STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 17 March 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 17 March 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 16 March 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 16 March 2015
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Dow Jones 17,977.42 +228.11 (1.29%)
S&P 500 2,081.19 +27.79 (1.35%)
Nasdaq 4,929.51 +57.75 (1.19%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.07% -0.02 (-0.96%)
30 Year 2.65% -0.02 (-0.75%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
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William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts







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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. TPP and China's Reality Sara Hsu

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed trade and investment treaty that would promote free trade among countries on both side of the Pacific Ocean—including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. This proposal has been under closed-door negotiation since 2002, with the United States joining the negotiations in March 2008. Attempts have been made in recent months by President Obama and Republican leaders to fast-track the deal into law. China is notably missing from the agreement, although state officials have publicly commented that the nation is open to joining.

This is no small free trade agreement—it covers over 40% of the world’s GDP. The TPP would potentially eliminate tariff and nontariff barriers in trade and investment, providing expanded market access to participating countries. Rules will be more rigorous than those in the World Trade Organization; intellectual property laws would be strengthened. For example, the pharmaceutical industry would receive much stronger patent protections. Well-known figures such as Robert Reich have publicly criticized the TPP for its orientation toward big business and financial interests, and its omission of sufficient protections for workers and the environment. The secret negotiations have also been a target of criticism, as they have excluded public participation.

Amidst these negotiations, China’s stance has been unclear. In the beginning of its formation, after the United States joined the talks, some Chinese scholars viewed the treaty as an attempt by the U.S. to counterbalance China’s power in the Pacific region. In the past couple of years, however, China has been officially open to the treaty while remaining outside of negotiations. While President Xi is explicitly open to trade cooperation, the rumored high labor, free data movement, and intellectual property standards imposed by the treaty present barriers to China’s participation. While the details of the high labor and environmental standards are unknown and controversial, a Wikileaks post on the intellectual property standards reveals strong pro-big business protections for patents. China was invited to join the TPP in 2012 by then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but continues to analyze its potential gains from joining.

This so-called “high-standards” treaty is less suitable for China than other proposed treaties whose talks are under way. China already has several bilateral agreements in place, including those with Switzerland, Chile, and ASEAN, and is currently engaged in talks to build an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area and a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and to put into place the recently approved China-South Korea Free Trade Agreement. The Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area would eliminate trade barriers across 21 countries in the region, while the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership would promote free trade across the ten ASEAN nations plus Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The reality is that China is unlikely to join the TPP, as joining would force the nation to raise its standards in several disparate areas that are economically or politically costly. As free trade agreements go, the devil is in the details, and from the little we have seen of those details associated with the TPP, they are not easily transferable to China. Further, the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area would be more geographically expansive, including powerhouses such as the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Mexico, and a number of other countries. President Xi has promoted what he refers to as an “Asia-Pacific dream.” Although the U.S. has not been overly supportive of the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area, this proposal falls more in China’s favor, as it would lead to relatively higher gains in trade for China and potentially less costly requirements.

To sum up, although China’s officials have underscored their openness to the TPP, it is not at the forefront of their agenda, and TPP nations would be naïve to think that China would participate in any pact that would increase its cost of doing business. Whether and when free trade cooperation on both sides of the Pacific will come about is anyone’s guess, but for now, for China, the TPP is a non-starter.

- See more at: http://triplecrisis.com/the-trans-pacific-partnership-and-chinas-reality/#sthash.2mJIOOMv.dpuf

[Demeter]

2. IBM looking at adopting bitcoin technology for major currencies

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/us-bitcoin-ibm-idUSKBN0M82KB20150312

International Business Machines Corp is considering adopting the underlying technology behind bitcoin, known as the "blockchain," to create a digital cash and payment system for major currencies, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The objective is to allow people to transfer cash or make payments instantaneously using this technology without a bank or clearing party involved, saving on transaction costs, the person said. The transactions would be in an open ledger of a specific country's currency such as the dollar or euro, said the source, who declined to be identified because of a lack of authorization to discuss the project in public. The blockchain - a ledger, or list, of all of a digital currency's transactions - is viewed as bitcoin's main technological innovation, allowing users to make payments anonymously, instantly, and without government regulation.

Rather than stored on a separate server and controlled by an individual, company, or bank, the ledger is open and accessible to all participants in the bitcoin network.

The proposed digital currency system would work in a similar way.

"When somebody wants to transact in the system, instead of you trying to acquire a bitcoin, you simply say, here are some U.S. dollars," the source said. "It's sort of a bitcoin but without the bitcoin."

YOU KNOW, I THINK THEY'VE GOT SOMETHING THERE....A REAL GOOD WAY TO PUT PRIVATE BANKSTERS OUT OF BUSINESS!

[Demeter]

3. Authorities closing in on hackers who stole data from JPMorgan Chase

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102506520



It has become a familiar pattern: The computer system of a big American company is breached, the personal information of tens of millions of customers is stolen and a public outcry ensues. Rarely are the thieves caught.

But last summer's attack on JPMorgan Chase — which resulted in hackers gaining access to email addresses and phone numbers for 83 million households and small businesses — may break that pattern of investigative dead ends in large corporate breaches.

Federal authorities investigating the attack at JPMorgan are increasingly confident that a criminal case will be filed against the hackers in the coming months, said people briefed on the investigation. Law enforcement officials believe that several of the suspects are "gettable," meaning that they live in a country with which the United States has an extradition treaty. That would not include countries like Russia.

Indictments and arrests would be a notable victory for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. In contrast, there have been no criminal charges in a December 2013 breach at Target, where payment card data for 40 million customers was stolen, along with the personal information of 70 million customers, or in the major attacks against eBay and Home Depot involving hundreds of millions more customers last year.

Although the breach at JPMorgan did not result in the loss of customer money or the theft of personal information, it was one of the largest such attacks against a bank and a warning sign that the American financial system was vulnerable...

WHAT JAMIE WANTS, JAMIE GETS

[Demeter]

4. Why Bankers Are Leaving Finance for No-Salary Tech Jobs

THEY ARE? THAT'S NEWS TO ME!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bankers-embracing-zero-salary-tech-220030352.html

It was February 2012 and banks, dealing with the fallout from the credit crisis, had culled more than 230,000 jobs the year before. Stu Taylor, the London-based global head of matched principal trading at UBS Group AG, figured he better get out. So he left his seven-figure salary and risked his life savings on a technology startup. He and three partners “went into a zero-salary moment” setting up Algomi Ltd., a bond sales management platform to be used by traders, portfolio managers and investors. Three years later, the 42-year-old says the far longer hours to bring home a fraction of his previous pay are worth it. “I enjoy what I’m doing, we’re creating something I think is making a difference, and it’s mine.”

As investment firms including UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Deutsche Bank AG have curtailed or shuttered lines of business, particularly in debt trading, the contractions have prompted former bankers to quit finance and put their experience to use in the new field of financial technology, or fintech. Capitalizing on the changing regulatory environment, such companies offer risk management, data analytics, trading platforms and other services often previously performed by humans.

“Seven out of 10 conversations I have with investment bankers now end with them asking me to keep them in mind for jobs in technology,” said Atlanta-based Eric Anderson, who leads the financial-technology practice at Egon Zehnder International Inc., the executive search firm hired by Standard Chartered Plc to replace Chief Executive Officer Peter Sands. “That almost never happened five years ago.”

North America had 211,500 fewer bond brokering jobs and other roles defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as credit intermediation as of January, versus the start of 2008. By contrast, there are currently more than 500,000 job openings in areas such as software development and cybersecurity, many of which didn’t exist a decade ago, White House data show. An annual review of the U.S. banking system by McKinsey & Co. in December tallied more than 12,000 startups focused on banking businesses.

Four of the biggest U.S. and U.K. banks have reduced total headcount by almost 350,000 since the beginning of 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll released in January found 83 percent of respondents say the banking industry will continue to cut jobs this year....

MORE

[Demeter]

5. Trader who called oil’s rout sees crude below $40

Investors and traders looking for the oil rout to give way to a V-shaped recovery are likely to be painfully disappointed, said a hedge-fund manager who made a killing betting on falling oil prices in 2014.

“I still believe we’re going to go below $40 and you’re going to have a look at the lows. I think it’s going to happen faster now than people think,” said Doug King, the London-based chief investment officer of the Merchant Commodity Fund, in a telephone interview on Friday.

The fund saw a 59.3% return in 2014, driven in large part by bets oil prices would fall. Prices for both West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, and Brent, the global benchmark, dropped by more than half from their mid-2014 highs by the end of the year and are down for the year in 2015, as well. King said the fund is up around 8.5% year-to-date.

A February bounce, which saw nearby Brent futures LCOJ5, -2.30% jump more than 19% while lifting Nymex West Texas Intermediate crude CLJ5, -0.32% by 3.2%, was stronger than he had anticipated, King acknowledged..But that bounce faded fast. Nymex WTI crude ended Friday less than $1 away from a six-year low set earlier this year, extending a sharp weekly decline after the International Energy Agency said signs of price stability were a “facade” in the face of rising production.

King, who told Bloomberg in January that oil could test the $30 to $35 a barrel level, is confident in prospects for another push lower. The second quarter, he noted, is usually the weakest for demand. Also, oil inventories continue to grow. Now, the big question is how much onshore storage capacity remains in the U.S., where crude inventories are at their highest level in more than 80 years, according to government data. King said there is a danger space could run out, leaving more oil to flood the physical market—a proposition that he expects to be tested in the next four weeks.

And despite falling rig counts, U.S. oil production is still around 1.2 million to 1.3 million barrels a day more than it was this time last year, King estimated...

MORE AT LINK: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/capitulation-could-take-crude-below-40-says-successful-oil-bear-2015-03-13?siteid=YAHOOB

[Warpy]

6. Gas prices here in NM have fallen nearly a dollar over the last week

We're down to $2.09/gallon from $2.99/gallon.

[Fuddnik]

7. Been holding steady at $2.39 for weeks here.

But, it did drop 2 cents today.

[Demeter]

17. Paid 2.09 today at Sam's Club

It went down a dime from Monday...while Speedway went up 30 cents at 10 AM today to 2.49, again.

[Demeter]

8. Germany's Merkel narrowly avoided bigger revolt on Greece

I'M NOT WORRIED, THERE'S STILL TIME

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/10/uk-eurozone-greece-germany-idUKKBN0M623920150310

German Chancellor Angela Merkel narrowly averted a far bigger rebellion last month on Greece's bailout extension among her conservatives, many more of whom would have voted 'Nein' but for her finance minister's powers of persuasion, lawmakers said. Germany's parliament voted on Feb. 27 to extend Greece's bailout by four months, but a record number of conservative dissenters were not convinced that Athens would deliver the economic reforms it has promised. One senior conservative told Reuters that Merkel's Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), "would have unanimously voted 'No'" had Wolfgang Schaeuble not solicited support during a personal appearance two days before the vote.

Another leading conservative said Schaeuble's meeting with Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) was equally important in securing their support at a time when confidence in the Greek government was "kaputt" in the lower house of parliament. "The vote was hanging by a thread," the lawmaker said, on condition of anonymity.

Schaeuble is a leading advocate of the austerity measures that Greece's new left-wing government wants to scrap. The lawmakers' comments point to a growing groundswell of discontent within conservative ranks and suggests there is a risk they would not be prepared to approve a third bailout for Greece if Athens asks for more help in future from its partners. "The Greeks say 'We don't need a third bailout' - but they also said they wouldn't need this bailout extension," said the conservative lawmaker. In the last vote, 29 of the 32 parliamentarians who voted against an extension for Greece came from Merkel's CDU and the CSU. In addition, 118 conservatives who voted "yes" gave personal statements signalling they would not keep toeing the party's current line unless there was a significant change.

GERMAN OUTRAGE

Germans have been outraged by Athens' anti-German rhetoric, including comments from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras vowing to seek war reparations from Berlin on the grounds that German troops occupied Greece during World War Two. For all their dissatisfaction with Greece, however, German conservative lawmakers do tend to fall in line in the end and the popularity of Merkel in her party as well as that of CSU leader Horst Seehofer would be likely to help, analysts say. In addition, Merkel's Social Democrat junior coalition partners and the opposition Greens voted unanimously in favour of the extension in February, suggesting they can be counted on in future for measures which offer solidarity with Greece.

I CAN SEE FUTURE HEADLINE NOW---"THE GERMANS ARE REVOLTING!"

[Demeter]

9. China’s Local Government Debts Could Go Under

http://www.marketpulse.com/20150310/chinas-local-government-debts-go/

China’s plan to run its biggest fiscal deficit since the global financial crisis may help develop its bond market, but the extra competition for funding could sink some of the major providers of local government financing.

Local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), which were invented to skirt restrictions on local government fundraising, are already under pressure from Beijing’s drive to reduce local debt and migrate provincial financing to a more transparent municipal bond model. With over $3 trillion in outstanding debt that funded essential infrastructure, along with some vanity projects and speculative adventures, LGFVs are finding it hard to service their existing debts, let alone raise new money when loans fall due. Some fear they could go under.

“There is no way we can survive, and the pressure on the company is huge,” said an executive at an LGFV in Yanghou city in Jiangsu province, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

His company has several billion yuan in debt raised to build roads and lay pipes.

[Demeter]

10. Thomas Piketty on the Euro Zone: 'We Have Created a Monster'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/thomas-piketty-interview-about-the-european-financial-crisis-a-1022629.html

SPIEGEL: You publicly rejoiced over Alexis Tsipras' election victory in Greece. What do you think the chances are that the European Union and Athens will agree on a path to resolve the crisis?

Piketty: The way Europe behaved in the crisis was nothing short of disastrous. Five years ago, the United States and Europe had approximately the same unemployment rate and level of public debt. But now, five years later, it's a different story: Unemployment has exploded here in Europe, while it has declined in the United States. Our economic output remains below the 2007 level. It has declined by up to 10 percent in Spain and Italy, and by 25 percent in Greece.

SPIEGEL: The new leftist government in Athens hasn't exactly gotten off to an impressive start. Do you seriously believe that Prime Minister Tsipras can revive the Greek economy?

Piketty: Greece alone won't be able to do anything. It has to come from France, Germany and Brussels. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) already admitted three years ago thatthe austerity policies had been taken too far. The fact that the affected countries were forced to reduce their deficit in much too short a time had a terrible impact on growth. We Europeans, poorly organized as we are, have used our impenetrable political instruments to turn the financial crisis, which began in the United States, into a debt crisis. This has tragically turned into a crisis of confidence across Europe.

SPIEGEL: European governments have tried to avert the crisis by implementing numerous reforms. What do mean when you refer to impenetrable political instruments?

Piketty: We may have a common currency for 19 countries, but each of these countries has a different tax system, and fiscal policy was never harmonized in Europe. It can't work. In creating the euro zone, we have created a monster. Before there was a common currency, the countries could simply devalue their currencies to become more competitive. As a member of the euro zone, Greece was barred from using this established and effective concept....

MORE

[Demeter]

11. Thoughts on Elizabeth Warren for President

If Elizabeth Warren runs, she wins. The problem is: where does she find her team?

Nobody becomes President in a vacuum. So if Warren ran, she’d need a campaign team–a great place for infiltrators to really screw her game up.

Then, assuming she finessed that–she needs an Administration team. She can’t look to the Democratic Party for that–the Party is a potemkin party, full of double agents, frauds and crooks. So it will be resume time. Who is going to go through all those resumes? Surely not the lady on her own!

Running for President is like starting up a large manufacturer. You need a million friends in the right places. All Elizabeth Warren has is the voters.

[xchrom]

12. The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-important-things-in-the-world-right-now-march-17-2015-3

1. After an unusually long absence from public view, Russian President Vladamir Putin reappeared Monday — looking "pale" and "puffy" — in a meeting with President Almazbek Atambayev of Kyrgyzstan.

2. An adviser to the Saudi minister of petroleum said the OPEC's decision not to cut oil production in November, which sent oil prices crashing, was made because non-OPEC producers Russia and Mexico refused to stop production in a meeting the day before.

3. A report in Brazilian magazine Veja alleges that Iran helped finance Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's 2007 presidential run in exchange for helping to cover up Iran's role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre.

4. Uber CFO Brent Callinicos is stepping down, but will stay on as an adviser to the company.

5. With months of negotiations still ahead between Germany and Greece over a debt deal, a poll by German broadcaster ZDF found that 52% of Germans think Greece should leave the eurozone.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-important-things-in-the-world-right-now-march-17-2015-3#ixzz3UdXaIzDS

[Demeter]

13. IG Audit: 6.5 Million People With Active Social Security Numbers Are 112 or Older

TRANSLATION: THERE ARE AT LEAST 6.5 MILLION DEAD PEOPLE GETTING or still eligible for SOCIAL SECURITY

THEY HAD THIS SAME PROBLEM IN JAPAN...THE HEIRS NEVER REPORTED GRANDMA'S DEATH AND KEPT CASHING THE CHECKS, HENCE THE MYTHOLOGICAL LONGEVITY OF JAPANESE WAS CREATED.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/ig-audit-65-million-people-active-social-security-numbers-are-112-or-older

Many people are living longer, but not to age 112 or beyond -- except in the records of the Social Security Administration. The SSA's inspector general has identified 6.5 million number-holders age 112 -- or older -- for whom no death date has been entered in the main electronic file, called Numident. The audit, dated March 4, 2015, concluded that SSA lacks the controls necessary to annote death information on the records of number-holders who exceed "maximum reasonable life expectancies."

"We obtained Numident data that identified approximately 6.5 million numberholders born before June 16, 1901 who did not have a date of death on their record," the report states.

Some of the numbers assigned to long-dead people were used fraudulently to open bank accounts. And thousands of those numbers apparently were used by illegal immigrants to apply for work:

"During Calendar Years 2008 through 2011, SSA received 4,024 E-Verify inquiries using the SSNs of 3,873 numberholders born before June 16, 1901," the report said. "These inquiries indicate individuals' attempts to use the SSNs to apply for work."

“It is incredible that the Social Security Administration in 2015 does not have the technical sophistication to ensure that people they know to be deceased are actually noted as dead,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“Tens of thousands of these numbers are currently being used to report wages to the Social Security Administration and to the IRS. People are fraudulently, but successfully, applying for jobs and benefits with these numbers. Making sure Social Security cleans up its death master file to prevent future errors and fraud is a good government reform we can all agree on,” Johnson said.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the committee's ranking member, called the findings a "major problem" that wastes taxpayers' money, exposes citizens to identity theft and undermines confidence in government:

"It is simply unacceptable that our nation’s database of Social Security numbers of supposedly living people includes more than six and a half million people who are older than 112 years of age, with a few thousand having birth dates from before the Civil War. Preventing agency errors by keeping track of who has died is a relatively simple problem that the government should pursue as a high priority."

[Demeter]

14. the Rich Uncle Pennybags test

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2015/03/11/the-rich-uncle-pennybags-test/

For awhile now I’ve counseled leftists to apply the inverse of Gandhi’s famous dictum: think of the most privileged person you have ever seen, and ask if your next act will be of any threat to him. I call this the Rich Uncle Pennybags test, after the guy from Monopoly. The question is, does your next proposed political action hurt Rich Uncle Pennybags? Does it threaten his station at all? Could it meaningfully reduce his advantage? I’m not saying everything that you do has to pass the test. I’m not saying that there aren’t meaningful, constructive types of political engagement that fail the test. But I am saying that a left-wing movement that devotes enormous time, effort, and attention to actions that fail the test risks no longer being a left-wing movement at all. I’m saying that a left-wing that constantly fails the Rich Uncle Pennybags test is precisely the kind of left-wing movement that establishment power likes: about symbolism over substance, about the individual rather than the masses, about elevating minorities in the ranks of a corrupt system rather than changing the system, about being good rather than doing good.

So, for example: does race-based affirmative action threaten Rich Uncle Pennybags? It does. Race-based affirmative action helps to address the deep inequalities in access to college, inequalities that most often help people like Rich Uncle Pennybags and his idiot kin. It’s also a (small) step to help redress the overall socioeconomic inequality that Rich Uncle Pennybags enjoys. Done well, it helps lift the fortunes of millions rather than of a few; it’s a victory for an entire class of oppressed peoples, not a lottery. Supporting race-based affirmative action passes the test. Meanwhile, whether Iggy Azaliea gets another nasty thinkpiece written about her just makes no difference to the privileged. It’s irrelevant. So: in the last year, what have you read more of in left-wing environs? Articles about affirmative action, or articles about Iggy Azaliea?

Or consider what I am told is the great internet political debate of the moment: whether you should only read books by authors who aren’t white men. Well, if that’s what you’d like to do, go wild. I could not care less what you read. I certainly don’t think not reading white men amounts to “reverse racism” or “political correctness gone mad,” the typical complaints of conservative commenters and Twitterers. Knock yourself out. I just don’t mistake that decision for somehow amounting to a meaningful political action. It completely fails the Rich Uncle Pennybags test: what do the privileged care if you don’t read white men? Even under the absolute best case scenario, it’s hard to see this kind of action making a meaningful dent in the inequalities that are present in book publishing, already a threatened field, and there’s no way this engagement spreads to make the economy less sexist and racist generally. It’s absolutely great if this gets more people reading a more diverse set of authors, or if some non-white, non-male authors get a bigger readership. But it’s not in any sense a meaningful, structural response to any kind of inequality. Yet judging by the enthusiastic embrace of this initiative, and the palpable pride of those who espouse it, you’d think this was our Gettysburg.

Like I said: read who you want, and if this effort gets some people diversifying their reading, great. But this isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening in a left that seems to have no other interests than in these kinds of purely symbolic politics. And that’s a type of apoptosis self-destruction. (I’m told apoptosis, while having a self-destructive element, is actually a good thing. Too clever for my own good.)

[Demeter]

15. European giants side with UK in Chinese World Bank row with US

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11476533/Joining-Chinas-World-Bank-is-in-UKs-national-interest-depsite-Washington-anger.html

France, Germany and Italy have joined Britain in signing up to the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), dealing a further blow to the US government. Australia is also believed to be rethinking its position to stay allied with the US and reject joining the $50bn bank, which is seen as a rival to the World Bank.

Last week the UK said it believed its decision to become a founding member of the AIIB was in the national interest, shrugging off US concerns about the move.

"There will be times when we take a different approach (to the United States)," a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters, referring to the decision to join the bank. "We think that it's in the UK's national interest."

The AIIB has been feted by Beijing as a way of financing regional development.

Britain's move drew a cautious response from Washington, but Mr Cameron's spokesman said the Prime Minister did not think the episode would damage London's ties with the US, and that Chancellor George Osborne had discussed the matter with his American counterpart beforehand....

THIS IS NEWS!

[Demeter]

16. Duty Calls---don't take any wodden bitcoin!

[mother earth]

18. From Nov. 2014, Predictors of ’29 Crash See 65% Chance of 2015 Recession

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- In 1929, a businessman and economist by the name of Jerome Levy didn’t like what he saw in his analysis of corporate profits. He sold his stocks before the October crash.

Almost eight decades later, the consultancy company that bears his name declared “the next recession will be caused by the deflating housing bubble.” By February 2007, it predicted problems in the subprime-mortgage market would spread “to virtually all financial markets.” In October 2007, it saw imminent recession -- the slump began two months later.

The Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, based in Mount Kisco, New York, and run by Jerome’s grandson David, is again more worried than its peers. Its half-dozen analysts attach a 65 percent probability of a worldwide recession forcing a contraction in the U.S. by the end of next year.


That call runs counter to the forecasts of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The two banks posit an expansion that has plenty of room to run.

“Clearly the direction of most of the recent global economic news suggests movement toward a 2015 downturn,” chairman David Levy told clients in an Oct. 23 edition of a monthly forecasting report, which at over 60 years purports to be the oldest of its kind.

Why the gloom? Levy argues the U.S. and many advanced economies still have balance-sheet excesses exposing them to renewed financial crisis. There is limited room for policy makers to reverse any slump, and low inflation risks tipping into deflation in many parts of the world.

U.S. Exposure
While the U.S. is doing relatively well, Levy is worried that at about 13 percent of gross domestic product, U.S. exports represent their largest share ever.

American companies also are getting a historically large proportion of earnings from abroad and households are vulnerable to any bear market because their ratio of stocks to disposable income is higher than at any point aside from the start of this century, he said.

Granted, there have been some misfires. In September 2010, Levy told Bloomberg Television that he saw a 60 percent chance of another U.S. recession. Instead the world’s largest economy has gained in strength.

The upshot of the latest forecast is that even if a slump is avoided, the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero until the next decade, according to Levy.

“Without first strengthening substantially, we think it highly unlikely that global financial stability will hold together long enough for the Fed to signal and execute a rate increase,” he said.

[Demeter]

19. Well, that's cheerful news

If it weren't for all the nice people that would be collateral damage, I'd say let the Crash begin....