Weekend Economists "Give Me Your Tired" November 12-14, 2010

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It was 56 years ago today that Ellis Island was closed for business.

Ellis Island, also known as the Island of Tears, featured an immigration station in the New York Harbor that opened on January 1, 1892. Twelve million immigrants were processed there by the US Bureau of Immigration. After the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed, which greatly restricted immigration and allowed processing at overseas embassies, the only immigrants to pass through the station were displaced persons or war refugees. Today, over 100 million Americans - one third of the population - can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived in America at Ellis Island on steamships such as the Cunard Line, the White Star Line, the North German Lloyd Line, the Hamburg-Amerika Line, the Italian Steam Navigation Company, the Red Star Line, the Holland America Line, and the Austro-American Line.

The peak year for immigration at Ellis Island was 1907, with 1,004,756 immigrants processed. The all-time daily high occurred on April 17, 1907, when 11,747 immigrants arrived. Writer Louis Adamic came to America from Slovenia in southeastern Europe in 1913 and described the night he and many other immigrants slept on bunk beds in a huge hall. Lacking a warm blanket, the young man "shivered, sleepless, all night, listening to snores" and dreams "in perhaps a dozen different languages". The facility was so large that the dining room could seat 1,000 people.

Generally, those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money carried. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. More than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers were rejected because they were considered "likely to become a public charge." About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as having a chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity. Ellis Island was sometimes known as "The Island of Tears" or "Heartbreak Island" because of those 2% who were not admitted after the long transatlantic voyage. The Kissing Post is a wooden column outside the Registry Room, where new arrivals were greeted by their relatives and friends, typically with tears, hugs and kisses.

The first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island was Annie Moore, a 15-year-old girl from Cork, Ireland, on January 1, 1892. She and her two brothers were coming to America to meet their parents, who had moved to New York two years prior. She received a greeting from officials and a $10 gold piece. It was the largest sum of money she had ever owned. The last person to pass through Ellis Island was a Norwegian merchant seaman by the name of Arne Peterssen in 1954. U.S. Coast Guard also trained about 60,000 servicemen there.

Since 1990, restored buildings on the island host a museum of immigration run by the National Park Service as part of Statue of Liberty National Monument. A 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found most of the island to be part of New Jersey.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-vQwjenlJM

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1. See those two litle dots next to the orange shore?

That's Ellis Island and Liberty Island, presided over by our gift from the French:

[Hugin]

2. 1st recce!

:w00t:

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4. Congrats, Hugin!

Whatcha gonna post?

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9. Reading the latest headlines out of Washington and Wall Street has inspired me to write a Fictional

Novel.

Hmm, but, so far I've only gotten the first sentence...

"My mood bracelet suddenly went black."

Writer's Block. :/

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11. Well, Doug Adams used to advise aspiring writers

not to blow up the home planet in the first chapter...

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31. Sage advice.

Too bad TPTB aren't listening. :rofl:

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30. #4 and pix

Ellis Island, 2004

Supposedly my great-grandfather, Theodore Mueller, came from Carlsbad, Germany, through Ellis Island, but I have never been able to find any records.

It's an eerie place to walk through.

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60. My grandmother came thru Ellis Island

My sister was able to find her in the ship's log. Supposedly my grandfather also came thru Ellis Island on an earlier boat, but we think his name was misspelled. These were my mom's parents. We're still trying to piece together my dad's side of the family.

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61. I don't know where my greats came through

and I doubt that my parents ever asked them. Sigh. Haven't even started down that hobby.

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3. TWO GEORGIA BANKS ARE NO MORE

Tifton Banking Company, Tifton, Georgia and Darby Bank & Trust Co., Vidalia, Georgia, were closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Ameris Bank, Moultrie, Georgia, to acquire the banking operations, including all the deposits, of the two failed Georgia-based institutions. The two closed institutions were not affiliated with one another.

The branches of the two closed institutions will reopen as branches of Ameris Bank under their normal business hours, including those with Saturday hours.

As of September 30, 2010, Tifton Banking Company had total assets of $143.7 million and total deposits of $141.6 million, and Darby Bank & Trust Co. had total assets of $654.7 million and total deposits of $587.6 million. Besides assuming all the deposits from the two Georgia institutions, Ameris Bank will purchase virtually all their assets.

The FDIC and Ameris entered into a loss-share transaction on $560.2 million of the failed institutions' assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $24.6 million for Tifton Banking Company, and $136.2 million for Darby Bank & Trust Co. Compared to other alternatives, Ameris Bank's acquisition of all the deposits of the two institutions was the least costly option for the FDIC's DIF.

The two closed institutions were the 144th and 145th banks to fail in the nation this year, and the 17th and 18th banks to close in Georgia. Prior to these failures, the last bank closed in the state was The Gordon Bank, Gordon, on October 22, 2010.

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29. AND ONE FROM ARIZONA

Copper Star Bank, Scottsdale, Arizona, was closed today by the Superintendent of the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Stearns Bank National Association, St. Cloud, Minnesota, to assume all of the deposits of Copper Star Bank.

The three branches of Copper Star Bank will reopen on Monday as branches of Stearns Bank N.A...As of September 30, 2010, Copper Star Bank had approximately $204.0 million in total assets and $190.2 million in total deposits. Stearns Bank N.A. will pay the FDIC a premium of 1.0 percent to assume all of the deposits of Copper Star Bank. In addition to assuming all of the deposits, Stearns Bank N.A. agreed to purchase essentially all of the failed bank's assets.

The FDIC and Stearns Bank N.A. entered into a loss-share transaction on $165.2 million of Copper Star Bank's assets....The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $43.6 million. Compared to other alternatives, Stearns Bank N.A.'s acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Copper Star Bank is the 146th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the fourth in Arizona. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was First Arizona Savings, a F.S.B., Scottsdale, on October 22, 2010.

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53. TOTAL FOR THE EVENING: $204.4 M

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5. HOME ECONOMICS

News of domestic import:


Before being designated as the site of the first Federal immigration station by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890, Ellis Island had a varied history. The local Indian tribes had called it "Kioshk" or Gull Island. Due to its rich and abundant oyster beds and plentiful and profitable shad runs, it was known as Oyster Island for many generations during the Dutch and English colonial periods. By the time Samuel Ellis became the island's private owner in the 1770's, the island had been called Kioshk, Oyster, Dyre, Bucking and Anderson's Island. In this way, Ellis Island developed from a sandy island that barely rose above the high tide mark, into a hanging site for pirates, a harbor fort, ammunition and ordinance depot named Fort Gibson, and finally into an immigration station.

From 1794 to 1890 (pre-immigration station period), Ellis Island played a mostly uneventful but still important military role in United States history. When the British occupied New York City during the duration of the Revolutionary War, its large and powerful naval fleet was able to sail unimpeded directly into New York Harbor. Therefore, it was deemed critical by the United States Government that a series of coastal fortifications in New York Harbor be constructed just prior to the War of 1812. After much legal haggling over ownership of the island, the Federal government purchased Ellis Island from New York State in 1808. Ellis Island was approved as a site for fortifications and on it was constructed a parapet for three tiers of circular guns, making the island part of the new harbor defense system that included Castle Clinton at the Battery, Castle Williams on Governor's Island, Fort Wood on Bedloe's Island and two earthworks forts at the entrance to New York Harbor at the Verrazano Narrows. The fort at Ellis Island was named Fort Gibson in honor of a brave officer killed during the War of 1812.

Prior to 1890, the individual states (rather than the Federal government) regulated immigration into the United States. Castle Garden in the Battery (originally known as Castle Clinton) served as the New York State immigration station from 1855 to 1890 and approximately eight million immigrants, mostly from Northern and Western Europe, passed through its doors. These early immigrants came from nations such as England, Ireland, Germany and the Scandinavian countries and constituted the first large wave of immigrants that settled and populated the United States. Throughout the 1800's and intensifying in the latter half of the 19th century, ensuing political instability, restrictive religious laws and deteriorating economic conditions in Europe began to fuel the largest mass human migration in the history of the world. It soon became apparent that Castle Garden was ill-equipped and unprepared to handle the growing numbers of immigrants arriving yearly. Unfortunately compounding the problems of the small facility were the corruption and incompetence found to be commonplace at Castle Garden.

The Federal government intervened and constructed a new Federally-operated immigration station on Ellis Island. While the new immigration station on Ellis Island was under construction, the Barge Office at the Battery was used for the processing of immigrants....

http://www.ellisisland.org/genealogy/ellis_island_history.asp

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Yg3lYRZvzTo/Sb62TOwtCuI/AAAAAAAAAxo/Vsq8uyXX4iA/s400/L.Hime+Immigrant+Ellis+Island+1926.jpg

This girl must be Polish--we could pass for twins.

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6. Obama mulls compromise tax cuts plan

The Obama administration is reviewing a compromise tax proposal by Mark Warner, the centrist Democratic senator, that would drop tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans but introduce tax breaks for business.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/EB8122/6VFQQQ/PNGIU/QF7WGA/GKPA4L/7V/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=11

YEAH, SURE, WHATEVER

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28. China rates and Irish debt drag markets lower

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69K04L20101112

Investors had few places to hide on Friday as stocks, bonds, and commodities fell on fears China may raise interest rates while Ireland's dubious debt position forced European leaders to leap to Dublin's defense.

U.S. stocks snapped a five week winning streak, ending lower as commodity and energy shares took a beating on concerns that changes in Chinese monetary policy might slow the pace of its voracious appetite for raw materials.

The euro was given a reprieve, rising from six-week lows as officials reiterated to bondholders they would not be forced to take losses in the event of a new euro zone bailout.

"The fact that euro zone officials said Irish bond holders don't have to take a haircut on their existing positions is supportive for the euro," said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange.

U.S. Treasuries' prices fell sharply after the first day of purchases by the U.S. Federal Reserve as part of its new $600 billion bond-buying program to stimulate the U.S. economy.

The Fed bought $7.23 billion in Treasury paper maturing in four to six years on Friday....

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33. Many deficit commission staffers paid by outside groups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/10/AR2010111006850.html

...But the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has also come under attack for its unusual approach to staffing: Many of its employees aren't employed by the panel at all. Instead, about one in four commission staffers is paid by outside entities, many of which have strong ideological points of view about how to tackle the deficit.

For example, the salaries of two senior staffers, Marc Goldwein and Ed Lorenzen, are paid by private groups that have previously advocated cuts to entitlement programs. Lorenzen is paid by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, while Goldwein is paid by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is also partly funded by the Peterson group.

The outsourcing has come under sharp criticism from seniors' organizations and liberal activists, who say the strategy is part of a broader conservative bias favoring painful entitlement cuts over other solutions. The fears of some liberal groups appeared to come true on Wednesday, when the commission's two leaders recommended significant reductions for Social Security and other social-welfare programs.

Bruce Reed, the panel's executive director, defended the staffing arrangement as fiscally responsible and said the staff includes a broad range of views. Other staffers paid by outside entities include an analyst from the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute and a Clinton administration official who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University, he said...

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47. Obama says he fears economy could enter 'new normal' of low job growth

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/07/AR2010110705223.html

I CAN'T LOOK....

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55. Treasury Hid A.I.G. Loss, Report Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/business/26tarp.html?src=busln

The United States Treasury concealed $40 billion in likely taxpayer losses on the bailout of the American International Group..., when it abandoned its usual method for valuing investments, according to a report by the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program...In early October, the Treasury issued a report predicting that the taxpayers would ultimately lose just $5 billion on their investment in A.I.G., a remarkable outcome, since the insurance company was extended $182 billion in taxpayer money in the early months of its rescue. The prediction of a modest loss, widely reported as A.I.G., the Federal Reserve and the Treasury rushed to complete an exit plan, contrasted with an earlier prediction by the Treasury that the taxpayers would lose $45 billion...

An official of the Treasury disputed Mr. Barofsky’s conclusions, saying the department appropriately used different methods for different purposes. He said the smaller loss was a projection of future events, and the larger one was the result of an audit, which includes only realized gains and losses.

The Treasury will include more information about A.I.G. when it issues its own audited financial statement in November. Because those numbers must pass an auditor’s scrutiny, the loss it reports is likely to grow once again, to more than $5 billion...

(Inspector General) Mr. Barofsky said he had written to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, in mid-October, after widespread reports in the news media about the possibility that the Treasury could wind down its position in A.I.G. with just a $5 billion loss. He recommended that the Treasury correct the October report, perhaps by adding a footnote saying the methodology for calculating its losses had changed.

The Treasury declined. It sent back a letter saying its methodology for calculating losses had not really changed, although its assumptions had. For instance, it based the values of several future transactions on the current price of A.I.G.’s common stock. The letter, signed by Timothy G. Massad, the acting assistant secretary for financial stability, said this reflected the fact that a crucial component of its exit strategy would be the exchange of preferred for common stock.

As inspector general, Mr. Barofsky has extensive powers of investigation but no enforcement power...He said the Treasury’s statements tended to contribute to a “widespread, but mistaken, belief that TARP is at or near its end.”

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59. AIG to get $22 billion in TARP funds for Fed exit

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A03EK20101102

Insurer American International Group will get up to $22 billion more in U.S. taxpayer funds in a restructuring that will pay off the Federal Reserve in full and allow taxpayers to begin profiting from the firm's bailout, the Treasury Department said on Monday.

The Treasury reiterated that it expects the government to earn an overall profit on bailout investments in the insurance giant -- once as high as $180 billion -- assuming the AIG restructuring announced on September 30 is executed.

AIG will draw the $22 billion from remaining Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to repurchase the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's preferred stock interests in the special purpose vehicles holding two key subsidiaries being sold off, AIA Group Ltd and American Life Insurance Co (ALICO), the Treasury said in a statement. The funds had already been allocated to the AIG rescue program prior to an October 3 moratorium on new TARP spending.

In the restructuring, the assets in the special purpose vehicles will be transferred to the Treasury, liquidating remaining Fed interests in AIG. Paying back Fed loans and preferred stock investments is considered a key step in the company's ability to stand on its own and earn an investment grade credit rating.

(snip)
MY HEAD HURTS

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56. SEC Urges Banks to Disclose Potential Losses From Foreclosures

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-29/sec-urges-banks-to-disclose-potential-losses-from-flawed-home-foreclosures.html

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission urged banks to disclose their expected losses from flawed foreclosure documents, as mortgage-bond investors demand refunds on billions of dollars of securities.

Lenders must disclose circumstances that they “reasonably expect” to have an “unfavorable impact” on financial results, the SEC said in a letter posted on the agency’s website today. The letter was sent because of “concerns about potential risks and costs associated with mortgage and foreclosure-related activities,” the SEC said...Banks should set aside funds for litigation and “other contingencies when it is probable” that they will have losses, the letter said. If companies can’t estimate losses, then they should say so, the SEC said.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have set aside a combined $10 billion to cover buybacks. SEC spokesman John Nester declined to say which banks received the letter.

Banks should also disclose financial obligations that stem from packaging loans into securities, the letter said. Other topics lenders should discuss include potential delays in completing foreclosures and risks posed by “potentially higher repurchase requests,” the letter said...Investors such as Pacific Investment Management Co. have demanded that banks buy back faulty loans that were bundled into bonds.

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63. LICENSE TO STEAL RENEWED: Delays seen this year for SEC plan to revamp market

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE69L46K20101022

Any more changes to U.S. stock markets are on hold at least until December, sources said, as the Wall Street reform bill preoccupies regulators dealing with fallout from the May "flash crash."

Rules to make anonymous trading venues known as dark pools more transparent and to ban flash orders that exchanges show to some traders before routing them to the wider marketplace will not be adopted before the end of the year, said two sources familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is swamped with writing more than 100 new rules included in the Dodd-Frank bill enacted in July to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis.

The May 6 flash crash has spurred some reforms, such as trading pauses known as circuit breakers. But several others, such as the dark pool changes, will not receive the SEC's stamp of approval this year, the sources said.

Though staff at the Big Board and other exchanges are helping regulators write the rules, the SEC is taking longer than expected to react to the unprecedented market crash. It took nearly five months for the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to produce a comprehensive report on what caused the crash....

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57. `Toxic' Orders Can Predict Likelihood of Stock Market Crashes, Study Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-30/-toxic-orders-can-predict-likelihood-of-stock-market-crashes-study-says.html

WONK ALERT

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58. Fed easing may mean 20 percent dollar drop: Gross

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A055R20101102

The dollar is in danger of losing 20 percent of its value over the next few years if the Federal Reserve continues unconventional monetary easing, Bill Gross, the manager of the world's largest mutual fund, said on Monday.

"I think a 20 percent decline in the dollar is possible," Gross said, adding the pace of the currency's decline was also an important consideration for investors.

"When a central bank prints trillions of dollars of checks, which is not necessarily what (a second round of quantitative easing) will do in terms of the amount, but if it gets into that territory --- that is a debasement of the dollar in terms of the supply of dollars on a global basis," Gross told Reuters in an interview at his PIMCO headquarters.

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76. Outrage, Misguided By Noam Chomsky

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26788.htm

...Amid the joblessness and foreclosures, the Democrats can’t complain about the policies that led to the disaster. President Ronald Reagan and his Republican successors may have been the worst culprits, but the policies began with President Jimmy Carter and accelerated under President Bill Clinton. During the presidential election, Barack Obama’s primary constituency was financial institutions, which have gained remarkable dominance over the economy in the past generation.

That incorrigible 18th-century radical Adam Smith, speaking of England, observed that the principal architects of power were the owners of the society—in his day the merchants and manufacturers—and they made sure that government policy would attend scrupulously to their interests, however “grievous” the impact on the people of England; and worse, on the victims of “the savage injustice of the Europeans” abroad.

A modern and more sophisticated version of Smith’s maxim is political economist Thomas Ferguson’s “investment theory of politics,” which sees elections as occasions when groups of investors coalesce in order to control the state by selecting the architects of policies who will serve their interests.

Ferguson’s theory turns out to be a very good predictor of policy over long periods. That should hardly be surprising. Concentrations of economic power will naturally seek to extend their sway over any political process. The dynamic happens to be extreme in the U.S....

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77. Billionaire Launches Campaign to Slash Social Security By Jane Slaughter

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26793.htm

Why does a billionaire want to take away your Social Security benefits?

Peter Peterson is 84 years old. He's old enough to relax and enjoy the fruits of the years he was well paid for managing other rich people's money. Why is he spending his fortune to convince politicians they should ruin the average guy's retirement?

....Maybe Peterson figures offense is better than defense-he's got a lot to defend. He made his fortune as a hedge fund manager-that is, moving money around-so he ought to be living in fear. Someone might get the idea he and his buddies would be good folks to tax. It's like Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, once said. Asked why he robbed banks, Sutton replied, "Because that's where the money is."

Peterson and pals are the ones George Bush gifted with big tax breaks that are set to expire December 31. Although he says his top priority is reducing the deficit, Peterson doesn't want to cut that deficit by putting his own taxes back where they were in the 1990s.

It's hard to get your head around how rich Peterson is, and how many rich people there are in this country. But here's how to put their money in perspective, in relation to Social Security. If Congress decides to extend those tax cuts, for households making $250,000 or more (the top 2 percent of earners), the money the Treasury will lose would be enough to put Social Security in the black for 75 years--and raise benefits by 2 percent...

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82. America’s Devolution Into Dictatorship By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26796.htm

The United States Department of Justice (sic) routinely charges and convicts innocents with bogus and concocted crimes that are not even on the statutes book. The distinguished defense attorney and civil libertarian, Harvey A. Silverglate, published a book last year, “Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” which conclusively proves that today in “freedom and democracy” America we have punishment without crime.

This same Justice (sic) Department, which routinely frames and railroads the innocent, argued in Federal Court on November 8 that the US government, if approved by the president, could murder anyone it wishes, citizens or noncitizens, at will. All that is required is that the government declare, without evidence, charges, trial, jury conviction or any of the due process required by the US Constitution, that the government suspects the murdered person or persons to be a “threat.”

The US Justice (sic) Department even told US Federal District Court Judge John Bates that the US judiciary, formerly a co-equal branch of government, has absolutely no legal authority whatsoever to stick its nose into President “Change” Obama’s decision to assassinate Americans. The unaccountability of the president’s decision to murder people is, the US Justice (sic) Department declared, one of “the very core powers of the president as commander in chief.”

The argument by the Justice (sic) Department that the executive branch has unreviewable authority to kill Americans, whom the executive branch has unilaterally, without presenting evidence, determined to pose a threat, was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center For Constitutional Rights.

The outcome of the case will determine whether the neoconservative and Israeli stooge, president George W. Bush, was correct when he said that the US Constitution was nothing but a “scrap of paper.”...

ANY BETS?

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7. BANKSTERS--THE NEVERENDING STORY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujgbMo-dLec

THERE ARE NO CATS IN AMERICA....BUT BANKSTERS WE GOT BY THE THOUSANDS

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8. Temasek buys Bank of America's right to new CCB shares

Bank of America is to sell its right to take up extra shares in a $9.3bn rights issue by China Construction Bank to Temasek, the Singapore state investment agency, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.

Temasek, which is the third largest shareholder in CCB, the world’s second largest bank by market capitalisation, is seeking to increase its focus on emerging market investments, especially in fast growing Asian economies.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/IOCBMM/RNMOF4/7ZY85/QF7759/C5RGQE/T3/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=10

THE BOA DEATHWATCH CONTINUES....

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86. Bank of America Is in Deep Trouble There May Be Financial Disaster on the Horizon By Joshua Holland

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26803.htm

Will Bank of America be the first Wall Street giant to once again point a gun to its own head, telling us it'll crash and burn and take down the financial system if we don’t pony up for another massive bailout?

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13. Goldman executive fired over violations Goldman Sachs has fired its head of European block tradin

Goldman Sachs has fired its head of European block trading for violating internal policies and procedures, the Financial Times has learnt.
Alexandre Harfouche, a London-based managing director, was sacked for failing to make proper disclosures to the bank’s compliance department, according to people familiar with the matter.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/H60H77/BM1ISV/7ZY85/3OSESW/OJ82C6/50/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=9

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40. Morgan Stanley to Sell Invesco Stake After 28% Climb

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-09/morgan-stanley-to-sell-its-717-million-invesco-stake-after-28-share-gain.html

Morgan Stanley, the sixth-largest U.S. bank by assets, said it will divest its $717 million stake in Invesco Ltd. five months after acquiring the shares in its sale of a retail asset-management business.

Morgan Stanley will sell 30.9 million shares in a public offering, the companies said today in a statement. The New York bank acquired the stake as part of Atlanta-based Invesco’s $1.37 billion purchase of Morgan Stanley’s retail investment- management business, which included the Van Kampen funds unit.

Invesco’s shares have rallied 28 percent since June 1, when the deal closed. Morgan Stanley last month agreed to sell a controlling stake in FrontPoint Partners LLC and said it may sell other holdings in hedge funds to free up capital before new minimum capital requirements go into effect.

“This share sale is part of Morgan Stanley’s strategy to reallocate capital,” Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman said in the statement...

MAYBE ANOTHER DEATH WATCH?

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41. BofA, JPMorgan Reprise Perfect Trading Records

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-09/jpmorgan-reprises-perfect-trading-record-as-goldman-posts-two-losing-days.html

Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the two biggest U.S. banks by assets, racked up perfect trading records for the second time this year, making money every day last quarter after accomplishing the same feat in the first three months of 2010.

Traders at Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America made more than $25 million on more than 55 days during the third quarter, the bank said in a Nov. 5 regulatory filing. New York- based JPMorgan, which doesn’t break out its results by quarter, made more than $200 million on 12 days in the first nine months and lost money on only eight, the company said today in a filing.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which makes the most revenue on Wall Street trading stocks and bonds, had losses in that business on two days in the third quarter while Morgan Stanley reported 10 losing days. Citigroup Inc. also had two unprofitable trading days in the period, a person briefed on the matter said. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup had perfect trading results during the first quarter.

Lower volatility and improving credit markets helped Wall Street’s trading last quarter, said Jim Mitchell, a senior vice president at Buckingham Research Group in New York. “If you don’t have a lot of volatility and markets are generally positive, you don’t tend to have a lot of trading losses,” Mitchell said....

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42. REITs Going Global to Find Deals

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703585004575604903339756266.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Frustrated with the shortage of U.S. properties for sale, some of America's biggest publicly traded landlords are going global.

Vornado Realty Trust, which until now mostly has focused on investing in the U.S., has entered a bid for the global private-equity real-estate investment platform of Dutch financial company ING Groep NV, people familiar with the matter said. The ING business generates management fees and could offer Vornado teams in Europe and Asia, as well as the U.S., to manage property and scout for deals.

An ING spokeswoman declined to comment on Vornado's involvement, but said the Dutch bank is "conducting an evaluation" of the real-estate investment-management business, which has about $100 billion in assets under management, and that "a sale is not ruled out." Along with Vornado, private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and affiliates of real-estate brokerages CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. and Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. are among the firms still pursuing the business, people familiar with the matter said, with final bids due Dec. 1.

Other U.S. office landlords including Brookfield Office Properties and SL Green Realty Corp. in recent months did deals overseas or raised the possibility of doing them....

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70. Bank industry shake-up seen ahead - Barclays boss

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE69O2ZL20101025

There will be a shake-up of Europe's banks in the next five years, with significant consolidation and restructuring, the incoming head of British bank Barclays Plc (BARC.L) said.

"We're going to see significant consolidation and significant restructuring over the next three to five years in banking in general, and particularly in Europe," Bob Diamond, president of Barclays, said on Monday.

Barclays struck one of the biggest bank deals of recent years with its takeover of the U.S. operations of Lehman Brothers late in 2008, after seeking to buy Dutch bank ABN AMRO in 2007 but being outbid by a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L).

Diamond, who is head of the Barclays Capital investment bank and will take over as group chief executive at the end of March, also said at the Confederation of British Industry's annual conference that banks should not receive taxpayer money and strong banks are in favour of strong regulation.

"No bank should ever, ever receive taxpayer money," said Diamond....

[Demeter]

71. Fed's `Pit Bull' Takes on Bank of America in BuyBack Battle

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-26/fed-blackrock-hire-pit-bull-on-steroids-to-get-bad-mortgage-bond-refund.html

Kathy D. Patrick is a Houston lawyer who...represents bond investors including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and BlackRock Inc. who are seeking to force the bank to buy back bad home loans, claiming the debt failed to match contractual promises about its quality.

Her law firm, Gibbs & Bruns LLP, is a 30-lawyer outfit that says it specializes in “bet the company” litigation. This month, it reached a settlement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of Montreal stemming from an alleged fraud at a Canadian gold company. Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS AG settled with the firm over the sale of $550 million in mortgage-backed securities. Patrick reached that settlement on behalf of her clients just two months after filing suit.

Patrick, 50, is “fearless and tenacious,” said Dan Cogdell, a Houston criminal-defense lawyer who said she is capable of pit bull-like aggressiveness “if the need be.” If she succeeds in getting Bank of America to settle, it may trigger more calls for buybacks in the $1.4 trillion market for so-called non-agency mortgage securities, which lack government backing.

Bank costs from repurchasing mortgages in such securities may total as much as $179.2 billion, including expenses related to suits against bond underwriters, Chris Gamaitoni, a Compass Point Research and Trading LLC analyst, estimated in August.

$1.73 Billion

(snip)
MUCH MORE AT LINK

WONDER IF SHE WOULD LIKE TO TAKE ON NCB...WHICH BEDEVILS CO-OPS

[Demeter]

10. SEOUL TRAIN

REPORTS FROM THE GANG OF 20 LOVE FEST IN KOREA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7MiG2fe8lE

[Demeter]

12. Vikram Pandit: We must rethink Basel or growth will suffer

FT Comment: Leaders of the Group of 20 economies meeting in Seoul must decide whether to recommend additional capital and liquidity requirements for banks above and beyond those proposed by the Basel committee. They should proceed cautiously. There is a point beyond which more is not necessarily better. Hiking capital and liquidity requirements further could have significant negative impact on the banking system, on consumers and on the economy

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/CTBPCC/S35OW1/RP6QL/V1XX6Z/IY1VDA/E4/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=10

[Demeter]

14. G20 draws up two-tier bank plan

People briefed on the agenda for the G20 summit say officials have concluded global regulators should focus on big banks with global­businesses, stripping out domestically focused institutions - but this would mean most big Asian banks will be exempted

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/J0VG55/D4TQQO/YGZ3O/18QYO2/72EFES/28/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=9

[Demeter]

15. Merkel wins trade surplus duel with Obama at G20

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6219683,00.html

Exporters like Germany and China have won through in a battle of wills with President Barack Obama. The cap on trade surpluses and deficits desired by the US will not be imposed at Seoul's G20 summit, Merkel has said.

[Demeter]

16. Korean trade deal's failure a big setback for Obama

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/11/1920265/obama-faces-setback-at-g20-as.html#ixzz157BLQqYQ

The Obama administration suffered a major setback Thursday with the announcement that it couldn't break the impasse over a long-anticipated U.S.-South Korean trade accord, continuing a rocky start for the U.S. at a conference of top world economies in Seoul.

The news followed more harsh criticism by China and Germany, the world's two biggest exporting powers, of the recent U.S. Federal Reserve move to buy $600 billion in Treasury bonds, depressing the value of the dollar.

American officials had hoped to unveil a deal on the free trade agreement at the start of meetings between leaders of the Group of 20 major and developing economies. Instead, President Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told reporters after a working lunch that negotiators need more time on the pact, which would boost trade between the two countries.

While both leaders cast the development as a temporary glitch, it was clearly a disappointment for an Obama team that entered the G20 looking to correct trade imbalances between the large U.S. deficit and surpluses in nations such as Germany and China....

[Demeter]

17. COMPLETE TEXT: G-20 Seoul Communique

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/81220/20101112/communique.htm

[Demeter]

18. G20 growth forecasts "distinctly optimistic"-IMF

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSASN00005120101112

G20 countries' growth forecasts look "distinctly optimistic" and they could miss deficit reduction goals if the economy does not live up to their lofty expectations, the IMF warned in a report released on Friday...

POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK

[Demeter]

19. IMF Tells G-20 Exchange Rate Flexibility `Essential' for Growth

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-12/imf-tells-g-20-exchange-rate-flexibility-essential-for-balanced-growth.html

WOULDN'T WANT TO DISRUPT THE CARRY TRADE, AFTER ALL

[Demeter]

22. Brazil’s Lula Says Rich Countries Need to Boost Imports

http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=376993&CategoryId=14090

The global economy will collapse if rich countries don’t buy more goods from developing nations, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday before the opening session of the G-20 economic summit.

“There is a visible contradiction: on one side we have the emerging economies, including Brazil, taking measures to increase their consumption; and on the other side, the rich countries, which are not consuming – they don’t want to buy, they only want to sell,” Lula said in Seoul.

“If everyone sells, who is going to buy?” he asked rhetorically.

WHO INDEED?

[Demeter]

36. Greenspan Urges G-20 Adoption of Reserve Limits

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-11/greenspan-urges-g-20-adoption-of-reserve-limits-to-promote-trade-growth.html

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said Group of 20 leaders should act to foster growth in global trade by agreeing to limit foreign- exchange reserves and avoid capital-flow restrictions.

China’s accumulation of more than $2 trillion in reserves as it limits the yuan’s gains and the U.S.’s pursuit of a weaker dollar risk an increase in protectionism that would exacerbate a recent slowdown in global trade, Greenspan wrote in a column published by the Financial Times dated yesterday. The G-20 should set up rules through the International Monetary Fund that would govern reserves and capital inflows, he wrote.

“We should discourage reserve accumulation whose sole purpose is to suppress exchange rates for competitive export advantage,” Greenspan wrote. “If the G-20 is serious in pledging to sustain open multilateral trade and the international financial system that fosters it, it should be willing to forgo an element of sovereignty to achieve net gains for all.”

The ratio of global exports to gross domestic product recovered following the financial crisis then slowed again in the third quarter, Greenspan said. Protectionism would accelerate that slump, he said...

AL I GOT TO SAY TO ALAN IS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzmf7ZJRI9M&feature=related

[Demeter]

49. G-20 Needs More Than Luck to Shun Lost Decade: William Pesek

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-07/g-20-needs-more-than-luck-to-shun-lost-decade-commentary-by-william-pesek.html

...The G-20, along with discussing China’s currency, will focus on Japan. Namely, keeping the U.S. and euro zone economies from experiencing their own lost decades.

That’s where Korean karma comes into play. Korea offers a good road map to fighting the Japanifaction of the global economy. Past actions put its economy on a virtuous path, allowing it to steer around deflation and falling living standards.

Just two years ago, South Korea was on tap to become the next Iceland. The fear was that its companies didn’t learn the lessons of the Asian crisis and issued too much short-term debt in foreign currencies. To many, that meant Korea looked like a giant hedge fund. Korea confounded the skeptics and today is growing at 4.5 percent...

[Demeter]

50. G20 finds common ground opposing U.S.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A62BC20101107

The Group of 20 is beginning to look more like the G19 plus 1 as emerging and rich countries alike accuse the United States of breaking a vow of unity.

This week's G20 summit will require every bit of President Barack Obama's diplomacy skills after the Federal Reserve embarked on a new $600 billion bond-buying spree, sparking criticism from four continents that the U.S. central bank was ignoring the global repercussions.

Officials from Germany, Brazil, China and South Africa were among those expressing concern that the Fed's money printing could weaken the dollar, drive up commodity prices and send uncontrollable waves of investor cash into emerging markets.

If the G20 fails to defuse these global tensions, it may heighten investor concerns that policymakers are drifting further apart, leaving the world economy vulnerable to another bout of upheaval...

[Demeter]

72. US defensive on dollar at G20

Treasury secretary hits back at the suggestion that America is pushing down the dollar, saying it would never deliberately devalue its currency to boost exports

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/QM42II/0GEKAA/4VXHZ/GKG02D/PR6YXJ/D5/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=12


OH, TIMMY, TIMMY, TIMMY! YOU ARE SUCH A BAD LIAR--STICK TO THE TRUTH!

[DemReadingDU]

79. another Hi Mom picture! From the G20

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e101113#e101113


U.S. Gets Rebuffed at Divided Summit
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704865704575610761647291510.html


edit: Friday's picture
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4612098&mesg_id=4612837


And where is Obama?

[Demeter]

81. Like, Where Is Waldo?

That's so 80's...

[Ghost Dog]

92. Here's the full picture

from today's El País:

[DemReadingDU]

93. Thanks!

I found Obama!

[Demeter]

20. NOT SO INNOCENTS ABROAD--EUROPA

While there were many reasons to emigrate to America, no reason could be found for what would occur only five years after the Ellis Island Immigration Station opened. During the evening of June 14, 1897, a fire on Ellis Island, burned the immigration station completely to the ground. Although no lives were lost, many years of Federal and State immigration records dating back to 1855 burned along with the pine buildings that failed to protect them. The United States Treasury quickly ordered the immigration facility be replaced under one very important condition. All future structures built on Ellis Island had to be fireproof. On December 17, 1900, the new Main Building was opened and 2,251 immigrants were received that day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3OT1QxGp5Y

AN AMERICAN TAIL--STARTS HERE!

[Demeter]

21. Europe Stands By to Steady Ireland

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/business/global/12euro.html?_r=1

The European Union stands ready to offer a financial lifeline to Ireland, an official said on Thursday, as bond investors apply pressure that threatens to derail Europe’s fragile economic recovery.

Investors continued to unload Irish bonds on Thursday, driving up the costs of borrowing for Ireland, as well as some other struggling countries on Europe’s periphery. Yields on Irish 10-year bonds surged to 8.9 percent, raising the premium over benchmark German bonds to 6.5 percentage points, the highest level ever.

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said the bloc stood ready, if needed, to offer financial help for Ireland during its worst economic crisis in decades...

[Demeter]

23. Europe Running out of Yellow Cards on the Debt Crisis

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703848204575608530509855118.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

If history marks this week as the start of Europe's Debt Crisis II, next week has promise for still more nerve-testing action along Europe's crumbling outer rim.

Fiscally frail Ireland and Portugal will stay caught in the spotlight of unforgiving bond investors. Joining them on Monday will be Greece, no stranger to that script.

Officials from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund descend on Athens next week for their newest look into the Greek treasury's books and will decide whether Greece has earned its next payment tranche. On Thursday, Greece is expected to present its final 2011 budget to parliament and with it its latest budget estimates.

The rough picture already emerges that the Greek government underestimated the severity of its crackdown on spending to comply with EU and IMF rules. Stiff austerity cuts, overestimated tax receipts and recurrent strikes by alternating segments of the work force have taken their toll on the economy and now numbers are off course...

[Demeter]

35. Spain's Bank Mergers Suddenly Drying Up

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704804504575606393486918472.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Four months after Spain forced a wave of mergers meant to stabilize its teetering regional savings banks, the process of combining the institutions has slowed to a crawl amid political and technical problems.

The Bank of Spain last spring forced a dozen shotgun weddings among the regional institutions, known as cajas, reducing the number of such banks from 45 to 18. Deal partners ranged from tiny southern lender Caja Jaen, to the large La Caixa, which has more than 5,000 branches across the country.

The move was seen as a victory for the Spanish regulator, which was scrambling to fix a sector that was being towed under by a backlog of toxic real-estate loans.

But after the initial flurry, people close to the situation say, the process of combining the local lenders has been mired in governance battles, labor disputes and technical hurdles. Six of the 13 deals haven't been completed yet. Those six deals represent half of the assets in the regional-bank sector...

[Demeter]

38. IMF warns banks pose risk to UK recovery exposure from banks

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/imf-warns-banks-pose-risk-to-uk-recovery-exposure-from-banks-2129742.html

UK banks' exposure to debt-laden countries has left Britain's economic recovery highly vulnerable to shocks in the eurozone, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned yesterday. The IMF said banks could be hit by further woes in troubled countries such as Greece, Ireland and Spain – with UK bank loans to these eurozone members accounting for about 14 per cent of gross domestic product.

But the IMF's latest report on the UK also confirmed the economy was "on the mend" and supported the Government's deficit-busting actions. It is forecasting UK growth of 1.7 per cent this year – up from an earlier prediction of 1.2 per cent – and maintained its GDP outlook at 2 per cent in 2011 despite the spending cuts. The IMF also called on the Bank of England to pump more money into the economy through quantitative easing if the recovery stalled enough to impact on inflation.

The Bank's own report on the UK economy, in its quarterly Inflation Report, is due today...

[Demeter]

43. Credit rating agency Fitch sacked by Portuguese Banco Espírito Santo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/09/fitch-credit-rating-agency-portugal-bank

CAN THEY DO THAT?

[Demeter]

44. Icelandic Debt Relief Saga Forces `New Ethics' on Government

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-04/icelandic-debt-relief-saga-forces-new-ethics-as-creditors-imf-look-on.html

Iceland’s first female Prime Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, will present what may be the world’s biggest debt relief proposal next week, risking alienating the International Monetary Fund and bank creditors.

The 68-year-old is trying to prevent the 39 percent of households that are technically insolvent from losing their homes. She was forced to back down from proposals requiring lenders to forgive $2 billion in mortgage debt -- 15 percent of Iceland’s economic output -- after pension funds blocked them. Now she’s looking for other ways to help families reeling from last year’s 20 percent drop in incomes.

The job has required “literally resurrecting Iceland from the ruins of collapse,” Sigurdardottir said in an e-mailed response to questions. “It’s demanded a new modus operandi -- new ethics.”

If she pulls off a resurrection, debt-ridden countries such as Greece and Portugal may look to the island for clues on how to rebuild their economies. If she fails, Iceland risks exacerbating unresolved creditor disputes that prevent it normalizing relations with the world or rebuilding international investor ties essential to growth...

ATTENTION OBAMA! CALL ON ICELAND

[Demeter]

48. Germany Blasts Bernanke: Results of Fed Stimulus Could Be 'Horrendous'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,727457,00.html

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has sharply criticized the US Federal Reserve's decision to pump a further $600 billion into the country's ailing economy. He says the move could create problems for the global economy. Others have joined in the condemnation.

Germany is not impressed. One day after the United States Federal Reserve announced that it would pump $600 billion (€423 billion) into America's banking system over the next eight months, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble sharply criticized the decision.

"I don't think they are going to solve their problems that way," Schäuble told German public broadcaster ZDF in a Thursday evening interview. "They have already pumped an endless amount of money into the economy via taking on extremely high public debt and through a Fed policy that has already pumped a lot of money into the economy. The results are horrendous."

[DemReadingDU]

62. Mike Whitney: Ireland is on the Way to Default

11/12/10 Ireland is on the Way to Default by Mike Whitney
Erin Go Broke

There was a bank run in Ireland last Wednesday. LCH Clearnet, a London based clearinghouse, surprised the markets by announcing it would increase margin requirements on Irish debt by 15 per cent. That's all it took to send investors fleeing for the exits. Yields on Irish bonds spiked sharply as banks tried to close positions or raise the capital needed to meet the new requirements. The Irish 10-year bond soared to 8.9 per cent by day's end, more than 6 percentage points higher than "risk free" German sovereign debt. The ECB will have to intervene. Ireland is on its way to default.

This is what a 21st century bank run looks like. Terms suddenly change in the repo market, where banks get their funding, and the whole system begins to teeter. It's a structural problem in the so-called shadow banking system for which there's no remedy. Conventional banks exchange bonds with shadow banks for short-term loans agreeing to repurchase (repo) them at a later date. But when investors get nervous about the solvency of the bank, the collateral gets a haircut which makes it more expensive to fund operations. That sends bond yields skyrocketing increasing the likelihood of default. In this case, the debt-overhang from a burst development bubble is bearing down on the Irish government, threatening to bankrupt the country. Ireland is in dire straits.

more...
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney11122010.html

[Demeter]

73. Irish bank chief eyes foreign buyers

Ireland’s central bank governor put a For Sale sign over the country’s ailing banks, stressing that foreign ownership of the troubled sector was ‘not as far-fetched as it might appear’

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/CTBPCC/EWHNRG/204L2/BM11AB/8AQLGR/XL/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=11

[DemReadingDU]

64. Ireland is effectively insolvent

11/8/10 If you thought the bank bailout was bad, wait until the mortgage defaults hit home
Morgan Kelly

SAD NEWS just in from Our Lady of the Eurozone Hospital: After a sudden worsening in her condition, the Irish Patient, formerly known as the Irish Republic, has been moved into intensive care and put on artificial ventilation. While a hospital spokesman, Jean-Claude Trichet, tried to sound upbeat, there is no prospect that the Patient will recover.

It will be remembered that, after a lengthy period of poverty following her acrimonious divorce from her English partner, in the 1990s Ireland succeeded in turning her life around, educating herself, and holding down a steady job. Although her increasingly riotous lifestyle over the last decade had raised some concerns, the Irish Patient’s fate was sealed by a botched emergency intervention on September 29th, 2008 followed by repeated misdiagnoses of the ensuing complications.

With the Irish Patient now clinically dead, her grieving European relatives face the melancholy task of deciding when to remove her from life support, and how to deal with the extraordinary debts she ran up in the last months of her life . . .

more...
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1108/1224282865400.html

[Demeter]

68. Grim!

And this is what Bernanke and friends have in store for us and the rest of the world.

[DemReadingDU]

69. The Grim Truth

posted by readmoreoften...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9550056
:(

[Tansy_Gold]

75. Regarding Ireland, a question

I just wanta make sure I've got my head wrapped around this concept.

Ireland. Iceland. Greece. Portugal. Spain. U.S.

It's all the same, isn't it?

The banksters suckered everyone into mortgaging the future, spending more than they earned, in a gigantic monstrous Ponzi scheme, with everyone hoping to get out before the shitpile collapsed on them. FOR THE MOST PART the banksters (and other obscenely rich assholes) did just that. There are the mega rich around the world, whether in Dublin or Dubai, Reykjavik or Rome, Tokyo or Torremolinos, who have simply gobbled up everything. They've put production of goods into the hands of the very poorest in the lowest wage slave states, so the middle class in virtually every nation is decimated, some more than others.

So Ireland and Italy as nations are in debt but it's really because the banksters have manipulated the governments into bailing out The System with worthless "cash" and now the banksters are demanding payment in "real" money, meaning the lives and labor of the working class. Hello, feudalism.

Is that it? Or if not, what is it?



Tansy Gold, who wonders

[DemReadingDU]

78. It's the same around the whole world

A huge global financial Ponzi.

Part of it was created from the toxic investments, derivatives, CDOs, etc., which are held in mutual funds, pensions, portfolios of municipalities, states, etc.

Part was the banksters themselves selling this stuff to unsuspecting investors. Then when it started going bad, the banksters demanded taxpayers around the world to bail out the banks.

It's shocking to me, that it hasn't all imploded yet. But eventually it will collapse, as all Ponzi bubbles do. Everyone will be affected, worldwide.

And what's worse nowadays for the U.S., is that most of our manufacturing jobs have been off-shored. We don't even manufacture the basic necessities anymore... t-shirts, underwear, tools, towels, sheets, etc.

That is why I believe it is full steam ahead, until the day of collapse. Then we'll hear those famous words... No one could have foreseen this coming. By then, the banksters will have all of our real money.


edit - we went to see the documentary 'Inside Job'. Excellent! I posted some info about it a couple weeks ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=567110&mesg_id=567231

[Demeter]

80. The Banksters Will Not Hold Onto Their Ill-Gotten Goods

Sure, they can hole up in Dubai--until the water and/or power runs out.

When they have destroyed the very structure they have been looting, the looting stops. And then Retribution begins. It will be a terrible retribution, by any measure.

Where can the pirates run, and survive in the style they have become accustomed to?

Nowhere.

The isolated and barren spots of the world: Antarctica, Sahara, Dubai; require the outside world to sustain them.

The lush spots of the world are full of people who have had enough. That land is not safe, nor can any army of mercenaries make it safe for known pirates. Is Haiti their ultimate hideaway? Paraguay? How about Chernobyl? Nobody would bother them there...

The Rule of Law which made America a haven is broken, and will not be restored unless the pirates are captured and punished.

The one thing that these pirates are constitutionally (pun intended) incapable of understanding is that wealth is not money or goods or power--it is friends bound by helping each other. A beggar who helps another beggar is not poor. He has created an ally.

Is there such honor amongst thieves? I think the record shows that there is not. But a people that work to strengthen each other strengthens their community, their nation, their people.

IMO, Christianity never took it far enough.

[DemReadingDU]

83. There is no safe haven

I don't see this ending well for anyone. I would hope that one day those who defrauded our once wonderful nation, will be prosecuted and jailed. But until then, the best we can do is be near our loved ones, support each other, trade/barter with our neighbors.

One of my sisters and her husband want to leave the U.S. before the revolution begins. She doesn't understand that no matter where she goes, there is going to be chaos. Yet she believes she will be able to fly back to visit us for holidays.

:eyes:

[Demeter]

85. Eurozone in talks on Ireland bail out

European ministers were this weekend deliberating whether Ireland needed European Union aid ahead of Monday’s reopening of financial markets in order to further reverse the two-week-old rise in borrowing costs which has pushed the eurozone to the edge of another debt crisis.

The slide in bond prices for Ireland and other “peripheral” EU economies was halted on Friday after finance ministers reassured private investors that they would not be on the hook for any bail-out that took place in the next three years.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/YIQXNN/LQC03W/FDFZE/V1X9JQ/WLZUQM/E4/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=13

[Ghost Dog]

90. Well-posted!

It is a testament to the cool and resolute handling of the crisis over the last six months by the Government and Central Bank that markets now put Irish sovereign debt in the same risk group as Ukraine and Pakistan, two notches above the junk level of Argentina, Greece and Venezuela.

September marked Ireland’s point of no return in the banking crisis. During that month, €55 billion of bank bonds (held mainly by UK, German, and French banks) matured and were repaid, mostly by borrowing from the European Central Bank.

Until September, Ireland had the legal option of terminating the bank guarantee on the grounds that three of the guaranteed banks had withheld material information about their solvency, in direct breach of the 1971 Central Bank Act. The way would then have been open to pass legislation along the lines of the UK’s Bank Resolution Regime, to turn the roughly €75 billion of outstanding bank debt into shares in those banks, and so end the banking crisis at a stroke.

With the €55 billion repaid, the possibility of resolving the bank crisis by sharing costs with the bondholders is now water under the bridge. Instead of the unpleasant showdown with the European Central Bank that a bank resolution would have entailed, everyone is a winner. Or everyone who matters, at least.

The German and French banks whose solvency is the overriding concern of the ECB get their money back. Senior Irish policymakers get to roll over and have their tummies tickled by their European overlords and be told what good sports they have been. And best of all, apart from some token departures of executives too old and rich to care less, the senior management of the banks that caused this crisis continue to enjoy their richly earned rewards. The only difficulty is that the Government’s open-ended commitment to cover the bank losses far exceeds the fiscal capacity of the Irish State.

/... http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1108/1224282865400.html

Rebuttal (of sorts) here:

The appalling vista this morning is of a recapitalised Bank of Ireland, trying to make its way in the world to support Irish economic recovery, but now with the millstone of 10 per cent (guaranteed), or 13 per cent (unguaranteed) funding costs weighing heavily around its neck.

How depressingly ironic, therefore, to read Morgan Kelly’s recent contention on these pages that “what is driving our bond yields to record levels is . . . the bank bailout”, the Irish authorities having missed September’s opportunity to default on €55 billion of maturing guaranteed bank debt in order to resolve the banking crisis “by sharing costs with the bondholders”.

Those who have wondered aloud about the outcome of a laboratory experiment to assess the impact of an orchestrated default in the Irish financial system now have their answer. Those who advocate bond defaults, but then seek alternative explanations for rising bond yields, betray breathtaking ignorance of bond market dynamics.

...

The corollary is that Ireland is moving increasingly towards “self-help” status, whereby the ongoing borrowing requirements of the public sector can, in principle, be absorbed by the accumulated surpluses of the private sector. Of course, practice can differ from principle in this regard; hence the need for more enlightened self-interest in the ways in which we disburse the investments of the pension fund and insurance industries, the National Pensions Reserve Fund, and indeed the domestic banks themselves.

/... http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1112/1224283148351.html

(See also: "Just who is Morgan Kelly?").

[Demeter]

65. German boom creates ECB policy nightmare as south lags

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8086434/German-boom-creates-ECB-policy-nightmare-as-south-lags.html

Blistering growth in Germany is aggravating the growing gap between the eurozone's North and South and may force the European Central Bank to tighten monetary policy long before the high-debt states are ready, Standard & Poor's has warned.

A separate report by Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors said eurozone indicators are showing "unprecedented divergence", with the M1 money supply booming at double-digit rates in Germany but contracting in Spain, Ireland, and Greece.

S&P said Germany has been able to lever recovery off the emerging market boom, leaving Southern Europe behind. German exports – mostly machines and cars – account for 47pc of all EU goods shipped to China. France is a distant second at 10pc.

"Germany is recovering brilliantly," said S&P's Jean-Michel Six. "Its products are not price-sensitive to the exchange rate. It is entering a virtuous circle where exports lead to capital spending, leading in turn to consumption after years of quasi death."

[Demeter]

66. Greece Likely to Default By 2013 as Debts Remain, El-Erian Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/el-erian-says-greece-is-likely-to-default-on-debt-within-three-years-time.html

Greece is likely to default over the next three years because budget-cutting won’t be enough to reduce the nation’s debt burden, Pacific Investment Management Co. Chief Executive Officer Mohamed A. El-Erian said.

It’s in Greece’s interest to default “as long as you can contain the contagion to other countries and it is done through orderly restructuring and repricing to retain competitiveness,” El-Erian said at a conference sponsored by the Economist magazine in New York yesterday. Like Latin America’s “lost decade” in the 1980s, “the alternative doesn’t promise growth and employment generation,” he said.

The extra yield, or spread, investors demand to hold Greek debt instead of similar-maturity German bonds jumped to a two- week high today. The European Union and International Monetary Fund approved a 110 billion-euro ($153 billion) aid package on May 2 in exchange for Greece agreeing to cut public-sector wages and pensions and raise taxes on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes.

“Greek bonds have been under pressure since El-Erian’s comments,” said Orlando Green, assistant director of capital- markets strategy at Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank in London. “The near-term picture doesn’t look so bad for Greece, but it’s a long journey ahead.”

[Demeter]

24. THE ORIENT EXPRESS

While most immigrants entered the United States through New York Harbor (the most popular destination of steamship companies), others sailed into many ports such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco and Savannah, Miami, and New Orleans. The great steamship companies like White Star, Red Star, Cunard and Hamburg-America played a significant role in the history of Ellis Island and immigration in general. First and second class passengers who arrived in New York Harbor were not required to undergo the inspection process at Ellis Island. Instead, these passengers underwent a cursory inspection aboard ship; the theory being that if a person could afford to purchase a first or second class ticket, they were less likely to become a public charge in America due to medical or legal reasons. The Federal government felt that these more affluent passengers would not end up in institutions, hospitals or become a burden to the state. However, first and second class passengers were sent to Ellis Island for further inspection if they were sick or had legal problems.

This scenario was far different for "steerage" or third class passengers. These immigrants traveled in crowded and often unsanitary conditions near the bottom of steamships with few amenities, often spending up to two weeks seasick in their bunks during rough Atlantic Ocean crossings. Upon arrival in New York City, ships would dock at the Hudson or East River piers. First and second class passengers would disembark, pass through Customs at the piers and were free to enter the United States. The steerage and third class passengers were transported from the pier by ferry or barge to Ellis Island where everyone would undergo a medical and legal inspection.

[Demeter]

25. China buys up the world And the world should stay open for business

http://www.economist.com/node/17463473

IN THEORY, the ownership of a business in a capitalist economy is irrelevant. In practice, it is often controversial. From Japanese firms’ wave of purchases in America in the 1980s and Vodafone’s takeover of Germany’s Mannesmann in 2000 to the more recent antics of private-equity firms, acquisitions have often prompted bouts of national angst.

Such concerns are likely to intensify over the next few years, for China’s state-owned firms are on a shopping spree. Chinese buyers—mostly opaque, often run by the Communist Party and sometimes driven by politics as well as profit—have accounted for a tenth of cross-border deals by value this year, bidding for everything from American gas and Brazilian electricity grids to a Swedish car company, Volvo.

There is, understandably, rising opposition to this trend. The notion that capitalists should allow communists to buy their companies is, some argue, taking economic liberalism to an absurd extreme. But that is just what they should do, for the spread of Chinese capital should bring benefits to its recipients, and the world as a whole.

Why China is different

Not so long ago, government-controlled companies were regarded as half-formed creatures destined for full privatisation. But a combination of factors—huge savings in the emerging world, oil wealth and a loss of confidence in the free-market model—has led to a resurgence of state capitalism. About a fifth of global stockmarket value now sits in such firms, more than twice the level ten years ago...

[Demeter]

26. Inflation "under-statement" sparks row in China

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AB0IN20101112

With price pressures on the rise in China, a rare public spat has broken out in government circles about whether the statistics agency is suppressing the full truth of how high inflation really is.

Many Chinese have long harboured suspicions about the quality of official inflation data, saying that it does not adequately capture soaring property prices or food costs.

But criticism took a curious turn this week when the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think-tank in Beijing, published a research article arguing that the consumer price index had been under-stated by more than 7 percent over the past five years.

The National Bureau of Statistics, which regularly defends the quality of its output, swung into action.

"Obviously, the article's conclusion does not hold any water," Sheng Laiyun, NBS spokesman, told reporters....

FAST LEARNERS, FOR SURE

[Demeter]

34. Rising food costs boost China's inflation rate to 25-month high

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-11/11/c_13601622.htm

[Demeter]

27. Dubai Group misses two loan repayments

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6AA0DS20101111

Financial services firm Dubai Group has missed two payments on separate loans in recent weeks, including one arranged by Citibank (C.N), in the latest sign the Gulf Arab emirate's debt troubles are far from over.

Sources said the company, part of a conglomerate owned by Dubai's ruler, did not make a scheduled payment on a $330 million loan on which Citibank was the sole bookrunner.

"The payment on the Citibank facility in October wasn't made," said a source with direct knowledge of the matter. A second person confirmed the October payment had not been made.

The five-year loan, which matures Dec. 13, 2011, was used to fund the acquisition of a 49-percent stake in Bank Islam Malaysia. Bank Islam earlier this year said Dubai Group was trying to sell the stake...

[Demeter]

37. SAFE to curb 'hot money' inflows

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-11/10/content_11526456.htm

China's foreign exchange regulator pledged on Tuesday to take measures to crack down on "hot money" inflows amid concerns over inflation and asset-bubble risks.

New rules, raising the amount foreign exchange banks are required to hold overnight, were issued by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).

The regulator said in a statement that it will strictly manage quotas for the use of short-term foreign debt by financial institutions and prevent banks from exceeding them.

The SAFE will also strengthen its supervision over inbound capital by overseas investors and fund repatriation by Chinese companies listed overseas, according to the statement...

[Demeter]

39. Chinese firm downgrades U.S. credit rating with "negative" outlook

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2010-11/09/c_13599002.htm

The United States has lost its double-A credit rating with Dagong Global Credit Rating Co., Ltd., the first domestic rating agency in China, due to its new round of quantitative easing policy.

Dagong Global on Tuesday downgraded the local and foreign currency long-term sovereign credit rating of the U.S. by one level to A+ from previous AA with "negative" outlook.

The Chinese rating agency said the downgrade reflected the U.S.'s deteriorating debt repayment capability and drastic decline of the U.S. government's intention of debt repayment.

"The serious defects in the U.S. economy will lead to long-term recession and fundamentally lower the national solvency," Dagong said in a report....

[Demeter]

45. China signs $22.8b purchase deals with France

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-11/05/content_11506365.htm

China and France Thursday signed deals worth 16 billion euro ($22.8 billion) on uranium, technology and more than 100 Airbus planes purchases, and the two countries also agreed to a sweeping strategic partnership on nuclear power.

[Demeter]

46. China Rejects `Naked Swimming' With Default Swaps

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-04/china-rejects-naked-swimming-as-credit-default-swaps-begin-china-credit.html

The first yuan-denominated credit- default swaps insuring bonds and loans were signed Thursday as China experiments with derivatives blamed by some European and U.S. officials for exacerbating the global financial crisis.

Nine financial institutions, including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and Deutsche Bank AG as well as state-backed China Bond Insurance Co., traded 20 contracts covering 1.84 billion yuan of debt, China’s National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, or NAFMII, said.

China’s central bank will regulate the contracts, called “credit risk mitigation” tools, to limit leverage and speculation, and help shift risk in the nation’s 3.3 trillion yuan ($495 billion) interbank bond market, officials said. European and U.S. officials met this week to discuss limits on the $615 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market...Yuan swaps will be traded through the Shanghai interbank clearing system, may only be sold to investors holding the underlying assets and can’t be used to insure high-risk securities, according to NAFMII, which published guidelines on Oct. 29. The value of the swaps cannot exceed five times that of the underlying debt, the guidelines show. Most of the contracts traded today insure debt for one year, NAFMII said.

Banks

Units of the U.K.’s Barclays Plc, France’s BNP Paribas SA and the U.S.’s Citigroup Inc. are among 17 banks that will be allowed to trade the swaps, NAFMII said in a statement posted on its website yesterday. China Development Bank Corp., Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, HSBC Holdings Plc, Deutsche Bank AG and 10 other banks are authorized to write the contracts, the statement shows...China’s rules may accomplish what regulators in the U.S. and Europe are trying to achieve. The biggest overhaul of Wall Street rules since the Great Depression enshrined in the Dodd- Frank reform act will make it mandatory for most investors to settle derivatives trading through clearinghouses by next year. In Europe the deadline is 2012....

[Demeter]

74. Bangladesh caps microfinance rates at 27%

Bangladesh has decided to cap interest rates for microloans, the latest sign of a growing regulatory backlash in south Asia against an industry once hailed as a ‘magic bullet’ to cure poverty

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/CTBPCC/EWHNRG/204L2/BM11AB/18WRP9/XL/t?a1=2010&a2=11&a3=11

[Demeter]

32. World debt during the Depression and now

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/government_debt

GOVERNMENTS have been indebted for centuries, running ongoing Ponzi schemes involving tax-payers, investors and future generations. But data sets on debt levels over time are rare (the most comprehensive ones only begin in the 1970s). A new paper from the IMF seeks to resolve this. Data gathered from a number of different sources allow the fund to give a historical perspective on today's mounting debt. Over the 218 years for which data on America are available, government debt has averaged just 28% of GDP, peaking at 121% in 1946. The maps below compare debt levels in 1932 and 2009. Most countries have become more indebted in the intervening years. In 1932 US debt amounted to 33% of GDP, compared with 84% in 2009. But some, including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, have gone the other way.



FOR THE OCD AMONG US, THE INTERACTIVE, WORLD DEBT CLOCK:

http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock

[Demeter]

51. WELL, DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU BUT i'M TIRED

I think the Kid has given me her cold, which is why she's making a rapid recovery. Choir practice ended abruptly when the director looked like she was about to fall off her stool from fever. A teacher told us that whooping cough is at epidemic levels in Ann Arbor's public schools...flu is reported as sporadic.

The weather isn't helping. It went from the 20's to 65F this afternoon.

And in a week, all those sick people are going to get on airplanes and spread contagion to their family and friends...

See you in the morning!

[jotsy]

52. Is that a new sigline Ms. D?

I like it, I like it!

Recommended.

[Demeter]

54. I've had it for a while

It just seems fair and balanced, you know.

[DemReadingDU]

67. It's a good one!

[hamerfan]

84. Just a kick

for the cause!
:kick:
hamerfan

[Demeter]

87. Dilbert commenting on modern business practice

[Demeter]

89. --- AmpedStatus Features Time to Fight Back: Crash JP Morgan, Buy Silver! Time to Fight Back: C

http://ampedstatus.com/time-to-fight-back-crash-jp-morgan-buy-silver

pedStatus

Max Keiser has a plan…

Are you sick of being screwed over by Wall Street?

Now is the perfect time for us to get some revenge! A crack in the foundation has been exposed!

Buy Silver, Crash JP Morgan!

While JP Morgan has been busy illegally foreclosing upon American families, they have also been busy illegally manipulating the silver market. Whistleblowers have come forward with irrefutable evidence and RICO suits have been filed.

According to the National Inflation Association, JP Morgan is “short 30,000 silver contracts representing 150 million ounces of silver. This is one of the largest concentrated short positions in the history of all commodities, representing 31% of all open COMEX silver contracts.” This leaves JP Morgan exposed if people go out and buy physical silver in large numbers.

If we can bring the price of silver up to $50 per ounce, JP Morgan would lose $4 BILLION. Now is our chance to get some revenge! Let’s take a stand and bring down JP Morgan by buying silver!

Although I am not in any way an investment adviser, it’s seems to be a smart investment as the Federal Reserve is now committed to destroying the dollar as a matter of policy.

We are in an all out economic war. It’s time for you to start fighting back.

Buy Silver, Crash JP Morgan!


I PUT THIS IN MY HUMOR SECTION, BUT I THINK DANNY SCHECHTER IS SERIOUS ABOUT THIS....

[jotsy]

88. more kicks!

[bread_and_roses]

91. summing it all up: Rich Declare War on the Middle Class

I haven't the heart to quote much of it - it's a quick read, a good summation - nothing probably most here don't know by heart, but a good article to pass around to those just beginning to get it, also a good source for quotes/stats.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/14-1

It’s Official: Rich Declare War on the Middle Class

by Robert Freeman

For the past thirty years the rich have been waging war on the middle class. It’s been astonishingly effective, partly because it has been undeclared. But even that pretense is now being abandoned. The President’s National Deficit Commission has effectively declared that the rich will now go after what is left of working and middle class wealth and will take whatever steps are necessary to seize it. If allowed to succeed, their plan will reduce Americans to a state of serfdom...

[Demeter]

94. Refuting The SEC's Lies At The Core Of The "Flash Crash" Analysis

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/refuting-secs-lies-core-flash-crash-analysis

It is time for the SEC to reissue their flash crash report, and to reconsider their Waddell and Reed scapegoating campaign. Why? Because apparently Schapiro's pawns never realized that the market is sufficiently intelligent to do a complete forensic analysis on W&R's trade into the flash crash, and to take the "regulator's" word for less than face value (after the Madoff catastrophe, what other option is there). We now have prima facie evidence that the SEC is lying. We wonder: just how many pieces of silver did it cost the HFT lobby to bribe Schapiro and her Princeton physicist (what is it about this university and the caliber of "talent" it generates?) Gregg Berman to skew the data so much it is beyond laughable. In our ongoing expose of what really happened on May 6, Zero Hedge is happy to have collaborated with both W&R and Nanex to bring our readers the full truth behind the flash crash. Here it is...SEE LINK

[Demeter]

95. How Hank Paulson's inaction helped Goldman Sachs

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/10/10/101753/inaction-by-treasurys-paulson.html

[Demeter]

96. How to Save American Capitalism, in 809 Words by Ted Rall (THE FDR PLAN)

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/10-3

Before moronic right-wing tyrants seize power, I urge in my new book "The Anti-American Manifesto," the left should do it first. Well, first they have to become a big-L Left: organized, and with a program the people of the Soon-to-be Former United States of America can get behind.

Readers and critics agree with my analysis of the situation. But, they complain, my "Manifesto" doesn't contain that political program.

That's intentional. The "Manifesto" is a call to arms. Everyone, left to right, is invited to join the revolution. Our common enemy--corporate leeches and their political lapdogs--is mortally wounded but still vicious. This isn't the time, as the Chinese would say, for splittism. Besides, at 288 pages it's already too long for a manifesto. With a detailed program it would have been 500.

Still, people keep asking me: What would you do, Ted Rall?

Maybe it's perverse, but my best answer is to list what I'd tell Obama to do if he wanted to save himself, the Democrats, and the capitalist system.

Don't worry. He won't.

He can't.

His bosses won't allow it.

If I were Obama, my first act would be to shut down the banking system and securities markets for a week or two. Why? To prevent the capital flight that might follow what comes next. I'd announce that any attempt to transfer money or securities overseas during this period would be prosecuted as an act of treason.
(snip)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Ted Rall is the author of the new books "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," and "The Anti-American Manifesto" . His website is tedrall.com.

[raouldukelives]

97. Kick

[Demeter]

98. Head of government regulator received huge payment package from former financial industry employer

http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2010/10/12/government-finance-regulator-chief-received-huge-payment-package-from-former-financial-industry-employer/

Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) chairwoman Mary Schapiro received nearly $9 million in compensation and retirement benefits from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) when she left to head the government regulator.

The total amount of compensation was released in a report and posted on the blog ZeroHedge yesterday. FINRA is a self-regulatory organization (SRO) that was tasked with watchdogging the securities industry. Schapiro was the CEO of FINRA from 1996 to 2009. She oversaw the SRO as Wall Street boomed and busted during that same period.

One chief point of contention for FINRA is what kind of oversight they provided for the criminal hedge fund manager Bernie Madoff. In August, a majority of broker-members of FINRA voted for the organization to release more information related to FINRA’s ties to and oversight of Madoff. FINRA subsequently rejected an independent review of its Madoff ties.

SEC officials have met twice with officials from FINRA as the government agency seeks to craft new rules under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Schapiro’s financial disclosure document filed upon accepting the nomination to the SEC shows that she received $2.75 million in salary and incentive compensation from FINRA. The disclosure document also shows an additional Defined Benefits Plan that ranges from five to twenty-five million dollars and a 2008 Incentive Compensation that ranges from one to five million dollars. The financial disclosure document is available for viewing here:

http://projects.propublica.org/tables/the-obama-teams-disclosure-documents

The Obama Team’s Disclosure Documents

President Obama's administration came to Washington pledging transparency and accountability in government. The White House has demanded strict new ethics requirements and signed pledges from appointees to abide by the rules. The records don't seem to be available from single office, and moreover the government insists on giving them out by request only.

We're cutting out the middleman, and posting them, in a single location, for the first time.

Shoot us an e-mail and we'll highlight your findings, like Jane Johnson's finding on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. And, if rummaging through documents is your thing, send a note to our editor of distributed reporting, Amanda Michel. She’ll alert you for our next document project.

TABLE AT LINK

[Demeter]

99. The Fed's Magic Money-Printing Machine By Matt Taibbi

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/217520/83512

It’s amazing, given the attention the Tea Party allegedly is paying to government waste and government spending, that there hasn’t been more controversy about the now-seemingly-inevitable arrival of “QE2” – a second massive round of money-printing cooked up by the Fed to prop up both the government and certain sectors of the economy. A more overtly anticapitalist and oligarchical pattern of behavior than the Fed’s “Quantitative Easing” program could not possibly be imagined, but the country is strangely silent on the issue.

What is “QE”? The first round of “quantitative easing” was a program announced by Ben Bernanke last March in response to the financial crisis, ending in March of this year. In what will soon be known as “QE1”(i.e. once QE2 is announced), Bernanke printed over a trillion dollars out of thin air, then used that money to buy, among other things, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and Treasury Bonds. In other words, the government was printing money to a) lend to itself and b) prop up the housing market, with Wall Street stepping in to take a big cut.

That was QE1. There has long been speculation that another trillion-plus money-printing program called QE2 is coming, but only recently have there been concrete hints from the Fed along those lines. Among other things, New York Fed Vice President Brian Sack just this week squeaked out a comment about how, "In terms of the benefits, balance-sheet expansion appears to push financial conditions in the right direction.” Translating into English, “balance-sheet expansion” means the Fed adding to its balance sheet, i.e. printing money to buy stuff – i.e. QE2...

[Demeter]

100. It pays not to cultivate GM crops, survey finds

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/it-pays-unotu-to-cultivate-gm-crops-survey-finds-2100999.html

The first economic analysis of growing genetically modified crops on a wide scale has found that the biggest winners were the farmers who decided not to grow them.

The study, which looked at maize yields in the corn belt of the United States, found that farmers who continued to grow conventional crops actually earned more money over a 14-year period than those who cultivated GM varieties.

The first economic analysis of growing genetically modified crops on a wide scale has found that the biggest winners were the farmers who decided not to grow them.

The study, which looked at maize yields in the corn belt of the United States, found that farmers who continued to grow conventional crops actually earned more money over a 14-year period than those who cultivated GM varieties.
Related articles

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All farmers benefited from the significantly lower level of pests that came about after the introduction of GM maize to the US in 1996, but the conventional farmers who continued to cultivate non-GM varieties also benefited financially from not having to pay the extra costs of purchasing GM seeds.

Previous studies into the economics of growing GM crops have concentrated on the farmers who have taken up the technology, but the latest research looked at a wider area, including non-GM fields that may have benefited from being near fields planted with GM varieties...

[Demeter]

101. Coldest winter in 1,000 years on its way

http://rt.com/news/prime-time/coldest-winter-emergency-measures/

After the record heat wave this summer, Russia's weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.

Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.

The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.

So far, the results have been lower temperatures: for example, in Central Russia, they are a couple of degrees below the norm.

“Although the forecast for the next month is only 70 percent accurate, I find the cold winter scenario quite likely,” Vadim Zavodchenkov, a leading specialist at the Fobos weather center, told RT. “We will be able to judge with more certainty come November. As for last summer's heat, the statistical models that meteorologists use to draw up long-term forecasts aren't able to predict an anomaly like that.”

In order to meet the harsh winter head on, Moscow authorities are drawing up measures to help Muscovites survive the extreme cold.

Most of all, the government is concerned with homeless people who risk freezing to death if the forecast of the meteorologists come true. Social services and police are being ordered to take the situation under control even if they have to force the homeless to take help.

Moscow authorities have also started checking air conditioning systems in all socially important buildings. All the conditioners are being carefully cleaned from the remains of summer smog.

[Demeter]

102. On the Edge with Max Keiser & David DeGraw: Revolution or World War III

THEY GO AFTER GEITHNER, THE IMF, WORLD BANK, ALL THE SUAL SUSPECTS

http://daviddegraw.org/2010/10/on-the-edge-with-max-keiser-david-degraw-revolution-or-world-war-iii/

[Demeter]

103. Linda Lowell: The FDIC ambushes the Fed, and gains a beachhead in Basel

http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAMain.asp

While many observers correctly noted the increase in the powers of the Fed as the result of Dodd-Frank, few have bothered to notice the even greater increase in the regulatory powers of the FDIC....

How a little-noticed amendment in the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation might put the FDIC into the regulatory driver's seat


By Linda Lowell


...Then there are the capital reforms in Basel III. They do not alter the Basel II model-bound Advanced Approach (which lowered capital levels just as the disaster began to unfold) or the Standard Approach tying risk weights to too-often bogus rating agency credit quality assessments. Instead, among other things, the Committee has honed in on capital quality, tightening the definition of qualifying capital instruments.

Most annoying - for U.S. banks, at least - the July amendments would limit the amount of mortgage servicing rights that can be included in the calculation of capital to just 10% of common equity (they currently go up to 50%). Press reports have put the price tag for U.S. banks with massive mortgage banking businesses in the billions of dollars.

This provision only impinges on U.S. banks, too, as mortgage servicing rights exist only in America. Other countries do not issue residential mortgages at a premium, trading securities and placing chunks of the price premium and excess interest into lenders' pockets.. But banks in other countries - notably Japan - do get a hickey from a 10% limit on deferred tax assets. The July amendments would also limit unconsolidated investments in more than 10% of the issued shares of financial institutions.

The July amendments also finally put a number on the minimum Tier 1 leverage ratio promised in the December 2009 Consultative Document (ur-Basel III): 3%. Further details regarding calibration and calculation were provided as well.

In many of Basel's constituent jurisdictions, a floor on leverage is anathema, so there's bound to be a battle. Indeed, if you read on, you will see that Sheila Bair - chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and U.S. banking's own Joan of Arc - has already moved to the ramparts to support the rule. But it is how she did it that is the real story here.

LONG DETAILED WONKY EXPOSITION

The Treasury, in the meantime, was coming around. According to Borak, Michael Barr, assistant secretary for financial institutions, told reporters in late May, "we" share the goal of the Collins Amendment 100%. Given the importance of Sen. Collins to moving the Senate's reform legislation to the floor for a vote, one can imagine the Treasury sucked it up - bitter though it was.

SO AGAIN IT'S LEFT TO THE WOMEN AMONG US TO CLEAN UP THE BOYS' MESSES...

[Demeter]

104. What if everyone had Medicare?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/24/EDRK1FFRST.DTL

Those opposing government health insurance should ponder the fact that private health insurance coverage dropped to the lowest level since comparable data were first collected in 1987. On the other hand, those who look to the new health reform law - the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) - for a solution should be deeply disturbed.

PPACA was not designed to provide universal coverage. In fact, if the new law works as planned, in 2019 there will still be 23 million uninsured. Yet the consequence of being uninsured can be lethal: Research published last year shows about 45,000 deaths annually can be linked to lack of coverage. That number is probably more than 50,000 today.

As Don McCanne, senior health policy fellow at Physicians for a National Health Program, has observed, PPACA is an underinsurance program. Employers, seeing little relief, will expand the present trend of shifting more insurance and health care costs onto employees.

Individuals buying plans in the new insurance exchanges (which won't start until 2014) will discover that subsidies are inadequate to avoid financial hardship. Inevitably, they will end up with underinsurance, spotty coverage and high deductibles.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/23/EDRK1FFRST.DTL#ixzz15IO4hcf3

[Demeter]

105. Mercenaries Are Only in It for the Money

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/10/05/health-care-industry-reminds-democrats-mercenaries-are-only-in-it-for-the-money/

...Even a cursory study of military history will show you the important role played for centuries by mercenaries—and it will show you their limitations. There are two critical things to keep in mind when thinking about mercenaries. The first and most important is that they are in it for the money. They are not fighting for ideology, religion, the crown or their motherland. They are in it for the money. The second thing is a dead mercenary can’t collect his pay nor can a defeated nation pay their salary. You simply can’t pay a mercenary to take part in what seems like a suicide mission, you can’t rely on their support if they no longer think you can pay, and they are only loyal as long as the other side doesn’t offer a better deal.

Perhaps Obama’s administration would be better off today if they had kept this in mind when they foolishly thought they could buy the support of the health industries as part of their backroom health care deals. From Politico, we learn the private health care interests that cut sweetheart deals with Democrats haven’t stayed loyal...

WHILE THIS ARTICLE SPEAKS OF MERCENARIES IN THE CONTEXT OF HEALTH CARE, IT WOULD BE WISE FOR THE ECONOMIC ELITE TO CONSIDER THAT AFTER THE MONEY IS GONE, OR DEFACED, OR REPUDIATED BY THE NATION THAT PRINTED IT, THEY WOULDN'T HAVE ANY PROTECTORS...

Such is the nature of a mercenary. They are in it for the money and will switch their alliance to which ever side can pay better. You can buy their temporary utility, but not their undying loyalty when the going gets tough.

This is something the Democratic administration should have kept in mind when they betrayed their true allies in the health care fight (by dropping the public option and drug re-importation) in a failed attempt to buy corporate support. They are now left with a deeply unpopular health care law that does too little and fails to excite the base, while the corporate mercenaries have abandoned what looks like a losing battle.

[Demeter]

106. Waivers Aim at Talk of Dropping Health Coverage

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/business/07insure.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp

As Obama administration officials put into place the first major wave of changes under the health care legislation, they have tried to defuse stiffening resistance — from companies like McDonald’s and some insurers — by granting dozens of waivers to maintain even minimal coverage far below the new law’s standards.

The waivers have been issued in the last several weeks as part of a broader strategic effort to stave off threats by some health insurers to abandon markets, drop out of the business altogether or refuse to sell certain policies.

Among those that administration officials hoped to mollify with waivers were some big insurers, some smaller employers and McDonald’s, which went so far as to warn that the regulations could force it to strip workers of existing coverage....


THE EDSEL OF HEALTHCARE--THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE COMING OUR WAY.

[Demeter]

107. THAT'S AS FAR AS I CAN GO THIS WEEKEND

Rehearsals, dinners, etc...Have a good week everyone!

illegitimus non carborundum!

[jotsy]

108. Kicking.

Visibility for Sunday night viewing!