STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 29 May 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 29 May 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 25 May 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 25 May 2012
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Dow Jones 12,454.83 -74.92 (-0.60%)
S&P 500 1,317.82 -2.86 (-0.22%)
Nasdaq 2,837.53 -1.85 (-0.07%)


[font color=green]10 Year 1.74% -0.01 (-0.57%)
[font color=black]30 Year 2.84% 0.00 (0.00%) [font color=black]


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

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



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

[Demeter]

1. While that's a very artistic turd

doesn't it come with some kind of identification, at least?

Well, it was a fine day for a barbecue, and all went well....until I got home to find chaos and scutwork. I never did get a swim in, and now I'm too tired and it's too late.

It finally got up to ninety, maybe even 97F. Stiff breeze and humidity not too bad.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. ....

as in FB "like"

[Hugin]

4. Like? Ooooh!

Now, I get it....

At first I thought you were going Ummon on us!

[Warpy]

3. I wondered about that very nice turd, too

It should have one of those little yellow flags with Stupid's picture on it sticking out of it.

I didn't barbecue. I did finish putting up shelving and a cabinet in my kitchen, rendering it a lot more usable than it started. All I need to do is a little interior desecration and get the countertops replaced--acid dyes do a number on them. It needs a full renovation but the bathroom is screaming "me first!"

[tclambert]

11. My thought was, "Why is that pile of dog crap giving us a thumb's up?"

The source is clearly not a cow, nor a horse. I've been to ranches, not like George W. Bush's ranch, but real ranches with livestock. They don't poop like that.

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. A little Facebook flag on a toothpick? n/t

[Demeter]

5. When it's 72F and 83% humidity at 6:30 in the morning

You know it's going to be a hot one.

[Demeter]

6. That's so 50's!

[Demeter]

7. News from outer space: SMALL ASTEROID BUZZES EARTH

Newly-discovered asteroid 2012 KT42 is flying past Earth today (May 29th) only ~14,000 km above the planet's surface.

This means 2012 KT42 will actually fly inside the Clark Belt of geosynchronous satellites.

The 3- to 10-meter wide asteroid ranks # 6 on the top 20 list of closest-approachers to Earth. According to the asteroid's orbit, there is no danger of a collision. Even if it did hit, this space rock is too small to cause significant damage. It would likely disintegrate almost entirely in the atmosphere, peppering the ground below with relatively small meteorites.

http://spaceweather.com/

Own a Meteorite!

Jewelry from outer space: http://www.shopspaceweather.com/ownameteorite.aspx

[tclambert]

14. Does it bother anyone else that we always hear about these near hits long after

we could do anything about them? A lot of times the story is about an asteroid that just missed us yesterday. Come to think of it, I'm not sure we could do anything anyway. ICBMs don't go high enough to do any good. Space Shuttle's gone, so no Armageddon or Deep Impact scenario. We'd basically have to engineer a solution from scratch. We might need years of advance warning.

[AnneD]

58. When I was in the military.....

I once talked to a Viet Nam Vet about how he was so calm with all that gunfire around. "If I hear them, I know they are a near miss-you never hear the one that kills you. Considering what happened with dinosaurs...I really don't spend mental energy worrying about it.

[Warpy]

59. No, because unless we have a cave house (and maybe not then)

there isn't anything we can do about them but watch the show.

[Demeter]

8. China Mainlined Into U.S. Debt

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/china-mainlined-us-debt

China is now mainlined directly into U.S. debt. Reuters uncovered an astounding thing. The U.S. Treasury has literally set up a direct line for China to buy U.S. treasuries, bypassing brokers and any third party. China is the only country with this privledge. Those thinking this administration would confront China on currency manipulation, think again. Instead our government gave China real time direct access to dynamically control the value of the Yuan.

China can now bypass Wall Street when buying U.S. government debt and go straight to the U.S. Treasury, in what is the Treasury's first-ever direct relationship with a foreign government, according to documents viewed by Reuters.

China, which holds $1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, still buys some Treasuries through primary dealers, but since June 2011, that route hasn't been necessary.

The documents viewed by Reuters show the U.S. Treasury Department has given the People's Bank of China a direct computer link to its auction system, which the Chinese first used to buy two-year notes in late June 2011.

China can now participate in auctions without placing bids through primary dealers. If it wants to sell, however, it still has to go through the market.

The change was not announced publicly or in any message to primary dealers.

China directly holds $1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasuries and is the largest foreign holder. There are reports China actually holds much more of U.S. bonds, but hides this fact by going through the U.K. for their additional purchases.

Buying U.S. Treasuries directly doesn't save commission fees for China. More it hides their trading strategies. Reuters notes these advantages by China bypassing the normal channels to bid on U.S. T-bills:

The privilege may help China obtain U.S. debt for a better price by keeping Wall Street's knowledge of its orders to a minimum.

China is preserving the value of specific information about its bidding habits. By bidding directly, China prevents Wall Street banks from trying to exploit its huge presence in a given auction by driving up the price.

What no one is talking about here is currency manipulation. China must buy U.S. treasuries in order to keep their currency artificially low....

[Demeter]

9. Spain says help not needed to save banks

Prime minister defiant over €19bn Bankia rescue, sending the country’s borrowing costs over Germany’s to the highest level since start of the euro

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/H60H77/7A1PA1/K91WR/8Z9SVW/C46JDH/28/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=29

[Demeter]

10. Cyberwar fears after bug targets Tehran

The Flame spying virus collects sensitive information and is the most sophisticated yet seen, leading experts to believe it was made by a nation state

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/EB8122/KQACPJ/FDFZE/62EQO0/B58SWC/AZ/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=29

[Demeter]

12. Where Are the Missing 5 Million Workers? In the Underground Economy

http://www.alternet.org/story/155491/where_are_the_missing_5_million_workers_in_the_underground_economy?page=entire

The “underground” is always with us. For better and often for worse, it’s how marginalized populations tend to survive—often not very well. “Where have all the workers gone?” David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal wondered about the labor force this week:

In the past two years, the number of people in the U.S. who are older than 16 (and not in the military or prison) has grown by 5.4 million. The number of people working or looking for work hasn’t grown at all.

So, where have all the workers gone? Have they retired, suspended their labors temporarily or are they languishing on public assistance? asks Wessel.

There are some other possibilities. Since the crash of 2008, there’s no question that millions of Americans have indeed stopped looking for a job. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not working. Look around, it’s much more likely that the officially “unemployed” are busy, doing their best to make ends meet in whatever ways they can. Sex work, drugs and crime spring to mind, but the underground or “shadow” economy includes all sorts of off-the-books toil. From baby-sitting, bartering, mending, kitchen-garden farming and selling goods in a yard sale, all sorts of people—from the tamale seller on your corner, to the dancer who teaches yoga—are all contributing to the underground economy along with the “employed” who pay them for their wares.

The “underground” is always with us. For better and often for worse, it’s how marginalized populations tend to survive—often not very well. (Think of the old, the young, the formerly incarcerated or foreign.) In recessions—surprise, surprise—“irregular” employment grows. Consider recent stories from Greece about wageless public “workers” swapping skills and trading food for teaching. Austrian economist, Friedrich Schneider, an expert in underground economies, has documented a surge in shadow economy activity in 2009 and 2010 in Europe. University of Wisconsin–Madison economist Edgar Feige has been doing his best to follow what’s happened here.

Tracking the gap between reported and unreported income in the United States since 1940, Feige finds:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fm_aT8-b7WE/TsEUsEO0xfI/AAAAAAAACIo/3K7AvOm0dXE/s1600/Screen+shot+2011-11-14+at+8.15.47+AM.png

Measuring unreported data is not easy, but from Feige’s graph one thing is clear: there’s as much unreported income swirling around the United States today as there was in WWII under rationing, and that number’s not going down with any speed.

Unreported income matters to the IRS because those “unreported” dollars are lost revenue for the taxman. (In 2001, the Internal Revenue Service estimates it was losing $345 billion in tax revenue. In 2009, according to Feige, that estimate could be approaching $600 billion.)

A shrinking workforce matters to policy makers too, as Wessel explains:

“Figuring out how many of those now on the job-market sidelines are likely to come back onto the field matters to gauging the current state of the economy, to fashioning the right remedy for the sluggish recovery and to evaluating prospects for economic growth, which hinge, in part, on an expanding labor force.”

MORE

[Demeter]

13. Things are seldom what they seem...

“Let us remind ourselves that the informal economy is, in fact, the larger part of the world’s total economy. When you add in the domestic and household economy of the world’s households, the subsistence economy, the barter economy, the volunteer economy, the ‘under the table’ economy, the criminal economy and a few other smaller players, you get something that adds up to 3/4 of the world’s total economic activity. The formal economy—the territory of professional and paid work, of tax statements and GDP—is only 1/4 of the world’s total economic activity.”

http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/?s=informal+economy

[Egalitarian Thug]

21. This is where I've lived most of my life. When one of my businesses gets

big enough that is gets noticed, its time to sell. The few times I've played it straight I got burned, so why bother?

[Demeter]

41. Living in the cracks, I call it

Ever since the divorce severed my connections to the "official" economy...

[Egalitarian Thug]

46. There's a lot of us out here. I view also it as doing my part to avoid feeding the beast

as much as it is possible. I'm basically an economic black hole, money comes in, but barely any comes out.

[Demeter]

15. New York Has Some Prisons to Sell You

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/nyregion/closed-new-york-prisons-prove-hard-to-sell.html

One property, in the Hudson Valley, includes a 16-car garage, a piggery and hundreds of yards of lake frontage...Another offers 69 acres of waterfront land on the west shore of Staten Island, complete with a two-story gymnasium, a baseball diamond and an open-air pavilion...Those seeking seclusion have an option, too: 20 acres adjoining state forest land in rural Schoharie County, perfect for hunting, trapping and fishing. The property comes with its own wastewater- and sewage-treatment plants, as well as a chapel and a carpentry shop. The ideal buyer is someone who craves space to spread out, and who does not mind a property that has had thousands of guests over the years. And a fondness for “The Shawshank Redemption” would not hurt.

These real-estate listings come from an unpracticed seller, the State of New York. After cutting costs through traditional means like freezing wages of state workers and consolidating government offices, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is embarking on a less conventional effort: trying to sell New York’s old prisons. The state has a glut of vacant correctional facilities because of lower crime rates, new programs that allow early release for nonviolent offenders and the dismantling of its strict drug laws. The situation in New York reflects changing national attitudes toward criminal justice policy: the number of state prisoners nationwide declined in 2009 and 2010 for the first times in at least three decades, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, Gov. David A. Paterson, closed three prisons as he confronted budget problems. Mr. Cuomo declared in his first address to the State Legislature that prisons were “not an employment program,” and proceeded to shut seven of the state’s remaining 67 correctional facilities, removing 3,800 beds. These closings reflect a sharp reversal. After New York adopted mandatory drug sentences in 1973, the state’s prison population soared from 13,437 to a peak of 71,472 in 1999, prompting a boom in prison construction, much of it during the tenure of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, the current governor’s father. But since then, the number of inmates in state facilities has fallen nearly a quarter, to about 55,000, leaving thousands of empty beds.

The state has other real estate to offer as well, including a Romanesque armory in Poughkeepsie where soldiers drilled before the Spanish-American War and a one-time rehabilitation center for young women in the Finger Lakes region...

IF IT WEREN'T FOR NEW YORK'S HIGH PROPERTY TAXES, THIS WOULD BE VERY TEMPTING...ALL THAT SPACE AND INFRASTRUCTURE...A TOWN OF ONE'S OWN!

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. I'm thinking about what a great start it would be for a shared community.

But those NY property taxes would be a killer, and who knows what the zoning and permitting process nightmares would bring.

[Demeter]

16. JPMorgan dips into cookie jar to offset "London Whale" losses

http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-jpmorgan-dips-cookie-jar-offset-london-whale-050420110--sector.html

JPMorgan Chase & Co has sold an estimated $25 billion of profitable securities in an effort to prop up earnings after suffering trading losses tied to the bank's now-infamous "London Whale," compounding the cost of those trades. CEO Jamie Dimon earlier this month said the bank sold corporate bonds and other securities, pocketing $1 billion in gains that will help offset more than $2 billion in losses. As a result, the bank will not have to report as big an earnings hit for the second quarter.

The sales of profitable securities from elsewhere in the bank's investment portfolio will increase its costs by triggering taxes on the gains and by eliminating future earnings from the securities. Gains from the sales could provide about 16 cents a share of earnings, about one-fifth of the bank's second-quarter profit, analysts said. But rather than creating new value for investors, the transactions merely shift gains in securities from one part of the company's financial statements to another.

"They really made two stupid decisions," said Lynn Turner, a consultant and former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The first was taking risks with derivatives that they did not understand, Turner said. "The second is selling assets with high income that they can't replace."

In a low interest-rate environment, the bank will struggle to generate as much income with the cash it received from selling the securities, he said.

[Egalitarian Thug]

24. "The second is selling assets with high income that they can't replace."

Says it all right there. Where on earth people get the notion that rich = smart, I'll never know.

[Demeter]

17. Four Ways to Fix Banks by Sallie Krawcheck (SPAYING AND NEUTERING?)

http://hbr.org/2012/06/four-ways-to-fix-banks/ar/1

It is tempting to view the financial downturn as a closed chapter whose primary causes have been resolved—perhaps not perfectly, but fairly comprehensively—by the Dodd-Frank Act’s reregulation of the financial services industry. But big banks continue to have a governance problem, which poses significant risks not just to them but potentially to the entire economy during the next downturn.

It is well-known that many banks were nearly wiped out in 2008 by a global financial crisis they helped cause. Since then most of them have been nursed back to health, with lots of help from taxpayers and central bankers. Yet despite the reregulation, they remain complex, opaque institutions in the business of taking enormous risks. Figuring out how to oversee them successfully—to keep their risks in check while allowing them to be profitable and economically productive—is a continuing unmet challenge for boards, regulators, and society as a whole.

Upgrading bank boards is one way to take on the challenge. Since the crisis, boards at major banks have revamped their membership and substantially increased their time commitments. This movement could be taken even further: Robert C. Pozen has suggested (“The Case for Professional Boards,” HBR December 2010) that board membership at a big bank should be a full-time job. But even smart, experienced, full-time board members would struggle with the staggering complexity of the biggest banks. Without a way to cut through this complexity to the core issues and drivers, they’d have little hope of steering their institutions in a risk-sensitive fashion.

The main tool with which boards and regulators have managed risk at banks in recent decades is the capital ratio. The logic is that the higher the capital ratio—that is, the more money set aside against potential losses—the lower the risk. This is simple enough in theory but wildly complicated and confusing in practice. It’s not at all clear what the right amount of capital is; in fact, it’s not even clear how capital should be measured. At any given board meeting, bank directors will hear about GAAP capital, capital as measured under the current Basel regime (international standards set by bank regulators), capital as measured under the coming Basel regime, and the bank’s own view of the right amount of capital, often called economic capital. Within these categories are various subcategories, including Tier 1 capital, tangible capital, and total capital. These capital measures often fail to keep up with market events. Also, the calculations can be shaped by banks’ own assessments of risk, regulators’ assessments of banks’ risk models, and ratings from rating agencies—all of which are subject to underlying biases, to put it mildly....

1: Pay Executives with Bonds as Well as Stock

MORE

[Demeter]

18. Sorry. I'm too wiped from yesterday's barbeque

If this headache goes away, I'll be back with more gleanings...

[xchrom]

20. Miss Gloom has come to visit this morning -- maybe Miss Sunshine later?

[Tansy_Gold]

50. Ms. Sunshine!

[xchrom]

53. OMG! FABULOUS!!! nt

[Tansy_Gold]

54. I've been waiting ages

to use that photo.

You gave me the perfect spot!

[xchrom]

55. well she is just to Die For. nt

[Tansy_Gold]

66. .....

[xchrom]

22. Moody’s Fading Relevance Exposed In Nordic Downgrades

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-28/moody-s-fading-relevance-exposed-in-nordic-downgrades.html

The response to the Moody’s Investors Service downgrade of the biggest Nordic banks was rising bond and share prices.

“We can see for ourselves just how strong the Swedish banks are so we don’t place much weight on what rating agencies tell us,” Nicklas Granath, a partner at Stockholm-based asset manager Norron AB, who helps manage about $200 million, said in an interview. “More and more the market is likely to take the same approach.”

As European policy makers try to reduce the dominance of rating companies in financial markets, investors are showing greater willingness to ignore Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. Denmark, which holds the European Union presidency, said this month it won backing in the 27-member bloc to curtail the influence of the raters. Danish banks have started firing Moody’s, while Swedbank AB (SWEDA), one of Sweden’s four biggest lenders, has said the views published by rating companies are “backward looking.”

Moody’s last week lowered Sweden’s Nordea Bank AB (NDA) and Svenska Handelsbanken AB (SHBA) to Aa3, and Norway’s DNB Bank ASA to A1, all single-level downgrades. Credit grades of SEB AB (SEBA) and Swedbank AB were affirmed while Landshypotek AB was cut two steps to Baa2. All ratings carry stable outlooks, Moody’s said.

The reaction is the latest sign that investors are paying less attention to the views of rating companies and relying more on their own analysis to determine whether to buy or sell.

[Egalitarian Thug]

26. Another financial murder mystery. These are the assholes that, either through corruption or

gross incompetence, managed to completely miss the steady building of the greatest collapse in the history of their existence. A collapse which is exactly the kind of thing they are supposed to see coming and warn against.

Yet people still listen to what they say?

[Roland99]

25. Europe flat amongst mexed missages but US futures looking rosy on this gloomy day

S&P 500 1,322.00 7.00 0.53%
DOW 12,498 69.00 0.56%
NASDAQ 2,540 15.75 0.62%

Managed to miss most of the effects from Tropical Storm Beryl but more rain is moving in right now...just barely beat it in on the drive into work

[Demeter]

27. I hope some rain fell on Fuddnik's garden

and I wish some would fall here. It's supposed to cool off for the next 4 days...we'll see. The weather forecasts have been wrong 3 days out of 4 lately.

[Fuddnik]

30. It's raining right now.

A nice gentle sprinkle that appears to be covering the entire region. We need it.

We didn't get a drop from the tropical storm. This looks to be an all-day event. Love it! Rosco is laying along the edge of the pool, just getting his ass soaked, and loving it. I'm gonna go close the bedroom doors, because his next stop will be the bed, so he can roll around and dry himself off. Then get wet again. rinse and repeat.

[Roland99]

36. I can still smell smoke from a fire somewhere

Can't smell anything at home west of town but right near downtown Orlando I can...not sure where the fires even are at this point.

Tomato plants are perking up after this rain, though.

Replaced and raised some sprinkler heads yesterday. Have more to do but after the constant 5min of rain, 10 min of no rain, 5 min of rain, etc. I gave up and stayed indoors enjoying the rest of the day off

[Po_d Mainiac]

40. Just started a fire

Rain barrels are overflowing

Snow peas are budding. As are blackberries, summer squash and zucchini.

1st crop of radishes are getting eaten.

Memorial weekend is usually when the garden goes in. This year even the corn is up.

Have 75-80 extra tomato plants...free for the taking

[xchrom]

28. Dewey & LeBoeuf Files For Bankruptcy, Fails To Save Firm

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-29/dewey-leboeuf-files-for-bankruptcy-fails-to-save-firm.html

Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, the law firm that advised Los Angeles Dodgers LLC on its restructuring, filed its own bankruptcy after its chairman was ousted, almost all its partners quit and creditors began suing for unpaid bills.

Dewey, based in New York, listed debt of $245 million and assets of $193 million in a Chapter 11 filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

The firm, which had more than 1,300 attorneys in 12 countries after the 2007 merger of Dewey Ballantine LLP and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & McRae LLP, now has 150 employees in the U.S. to wind it down, said Jonathan A. Mitchell, the firm’s restructuring officer, in the filing. Dewey will be liquidated, he said.

Dewey & LeBoeuf “was formed at the onset of one of the worst economic downturns in U.S. history,” said Mitchell, who works for Zolfo Cooper, in the statement. “These negative economic conditions, combined with the firm’s rapid growth and partnership compensation arrangements, created a situation where the cash flow was insufficient to cover capital expenses and full compensation expectations.”

[xchrom]

29. Greek Euro Exit Aftershocks Risk Reaching China

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-29/greek-exit-aftershocks-risk-reaching-china.html

Greece, responsible for 0.4 percent of the world economy, now poses a threat to international prosperity as investors raise bets its days using the euro are numbered.

A Greek departure from the currency would inflict “collateral damage,” says Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Richard Clarida, a view echoed by economists from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase & Co. At worst, it could spur sovereign defaults in Europe as well as bank runs, credit crunches and recessions that may spark more euro exits.

Global trade and financial ties mean the pain wouldn’t be confined to the euro area. JPMorgan Chase estimates a 1 percentage point slump in the euro countries’ economy drags down growth elsewhere by 0.7 percentage point. Exporting nations from the U.K. to China would suffer and commodity producer Russia would face falling oil prices. While the U.S. may fare better, even it would feel echoes similar to the financial infection following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

“An awful lot depends on what is done to limit the contagion within Europe,” said Barry Eichengreen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of a 2006 history of the European economy, in a telephone interview. “If too little is done then, to use a financial term, all hell breaks loose. I can imagine things playing out that way.”

[xchrom]

31. Rise of left in Netherlands could cost Merkel another key ally

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0529/1224316860773.html


A NEW poll in the Netherlands shows that Geert Wilders’ right-wing Freedom Party (PVV) has outstripped caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals for the first time – and would become the second-largest party in the country if an election were held tomorrow.

At the same time, the poll by analysts Maurice de Hond shows that the five parties that came together last month to salvage a €13 billion package of austerity measures aimed at bringing the Dutch budget deficit below 3 per cent of GDP would now fail to win a majority in parliament.

In a dramatic response to the new climate of cuts, the biggest political winners are the Socialists, who would become the dominant party, doubling the 15 seats they won in the 2010 general election to 30 – and placing them in a strong position to form a left-wing coalition with Labour.

The poll shows for the first time the extent of the change that has convulsed the Dutch political landscape since the minority Liberal–Christian Democrat coalition collapsed last month after failing to agree a budget with the PVV, who had been supporting them from the opposition benches.

[xchrom]

32. Regional growth still robust

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0529/1224316866213.html

ECONOMIC GROWTH in East Asia and Pacific is robust, but the region needs to reduce its reliance on exports and find new sources of growth, the World Bank said in a report released last week.

Developing East Asia and Pacific grew 8.2 per cent in 2011, 4.3 per cent when China is excluded, a sharp decline from the nearly 10 per cent growth rate recorded in 2010, which amounts to 7 per cent excluding China.

“Some countries will need to stimulate household consumption. In others, enhanced investment, particularly in infrastructure, offers the potential to sustain growth provided this does not exacerbate domestic demand pressures,” said Bryce Quillin, World Bank economist and lead author of the report Capturing New Sources of Growth.

The region’s performance is still impressive on a global scale, ran the report.

In 2011, growth was about two percentage points higher than the developing country average worldwide, and poverty continued to fall, the global lender said.

[xchrom]

33. Spanish banks in merger talks

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0529/breaking25.html

?ts=1338296200
A woman holds a placard during a protest outside the Liberbank headquarters in Oviedo, northern Spain yesterday. Photograph: Eloy Alonso/Reuters


Spanish unlisted savings bank Liberbank is in talks about a possible merger with rivals Ibercaja and Caja 3, to bulk up their capital position as they struggle with billions of euros of bad property debt.

Investors believe Spain cannot replenish a capital hole in its entire banking system without seeking an international bail-out.

Bankia, formed by an earlier tie-up between seven banks, asked the government for a record rescue of more than €19 billion on Friday, helping to push the country's risk premium against German 10-year debt above 500 basis points.

Liberbank, Ibercaja and Caja 3 together hold toxic assets, including bad loans to housing developers, of around €11.8 billion, around a quarter of that held by Bankia and its parent company Banco Financiero y de Ahorros (BFA).

[Eugene]

34. One bust bank could bring Spain to its knees, warns prime minister

Source: The Guardian

One bust bank could bring Spain to its knees, warns prime minister

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
The Guardian, Tuesday 29 May 2012

Spain cannot afford to let a single bank or regional government collapse as that would bring the entire country to its knees, the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, warned on Monday.

In a rare and unexpected appearance before the press, Rajoy failed to calm markets which had reacted nervously to Spain's biggest-ever bailout, the €23.5bn (£18.8bn) rescue of Bankia announced on Friday.

"We are not going to let any region or financial entity fall, because otherwise the country would fall," he said.

The cost of Bankia's bailout has spiralled over the past three weeks and a revision of its 2011 accounts over that period has seen losses at parent company BFA multiplied by 100. On Monday night the company reported the biggest loss in Spain's banking history – of somewhere above €3.3bn (£2.6bn). It had originally declared just €30m in losses.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/28/one-bust-bank-spain-pm-mariano-rajoy

[xchrom]

35. Government 'lying' over treaty {ireland}

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0529/breaking27.html

?ts=1338296429
ULA finance spokesman Richard Boyd Barrett .

The Government has been accused of lying through its teeth over the state of the country’s finances ahead of the fiscal treaty referendum with the United Left Alliance (ULA) saying the State’s deficit could fall to €3.1 billion next year if bank debts are not paid.

Speaking in Dublin today, ULA finance spokesman Richard Boyd Barrett said the Government’s own deficit figure of €18 billion includes re-payment of bank debt and other interest on debt.

“Obviously, if the EU cut off funding to us we would not be making those re-payments and the actual gap between income and expenditure would then only be €3.1 billion,” he said.

“This is a gap that could easily be filled and more by increasing income tax on those earning over €150,000 per year and by imposing a modest wealth tax on the wealth and assets of the wealthiest 5 per cent of the population.”

[Po_d Mainiac]

37. heavy metal

A man in a Chinese curio shop in San Francisco found a lifelike bronze statue of a rat. It had no price tag. "How much for the bronze rat?" he asked.

"You choose wisely!" came the reply. "It is $12 for the rat and $100 for the story.

The tourist pulled out twelve dollars. "I'll take the rat. You can keep the story."

As he walked with his statue, the tourist saw real rats emerging from alleys and sewers. They were following him. He walked faster.

A couple blocks later he looked behind. The herd of rats was now hundreds, and they were squealing.

Sweating, the tourist trotted toward San Francisco Bay.

Again, after a couple blocks, he looked back only to see MILLIONS or rats approaching faster and faster.

The terrified man ran to the edge of the Bay and threw the bronze rat as far as he could into the water.

Amazingly, the millions of rats followed, and drowned.

The man returned to the curio shop.

"Ahhh," said the owner, "You come back for story?"

"No sir," said the man. "I came back to see if you have a bronze Republican."

[Roland99]

39. PHHBBBTTTT!!!

Damn near spit out my tea all over my keyboard!!!

[Demeter]

44. If it was a solid gold rat

maybe could have taken out the 1%....or at least the political hacks.

[Roland99]

38. Case-Shiller home price index unchanged in March (US futures still rising...DJIA +86)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/case-shiller-home-price-index-unchanged-in-march-2012-05-29?link=MW_home_latest_news

U.S. home prices were unchanged in March, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite index. The three-month rolling index includes transactions that took place from January to March. Over the past 12 months, prices have fallen 2.6% as measured by the Case-Shiller index, which is now at a post-recession low. "While there has been improvement in some regions, housing prices have not turned," says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices

[Po_d Mainiac]

43. or

All three headline Case-Shiller composites fell to new post-crisis lows in the first quarter of 2012, wiping out all price gains realized since prices peaked in 2006, a decline of approximately 35 percent through March 2012.

The Case-Shiller national composite fell by 2.0 percent in the first quarter of 2012 and was down 1.9 percent versus the first quarter of 2011. The 10- and 20-City Composites posted respective annual returns of -2.8 percent and -2.6 percent in March 2012. Month-over-month, their changes were minimal; average home prices in the 10-City Composite fell by 0.1 percent compared to February and the 20-City remained basically unchanged in March over February.

In addition to the three composites, five cities - Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York and Portland - also saw average home prices hit new lows. This is an improvement over the nine cities reported last month.

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/

[bread_and_roses]

42. "How the "Job Creators" REALLY Spend Their Money "

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/29-1

Published on Tuesday, May 29, 2012 by Common Dreams
How the "Job Creators" REALLY Spend Their Money
by Paul Buchheit

Does wealthy America have a point, that giving them all the money will ensure it's disbursed properly, and that it will create jobs and stimulate small business investment while ultimately benefiting society? Big business CEOs certainly think so, claiming in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that an increase in the capital gains tax would reduce investment "when we need capital formation here in America to create jobs and expand our economy."

They don't cite evidence for their claims, because the evidence proves them wrong. Here are the facts:

The Very Rich Don't Like Making Risky Investments
...
The Very Rich Don't Like Taking On Risky Jobs
...
The Very Rich Corporations Don't Like Spending On America
...

The richest individuals and corporations are really good at building up fortunes. They're even better at building up their "job creator" myth.

Each heading has plenty of good data below. I'd call this a "must read."

[Demeter]

45. Oh, Look! A Miracle! +111 and rising

can't keep a rigged market down....

on the other hand, Reality is the mother of Depression.

[OKNancy]

47. Just a little bit of good news about Europe and the market is really up

I'm sure glad of that since my retirement is in IRA/mutual fund accounts.
I get this icky feeling that some here would love the market to do poorly.
Many of us who are near retirement or are retired would suffer a lot if that happened.

[Tansy_Gold]

48. Some of us who are retired

never made enough to have IRAs or mutual fund accounts.

So no, we really don't care.

However, we also realize that while an "up"market benefits a few, it hurts so many many more.

Furthermore, we understand that the "up" market is an illusion, created by the .001% to siphon even more of the earnings of the 99%. It's the .001%ers who don't want it to crash; we're the ones who know it will, no matter what. It's unsustainable.

But hey, whatever makes you feel . . . . safe.

[bread_and_roses]

52. Amen, Sister

How many of us is it who live on SS and whatever else we can glean in various ways? The "Market" - whatever it once MAY have been (personally, my own take is that it's always been what it is now - we just had some better brakes on it) - is a ponzi for transferring the collective wealth of the many to the pockets of the few.

[DemReadingDU]

61. the markets are a giant rigged casino

It is amazing to me the number of people who are heavily invested in the markets, yet never gamble at the casinos.

[OKNancy]

64. My husband is a house painter for cripes sake

I taught ballet as a career. Neither of us had an employer who helped with the IRA.
We started one on our own.

But whatever makes you feel superior.........

[Tansy_Gold]

65. My sincere apologies

You're correct, of course. Those of us who have nothing in the market -- because we never had anything to begin with -- ought to be overjoyed to see those who are better than us doing so well. (That is part of the GOP propaganda, isn't it?)


I'm apologizing because I am not overjoyed. Too bad.

[Roland99]

57. Being near retirement and being heavily invested in stocks/index funds is dangerous

esp. given the current economic climate.

[Demeter]

60. The thing is, Nancy

The "market" is an artificial and highly rigged and hourly manipulated abstraction. It NEVER reflects the reality of the underlying economy. Since EVERYBODY lives in the underlying economy, that is the ball to watch.

If the underlying economy (and the government that watches over, regulates, or otherwise imposes conditions upon it) is sound, the markets are sound and reflect reality. They function as they ought....raising capital for corporate ventures.

But the economy hasn't been sound for a long time. Depending on whom you ask, it went into the toilet when:

The Federal Reserve abducted the money-printing
FDR took us off the goldstandard temporarily
Nixon took us off it permanently

But in reality, the economy has never really recovered from the credit bubble that led to 1929. We were held together for some 60 years by the regulations that came out of 1929 and the Pecora commission, but when the "faith healers" in office ripped off those bandages, we started bleeding to death.

[Tansy_Gold]

62. THANK YOU!

(The Wicked *itch of the Southwest is so glad she has friends who are both more diplomatic and more articulate than she is!)

[Demeter]

63. Moi? Shirley, you jest!

As long as I'm not under attack, maybe...

[girl gone mad]

69. Why are you gambling your retirement savings in equity markets?

And why on earth do you expect other people to modify their behavior and tacitly endorse your gambling addiction?

[Tansy_Gold]

70. ...

[xchrom]

49. CHART OF THE DAY: This Is The Scariest Chart In Europe Right Now

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-spanish-2-year-bond-2012-5

Markets are destroying Spanish equities right now, as investors jitter over how Spain will manage a €19 billion ($24 billion) bailout of the country's third largest bank, Bankia.
This angst is manifesting in bets against the Spanish government, with investors freaking out that yields on 10-year bonds are nearing 6.5 percent.
But even more worrisome is the dramatic rise in borrowing costs on shorter-term debt maturing in less than three years. Rising yields in this debt indicate that investors have so quickly lost faith in Spain that they are ignoring the effects of the last long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) on February 28.
The second of two such operations allowed banks to borrow unlimited funds at historically cheap rates for three years, essentially ensuring that they will have a significant amount of money they won't have to account for until 2015.

[Roland99]

51. 10:00a Consumer-confidence gauge falls to 64.9 in May

[Roland99]

56. Markets losing mojo after Spain cut by Egan Jones

EURUSD breaks under $1.25

[Tansy_Gold]

67. Just so's you guys know

The drop in the euro hurts my bank account.

DIVE, BABY, DIVE!

[Eugene]

68. Former Bankia executive gets €14m payoff

Source: The Guardian

Former Bankia executive gets E14m payoff

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 May 2012 19.03 BST

A former senior executive at bailed-out Spanish bank Bankia is to receive a €14m (£11.2m) payoff in a move that will cause controversy beyond the country's borders if Europe is asked to help rescue Spain's banks.

As the government seeks to raise the €19bn needed by Bankia, the news that Aurelio Izquierdo would walk away with such a large payoff raised questions about what Spain's troubled banks have been doing with their money.

Another former senior Bankia executive, Matías Amat, received €6.2m for taking early retirement, aged just 58, in September.

News of the payoffs came amid growing uproar over the multimillion euro deals handed out to executives at Spain's cajas, or savings banks, during the boom years when they helped inflate a housing bubble that burst four years ago.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/29/former-bankia-executive-payoff

[Agony]

71. k