to shrink this gap?

You know the CEOs don't want to give anything back and who has the power to make them? We could increase the minimum wage, and should, but that will face severe resistance. Consequently, politicians will make the increase small and CEOs will continue the race upward.

It seems like it used to be that major stockholders on the Board of Directors would hold executives back from their excesses. It seems like now the Boards are all packed with fellow CEOs and CFOs from "friendly" corporations and the executive pay committees all scratch each others' backs. The major stockholders are now mutual funds and pension funds who pretty much go along with the executives' recommendations or quietly push them to adhere more closely to the prevailing conventional "wisdom" of Wall Street (in other words, act more like Wal-Mart).

Edited to add: Other than an FRSP, I mean.

[Demeter]

9. FRSP is our preferred method on SMW

It's cheap, it's effective, and it's cathartic.

[Warpy]

21. What does it stand for?

I hate acronyms, especially the ones that aren't anywhere at acronym deciphering sites.

[tclambert]

22. French Revolution Surprise Party

That's why this image seemed appropriate:

[Warpy]

43. Ah, lovely

But don't forget the Reign of Terror.

While I think there are a few heads out there that belong on pikes, I know that violent revolutions rarely work as advertised because they come at the end of serious repression and usually debt peonage that has kept people from organizing effectively.

I just hope they allow us a peaceful one.

[Demeter]

23. French Revolution Severance Package

Last edited Mon Jul 8, 2013, 09:27 AM - Edit history (1)

For the 1%er who has EVERYTHING! So we can get ours back....


It's MY acronym! My only creation.

[AnneD]

41. FRSP

French Revolution Severance Package. It uses the device used by Dr. Guillotine.

I think Demeter mentioned it first in response to the golden parachutes that are the usual parting gifts.

[Warpy]

20. The progressive tax system did it for many years

Once you got up to those upper brackets, a small raise could raise your taxes by more than the amount of the raise if it put you into a higher bracket, and CEOs were all too wise for that.

CEO pay was effectively capped, but their non pay perks like the corporate owned jets, yachts, and vacation villas were used to make up for it, and that was fine. Once the CEO was out, his access to all that stuff ended and was presented to his successor, the corporation keeping ownership.

Getting back to a progressive tax system is going to be really difficult, but doing it under the guise of reining in obscene CEO salaries will help to sell it, especially if it's pointed out the CEOs have been stealing worker raises for decades. I honestly think it can be done.

However, the whole business has to be indexed to inflation, one thing that killed it in the Reagan years. "Bracket creep" had raised middle class tax rates enormously during the 70s when the oil shocks put us into double digit inflation. Purchasing power went down every single year but the higher tax brackets kept hiking middle class tax rates.

We need a new New Deal, learning from the mistakes the old one made, like not indexing many things to inflation, accepting inflation up to 4% as a fact of life, while trying to hold it down to 2%, as well as making the CPI market basket tamper proof by another Greenspan, and you know another Greenspan is inevitable.

It's a tall order to levy confiscatory top bracket taxes onto the thieves, but it has to be done. I think it can be sold to the public, and I think it can be done eventually.

People are just going to have to get a lot angrier, first.

[Tansy_Gold]

42. Tax rates are a significant curb

But there can also be a push from the other direction, and that was what the unions were good for. If you force the corporations to negotiate living wages and benefits, then the rest of the work force has to be accommodated. Once you depress wages and benefits, and strip the workers of bargaining power, there's nothing to stop the CEOs.

"Entitlements" too need to be brought up to living wage level. Whether it's social security or food stamps or anything else, making sure everyone is comfortable will put spending power back into the hands of the workers. If a living wage becomes $20/hour, that's going to pull more out of the stockholders and CEOs and more into the economy.

A living wage of ~$20/hour also puts more into FICA for social security and medicare, which then is matched by employer contributions.

Raise the cap on FICA, and/or make unearned income also subject to FICA.

There actually are a lot of ways to equalize incomes, mainly by undoing all the stuff that's been done in the past 30 or so years.

[antigop]

44. R. D. Wolff suggests worker co-ops a la Mondragon

http://rdwolff.com/content/economic-update-successful-worker-co-op-examined

[Tansy_Gold]

46. Mondragon -- a word we need to hear more often n/t ;-)

[Demeter]

4. Financial innovation of the day, Winklevii edition By Felix Salmon

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/07/02/financial-innovation-of-the-day-winklevii-edition/

You can see why they called it the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust. Without their name in there somewhere, they would never have gotten a respectful thousand-word article in the NYT just for making a speculative SEC filing. To be clear: this thing is a really, really silly idea, from a pair of brothers whose main ambition, these days, is to be the biggest helminths in the bitcoinverse. As I explained back in April, bitcoin is a combination of two things: it’s a very interesting payment mechanism, and it’s also a highly stupid and speculative store of value. With their new product, the Winklevii are basically separating the two, and selling — for an extra fee — the stupid-investment part of bitcoin without any of the benefits of the much more interesting and useful payments-mechanism aspect. As Peter Thal Larsen points out, you might as well buy an ETF which holds dollars.

Still, if you want to own bitcoins, and you never want to spend your bitcoins, and if you want to pay the Winklevii for the privilege of looking after your bitcoins on your behalf, and if you trust that the Winklevii, after putting out a huge shingle saying “millions of dollars worth of bitcoins stored here”, won’t get hacked and lose all their coins, — then, well, then I’m afraid I have bad news for you. Which is that the SEC will never, ever, approve this product. After all, this is an asset that senators want to ban, an asset which is probably illegal under US law, and an asset that is mainly known for its ease of facilitating money laundering, tax evasion, and the purchase of contraband material. It’s hard to see why the SEC would do anything whatsoever to legitimize that asset as an investible asset class.

Still, the Winklevii have made their SEC filing now, and have received lots of press around it. Just by doing that, before getting any kind of regulatory approval, have helped to make the idea of bitcoins just that tiny bit more legitimate. They’re even trying to invent a whole new asset class — they call it the DMBA ETP, for Digital Math-Based Asset Exchange-Traded Product — in the hope that they can somehow jump onto the ETF bandwagon with the same unerring sense of timing they displayed with their initial bitcoin announcement. (Price of bitcoins then, on April 11: $165. Price of bitcoins today: $90.)

ETFs themselves are looking a bit shaky right now: the market support they need from “authorized participants” doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with the billions of dollars flowing in and out of the asset class. ETFs have never been more popular as an asset. At the same time, the big banks — which are needed to underpin the market — “may no longer be willing to support ETFs in volatile markets”, in the words of the FT. The result, Bloomberg reports, is that many of the less liquid ETFs are seeing increasingly alarming gaps between their own values and the values of the securities they represent. On Saturday, Blackrock — the world’s largest provider of ETFs — became so worried about all of the negative chatter surrounding the asset class that it put out a truly extraordinary statement, saying that “during the market volatility of the past few weeks, ETFs performed precisely as they are designed to do”, and that (in bold print) “more and more ETFs are becoming the true market”. In other words, if the price of an ETF is lower than the price of the underlying stocks, then, well, that’s just because the ETF is a better indication of the true market price than the stocks themselves are. This is a truly glorious argument, in the Humpty Dumpty sense of the word:

Said Humpty Dumpty: ‘There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents —’

‘Certainly,’ said Alice.

‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘

‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

MORE ABOUT THE BITCOIN "INNOVATION" AT LINK

[Demeter]

5. THE OBAMA-doesn't-CARE COMPENDIUM

A Hidden Consensus on Health Care By ROSS DOUTHAT

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/douthat-a-hidden-consensus-on-health-care.html

TO follow what’s happening with the new health care law right now, you have to understand that for all the deep divisions on the issue, there’s actually a real bipartisan consensus about how the American health care system ought to be reformed. Or rather, there are two of them — a dishonest consensus among politicians and an honest consensus among people who study public policy for a living. The politicians’ consensus is that health care reform shouldn’t alter or disrupt the way the majority of Americans get their insurance today. This is President Obama’s official position on the issue: again and again throughout the fraught 2009 debate, he reassured voters that if they liked their existing health care plan, his bill wouldn’t prevent them from keeping it. It’s also the official position of his Republican critics, who have consistently attacked Obamacare for undercutting that presidential promise — for slashing Medicare, for driving up premiums and for threatening the employer-provided insurance status quo.

The policy consensus, though, is that the status quo is actually the problem, and that it deserves to be threatened, undermined and replaced as expeditiously as possible. Wonks of the left and right disagree on what that replacement should look like. But they’re united in regarding employer-provided coverage as an unsustainable relic: a burden on businesses, a source of perverse incentives for the health care market and an obstacle to more efficient, affordable and universal coverage. Yet woe betide the politician who dares to publicly agree. That’s what John McCain discovered in 2008, when he proposed a sweeping reform that would have eliminated the tax incentives that undergird employer-provided coverage. Conservative policy types loved the idea (as well they should, being responsible for it), but it cost McCain dearly: the Obama campaign used it to attack him, relentlessly and effectively, as an enemy of the way most middle-class people get health insurance, and thus of the middle class itself. These attacks, in turn, constrained the Obama White House when it came time to design its own health care reform. Obamacare has an unwieldy, Frankenstein’s monster quality in part because the law is trying to serve both consensuses at once. The core of the bill, the subsidies for the uninsured and the exchanges where they can purchase plans, is designed to offer a center-left alternative to the existing system. But much of the surrounding architecture is designed to prop up existing arrangements — and in the process, protect Obama from exactly the kind of criticisms he once leveled against McCain. Or at least, it was designed that way. But then came last week’s announcement that the White House would be delaying, for a year, the new health care law’s employer mandate, which requires businesses with more than 50 employees to offer health coverage or face a fine.

Republicans reacted by hyping the announcement as a sign that the entire law is unraveling, Democrats by minimizing the significance of the move. But the more telling reaction came from the policy world, where conservatives and liberals took a break from their usual disagreements to agree that the White House and Congress should probably just scrap the employer mandate altogether. That’s because the mandate is mostly just a political device designed to hide the full cost of the bill and discourage employers from eliminating employee coverage too quickly once Obamacare’s new exchanges are up and running. Like many politically minded regulations, it risked perverse economic consequences — delayed hiring, reduced work hours — which explains why the White House decided to punt it to 2015. But the mandate’s outright abandonment is more desirable, because that would have a clarifying effect on the entire health care debate.

Right now, both parties are still pretending that H.R. departments will go on doubling as welfare states forever. If it dropped the employer mandate, the Obama White House would be fully committed to a more disruptive future, in which exchanges and subsidies gradually replaced the employer-based system. And since those exchanges and subsidies are going to be implemented by this administration no matter what — barring a Martian invasion or a zombie apocalypse, at least — the sooner we find out if they really work and what they really cost the better. As Avik Roy, one of the mandate’s conservative critics, wrote last week in Forbes, “if you like Obamacare, and you want it to work, you don’t need the employer mandate.” And if you don’t like Obamacare (as Roy doesn’t), and don’t expect it to work, then all the mandate does is delay a necessary reckoning with the new system’s flaws.

Either way, the White House’s decision is a step toward honesty in policy-making. It takes us a little closer to a world where politicians of both parties actually level with the public, and acknowledge that employer-provided health insurance is an idea whose time has passed.


IN YOUR DREAMS, RUSS! THEY ARE JUST GOING TO KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD TO THE NEXT POTUS.



Obama's health law will be judged on 3 questions

http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-health-law-judged-3-questions-131124046.html

Three months before uninsured people can start shopping for coverage, some big unknowns loom over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. The surprise announcement this past week that the White House is delaying a requirement that many employers offer coverage raised questions about other major parts of the biggest expansion of society's safety net since Medicare nearly 50 years ago. One delay may not matter much in the end. People will judge Obama's law on three main points: premiums, choice and the overall consumer experience.

Only partial answers can be gleaned now, and they don't necessarily fall along predictable lines...Basic economics suggests premiums will be higher than what many people who buy their own coverage pay now, especially the young and healthy. The new policies provide better benefits, and starting next year, insurers won't be able to turn away the sick. But the pocketbook impact will be eased by new tax credits and other features that people soon will discover. As for choice, Obama's plan isn't likely to deliver the dozens of options available to seniors through Medicare. But limited choices may not be seen as a step backward because in most states the individual health insurance market is now dominated by a single insurer.

The consumer experience shopping online for insurance remains the biggest unknown — and a risk. Squads of technology experts — federal, state, insurer and contractor employees — are trying mesh government and private computer systems together in ways that haven't been tried before. It may not feel like Amazon.com. Many people could default to enrolling the low-tech way, through call centers or even through the mail. Health care politics divided the nation even before the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and the law's full implementation four years later is shaping up as a tale of two Americas. The rollout might go well in mostly Democratic states that prepared, while it clatters and clunks in mainly Republican ones that resisted Obama's law. Millions of poor people will be denied coverage next year because they live in states that are refusing the law's Medicaid expansion. But most workers now covered on the job should not see major changes. (OR, IT MIGHT NOT...I'M BETTING NOT--DEMETER). With political strategists already honing health care attack lines for next year's congressional elections, a former U.S. health secretary has an admonition for both parties. Mike Leavitt put in place the Medicare prescription drug plan for President George W. Bush in 2006 and now heads a consulting firm that advises states on Obama's law.

"It's important for all of us to remember that it's not political parties who are affected in the long run, it's people," Leavitt said recently. "It will be millions of people ... many of whom are the less fortunate, and those who have dramatic health problems."

A closer look at the three big questions:

PREMIUMS: SEE LINK FOR THE "PREMIUMS GUESSTIMATES (MY OWN DAUGHTER IS QUOTED A 40% COST INCREASE AND SHE'S 26 AND IN EXCELLENT HEALTH, AND GROSSLY UNDERPAID AND UNDEREMPLOYED, AND OF COURSE, NO BENEFITS!)

CHOICE

The typical Medicare recipient has about 30 private insurance plans from which to choose. There may not be nearly as much choice for families and individuals under the health care law. How much that will matter remains to be seen. It's partly because in most states a single insurance company currently controls more than half the market for individual coverage. The administration says that's going to change for the better. In three-quarters of the markets the federal government will run, there will be at least one new insurer. But areas of concern are emerging. New Hampshire could end up with just one insurance company offering plans through the new marketplace. In 36 of Mississippi's 82 counties, no insurer has yet signed up to offer coverage. Bigger states, however, don't seem to be having problems attracting insurers.

"The individual market for 2014 will look a lot like the individual market today — one or a handful of carriers dominant in most states," said Larry Levitt, a leading expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

But people will be able to move more easily from insurer to insurer, he added, which should bring more competitive pressure. YES, THEY ARE NUTS. WE DON'T NEED INSURANCE, WE NEED HEALTH CARE!

___

CONSUMER EXPERIENCE

For people without job-based coverage, shopping for insurance under the new system is supposed to be as smooth as using a major online site such as Travelocity or Expedia. But in a recent report, the Government Accountability Office raised concerns about the sheer technological complexity of the task and the short time left to accomplish it.

The goal is for consumers to be able to find out the amount of the tax credit they're entitled to and sign up for a plan in real time or close to it. For that to happen, the computer systems of several major federal agencies, the states and dozens of insurance companies have to be able to talk each other, and the information exchanged must be accurate. Testing the connections is underway.

"We really feel very much on target for Oct. 1 and ready for open enrollment," said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, a top HHS official overseeing the rollout. "We are meeting critical implementation deadlines."

"My guess is some of these states are not going to be up and running on time," said Dan Maynard, president of Connecture, a health technology company building three marketplaces.

That wouldn't necessarily mean some consumers will have to wait. People could sign up through call centers.

"You could have a very light online (marketplace) and have a lot of things drop to the call center and claim success," said Maynard.

VOICE MAIL HELL; YOUR PERSONAL DATA, UNREDACTED AND UNCORRECTED, FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE; BUYING A PIG IN A POKE AND GETTING A RAT INSTEAD...WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

[Demeter]

19. ObamaCare Clusterfuck: "Manual workarounds" now in project scope for CT exchange, as Obama's PR move

ObamaCare Clusterfuck: "Manual workarounds" now in project scope for CT exchange, as Obama's PR move on the 3-page form caused delay

http://www.correntewire.com/obamacare_clusterfuck_manual_workarounds_now_in_project_scope_for_ct_exchange_as_obamas_pr_move_on

What I have been seeing, trying to do Kreminology on ObamaCare's bizarrely secretive implementation, is project managers frantically triaging requirements to get something, anything, out the door; see Colorado, for example. Turns out, and as usual, I haven't been nearly cynical enough. Sarah Kliff does some actual reporting on how things are going with the Connecticut exchange:

At a monthly board meeting of Connecticut’s health insurance exchange, members of the standing-room-only crowd [!!] got a reminder that they, too, were behind schedule. The insurance marketplace they were working on nights and weekends won’t be completely ready on time.

“It is highly complex, it’s unprecedented and it’s not going to be smooth,” Kevin Counihan, chief executive of the state’s exchange, Access Health CT, told the group.

Just so long as it's not a "third world experience," eh? Could be deliberate lowballing, but the stories don't read like a PR campaign. Unless the crowd is made up of Obots and the site developers, it's the press and non-profits -- along, I would bet, with the crows and vultures that always circle a prostrate body.

That’s why Connecticut — like other states across the country — has lowered the bar, doing what it can in the time it has left before the health-care law’s major programs are launched Oct. 1.

Although the states are promising to provide new marketplaces for individuals to compare and buy health insurance plans, the Web portals will be a bare-bones version of what was initially envisioned.

Why do I think these "bare bones versions" are not going to be like Expedia? And do note Obama's oft-cited PR move to change to the ObamaCare submission form at the last minute butchered the schedule (and I would bet busted the budget as well):

Connecticut has made progress. It was the first state to complete an intensive technology test in which the state’s portal successfully connected to a federal data hub.

But officials have learned that good news can have a downside. The state agency spent weeks reprogramming its Web site after the federal government shrank the insurance application from 21 pages to three.

In other words, states that were most committed to ObamaCare (and, one would like to assume, their uninsured citizens) were punished the most.* [BWA-H... It hurts too much.]

And who's impacted by the delay Obama caused? Why, the gay community, since DOMA changes impact the exchanges by changing marriage status. But don't worry! There's a solution:

When the Supreme Court struck down a key element of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Access Health CT board members cheered. Then, they remembered that it would add to the workload: The marketplace would now need to recognize same-sex marriages, a coding change unlikely to be ready for October.

“Everything continues to change all the time,” Van Loon told his staff at a meeting later that day. “We’re going to have to adjust some processes around that. If DOMA requires a manual work-around, we’ll do that.”

Oh, great. So tell me, how does the manual workaround get into the system? Gay people have to travel to whatever office is handling ObamaCare, and fill out the forms on paper? And they get to be second-class citizens again, just this time because Obama started tinkering with his own Rube Goldberg device?** And how is this like Expedia, exactly?

And most importantly of all, can somebody tell me how a "bare bones" site, partially paper-based, is going to attract those critical "young invincibles"? From back in May:

What's one thing you know about young people today, maybe the most obvious thing? That's right: They're totally wired, totally digital, totally computer-savvy. (They are also said by some to multi-task and have very short attention spans.)

So if you had an Internet product, and you wanted to turn young people off, right at the point of purchase, what would you do? That's right: You'd build a platform that was "buggy," with a "user experience" that "needs improvement," that has "glitches," and that will take three years to straighten out.

Which, my friends, is exactly what ObamaCare's exchanges are going to be like, according to Rahm Emmanuel's little brother. Yikes.

Oh, I almost forgot. Here's the headline, and Kliff's lead:

‘I wish we had one more year:’ States are struggling to launch Obamacare on time

HARTFORD, Conn. — Facing tight deadlines and daunting workloads, states across the country are scaling back ambitions for implementing the Affordable Care Act.

Well, everybody had three years (2013 - 2010) to implement ObamaCare, "the President's signature domestic initiative," which is going to cover a pitiable 7 million of the 40+ million uninsured in its first year. LBJ, let us remember, rolled out Medicare for the entire over-65 population in one year, back in the day of steam-powered mainframes that used punch cards fed to them by guys in white shirts with ties.

So what's the difference? The system architecture. Medicare for all has a simple and robust single payer architecture: You determine eligibility in one (1) jurisdiction (the United States) with one eligibility criteria for citizens: Their age. ObamaCare, by contrast, needs to determine eligibility in 50 (fifty) jurisdictions, with a complex eligibility formula that's primarily income-based, but involves systems integration from the IRS, DHS, HHS, and private credit reporting companies (at least), to throw people into the right subsidy bucket. That's called a combinatorial explosion, and even the best program and project managers -- which ObamaCare's managers clearly either are not, or have not been given the opportunity to be -- have a hard time dealing with them. Let me know how it all works out....

* * *

I should add my usual caveat that a system as large as ObamaCare is going to end up helping some people; the odds are that the lucky or the persistent are going to fight their way through the chaos and end up with a health insurance policy that if they're lucky, will cover them when they need it. (Under RomneyCare, bankruptcy claims due to medical expenses fell from 57% to 52%, which gives you an idea of how lucky they will need to be: Basically, a coin flip.) And no doubt the Obama permanent campaign apparatus (Enroll America; OFA) will do its level best to get the most telegenic of the lucky winners in front of the cameras. So there's that.

NOTE * Which is what happens to you when you trust Obama; see youth unemployment and debt, for example, or black unemployment.

NOTE ** I wonder if his techies warned him, or if they were too Koolaid-addled or afraid to speak up, or if they were even at the table at all. Ya know, I'm waiting for the "Hitler Reacts" video on ObamaCare....

[Demeter]

10. The Legacy of the Boomer Boss By GAR ALPEROVITZ

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/opinion/the-legacy-of-the-boomer-boss.html?_r=0

OVER the next decade millions of business owners born during the baby boom will retire. Many, with no obvious succession strategy, will simply sell their companies, the backbone of Main Street economies across the country, to large corporations. All too often the result will be consolidations, plant closures and lost jobs for the people who helped build and sustain their companies for decades. The boomers should think again: selling to their employees is often a far better way to go — for both moral and economic reasons. Take New Belgium Brewing, based in Fort Collins, Colo., which its chief executive and co-founder, Kim Jordan, sold late last year to its 400-plus employees through what’s called an employee stock ownership plan. “There are few times in life where you get to make choices that will have multigenerational impact,” she said. “This is one of those times.”

An ESOP works like this: a company sets up a trust on behalf of the employees, into which it directs a portion of its profits. The trust uses that money to buy the owners’ shares, either all at once or over time. To ease the burden of such a large purchase, the employees, through the trust, can buy the company by borrowing against future earnings, with zero upfront costs. For many owners, the decision isn’t just about securing a legacy. It is a relatively easy one to make on financial grounds, too. If the owner sells more than 30 percent of the company to the employees, all capital gains taxes are deferred, provided that the proceeds are invested in American companies. This is hardly a new idea: more than 10,000 firms with ESOP’s now operate successfully, in virtually every sector. Indeed, three million more individuals are now worker-owners of their own businesses than are members of unions in the private sector. They include well-known companies like W. L. Gore & Associates, the maker of Gore-Tex, and the school-picture company Life-Touch, as well as countless smaller companies, some even organized as traditional co-ops.

Most employee-ownership plans are not the result of boomer-age retirements, at least not yet. But that could change soon. Martin Staubus, a consultant for the Rady School of Management, at the University of California, San Diego, estimates that every year 150,000 to 300,000 businesses owned at least in part by boomers become candidates for employee takeovers as their owners hit retirement age. That means that over the next 15 years retiring boomers could help create two to four million new worker-owned businesses nationwide. Worker ownership is not without difficulties, whether it is the result of an owner’s retiring or some other event. The selling price and continuing value of the firm, for instance, depend on an independent fair-market valuation of the company. This can fluctuate depending on the state of the economy, potentially playing havoc with employee wealth. Tax benefits provided to help transfer ownership have also sometimes been misused. And ESOP’s involving large companies can be mind-bogglingly complex. But for smaller, privately owned companies, the challenges are typically well known and easily overcome.

And while there is in theory some tension about the idea of worker-owners and worker representation through unions, many labor organizations are by now well versed in negotiating potential conflicts — indeed, the United Steelworkers recently decided to actively promote unionized co-op worker-ownership efforts. Meanwhile, companies in which employees have a direct ownership stake commonly report higher productivity, profits and pension and other benefits than comparable private firms in the same sector — especially when attention is paid to training workers in self-management. The truly interesting challenge, however, is to retiring boomers. Selling to employees is harder than selling to an established corporation or private equity company. Not everyone will feel the excitement of a Kim Jordan, whose decision to sell to New Belgium’s workers was greeted with cheers from employees. “We bought it,” they boasted in a news release. “The whole shebang.”

Still, choosing to create a more lasting legacy than letting some large corporation take over one’s life work has a certain quiet appeal — especially when it is rewarded with tax benefits.

Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of Maryland and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of “What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution.”

GAR...MY I CALL YOU GAR?....GAR, IF BY SOME CHANCE THERE'S A BOOMER BOSS WHO HASN'T HAD HIS BUSINESS DESTROYED BY THE "BUSTLING AMERICAN ECONOMY", AND WHO HASN'T HAD TO MORTGAGE IT TO THE HILT, OR SELL OUT TO VULTURE FUNDS OR EQUITY INVESTMENT FIRMS, DO LET ME KNOW.

THAT BOSS WILL NO DOUBT BE HOPING THAT HIS SMALL AND LEAKY CRAFT CAN KEEP HIS FAMILY AFLOAT INTO THE NEXT GENERATION. OR AT LEAST, GAINFULLY EMPLOYED.

GET A GRIP, MAN! THERE IS NO SUCH THING ANY MORE! W, OBAMA AND WALL ST. HAVE KILLED OFF THE SMALL BUSINESS. ANY GOING CONCERN IS PROBABLY LAUNDERING MONEY, BECAUSE THE BASIC DEMAND FOR GOODS AND SERVICES ISN'T THERE.

PS: 400 EMPLOYEES IS NOT A SMALL BUSINESS!

[Demeter]

11. It's very hard keeping up this level of venom when one is under the weather

but without it, I cannot even begin to post, the news is that bad. Sorry about that.

I'm going to get some shuteye, and hope that tomorrow doesn't reek like today.

Try to have a happy Monday. I think we may be settling for a Separate Peace, just to survive the present and in hope of a future.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. Basic Economics and what Paul Krugman is talking about in less than an hour.

Not too detailed, and comes from the position of sustaining the current usurious system, but an easy explanation of the fundamentals and some solutions.

[Demeter]

16. City Unions: Wall Street Looted Oakland CA

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/city-unions-wall-street-looted-oakland/Content?oid=3641115

A new report alleges that big banks gouged Oakland taxpayers of nearly $500 million over the past sixteen years as the city has been forced to dramatically cut public services...

DETAILS AT LINK AND THERE ARE LOTS OF THEM

[Demeter]

17. Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr,to load bankers in bus, show them Detroit's worst neighborhoods

http://12160.info/page/detroit-emergency-manager-kevyn-orr-to-load-bankers-in-a-bus-show

Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, locked in a tense standoff with creditors whom he has asked to accept a fraction of the $11.4 billion they’re owed, will load a group of about 25 bankers on a city bus next Wednesday, and lead them on a tour of some of Detroit’s most desperately blighted areas...

...The idea? To prick the consciences of the city’s creditors, and raise some empathy capital with them in hopes that they’ll avoid forcing Detroit into bankruptcy....


ORR IS A LAWYER...SUE THE BASTARD BANKSTERS FOR NOT PAYING THE CITY TAXES ON THE PROPERTIES THEY STOLE AND ABANDONED...

[Demeter]

25. Las Vegas Suburb Plotting to Seize 5,000 Homes with Eminent Domain to Flip Them for a Profit

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/las-vegas-suburb-accused-plotting-seize-5000-homes-eminent-domain-flip-them-profit?paging=off

The City of North Las Vegas is endangering its financial status with a cockeyed plan to seize up to 5,000 homes through eminent domain, buy them with public money and flip them, a man claims in court. Gregory D. Smith sued North Las Vegas, its City Council and City Attorney Jeffrey Barr, in Federal Court. They are the only defendants. Smith wants the plan enjoined as unconstitutional. He is represented by Don Springmeyer, with Wolf, Rifkin, Shapiro, Schulman & Rabkin. North Las Vegas, pop. 220,000 is a suburb of Las Vegas.

The complaint states:

"The City of North Las Vegas has entered into and embarked upon a plan to use the power of eminent domain to condemn and seize privately-owned residential mortgage loans in the City.

"The City intends to target for seizure mortgages 1) that are performing, i.e. current in their mortgage debt obligation of the homeowner; and 2) where homeowners owe more on their mortgages than the current fair market value of their home, i.e. 'underwater' mortgages; and 3) that are owned by private securitization trusts in secondary mortgage market lending portfolios rather than backed by the federal government through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or the Federal Housing Authority.

"An example of the functioning of the Plan is a home in North Las Vegas worth $200,000 in the real estate market today but with a $300,000 current mortgage balance. The City plans to condemn and seize privately owned residential mortgage loans and to pay the owner of that note what it believes is just compensation, say, $150,000 for purposes of the example, from money borrowed from private investors. The City would then purport to accept a short payoff of the mortgage loan originally seized, through a new loan for, say, $190,000, if such new financing could be found and the homeowner can qualify for same. The City then plans to extinguish the original $300,000 note it had seized for $150,000 and to pocket the $40,000 difference as revenue to the City.

"There are, by City estimates, approximately 5,000 mortgages in North Las Vegas that qualify and will be targeted for seizure by exercise of the power of eminent domain.
"On June 19, 2013, the City Council approved a contract (the 'Agreement') between itself and MRP to initiate and carry out the Plan.

"Preparation for and implementation of the Plan will require expenditure of public funds. Seizing all 5,000 or so of the estimated numbers of mortgage loans targeted by the City, at $150,000 each, would require the City to borrow more than $750 million. Such borrowing will entail interest, fees, and servicing costs. Indeed, the loaned monies themselves would represent City funds to be expended on the Plan.

"The Plan itself and the Agreement entered into by the City with MRP, calls for expenditure of public monies by the City. Out of the $40,000 of City revenue identified as the outcome of the example described above in Paragraph 15, the City would be required under the Agreement to compensate MRP and its investors for their 'facilitation' of the Plan.

"At its June 19, 2013 meeting, the City Council directed the City Attorney to engage outside legal counsel to advise the City on its conduct of the Plan, and has or will expend public monies for such engagement and retention.

"The public fisc of the City of North Las Vegas will be depleted and endangered by the unlawful use of public monies expended in pursuit of the Plan, which is an unlawful and invalid exercise of government power under the United States and Nevada Constitutions, and under Nevada statutory law."

[xchrom]

24. SAC’s Cohen Said to Remain Under Investigation

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-07/sac-s-cohen-said-to-remain-under-investigation.html

SAC Capital Advisors LP founder Steven Cohen will remain under federal investigation even if prosecutors miss a late July deadline for charging him in the largest insider-trading case in history, a person familiar with the probe said.

Cohen, 57, probably won’t face charges over July 2008 trades triggered by his then-portfolio manager Mathew Martoma, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. Martoma is accused of recommending that SAC sell shares of two drug companies, based on an illegal inside tip he received.

The five-year statute of limitations deadline for prosecutors to bring charges against Cohen for a series of trades sparked by Martoma’s tip expires July 29 at the latest. Prosecutors have insufficient evidence against Cohen to charge him in that matter, the newspaper said without identifying its sources.

Cohen, whose Stamford, Connecticut-based firm manages $15 billion, isn’t out of the woods legally should Martoma not say he has evidence against his former boss or investigators not find something incriminating by the end of the month, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because of the confidential nature of the investigation.

[xchrom]

26. China Cash Squeeze Seen Creating Vietnam-Size Credit Hole

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-07/china-cash-squeeze-seen-creating-vietnam-size-credit-hole.html

China’s money-market cash squeeze is likely to reduce credit growth this year by 750 billion yuan ($122 billion), an amount equivalent to the size of Vietnam’s economy, according to a Bloomberg News survey.

The number is the median estimate of 15 analysts, whose projections last week ranged from cuts of 20 billion yuan to 3 trillion yuan. The majority of respondents also said they approve of the government’s handling of the credit crunch and said the episode reinforces their expectations for policy reforms such as loosening controls on interest rates.

June credit data due as soon as this week will give investors clues to how much the cash squeeze, which sent interbank borrowing costs soaring to records last month, is affecting the world’s second-biggest economy. In the latest sign of financial strains in China, state media have reported that the northern city of Ordos has resorted to borrowing from companies to pay municipal workers.

“The liquidity crunch has increased downside risks,” said Louis Kuijs, chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Hong Kong, who estimates it will reduce aggregate credit by 1.8 trillion yuan this year. “As long as policy makers cushion the impact through fiscal and exchange-rate measures, the damage to the economy could be quite modest.”

[xchrom]

27. Blackstone Raises $5 Billion Rental Bet With Lending Arm

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-08/blackstone-raises-5-billion-rental-bet-with-lending-arm.html

Blackstone Group LP (BX), the private-equity firm that has spent $5 billion on more than 30,000 distressed houses, is preparing to expand its bet on the housing recovery by lending to other landlords.

The firm, which already owns more rental homes than any other investor, has set up B2R Finance LP to offer loans starting at $10 million, according to four people who reviewed the terms. B2R is reaching out to landlords with portfolios of properties seeking to grow in the burgeoning industry for single-family homes to rent, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

The world’s largest private-equity firm said last month that it was entering the later stages of its buying spree after leading a group of institutional investors who’ve spent at least $17 billion on more than 100,000 homes over two years, helping fuel the fastest price gains since 2006. By increasing its stake in the rebound through lending, New York-based Blackstone could benefit from smaller landlords already investing in what Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates to be a $2.8 trillion market.

“The more financing that comes to the space, the better to legitimize the industry,” said Sudha Reddy, chief executive officer of Haven Realty Capital LLC, an investor with 1,500 rental homes backed by Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management LLC. “Not all investors are able to get a large credit facility and small ones from community banks aren’t big enough.”

[Demeter]

28. "Never invest in anything that eats or needs painting"

Billy Rose, Fanny Brice's 3nd husband.

William "Billy" Rose (September 6, 1899 – February 10, 1966) was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" (1927), "Without A Song" (1929), "It Happened in Monterey" (1930) and "It's Only a Paper Moon" (1933). For decades preceding and immediately after the Second World War Billy Rose was a major force in entertainment, with shows, such as Jumbo (1935), Billy Rose's Aquacade, and Carmen Jones (1943), his Diamond Horseshoe nightclub, and the Ziegfeld Theatre influencing the careers of many stars. Billy Rose was inducted as a member of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. After divorcing comedian Fanny Brice, he married Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm.

[Demeter]

29. MBS Clobbered and Treasury Yields Soar Following Purportedly Good Job Numbers Mike "Mish" Shedlock

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/07/mbs-clobbered-and-treasury-yields-soar.html

Curve Watchers Anonymous notes that treasury yields surged higher and mortgage backed securities (MBS) had a steep selloff following purportedly good job numbers.

Beneath the surface, the economy actually shed 326,000 full-time jobs...


Establishment Survey Jobs +195K; Household Survey +160K; Part-Time Jobs +486,000; 326,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/07/establishment-survey-jobs-195k.html

Initial Reaction

The establishment survey showed a gain of 195,000 and that is a very respectable number. However, the household survey shows a more modest gain of 160,000 jobs. The civilian labor force rose by 177,000 thus the unemployment rate was steady at 7.6%. Digging beneath the surface, the numbers do not look so good.

326,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost

Involuntary part-time jobs increased by 322,000 while voluntary part-time jobs increased by another 110,000. Thus, of the 160,000 household survey gain, 486,000 of them were part-time jobs, a loss of 326,000 full-time jobs. This caused a spike of 0.5 percentage points in U6 (alternative unemployment) to 14.3%. The Participation Rate rose 0.1 to 63.5%, 0.2 higher than the low of 63.3% dating back to 1979.

Obamacare Effect

Last month there was no jump in part-time employment which had me wondering if the the bulk of the Obamacare effect (employers reducing hours from 32 to 25 and hiring hundreds of thousands of new employees to make up the hours) had mostly played out. This month, the trend of huge part-time employment resumed, and in a major way.

June BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

Payrolls +195,000 - Establishment Survey
US Employment +160,000 - Household Survey
US Unemployment +17,000 - Household Survey
Involuntary Part-Time Work +322,000 - Household Survey
Voluntary Part-Time Work +110,000 - Household Survey
Baseline Unemployment Rate +0.0 - Household Survey
U-6 unemployment +0.5 to 14.3% - Household Survey
Civilian Labor Force +177,000 - Household Survey
Not in Labor Force +12,000 - Household Survey
Participation Rate +0.1 at 63.5 - Household Survey



Quick Notes About the Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey, not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.

In the last year, those "not" in the labor force rose by 1,711,000

Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 1,610,000 (an average of 134,000 a month)

In the last year the number of unemployed fell from 12,695,000 to 11,760,000 (a drop of 924,000)

Percentage of long-term unemployment (27 weeks or more) is 36.7%. Once someone loses a job it is still very difficult to find another.

8,226,000 workers who are working part-time but want full-time work. A year ago there were 8,210,000. There has been little improvement in a year. This is a volatile series.

...Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 195,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade, health care, and financial activities. Private average weekly hours of production and non-supervisory workers were flat at 33.7 hours. Average weekly hours of all employees was flat at 34.5 hours. Average hourly earnings of all private workers rose $0.10 to $24.01. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and non-supervisory employees was up $0.05 to $20.14.

Real wages have been declining. Add in increases in state taxes and the average Joe has been hammered pretty badly. For 2013, one needs to factor in the increase in payroll taxes for Social Security...Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be over 10%. In addition, there are 8,226,000 people who are working part-time but want full-time work.

Grossly Distorted Statistics

Digging under the surface, much of the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage coupled with a massive increase in part-time jobs starting in October 2012 as a result of Obamacare legislation.

[bread_and_roses]

30. Crosspost: "We Are All Aboard the Pequod"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023197643

I was about to post this when I saw that Marmar had already - but reading through this thread this AM, and seeing "The Market" back to its irrational exuberance, by the number anyway, it's all I think apt for today so am re-posting.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/08-1

We Are All Aboard the Pequod
by Chris Hedges

... We, like Ahab and his crew, rationalize madness.

... In our decline, hatred becomes our primary lust, our highest form of patriotism and a form of eroticism. We are made supine by hatred and fear... Melville’s description of Ahab is a description of the bankers, corporate boards, politicians, television personalities and generals who through the power of propaganda fill our heads with seductive images of glory and lust for wealth and power. We are consumed with self-induced obsessions that spur us toward self-annihilation.

... Melville, who had been a sailor on clipper ships and whalers, was keenly aware that the wealth of industrialized societies came from the exploited of the earth. “Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans,” Ishmael says of New England’s prosperity. “One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea.” All the authority figures on the ship are white men—Ahab, Starbuck, Flask and Stubb. The hard, dirty work, from harpooning to gutting the carcasses of the whales, is the task of the poor, mostly men of color.

That last is the root of the red rage I feel when anyone talks (as they often do elsewhere around this site) about the "good" rich. There are no "good rich;" it is a contradiction in terms, a logical fallacy. I am well aware that even the paltry "wealth" of my life - a home, even if it is falling apart, a job, food to eat - is built on oppression and imperialism. How much more so for the truly rich, no matter how they try to assuage their blood-guilt with "charity" and "good works?"

The article also contains a link to the NYT obit of Edward Said, who died ten years ago, to our great loss:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/obituaries/26SAID.html

[Demeter]

37. Excellent Metaphor!

Yes indeed, Ahab's in charge...all the 1% are multiple copies of that madman.

As for the guilt of surviving, it is unmerited. If you personally did not thieve or kill, but acted in an ethical as well as socially acceptable fashion, you need not assume the guilt of those who didn't.

There cannot be secondary and tertiary guilt, for it wasn't as if we could stop the thieving and killing...and it isn't as if we didn't try. We were outvoted, out-maneuvered, outbid by those whose greed knows no boundaries, and whose only cure is Death. The sins of the fathers may be visited upon their offspring, but not upon their law-abiding neighbors.

[Demeter]

31. Compliance deadlines loom for U.S. global tax evasion law

http://news.yahoo.com/compliance-deadlines-loom-u-global-tax-evasion-law-061355020.html

In one week, the United States is scheduled to begin registering foreign financial firms with U.S. customers for a new anti-tax evasion law, despite industry lobbying to secure another implementation delay. The Internal Revenue Service still has not finalized sign-up instructions for the new online portal, due to open by July 15 in one of the last steps toward implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) of 2010.

Hundreds of thousands of banks, insurance companies and investment funds with U.S. customers are required to register with the IRS, an arm of the U.S. Treasury, by October 25 to avoid FATCA penalties starting on January 1, 2014. "At this point people have thrown up their hands," frustrated by the lack of guidance despite the looming deadline, said Laurie Hatten-Boyd, a principal at Big Four accounting firm KPMG LLP. Treasury officials will need to consider postponing the penalties if they do not produce guidance before the end of July, she said. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the industry's largest trade group, last month renewed its call for FATCA penalties to be delayed until 2015. The Treasury has missed FATCA deadlines before. The law's start date was delayed once already, by a year, to January 1, 2014. A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the status of the portal, saying only that work was going ahead on implementing FATCA.

The law is an unprecedented effort to root out U.S. tax evasion on a global scale. It requires foreign financial institutions to report to the IRS information about U.S. client accounts worth more than $50,000. It has been decried by companies and U.S.-ally countries as unilateral, over-reaching and a breach of privacy. U.S. law requires that Americans pay taxes on their global income, not just domestic income. Banks that do not share client information with the IRS face up to a 30 percent withholding tax beginning in 2014. There are fears that late advice from the IRS on the registration process could create a registration bottleneck later this year, leading to financial institutions being hit with penalties in 2014 through no fault of their own. "The worst-case scenario is that the portal is overloaded," said Karl Egbert, a lawyer with Dechert LLP in Hong Kong.

In an effort to address some foreign concerns, the United States has signed FATCA deals with nine other governments so far that allow firms to report U.S. client information via their local tax authorities rather than directly to the IRS. About 80 countries are in negotiations with U.S. Treasury officials about such pacts, known as intergovernmental agreements (IGAs), analysts said. Germany on Friday passed legislation to implement its IGA with the United States. The United States aims to get as many countries as it can behind the legislation. Chinese government officials have so far been publicly dismissive of FATCA, throwing into question whether financial firms in Hong Kong will be able to comply with the FATCA law. Hong Kong is "initialing some preliminary discussion" with U.S. officials, a Hong Kong government spokesman said. A deal with Canada has been stalled for months. A Canadian government official declined to comment on the progress of its talks with the United States.

To draw other governments into deals, U.S. Treasury officials are pushing for congressional legislation that would grant more bank account information-sharing across borders going in both directions. But Republican members of Congress already have introduced legislation aimed at thwarting this effort.

[xchrom]

32. GERMAN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION, EXPORTS DOWN IN MAY

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-08-07-59-36

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's industrial production and exports dropped further than expected in May, official figures showed Monday, but economists argued that the disappointing data were more a result of volatility than a sign of serious risks.

Industrial production in Europe's largest economy was down 1 percent in May compared with the previous month, the Economy Ministry said - worse than economists' prediction of a 0.5 percent decline. That followed a 2 percent gain in April, revised upward from the initial reading of 1.8 percent.

Earlier Monday, data showed that exports from Europe's biggest economy were down 2.4 percent on the month in May. Economists had forecast a flat reading.

Germany so far has weathered Europe's debt crisis relatively well - helped by its traditional export strength and a robust job market that is fueling domestic demand.

[Demeter]

33. Dollar at three-year high, bonds gain as Greek deal eyed

http://news.yahoo.com/dollar-gains-japan-shares-rise-upbeat-u-jobs-002951802.html

The dollar climbed to a three-year high on Monday and gold was hovering near a three-year low after last week's strong U.S. jobs data fed expectations that the country's central bank could soon wind back stimulus. SEE MISH'S POST ABOVE

The dollar index <.dxy>, which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, rose to 84.588, its highest since July 2010, before a slight dip in early European trading left it at 84.450.

Friday's U.S. jobs data bolstered the view the Federal Reserve will soon start reducing its long-running stimulus program, but analysts are now wondering whether the dollar's recent rise can continue at the same pace.

"Clearly the dollar is on the front foot and so the question is: can it sustain the momentum?," said Rabobank senior currency strategist Jane Foley....

MORE MEANINGLESS BLATHER AT LINK

[xchrom]

34. EUROPEAN MARKETS SHRUG OFF EARLIER RETREAT IN ASIA

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WORLD_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-08-06-56-35

LONDON (AP) -- European markets recovered their poise Monday, despite an earlier sell-off in Asia, as investors shrugged off fears of an imminent scaling back of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus.

Investors in Europe regained their footing after last week's stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report prompted an end-of-week sell-off. After European markets closed on Friday, U.S. stocks posted solid gains.

Given the prevailing focus on the U.S., the key day this week will likely be Wednesday, when the minutes to the last policy meeting of the Fed are published. The Fed's chairman, Ben Bernanke, is also due to deliver a speech.

"It is possible that the combination of these events will encourage speculation that tapering is almost upon us," said Jane Foley, an analyst at Rabobank International. "Alternatively there is the possibility that Bernanke will push back against speculation that the Fed is ready to take a less accommodative position."

[xchrom]

35. Euro zone to decide on cash for 'uncertain' Greece, warn Portugal

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/uk-eurozone-eurogroup-idUKBRE9660K920130708

(Reuters) - The euro zone must decide on Monday how to keep Greece on a lifeline but is divided over whether to delay aid payments to Athens to force through unpopular reforms ranging from sacking public workers to selling state assets.

A split in Greece's governing coalition over how to shrink the country's public sector has cast doubt upon Athens' ability to meet the demands of its bailout programme. International creditors said on Monday that "the outlook remains uncertain.

Eager to avoid a reawakening of the bloc's debt crisis and mindful of elections in Germany in September, euro zone finance ministers meet at 1500 CET (1300 GMT) and will also want to hear from Portugal after last week's political upheaval.

"This is a delicate moment and we cannot drop our guard," said a senior euro zone official involved in preparing the talks. "Nobody wants a return of the crisis."

[xchrom]

36. After long build-up, U.S.-EU free trade talks finally begin

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/uk-usa-eu-trade-idUKBRE96704B20130708

(Reuters) - The United States and the European Union, after nearly two years of preparation, start talks on Monday aimed at securing a free-trade agreement to squeeze new economic growth out of the world's largest trade and investment relationship.

"We go into these negotiations with the goal of achieving the broadest possible, most comprehensive agreement that we can," U.S. Trade Representative Mike Froman told Reuters.

But in the months since President Barack Obama and European leaders announced a decision to pursue a landmark trade deal, revelations about U.S. government surveillance of phone and Internet records have cast a shadow over the start of talks.

Charges that Washington was spying on the 28-nation EU soured the atmosphere further, with France suggesting the opening round be delayed for two weeks before softening its stance so talks could proceed.

[Demeter]

38. Duty calls and a busy day

See you all on the Tuesday thread!

[xchrom]

39. have a good day, miss demeter!

[xchrom]

40. financial crisis and war

http://www.nationofchange.org/financial-crisis-and-war-1373209905

The approach of the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 has jolted politicians and commentators worried by the fragility of current global political and economic arrangements. Indeed, Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, recently argued that Europe’s growing north-south polarization has set the continent back by a century.

The lessons of 1914 are about more than simply the dangers of national animosities. The origins of the Great War include a fascinating precedent concerning how financial globalization can become the equivalent of a national arms race, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the international order.

In 1907, a major financial crisis emanating from the United States affected the rest of the world and demonstrated the fragility of the entire international financial system. The response to the current financial crisis is replaying a similar dynamic.


Walter Bagehot’s 1873 classic Lombard Street described the City of London as “the greatest combination of economic power and economic delicacy that the world has ever seen.” In one influential interpretation, popularized by the novelist, Labour Party MP, and future Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Angell in 1910, the interdependency of the increasingly complex global economy made war impossible. But the opposite conclusion was equally plausible: Given the extent of fragility, a clever twist to the control levers might facilitate a military victory by the economic hegemon.

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45. Watch high-speed trading in action (video)

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/07/05/n-cmr-citadel-trading-high-frequency.cnnmoney/index.html

Worker self-directed enterprises: