STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 23 June 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 23 June 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 22 June 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 22 June 2015
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Dow Jones 18,119.78 +103.83 (0.58%)
S&P 500 2,122.85 +12.86 (0.61%)
Nasdaq 5,153.97 +36.97 (0.72%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.37% +0.07 (3.04%)
30 Year 3.16% +0.09 (2.93%) [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
Marketwatch Data
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Yahoo Finance
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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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Brad DeLong
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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
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.
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. I am profoundly aggrieved

This week is in the 90's and humid. Three weeks ago it frosted (June 2). How is a flower gardener supposed to cope with that? I don't have the equipment or time to drape stuff against frost. Forget even trying vegetables...

The corn loves this crazy weather. It grew a foot in a week.

And the peaches have thrived. Of course, they are in the most sheltered spot I could contrive. Sometimes, you just have to trust in Nature and be grateful for what does endure.

The Kid gets braces (or just half, on the bottom) this afternoon. After which, I plan to get stinking drunk (or as far as I'm able, with no capacity). Anticipational stress.

[Fuddnik]

2. My little garden from hell is thriving.

I've been getting jalapenos and tomatoes for about a week.

The habaneros are starting to turn orange. And last week I planted these monstrosities called "Carolina Reapers" that run 2 million scoville units. The hottest in the world. And today I planted some Red Savinas that are twice as hot as a habanero.

Gonna be a hot summer.

[DemReadingDU]

7. Too hot for me

no peppers, ever

[tclambert]

4. Don't forget the wicked thunderstorms. They reported a tornado near Birch Run.

Tonight's storms may go a little north of you, but it looks like it has my neighborhood in its sights.

[tclambert]

16. The trick to getting plants to grow

is to plant them in the cracks of a sidewalk. Everything seems to grow there.

[Demeter]

3. Jobless rate jumps in 25 states

http://www.chieftain.com/business/3702183-120/percent-jobs-rate-states

Unemployment rates rose in 25 U.S. states last month, driven higher in many cases by more people who began looking for work but didn’t immediately find jobs.

JUNE GRADUATES, MAYBE?

Rates fell in nine states and Washington, D.C., and were unchanged in 16 states, the Labor Department said Friday.

Despite the pickup in unemployment rates, employers are hiring at a robust pace, boosting job growth in most parts of the country. Thirty-seven states added jobs last month, while 12 states cut jobs. Hiring in Montana was flat.

The state data echoes last month’s national pattern. Employers added 280,000 jobs, yet the unemployment rate ticked up to 5.5 percent from 5.4 percent. That can happen when more Americans start job hunts but aren’t immediately hired. The government doesn’t count people as unemployed unless they are actively searching for work...


- See more at: http://www.chieftain.com/business/3702183-120/percent-jobs-rate-states#sthash.BOB4dWHt.dpuf

[Demeter]

5. A Pink Slip for the Progress Fairy OCTOBER--RETURN TO THE FUTURE

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/a-pink-slip-for-progress-fairy.html

If you’ve ever wondered just how powerfully 'collective thinking' grips most members of our species—including, by and large, those who most forcefully insist on the originality of their thinking—I have an experiment to recommend: go out in public and advocate an idea about the future that isn’t part of the conventional wisdom, and see what kind of reaction you field. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll get some anger, some argument, and some blank stares, but the most telling reaction will come from people who try to force what you’re saying into the Procrustean bed of the conventional wisdom, no matter how thoroughly they have to stretch and chop what you’ve said to make it fit.

Now of course the project of this blog is guaranteed to field such reactions, since the ideas explored here don’t just ignore the conventional wisdom, they fling it to the floor and dance on the crumpled remains. When I mention that I expect the decline and fall of industrial civilization to take centuries, accordingly, people take this to mean that I expect a smooth, untroubled descent. When I mention that I expect crisis before this decade is finished, in turn, people take this to mean that I expect industrial civilization to crash into ruin in the next few years. Some people, for that matter, slam back and forth from one of these presuppositions to another, as though they can’t fit the concepts of prolonged decline and imminent crisis into their heads at the same moment. That sort of response has become more common than usual in recent months, and part of the reason may be that it’s been a while since I’ve sketched out the overall shape of the future as I see it. Some of my readers may have lost track of the broader picture, and more recent readers of this blog may not have encountered that picture at all. For that reason among others, I’m going to spend this week’s post summarizing the the decline and fall of industrial civilization.

Yes, I’m aware that many people believe that such a thing can’t happen: that science, technology, or some other factor has made progress irreversible. I’m also aware that many people insist that progress may not be irreversible yet but will be if we all just do that little bit more. These are—well, let’s be charitable and call them faith-based claims. Generalizing from a sample size of one when the experiment hasn’t yet run its course is poor scientific procedure; insisting that just this once, the law of diminishing returns will be suspended for our benefit is the antithesis of science. It amounts to treating progress as some sort of beneficent fairy who can be counted on to tap us with her magic wand and give us a wonderful future, just because we happen to want one.

The overfamiliar cry of “but it’s different this time!” is popular, it’s comforting, but it’s also irrelevant. Of course it’s different this time; it was different every other time, too. Neolithic civilizations limited to one river valley and continental empires with complex technologies have all declined and fallen in much the same way and for much the same reasons. It may appeal to our sense of entitlement to see ourselves as destiny’s darlings, to insist that the Progress Fairy has promised us a glorious future out there among the stars, or even to claim that it’s humanity’s mission to populate the galaxy, but these are another set of faith-based claims; it’s a little startling, in fact, to watch so many people who claim to have outgrown theology clinging to such overtly religious concepts as humanity’s mission and destiny.

In the real world, when civilizations exhaust their resource bases and wreck the ecological cycles that support them, they fall. It takes between one and three centuries on average for the fall to happen—and no, big complex civilizations don’t fall noticeably faster or slower than smaller and simpler ones. Nor is it a linear decline—the end of a civilization is a fractal process composed of crises on many different scales of space and time, with equally uneven consequences. An effective response can win a breathing space; in the wake of a less effective one, part of what used to be normal goes away for good. Sooner or later, one crisis too many overwhelms the last defenses, and the civilization falls, leaving scattered remnants of itself that struggle and gleam for a while until the long night closes in. The historian Arnold Toynbee, whose study of the rise and fall of civilizations is the most detailed and cogent for our purpose, has traced a recurring rhythm in this process. Falling civilizations oscillate between periods of intense crisis and periods of relative calm, each such period lasting anywhere from a few decades to a century or more—the pace is set by the speed of the underlying decline, which varies somewhat from case to case. Most civilizations, he found, go through three and a half cycles of crisis and stabilization—the half being, of course, the final crisis from which there is no recovery.

That’s basically the model that I’m applying to our future. One wrinkle many people miss is that we’re not waiting for the first of the three and a half rounds of crisis and recovery to hit; we’re waiting for the second. The first began in 1914 and ended around 1954, driven by the downfall of the British Empire and the collapse of European domination of the globe. During the forty years between Sarajevo and Dien Bien Phu, the industrial world was hammered by the First World War, the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Great Depression, millions of political murders by the Nazi and Soviet governments, the Second World War, and the overthrow of European colonial empires around the planet. That was the first era of crisis in the decline and fall of industrial civilization. The period from 1945 to the present was the first interval of stability and recovery, made more prosperous and expansive than most examples of the species by the breakneck exploitation of petroleum and other fossil fuels, and a corresponding boom in technology. At this point, as fossil fuel reserves deplete, the planet’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and other pollutants runs up against hard limits, and a galaxy of other measures of impending crisis move toward the red line, it’s likely that the next round of crisis is not far off. What will actually trigger that next round, though, is anyone’s guess. In the years leading up to 1914, plenty of people sensed that an explosion was coming, some guessed that a general European war would set it off, but nobody knew that the trigger would be the assassination of an Austrian archduke on the streets of Sarajevo. The Russian Revolution, the March on Rome, the crash of ‘29, Stalin, Hitler, Pearl Harbor, Auschwitz, Hiroshima? No one saw those coming, and only a few people even guessed that something resembling one or another of these things might be in the offing.

Thus trying to foresee the future of industrial society in detail is an impossible task. Sketching out the sort of future that we could get is considerably less challenging. History has plenty to say about the things that happen when a civilization begins its long descent into chaos and barbarism, and it’s not too difficult to generalize from that evidence. I don’t claim that the events outlined below are what will happen, but I expect things like them to happen; further than that, the lessons of history will not go.

With those cautions, here’s a narrative sketch of the kind of future that waits for us.


YOU'LL HAVE TO GO TO THE LINK...IF YOU DARE!

[Demeter]

6. The Biggest Threat To America OCTOBER MUST HAVE BEEN APOCALYPTIC!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-23/biggest-threat-america

Presented with no comment...

Q: "Who is going to defend the country without the Army?"

Zappa: "From what? The biggest threat to America is its own federal government... Will the Army protect anybody from the FBI? The IRS? The CIA? The Republican Party? The Democratic Party?... The biggest dangers we face today don't even need to sneak past our billion-dollar defense systems... they issue the contracts for them."

Source: The Burning Platform


FROM COMMENTS:

IMAGINE ...

When Zappa Made This Damning Comment, There Was NO HOMELAND SECURITY, NO NSA, NO Fed QE To The CHOSEN ELITES, NO Etc Etc Etc...

[Demeter]

8. A 'worrying sign' for oil prices is floating on the Atlantic

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-worrying-sign-oil-prices-125928557.html

There aren't enough buyers for all the crude oil out there.

It's peak season for oil buying, Morgan Stanley's Adam Longson notes in his weekly commentary on Monday, yet there are still a bunch of tankers full of oil sitting in the Atlantic Basin waiting to be sold.

And when it comes to the future of oil prices, this is "a worrying sign for the fall," Longson writes.

Here's Longson (emphasis added):

If there are this many challenged cargoes in this strong demand environment, we worry about the outlook for physical oil this fall when crude runs and gasoline demand fall seasonally. When combined with risk of new supply from Libya and Iran, a more range bound (if not lower), yet volatile, oil price environment seems increasingly likely in 2H15.

Longson notes that some oil supplies are being bought only after three months of floating in storage. These supplies include North Sea oil and Nigerian crude extracted off the West African coast, he writes.

Furthermore, all this oil is weakening the gap between the prices of different grades of crude oil to the lowest level in years.

Last month, we highlighted a Bloomberg report that oil benchmark charter rates for oil tankers spiked to a seven-year high because producers were falling short of storage space.

And now it's apparent that even the strongest demand is not mopping up inventories.

Oil prices have rebounded from the lows reached earlier this year, following the 50% crash that began about a year ago. The biggest drawback to the solid rally has been the oversupply in the market, implying that the upside could still be capped. On Monday morning, West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices were trading around $60; a year ago, prices were closer to $100.

Last month, OPEC maintained its oil output target at 30 million barrels a day, as expected. And US shale output has continued to surge, though the Energy Information Administration now expects output to slow down from June till early next year.

And so as Morgan Stanley sees it, even the strongest demand is not balancing the market.

Here's a chart showing that the supply glut of 2015 is higher than the five-year average.

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/pop5YgyFQFp7UoDnlPsgZg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/A_worrying_sign_for_oil-4d1ab91a30d403eb3d9bd1fa3f9440cb

[Demeter]

9. POLITICS, POWER, IDEAS, AND DISSENT SUMMARIZED NEATLY

[Demeter]

10. Greece offers new proposals to avert default, creditors see hope

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/22/eurozone-greece-idUSL8N0Z811320150622

* Eurogroup chairman says proposal is a basis for talks

* Merkel warns that summit cannot make a decision

* Greek stock market surges 9 percent on hopes of deal

* ECB increases emergency liquidity for Greek banks

By Renee Maltezou and Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS, June 22 (Reuters) - Greece took a step back from the abyss on Monday with the presentation of new budget proposals that euro zone leaders welcomed as a basis for a possible agreement in the coming days to unlock frozen aid and avert a looming default. European Council President Donald Tusk, who chaired an emergency summit of leaders of the 19-nation currency bloc, called the Greek proposals "a positive step forward". He said the aim was to have the Eurogroup finance ministers approve a cash-for-reform package on Wednesday evening and put it to euro zone leaders for final endorsement on Thursday morning. However, there must first be a detailed agreement with representatives of European governments, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to ensure the numbers add up, he said.

European stock markets and Greek assets surged on Monday on hopes of a last-minute deal to ease a crisis that is threatening to drive Greece out of the euro and weaken the foundations of the European Union's single currency. "I am convinced that we will come to a final agreement in the course of this week," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told a late-night news conference. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is Greece's biggest creditor, was more cautious. "I can't give any guarantee that that will happen," she said of a final agreement. "There's still a lot of work to be done."

The Greek proposals included higher taxes and welfare charges and steps to curtail early retirement, but not the nominal pension and wage cuts first sought by lenders. Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, elected in January on a promise to end austerity measures, also appeared to have avoided raising value added tax on electricity or loosening job protection laws. Tsipras said the ball was back in the creditors' court and they should provide a deal that would make Greece's huge debts affordable. "We are seeking a comprehensive and viable solution that will be followed by a strong growth package and at the same time render the Greek economy viable," he told reporters. The cash-starved country must repay the IMF 1.6 billion euros by June 30 or be declared in default, potentially triggering a bank run and capital controls.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the euro zone finance ministers, known as the Eurogroup, described the new Greek document as comprehensive and "a basis to really restart the talks". He said negotiations in the coming days would show whether the numbers added up.
He left the summit saying only that there would be "hard work for the next few hours". German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was the most negative, telling reporters earlier in the day he had seen nothing really new from Greece.

SCHAEUBLE OF COURSE! MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

11. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese yields fall after new Greek proposal

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/22/markets-bonds-euro-idUSL8N0Z839C20150622

Italian, Spanish and Portuguese bond yields fell more than 20 basis points on Monday after the European Union welcomed a new offer by Greece on a reform package that signalled 11th-hour concessions to avert default.

Greek 10-year yields dropped 141 basis points to 11.23 percent and two-year yields dived 485 basis points to 23.65 percent, their lowest in two weeks.

EU Economic Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said he was convinced that euro zone leaders holding an emergency meeting in Brussels on Monday would find a way out of the Greek crisis.

It was not immediately clear how far the new proposal from Athens acceded to creditors' demands for additional spending cuts and tax hikes. Euro zone finance ministers said they required detailed study and it would take several days to determine whether they can lead to an agreement to avert a default.

"The odds seem to shift in favour of a compromise," said Rainer Guntermann, rates strategist at Commerzbank....MORE

[Demeter]

12. After Greece: Where next for the euro zone? PROPAGANDA TIME!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102776641

The leaders of Europe's most powerful political bodies have called for closer political, monetary and economic ties between euro zone countries to reinforce the region's vulnerable foundations which have taken quite a battering thanks to the various economic and debt crises of the last five years.

The report, prepared by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, reiterated the founding principles of the 19-country euro zone towards closer economic and monetary union and included a plan to achieve this aim – something, which it said, could help prevent future economic crises.

"The euro is more than just a currency. It is a political and economic project…This common destiny requires solidarity in times of crisis and respect for commonly agreed rules from all members." the report published late on Sunday noted.



The leaders of Europe's most powerful political bodies have called for closer political, monetary and economic ties between euro zone countries to reinforce the region's vulnerable foundations which have taken quite a battering thanks to the various economic and debt crises of the last five years.

The report, prepared by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, reiterated the founding principles of the 19-country euro zone towards closer economic and monetary union and included a plan to achieve this aim – something, which it said, could help prevent future economic crises.

"The euro is more than just a currency. It is a political and economic project…This common destiny requires solidarity in times of crisis and respect for commonly agreed rules from all members." the report published late on Sunday noted.

"Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) today is like a house that was built over decades but only partially finished. When the storm hit, its walls and roof had to be stabilized quickly. It is now high time to reinforce its foundations…To achieve this, we will need to take further steps to complete EMU," it said.

... Progress and closer union in the euro area must happen on four fronts, the report noted:

1) Towards a genuine Economic Union that "ensures each economy has the structural features to prosper within the Monetary Union."

2) Progress towards a Financial Union that guarantees "the integrity of our currency across the Monetary Union and increases risk-sharing with the private sector. This means completing the Banking Union and accelerating the Capital Markets Union."

3) Progress towards a Fiscal Union that delivers both fiscal sustainability and fiscal stabilization.

4) And finally, progress towards a Political Union "that provides the foundation for all of the above through genuine democratic accountability, legitimacy and institutional strengthening."

In each case, progress will have to follow a sequence of short- and longer-term steps, the report said, "but it is vital to establish and agree the full sequence today. The measures in the short-term will only increase confidence now if they are the start of a larger process, a bridge towards a complete and genuine EMU."

It urged all euro zone countries to participate in all four of the "Unions" and that the processes needed to complete "a deep and genuine EMU" should be implemented by 2025, at the latest.

SURE, WHY NOT? DO A REAL BANG-UP JOB OF IT! MORE NONSENSE AT LINK

THE EUROZONE IS A RELIGION, NOT A PLAN

[Demeter]

14. Short Greece Proposal Update: Greece Folds naked capitalism

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/short-greece-proposal-update.html

...Note contrary to earlier media reports, it technically does not lower pensions payments but does reduce pension spending by requiring higher contributions, including payments from retirees themselves. As the Guardian’s Athens reporter, Helen Smith, notes:

……there’s a hefty increase in revenues from VAT over the next 18 months.

Greece has also accepted that pension must be reformed, and is planning a hike in pension contributions and an increase in health contributions from retirees. However, it appears that actual pension rates won’t be cut, allowing Athens to argue it has kept to its red line.

Another quick verdict is that “pensions are almost spared“. And while European leaders are urging their peers to consummate a deal, it’s not clear these pension moves will be enough to satisfy countries like Slovaka, which have said they can’t stomach financing Greece’s more generous pensions. One rebellious country could probably be shamed into line, but we have yet to hear of the reactions from the real hardliners like Finland and Spain, since the summit has just begun.

However, regardless of what you think of the pension finesse, the Syriza government has agreed to continue with austerity. A 1% primary surplus for 2015, which was the creditors’ target that Greece accepted the weekened before last, contrasted with the IMF estimated that primary surplus for 2015 was going to be as low as negative 1.5% roughly a month ago, represents a big hairs shirt for Greek citizens. Even though recent Greek budget releases show the primary surplus above the target for the first five months, if you look into the details of how that was achieved, it was through payment deferrals and cuts. Those payment deferrals, meaning non-payments to important vendors like pharmaceutical suppliers will need to be made more current, and other reserves that have been run down to make payments such as the borrowings from the IMF reserves, will also need to be made up at some point. That means that the actual impact of meeting the target will be greater than the 1% when you allow for where it would be if Greece were as current as it has been whether new government came in, as opposed to stretching payables to such and extreme degree.

If you take the IMF estimate of a 1.5% primary deficit as a decent representation of where things stand if the Greek government had been paying bills on a normal bassi, that means the amount of austerity being inflicted this year is close to 2.5% of GDP. That is essentially the same increase as the pre-negotiation target of 3.0% of GDP relative to Greece having primary surpluses before the negotiations began Recall that the February Eurogroup memo that Greece signed, which said that the primary surplus target would be adjusted in light of current conditions, that is arguably what happened, that the target was adjusted to produce the same degree of “fiscal consolidation” and not actual relief.

And not only is this year’s level harsh in an already severely depressed economy but 2018 and later target of 3.5% is simply draconian.

Although the Greek government will try to spin otherwise, the new coalition has agreed to continued austerity. They are now just hashing out implementation details...

MORE

[Demeter]

13. McConnell wants to pass trade bills this week

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/245735-mcconnell-wants-to-pass-trade-bills-this-week

TOP OF THE PAGE IS A VIDEO PROPAGANDA SPEECH FROM OUR POTUS, ABOUT HIS SOLEMN GUARANTEE THAT TPP IS FOR OUR GOOD...IT'S MASTERFUL, IF YOU HAVE NO CONTEXT AND A STRONG STOMACH. ANYONE WHO BELIEVES IT GETS WHAT IS COMING TO HIM...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Monday that he wants to wrap up work on two trade bills before the Senate leaves for a week-long recess, pressing senators to have "a little more trust."

"If we can continue working together in a spirit of trust and if we simply vote the same way we did a couple of weeks ago, just vote the same way we did a couple of weeks ago, we won't miss this opportunity," the Republican leader said from the Senate floor.

The Senate is expected to take a procedural vote on agreeing to a House-passed trade promotion authority (TPA) bill on Tuesday. Under McConnell's plan, a separate trade adjustment assistance (TAA) measure is being added to a trade preferences bill that the Senate will take up on Wednesday.

The Kentucky Republican said it is his intention that both proposals reach President Obama's desk before lawmakers leave at the end of the week...

IT WAS NICE KNOWING YOU ALL

[Demeter]

15. TPP: NAKED CAPITALISM..PLEA FOR PHONE CALLS!

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/tpp-will-voters-re-elect-laughing-stocks-to-the-senate.html

...Let’s review the devious process for passing the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill devised by the Republicans I outlined in my last post. It has the following steps:

– Step one: the House passes a TPA bill without passing Trade Adjustments Assistance (TAA); then

– Step two: the Republicans in the Senate give assurances to Senate Democrats that TAA will be passed by the Senate and later the House;

– Step three: the Senate then passes the House’s TPA bill, and then sends it to the President; then

– Step four: the Senate passes an amendment to another piece of legislation (not clear yet whether the plan will use the Trade Preferences bill, or the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and incorporate TAA in one of those); then

– Step five: the House passes TAA with the help of Democrats, because once TPA is passed Democrats will have no incentive to vote against TAA.

Step one’s done now. A TPA bill without Trade Adjustment Assistance passed the House 218 – 208 on Thursday, sending the bill on to the Senate. In order to complete steps two – three, Mitch McConnell is promising the 14 Democratic Senators who voted for cloture on the TPA bill in May, that he will pass a bill re-authorizing the Ex – Im Bank, a measure empowering the Commerce Department to take retaliatory action against nations that violate trade rules, and also will immediately pass a TAA amendment to a trade preferences bill, so the Democratic Senators can say that they passed protections for workers who lose their votes as an eventual consequence of the TPA whose passage they are supporting.

Of course, even if McConnell follows through with the promise of passage of the TAA (step four) that he probably has the means to fulfill, his and the President’s assurances that the Republicans in the House will fulfill their part of bargain, enabling Democrats to complete step five, passing TAA in the House, depend both on Speaker John Boehner’s cooperation and his ability to deliver 30 – 40 Republican votes for TAA, a program Republicans view as “welfare.”

A TAA package did get 86 Republican votes in the House in the failed roll call vote that was tied to the first TPA package in the House. But that total for TAA was delivered under pressure from the leadership to pass the TPA package. Sadly for the 14 defecting Democrats, neither McConnell, nor both together, can guarantee the delivery of that many Republican House votes for TAA, or even the necessary 30 – 40, once the TPA is passed....

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