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Tansy_Gold

(17,815 posts)
Tue May 21, 2013, 07:01 PM May 2013

STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 22 May 2013

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 22 May 2013[font color=black][/font]


SMW for 21 May 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 21 May 2013
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Dow Jones 15,387.58 +52.30 (0.34%)
S&P 500 1,669.16 +2.87 (0.17%)
Nasdaq 3,502.12 +5.69 (0.16%)


[font color=green]10 Year 1.93% -0.05 (-2.53%)
30 Year 3.13% -0.05 (-1.57%)[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 - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.










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


26 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 22 May 2013 (Original Post) Tansy_Gold May 2013 OP
I survived the Annual Meeting Demeter May 2013 #1
Whew! n/t Tansy_Gold May 2013 #11
... xchrom May 2013 #18
Mary Meeker's Rx for Restoring USA Inc.: Liquidate the Oldsters! By Alain Sherter Demeter May 2013 #2
It's Our Economy Newsletter: Goal Reached! Time to Restart the Economy‏ Demeter May 2013 #3
Treasury Prepares to Take Measures to Avoid Default HERE WE GO AGAIN Demeter May 2013 #4
BARRON'S: 2 Gigantic, Suspicious Sales Of Gold On Friday Caused The Price To Plunge Demeter May 2013 #5
Gold crush: U.S. ready to shut down gold sales to Iran Demeter May 2013 #14
Gangster State America By Paul Craig Roberts Demeter May 2013 #15
Central banks saved world economy, now beware the fallout: IMF Demeter May 2013 #6
Monsanto Protection Act May Soon be Repealed Thanks to Activism By Anthony Gucciardi Demeter May 2013 #7
The Hidden Objective Behind Japan's Massive Kamikaze Quantitative Easing By Matthias Chang Demeter May 2013 #8
Will Banksters at JPMorgan Chase Finally Pay for Their Misdeeds? Demeter May 2013 #9
I like this solution! Demeter May 2013 #12
Sweet dreams, all! Demeter May 2013 #10
Republicans Question Whether Obama Could Handle Actual Scandal by Andy Borowitz Demeter May 2013 #13
Republicans Fight Obama Plan to Privatize the Hugely Popular, Cheap Energy Source of the TVA Demeter May 2013 #16
"Corporations Are Stealing Billions...Screwed Citizenry Turn On Each Other" bread_and_roses May 2013 #17
IMF: UK 'should offset austerity' xchrom May 2013 #19
Plunge in retail sales points to fragile economy{UK} xchrom May 2013 #20
Ireland feels the heat from Apple tax row xchrom May 2013 #21
Deadline nears in SAC insider-trading case xchrom May 2013 #22
The govt. has no intention of following through Demeter May 2013 #26
Japan’s central bank keeps policy unchanged, says economy ‘picking up,’ as trade deficit grows xchrom May 2013 #23
GOP moderates feud with conservatives over stall tactics on budget xchrom May 2013 #24
What’s Wrong With Jamie Dimon is What’s Wrong With America xchrom May 2013 #25
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
1. I survived the Annual Meeting
Tue May 21, 2013, 09:13 PM
May 2013

We had a quorum, plus. We elected 3 people to 4 positions. The board president is reluctant to fill the last position by appointment, because of previous poor choices. The audience was attentive, appreciative, and it's over.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
2. Mary Meeker's Rx for Restoring USA Inc.: Liquidate the Oldsters! By Alain Sherter
Tue May 21, 2013, 09:30 PM
May 2013
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-43551279/mary-meekers-rx-for-restoring-usa-inc-liquidate-the-oldsters/?tag=bnetdomain

Mary Meeker's gargantuan new report on the state of the nation is festooned with pretty charts, data galore and one very silly guiding metaphor: "USA Inc." In a related cover piece for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the former technology stock analyst turned venture capitalist suggests thinking of the U.S. as a corporation -- and an underperforming one at that. Addressing "shareholders" -- you know, what fusty old documents like the Declaration of Independence used to call "citizens" -- Meeker asks rhetorically:

What would USA Inc. be worth? Who would want to buy its shares? And what would a turnaround expert recommend for a company that lost more than $2 trillion ("net operating cost&quot in 2010?

I took a deep dive into these questions a little more than a year ago, and I'm finally up for air. I reached three conclusions. First, USA Inc. has serious financial challenges. Second, its problems are fixable. Third, clear communication with citizen-shareholders is essential. If the American people embrace the need for bold action, their political leaders should find the courage to do what's right.


Well, a turnaround expert would probably recommend divesting non-core assets like New Hampshire, labor unions and Charlie Sheen before selling us to the highest bidder. But that means we'd all have to learn Mandarin. As for her stated conclusions above, they're as incontestable as sunrise. Still, let me take a shallow plunge into Meeker's deep dive and suggest another possibility that may not have occurred to her -- that the U.S isn't an Inc. at all. Nor is it an LLC, general partnership or Subchapter S Corp. Rather, it's a... what's the word I'm looking for... country. I'm not a stockholder in the good 'ol USA; I'm a stakeholder. If I did own shares in Uncle Sam, I could simply liquidate my holdings, double-down on emerging markets and stash my winnings in the Cayman Islands. Thing is, I wouldn't do that even if I could. Because what Meeker doesn't seem to understand is that if Americans are invested in anything, it's what this country stands for, not what financial claim we can make on the Treasury.

Senior discount

The only reason the federal budget resembles a corporate annual report to Meeker is that she struggles to conceive of a nation as anything more than the mother of all profit-and-loss statements. Except that the U.S. is no more like a company than a company is like the government. Sure, there are superficial parallels that work fine as PowerPoint slides. But that's roughly where the similarities end. As Matt Yglesias evocatively put it:

A state is fundamentally an ethical enterprise aimed at promoting human welfare. A business isn't like that. If you're trying to look at America from a balance-sheet perspective the problem is very clear. It's not "entitlements" and it's not "Social Security" and it's not "Medicare" and it's not "health care costs" -- it's the existence of old people. Old people, generally speaking, don't produce anything of economic value. They sit around, retired, consuming goods and services and produce nothing but the occasional turn at babysitting. The optimal economic growth policy isn't to slash Social Security or Medicare benefits, it's to euthanize 70 year-olds and harvest their organs for auction.


{Note to self: Sked meeting with Yglesias at Lugar's to brainstorm euthanasia pitch -- need marketshare data???} Meeker's no dummy, of course. She concedes from the outset that the U.S. isn't like a corporation at all. We're in metaphor-land. So why premise a 468-page report on the state of the union on an idea that you acknowledge is fundamentally false? I suspect it's because she started with a predetermined conclusion, which in this case is that the U.S. needs to slash its debt. That's something companies do rather well; governments, not so much. But the thing about reasoning backward from metaphors is that it only works if they're true. Unlike Andrew Mellon -- who famously advised Herbert Hoover to "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate" in order to "purge the rottenness out of the system" -- Meeker is clever enough to veil her reactionary fixes in the staid language of a technocrat. Still, the best you can say about this effort, whatever she claims, is that it's a thought experiment. And not a very thoughtful one.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late to outsource my grandmother.


(PS: MY YOUNGER SISTER SENT THIS TO ME)
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
3. It's Our Economy Newsletter: Goal Reached! Time to Restart the Economy‏
Tue May 21, 2013, 09:37 PM
May 2013

(EMAIL)

The economy becomes OUR economy when people have a say over economic issues and when the economy works for all of us rather than funneling wealth to the top 1%.

Finally – it’s over. The goal of Simpson and Bowles has been met, the deficit is shrinking rapidly. And the intellectual underpinning for deficit reduction, based on the study by Rogoff and Reinhart, has been destroyed.
Phew! Glad that is behind us. Now, can we actually try to fix the economy?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report that shows a rapid decline in the deficit, $203 billion has been cut making it the smallest since 2008. They project that by 2015, the deficit will be under $400 billion, less than one-third of the $1.4 trillion deficit Bush left when Obama took office and only 2.1% of the GDP. We agree with political economy writer Doug Henwood’s conclusion: “there’s no way any honest analyst could read them [the CBO report] as anything but the official end to any rational concern about red ink.”

Dave Johnson writes that since we have now reached the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction goal of 2.3% ratio of deficit to GDP, we can focus on the real problems – the job gap, the wage gap and the trade gap. Unlike the deficit problem, which was always more imagined than real, these are very real problems that should be addressed as Washington restarts its economic planning. Johnson summarizes that the real economic problem we face is, at its roots, due to jobs lost to the trade deficit, writing:

“The economy can’t recover until housing recovers. Housing can’t recover until people can afford to buy houses. People can’t afford to buy houses until they can get jobs, and those with jobs can’t afford to buy houses until wages go up. Wages can’t go up until the trade problem is fixed. And the trade problem is killing jobs.”

Let’s look more closely. With jobs at the center of the problem, one thing that must be rethought is the sequestration. The CBO estimates sequestration will cost around 750,000 jobs in total, and forecasters think it could reduce economic growth by half a percentage point this year. The economy is adding very few jobs, just enough to keep with the growth of the workforce. And the federal government shed 8,000 jobs.

There have been news reports in the last two weeks about housing prices going up, but in reality the housing market “recovery” is a complete hoax. What is really happening is that the Federal Reserve’s very low interest rates are allowing investors to borrow money cheaply and invest in buying low-priced houses. In addition, banks have kept 7 million houses in foreclosure off the market in order to create housing scarcity, resulting in a rise in prices. Actual families who have lost wealth and income and cannot borrow easily are unable to buy.The fake housing recovery is another way the wealthy are stealing wealth from the rest of us.

Much is the same with the stock market – the Fed’s cheap money is very likely letting the wealthy borrow money to invest. When we look at the underlying realities of the economy – unemployment, lower income and less wealth for most Americans, high trade deficits and a government going in the wrong direction – there are no reasons for investors to be confident. But because the Fed is pumping $85 billion of newly created money into the big banks each month, there is money to invest. For some, the money is being used to buy up company stock in order to pump up its value. The game of chicken is – how long can they stay in this bubble before it bursts?

When it comes to trade, rather than learning the lessons from the last 20 years of corporate trade agreements – agreements that have resulted in a massive trade deficit and are a key factor in loss of jobs - President Obama is aggressively pushing more of the same, indeed, even bigger versions of NAFTA-like agreements. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) promise to give more power to transnational corporations. Actually, they will make corporations more powerful than governments. The only way the agreements will pass is if Fast Track, now called Trade Promotion Authority, is brought back from the dead. Why? Because these trade agreements are very unpopular. People know these agreements threaten our sovereignty, empower Wall Street, pharmaceuticals and insurance companies at the expense of people, threaten a free and open Internet, and will undermine the environment, labor and consumer rights. For more on this, see FlushTheTPP.org.

Related to trade is the State Department becoming a marketer of genetically modified seeds. Food and Water Watch reports that: “The U.S. State Department has launched a concerted strategy to promote agricultural biotechnology, often over the opposition of the public and governments, to the near exclusion of other more sustainable, more appropriate agricultural policy alternatives.” Our weekly Wednesday column in TruthOut will go in-depth on Monsanto and related issues.The good news is there is a growing revolt by people all over the world. Demonstrations are planned for May 25 in 41 countries and nearly 300 cities.

How is the real economy looking? Well, in China it is looking good. A recent economic survey found that China was the “world’s most financially secure country.” Their people are faring much better because it is reported that “only 3 percent of Chinese households are financially vulnerable, whereas the same figure for Germany is 22 percent and 26 percent for France.” In the United States, two-thirds of Americans cannot handle a $1,000 surprise expenditure and most live paycheck to paycheck.

Another snapshot of spreading poverty in the U.S. came out this week in a report that found more of the poor in the United States now live in suburbs than in urban areas. The number of poor people living in suburbs surged 67% between 2000 and 2011. Why? The housing collapse destroyed their wealth, the job collapse resulted in lost jobs or lower incomes, and urban gentrification pushed poor people toward cheaper housing.

And, a college job is no guarantee of economic success. A survey of recent college graduates found that 42% currently have jobs that do not require a four-year degree. A majority of those with jobs are working in retail or restaurant employment. This is part of the “Gradocracy” Sam Smith describes – too many degrees and not enough jobs. The students, who are leaving school with record tuition debt, are in sharp contrast with a report this week on the pay of public university presidents.There are now several presidents making over $1 million a year, a big increase in those making over $600,000 and the mean is $441,392.

Smith ends his discussion of the Gradocracy pointing out that “We must not only condemn the worst, but offer witness for the better. And create places in which to live it.” We continue to see evidence of people building the new economy we want.

You might remember several years ago when 250 workers were laid off by a company called Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, they arranged a sit-in to protest violations against their union agreements. The second time it happened, they decided to purchase the now-bankrupt company and operate it themselves. The new company has now opened for business as a worker-owned co-operative called New Era Windows, which opens for business today.

To help solve our energy, environmental and health crises, the United States needs to shift to walkable, bike-able communities. Continued reliance on automobiles will continue the wasteful and unhealthy American Way Of Life (AWOL). In 2010, Washington, DC began the first large bike sharing program in the U.S. This year 22 cities have bike-share programs, and next year that number is likely to double. Studies are finding that bikes create an economic boost, “Each ride in the Twin Cities’ Nice Ride system was found to bring $7–14 to the local economy. Forty-four percent of Capital Bikeshare riders surveyed used bike share to make a trip they otherwise would have skipped, largely for entertainment, socializing, and dining out.”

We’re also starting to see states and countries standing up to big oil as communities begin to understand how they may become a “sacrifice zone” in the interests of big oil and gas. In the US, Texas joined with other Gulf States to sue BP oil and Halliburton over the oil spill that did so much damage to the Gulf of Mexico and the economies of those states. And, the Europe Commission carried out unannounced raids on Shell, BP and other big oil companies as part of an investigation into price-rigging that could have been going on for a decade.

Maybe there is enough going on through protest, creating the economy we want and getting government to wake up and change course, that the nation can avoid the scenario described in this article of the U.S. becoming an impoverished country. Now there is no need to cut essential services with extreme austerity, instead there is an opportunity to invest in a new, sustainable economy based on clean energy and to correct so much of the misdirection of the nation.

The people have awakened and are protesting what they do not like and building what they want. In DC this week, homeowners who have had their homes foreclosed upon through fraudulent practices, are occupying the Department of Justice and demanding that the banks be held accountable. Fast food workers have been striking all over the country, including a large surprise strike today in DC. And unemployed families are walking from Philadelphia to DC to demand jobs. A popular resistance is brewing and we can expect it to build throughout the summer.

http://itsoureconomy.us/

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
4. Treasury Prepares to Take Measures to Avoid Default HERE WE GO AGAIN
Tue May 21, 2013, 09:42 PM
May 2013
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100736906

The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday that it was taking steps to free up about $260 billion so that it can keep paying the nation's bills when a temporary suspension in the debt ceiling lapses this weekend. To preserve its borrowing capacity, the Treasury Department said it will use the same measures it has used previously when Congress had failed to raise the limit. The Treasury took the first step this week, suspending sales of special securities that state and local governments use to temporarily invest proceeds from sales of municipal bonds. The department said that measure and three others it outlined Friday would prevent the federal government from defaulting on any of its obligations until after the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 2.


The Obama administration called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a political battle that could roil financial markets and harm the economy.

"In order to avoid a repeat of the damaging brinkmanship that occurred in 2011, Congress should remove the threat of default by taking this action as soon as possible," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told congressional leaders in a letter.


Republicans want to use the need to raise the borrowing cap as leverage to seek fresh budget cuts and change the tax code.But Obama has said any deal to cut the budget deficit must include more revenues, an idea that is anathema to conservatives.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
5. BARRON'S: 2 Gigantic, Suspicious Sales Of Gold On Friday Caused The Price To Plunge
Tue May 21, 2013, 09:46 PM
May 2013
http://www.businessinsider.com/barrons-two-big-gold-sales-on-friday-2013-5#ixzz2TyvR6sTG

Gold went down the toilet again on Friday, and is now close to revisiting its April lows. This gold weakness is causing a lot of consternation to fans of it who don't understand how the precious metal can keep falling, when central banks around the world continue to press down on the gas pedal. A lot of gold bugs think the price is being manipulated somehow, or that there's some divergence between what's going on in "paper" gold (gold prices that are tied to ETFs) and what's going on in physical gold (people buying ingots or jewelery)

Randall W. Forsyth at Barron's fans the flames of goldbug conspiracy theorists a bit this weekend, arguing that there have been suspicious sales in gold seen on the exchanges (probably driven by the ETFs).

He writes:

These improbable moves have made gold bugs suspicious, which isn't unusual. Folks who own gold do so because they don't trust the status quo, especially when it comes to government-issued paper money. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get you. They point to bursts of selling on Friday, April 12, which resulted in prices plunging by more than 5%, and to dumping that resumed the following Monday in Asia, early in the day when markets are illiquid. That culminated in a 9% collapse by the time the New York market had settled. But a seller who wanted to unload a large position at the optimal price would have done precisely the opposite—liquidate as discreetly as possible. Instead, sellers dumped the equivalent of more than 300 tons of the metal in staccato-like blasts during those sessions.

THE SUSPICIOUS SELLING resumed this Friday, with the equivalent of 17 tons sold on the New York Comex in two bursts in the morning, according to market sources. And the declines continued after the settlement of futures trading in the early afternoon as the SPDR Gold Trust ETF slumped a total of 2.25% on the day, to close at 131.07, below the April 15 close of 131.31. (The ETF represents a bit less than 1/10th of an ounce of gold.) The current-month May futures contract plunged 1.6%, or $22.20, to $1,364.90 an ounce on the Comex.


MORE AT LINK

This Time, Gold Bugs May Have a Point
By RANDALL W. FORSYTH

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704551504578481043764806974.html?mod=BOL_hpp_mag#articleTabs_article%3D1

Stocks are for lovers and gold is for haters. That's how one especially supercilious strategist (is there another kind?) sizes up the two markets, and it's clear he's been feeling the love lately. Stocks are at new highs in the U.S. and many other venues, while Japan's market is strapped to a rocket ship, all propelled by money fresh off the printing presses of the world's central banks.

Fans of the yellow metal, meanwhile, are feeling rather battered and bruised these days from the beating they've taken over the past month or so and, indeed, for more than a year and a half. Given all the quantitative easing—which is how money-printing is referred to in polite company these days—one would think gold would be getting a little love (or a facsimile of the same that cash can sometimes provide.)

It's not just the likes of the Dow industrials or the S&P 500 at record levels; money is sending all manner of stuff soaring. Last week's auctions at Christie's in New York marked the beginning of "a new era" in the art market, the auction house declared, with nearly a half-billion dollars' worth of 20th-century works being snapped up by bidders who coveted them as much as stores of value as pieces of art. How else to explain Jackson Pollock's drip painting, Number 19, 1948, going for a record $58.4 million, about twice the $25 million-to-$35 million it had been expected to fetch?

And the superrich again are falling over themselves in yet another round of "can you top this" in buying up trophy homes. It isn't just Russian oligarchs looking to get their wealth out of the country by snapping up Manhattan condos in the tens of millions, or newly minted South American millionaires swooping into Florida to buy properties at knock-down prices that are even bigger bargains in devalued dollars. Howard Stern reportedly is buying a Palm Beach house for a tidy $52 million, yet another sign of a surfeit of money over taste these days...
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
14. Gold crush: U.S. ready to shut down gold sales to Iran
Wed May 22, 2013, 06:53 AM
May 2013

A top Treasury Department official told lawmakers that, starting July 1, the U.S. plans to crack down on all transfers of gold to the Iranian government or its citizens. The move appears aimed largely at banks and gold brokers in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Companies operating from within those nations have shipped large amounts of gold to Iran as Tehran attempts to stabilize its currency, the rial, amid increasing international economic isolation.

"We have been very clear with the governments of Turkey and the UAE and elsewhere, as well as the private sector that is involved in the gold trade, that as of July 1 all must stop, not just the trade to the government," Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen told members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee last week.


The rial has lost two-thirds of its value against the dollar since late 2011, largely as a result of U.S.-led sanctions targeting the banking system and oil exports. The sanctions are in response to Iran's ongoing nuclear weapons program. The U.S. can impose sanctions on foreign companies that violate the Iran policy, as long as those companies also seek to do business with parties in the U.S. To date, the Obama administration has not penalized any companies in Turkey or the UAE for trading in gold with Iran.

"There's a tremendous demand for gold among private Iranian citizens, which in some respects is an indication of the success of our sanctions," Cohen said. "They are dumping their rials to buy gold as a way to try to preserve their wealth. That is, I think, an indication that they recognize that the value of their currency is declining."


Some economists questioned whether the gold squeeze can be effective against the Islamic regime.

"It is not clear to me that banning the sale of gold to private Iranian citizens is going to increase pressure on the Iranian government," Milken Institute economist Komal Sri-Kumar told FoxNews.com. "While banning the sale of essential goods and service has a depressive effect on an economy, banning gold sales simply removes one safety valve that the residents would have had.


“It means, then, that the rial cannot be used by residents to purchase gold. They have to use the currency to buy domestic real estate, goods and services to hedge against inflation. In turn, this would probably hurt residents more than it would the rulers,” he added.


In February, the Central Bank of Iran claimed that the country holds 907 tons of gold — roughly worth $17.5 billion — in reserves. Officials for the agency added in reports that the nation had purchased gold in recent years at an average of $600 per ounce. While gold reached a price of three times that during its recent run, it has fallen below $1,400 per ounce.

The new effort is the latest in sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe against Iran. In 2011, a sanctions law was signed by President Obama that led a full embargo on crude oil and gas products which cost the Iranian government of billions of dollars in revenue. But many agree that the most likely to suffer from the embargo will be ordinary citizens and not the regime.

“Our position is that economic sanctions should target the government and not the entire people," Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, told FoxNews.com. "Crippling sanctions will hurt average Iranians, strengthen the regime, and play into their hands by blaming misery of the people and all of the government's shortcomings on the West.

“We wish to see targeted sanctions against the regime and its officials, not the entire people of Iran," he added."We already have serious shortages in medical, food and industrial sectors of Iran with Iranian people paying a heavy price, while the regime's cronies getting richer due to the economic environment created through black market, smuggling and inflation.”


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/05/20/gold-crush-us-blocks-all-sales-gold-to-iran/#ixzz2U19LvUv2
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
15. Gangster State America By Paul Craig Roberts
Wed May 22, 2013, 06:59 AM
May 2013
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34932.htm

There are many signs of gangster state America. One is the collusion between federal authorities and banksters in a criminal conspiracy to rig the markets for gold and silver...

My explanation that the sudden appearance of an unprecedented 400 ton short sale of gold on the COMEX in April was a manipulation designed to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy has found acceptance among gold investors and hedge fund managers. The sale was a naked short. The seller had no gold to sell. COMEX reported having gold only equal to about half of the short sale in its vaults, and not all of that was available for delivery. No one but the Federal Reserve could have placed such an order, and the order came from one of the Fed’s bullion banks, one of the entities “too big to fail.” Bill Kaye of the Greater Asian Hedge Fund in Hong Kong and Dave Kranzler of Golden Returns Capital have filled in the details of how the manipulation worked. Being sophisticated investors of many years of experience, both Kaye and Kranzler understand that the financial press runs with the authorized story planted to serve the agenda that has been put into play.

Institutional investors who have bullion in their portfolio do not want the expense associated with storing it securely. Instead, they buy into Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) and hold their bullion in the form of a paper claim. The largest, the SPDR Gold Trust or GLD, trades on the New York Stock Exchange. The trustee and custodian is a bankster, and only other banksters are able to turn investments into delivery of physical bullion. Only shares in the amount of 100,000 can be redeemed in gold. The price of bullion is not set in the physical market where individuals take delivery of bullion purchases. It is set in the paper futures market where short selling can drive down the price even if the demand for physical possession is rising. The paper gold market is also the market in which people speculate and leverage their positions, place stop-loss orders, and are subject to margin calls.

When the enormous naked shorts hit the COMEX, stop-loss orders were triggered adding to the sales, and margin calls forced more sales. Investors who were not in on the manipulation lost a lot of money. The sales of GLD shares are accumulated by the banksters in 100,000 lots and presented to GLD for redemption in gold acquired at the driven down price. The short sale is leveraged by the stop-loss triggers and margin calls, and results in a profit for the banksters who placed the short sell order. The banksters then profit again as they sell the released gold into the physical market, especially in Asia, where demand has been stimulated by the sharp drop in bullion price and by the loss of confidence in fiat currency. Asian prices are usually at a higher premium above the spot prices in New York-London.

Some readers have said “don’t bet against the Federal Reserve; the manipulation can go on forever.” But can it? As the ETFs such as GLD are drained of gold, their ability to cover any of their obligations to investors diminishes. In my opinion, these ETFs are like a fractional reserve banking system. The claims on gold exceed the amount of gold in the trusts. When the ETFs are looted of their gold by the banksters, the gold price will explode, as the claims on gold will greatly exceed the supply. Kranzler reports that the current June futures contracts are 12.5 times the amount of deliverable gold. If more than 8 percent of these trades were to demand delivery, COMEX would default. That such a situation is possible indicates the total failure of federal financial regulation...Kranzler points out that not only does the Fed’s manipulation permit Asia to offload US dollars for gold at low prices, but the obvious lack of confidence in the dollar that the manipulation demonstrates has caused wealthy European families to demand delivery of their gold holdings at bullion banks (the bullion banks are essentially the “banks too big to fail”). Kranzler notes that since January 1, more than 400 tons of gold have been drained from COMEX and gold ETF holdings in order to satisfy world demand for physical possession of bullion.

MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
6. Central banks saved world economy, now beware the fallout: IMF
Tue May 21, 2013, 09:56 PM
May 2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/16/us-imf-centralbanks-idUSBRE94F19620130516

Central banks got it right when they saved the world economy, but their unprecedented actions risk disruptive cross-border spillovers and potentially heavy losses when the time comes to reverse course, the IMF said on Thursday.

In its most detailed survey so far of the dramatic measures taken to counter the damage from the 2007-2009 financial crisis, International Monetary Fund staff repeated earlier assessments that the steps had worked but face diminishing returns.

However, in new research, they also said central banks could face severe losses when they begin to withdraw the extraordinary sums of money they have pumped into financial systems around the world.

Massive market bets are riding on whether the U.S. Federal Reserve and its peers can execute a graceful withdrawal from more than four years of ultra-easy monetary policy, which helped restore confidence in global growth.

MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
7. Monsanto Protection Act May Soon be Repealed Thanks to Activism By Anthony Gucciardi
Tue May 21, 2013, 10:02 PM
May 2013

WELL, WE WILL SEE

http://www.nationofchange.org/monsanto-protection-act-may-soon-be-repealed-thanks-activism-1369061405

The so-called Monsanto Protection Act signed into law earlier this year caused such an outrage that people around the world are planning to protest the biotech company later this month. Now a United States Senator is expected to try and repeal that law after mounting pressure...The notorious ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ rider stuffed into the non-related Senate spending bill may soon be repealed thanks to the massive amounts of activism and outrage that have now amounted into a legislative charge towards action. Action that has turned into legislation progress through Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who has announced an amendment that would remove Section 735 (the Monsanto Protection Act as its known) from the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 Senate spending bill.

The rider, which almost managed to slip incognito and pass by the alarm system of the alternative media, grants GMO juggernaut Monsanto full immunity from federal courts in the event that one of its genetically modified creations is found to be causing damage to health or the environment. Essentially, it grants Monsanto power over the United States federal government. Thankfully, I was able to get on the subject through news tips and covered the Monsanto Protection Act all the way up until the bill containing it was signed into law by Obama. Ultimately, as the Monsanto Protection Act became more a hot issue, we had an increasing amount of publicity — but the Senate vote came just too quickly for the attention to put a halt on the rider. But even after its passing, sources like Russia Today, NaturalNews, Infowars, and myself here at NaturalSociety were sounding the alarm big time. Enough so that it even led to an apology from the top Senator who actually ended up approving the bill containing the rider. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland actually went and released a statement apologizing for allowing the Monsanto Protection Act through and vowing to fight against GMOs and Monsanto. Ultimately, multiple Senators had entered damage control after the jig was up. That is besides Senator Roy Blunt from Missouri, who actually worked with Monsanto (as in he let them write it while he received funding) on the Monsanto Protection Act rider. A rider he says is perfectly reasonable. After all, why not give Monsanto full immunity from the legal system the rest of us are subject to? Even Obama was getting blasted on his Facebook page following the approval of the Monsanto Protection Act, with the majority of comments coming into his page criticizing his signature on the bill that contained the rider.

Thanks to this activism, it looks like the Monsanto Protection Act may soon be repealed after this new bill hits Washington. This time, we will have plenty of time to let the Senators know that they are voting against the public if they choose to side with Monsanto. And with such a specific agenda for this bill, I see it doing well in the Senate.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
8. The Hidden Objective Behind Japan's Massive Kamikaze Quantitative Easing By Matthias Chang
Tue May 21, 2013, 10:19 PM
May 2013
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34960.htm

US$ dollars have been flooding the financial markets ever since Bernanke launched quantitative easing allegedly to turnaround the US economy. These huge amounts of US$ toilet paper are mainly in financial markets (and in central banks) outside of the United States. A huge chunk is represented as reserves in central banks led by China and Japan. (If truth be told, the real value of the US$ would not be more than a dime and I am being really generous here, as even toilet paper has a value.)

That the US dollar is still accepted in the financial markets (specifically by central banks) has nothing to do with it being a reserve currency, but rather that the US$ is backed/supported by the armed might and nuclear blackmail of the US Military-Industrial Complex. The nuclear blackmail of Iran is the best example following Iran’s decision to trade her crude in other currencies and gold instead of the US$ toilet paper. If today, the United States is no longer a military threat and the global bully that can blackmail with impunity the oil exporting countries in the Middle East, the global financial system which hinges on the US$ toilet paper would have collapsed a long time ago.

The issue is why has the US$ not collapsed as it should have by now?

When we apply common sense and logic to the state of affairs, the answer is so simple and it is staring at you. But, you have not been able to see the obvious because the global mass media, specifically the global financial mass media controlled mainly from London and New York, has created a smokescreen to hide the truth from you. Let’s analyse the situation in a step by step manner, and apply common sense.

1. The US is the world’s biggest debtor. The biggest creditors are China and Japan, followed by the oil exporting countries in the Middle East. With each passing day, the value of the US$ toilet paper is worth less and less. Like I said earlier, even toilet paper has some intrinsic value. It reaches zero value when everyone has to carry a wheelbarrow of US$ to purchase anything.

2. For the US$ toilet paper creditors, they cannot admit the fact that they have been conned by the global Too Big To Fail Banks (TBTFs) acting in concert with the FED and the Bank of England to accept US$ toilet papers. The central bankers of these countries have a reputation to preserve (not that there is in fact any reputation, for their so-called financial credibility is also part of the scam) and the political leaders that relied on them is in a bigger bind. How can the political leaders be so very stupid to trust these central bankers (who have stashed away in foreign tax havens huge US$ toilet papers as a reward for their complicity). This is the current state of affairs in plain English. They are having sleepless nights worrying if and when the citizens would wise up to this biggest con in history i.e. the promotion and acceptance of fiat currencies, the US$ being the ultimate fiat currency.

3. The global financial elites led by the FED know that this state of affairs is to their advantage and they are exploiting it to the hilt! They also know that no country or organisation has the military resources to threaten the US to stop this global ponzi scheme which has been going on since 1945 and intensified since 1971 when President Nixon de-coupled the US$ from gold. The pound sterling is another story but, it is not relevant for the purposes of this analysis.

4. Additionally, and as a result of the above-stated scam, countries were led to believe and to accept the false economic theory that export generated growth (GDP) should be the foundation of economic development, as the United States having limitless US$ toilet paper has the ability and the means to purchase the global exports, it being the largest consumer market in the world. In the result, the world’s factories and their workers, including those in the developed world such as France and Germany worked their butts off to be rewarded with US$ toilet paper whose value is less than the paper and ink that produce it! The financial frolic went on for more than forty years and came to an abrupt and foreseeable end in the 2008 global financial tsunami.

5. When the party ended, the United States was up to her eyeballs in debts as a result of reckless financial speculation in the global derivatives casino and the consumption binge financed by housing mortgages. Debts must be repaid. But, the US has no means to do so. They cannot produce enough goods to earn the revenue to pay the debts because US manufacturing has been outsourced to the developing world – China became the world’s number 1 factory. So, the financial elite appointed helicopter Bernanke to lead the charge for the US and the UK to use the printing press (digital or otherwise) to print more US$ toilet papers to pay off the debt. In economic jargon, this is “monetising the debt”. It is outright fraud, but no one (i.e. central bankers) in his right mind would admit to this fraud as they would be hung from the lamp-posts if the truth is discovered as was the case when the Italian fascist leader Mussolini was hung by the Italian partisans.

6. Initially, central bankers confronted with this situation and having to face a restless populace embarked on a regime of competitive easing/ devaluation of their currencies. But, the price was horrendous. Inflation spiked in all these countries. But, this scheme of things did not work out as planned for the simple reason, the US$ toilet paper continued to be lower as a result of more QE by Bernanke. China realised the danger and adopted other means to overcome this situation, one of which was to enter into bilateral arrangements with her trading partners to finance trade in their respective currencies. Such agreements were entered between China and Japan, members of BRIC, Malaysia etc. This counter-measure was perceived as a threat to the continued dominance of the US$ toilet paper regime. In the result, Obama declared at the urging of the financial elites (he does not have the grey cells to think) a foreign policy shift – the Asia Pivot to prevent a further deterioration of US$ dominance.

7. When Japan entered the agreement with China, her behaviour was deemed unacceptable since Japan was under the nuclear protection of the US. Japan was caught between a rock and a hard place. It was expected that sooner or later the US would apply the squeeze on Japan to behave in a proper manner. Applying geopolitical strategies, the US towing South Korea along provoked North Korea by launching a military exercise which included flying B-2 bombers which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. North Korea responded in the manner that was expected. Japan was exposed and in like manner reacted by seeking US protection. To muddy the waters and complicate the situation, the US engineered a dispute between China and Japan over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands. This was followed by the installation of a new regime in Japan by the election of the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the appointment of Haruhiko Kuroda as the Governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ).

8. Now comes the mechanics of US counter-measures in shoring up the artificial dominance/value of the US$ toilet paper. Japan was ordered to do its part as a quid pro quo for being protected by the US’s nuclear umbrella. A new version of the Plaza Accord must be put in place – a “reverse Plaza Accord”.

9. Let me explain. In the 1985 Plaza Accord, the dollar was devalued to reduce the current account deficit and to help the US recover from the recession of the early 1980s. It was a managed devaluation and the exchange value of the Dollar versus the Yen declined by 51 per cent from 1985 to 1987 – reaching ¥151 per US$1 in March 1987. The dollar continued to slide till 1988. The effect of the strengthened Yen depressed Japan’s exports and brought about the expansionary monetary policies that resulted in the infamous asset bubbles of the late 1980s. The G-6 countries then gathered in 1987 in Paris to arrest the slide of the dollar and to manage and stabilise the international currency markets. The end result was the Louvre Accord. In the next 18 months the dollar strengthened to ¥160 per US$1.

10. However, in the current situation, the devaluation of the US$ toilet paper was the result of massive QEs so as to enable US to monetise her debts. However, for US to continue to monetise her debts and have the world’s central banks agreement to continue to hold dollar reserves, the value of the dollar must appreciate, failing which the dollar would collapse, the US defaulting on her debts, as creditors would no longer accept US$ as payment. The trick was to artificially inflate the value of the dollar without arousing any suspicions.

11. In the 1970s, following the de-coupling of the dollar from gold by President Nixon, the dollar would have collapsed in like manner as it was not backed by gold. It became pure fiat money! The trick then was to create an artificial demand for dollar which would in turn raise the value of the currency. This was effected by the proposal of Kissinger to the Arabs that if they would dollarize their oil exports, the US would guarantee their safety and survival even from the threats of Israel. When the Arabs agreed to this arrangement, every country in the world had to buy oil in US$. Countries have to exchange their currencies into US$ to buy oil. This demand for US$ strengthened the currency and prolonged the US fiat money monopoly.

12. However, this option is no longer available presently as oil is now being sold in other currencies besides the US$. The petro-dollar is no longer in dominance. In any event, the continued use of petro-dollars would spike the oil price and this would be inflationary and detrimental to the US economy as well as the world’s economy in the present economic climate – i.e. deep recession. Another means must be used.

13. This is the reason for the sudden “shock and awe” monetary policy of the new Japanese regime of Shinzo Abe and Haruhiko Kuroda. My detractors will accuse me of indulging in conspiracy theories. But, the facts speak for themselves. I had said earlier, that the G-7 countries have collectively attempted to devalue their currencies but, it did not stem the slide of the US$ because Bernanke was increasing the intensity of QE since 2008. And the EU was not willing and or able to adopt a suicide policy of massive QE as Germany was well aware of such a risk having suffered the negative effects of hyperinflation. China would not kow-tow to the US and in fact together with fellow members of BRIC was adopting counter-measures to confront Bernanke’s QE financial weapon. That left only one country who can be compelled to do the US bidding, to commit Hara-kiri to save and or prolong the US$ toilet paper regime – Japan!

14. And so, Japan launched its sudden massive QE and the desired effect is that now the US$ toilet paper has artificially appreciated in value vis-a-vis the Yen and less so with other currencies. This cannot be disputed by my detractors because:

On May 11, the financial elites of G-7 countries explicitly agreed with this kamikaze policy of Japan.

Koichi Hamada has also declared earlier that the target for this policy is to allow the dollar to rise to ¥110 per US$1 and this rise would be managed in a staggered fashion in small increments (step by step approach) thereby controlling the rate of inflation in Japan which would not be allowed to exceed the agreed target rate. It is suggested that Japan can do this because it can utilise its huge dollar reserves of US$1.2 Trillion to manage the devaluation! According to Alan Ruskin, the global head of Group of 10 foreign-exchange strategy in New York at Deutsche Bank ASG, he said “I think we are opening up the door to look at 105 in the next few months and 110 by the end of the year …” and this surely must be interpreted to mean that Koichi Hamada’s strategy is definitely in play. In conclusion, it is my view that such “managed artificial appreciation” of the US$ toilet paper while effective in the short run would fail in the long run because the fundamental issues of the US economy have not been addressed and resolved. Only real economic growth can reverse the dollar’s demise.

Seriously, would Bernanke stop further QE when the yen exchange rate reaches ¥110 by the year end? Has not Bernanke declared that QE would continue till 2015? And since Japan has drawn the Red Line at ¥110, can Japan risk further damage to its economy and continue to back-stop US beyond ¥110? The US$ quadrillion derivative casino is the millstone around the US and the global economy, and as long as this is not resolved, the crisis would only get worse. Like water, after sufficient heat, the boiling point would be reached. While I cannot forecast the precise date of the implosion, I am of the view that the end is near, sparked by a black swan event and then snowballed to its final devastation.

Matthias Chang is a Malaysian of Chinese descent. He is a Barrister of 32 years standing and once served as the Political Secretary to the Fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. He is the author of three bestsellers, “Future FastForward”, “Brainwashed for War, Programmed to Kill”, and “The Shadow Money-Lenders and the Global Financial Tsunami”, published in the US and in Malaysia. Since his student days in England in the late 1960s, he was and still is, actively involved in the anti-war movement spanning a period of 41 years. He is a Catholic but enjoins all to promote inter-faith understanding. He resides in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and can be reached at matthias@skzcchambers.com or matthiaswenchieh@gmail.com . . futurefastforward.com/
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
9. Will Banksters at JPMorgan Chase Finally Pay for Their Misdeeds?
Tue May 21, 2013, 10:51 PM
May 2013
http://www.alternet.org/economy/will-banksters-jpmorgan-chase-finally-pay-their-misdeeds?akid=10457.227380.S7V0Gb&rd=1&src=newsletter842691&t=20&paging=off

Recent revelations show that Jamie Dimon's bank represents all that is corrupt, contemptible, and criminal about today's megabanks...Will California Attorney General Kamala Harris hang tough in her new lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, the first to target individual bankers accused of defrauding the public? If so, it would be the first time in five years that executives at a major bank have personally paid a price for their misdeeds.

Weekend at Jamie's

Recent revelations have shown the world that JPMorgan Chase comes as close as any institution in America to embodying all this is corrupt, contemptible, and criminal about today's megabanks. This is gratifying, at least on a personal level, since that was not a popular position when we first started writing about JPM and CEO Jamie Dimon a few years back. In those days Dimon was help up as the "good banker" by the president and the press. His institution was considered well-managed and ethical by some of the more shallow members of the popular press, despite the plethora of scandals and crimes like the Alabama bribery case. Since then we've had a variety of Chase revelations: the "Burger King kids" details behind its massive foreclosure fraud; its confessed criminal mistreatment of active duty military personnel; its deeds in fraudulently propping up a failed mortgage lender (it was like a financial Weekend at Bernie's); and (speaking of "Bernies&quot its negligence (at best) in the handling of the fraudulent Madoff accounts, which should have triggered all sorts of red-flag warnings. Now there's the London Whale scandal and what appears to be a subsequent case of investor deception. The bank wound up paying a staggering $16 billion in fines and settlements over a four-year period, more than 12 percent of its net income during that time.

The Scandal of Our Time

An ethically healthy society would never have lionized a CEO like Jamie Dimon or an institution like JPMorgan Chase. That's why we've called it "the scandal of our time." What explains Dimon's inability to stem the lawbreaking and correct his organization's broken ethical system? The most generous interpretation is that he's an incompetent manager -- so incompetent that, even after numerous suits, revelations, and settlements, "Jamie didn't know" about all the illegal and unethical behavior that continued unabated in his institution....Needless to say, there are more plausible explanations. And yet, in those cases where the bank has been called to account with fines and settlements, it has been shareholders and not the wrongdoing bankers themselves,who have paid cost. Ironically, that even happens when the shareholders themselves are the ones who were defrauded. That's why we say that bank fraud is the only crime on Earth in which the victims make restitution on behalf of the wrongdoers. Is this ugly pattern finally changing? Blogger and finance expert Yves Smith thinks so. California Attorney General Kamala Harris is suing JPMorgan Chase and individual bankers (named as "Does 1 through 100&quot for "commit(ting) debt collection abuses" against Chase credit card holders, "flooding California's courts with... collection lawsuits based on patently insufficient evidence."

The Harris suit calls on the Court to assess $2,500 against each defendant for each violation of "Business and Professions Code section 17200," and an additional $2,500 penalty for each violation perpetrated against a senior citizen or disabled person. That may not sound like a lot of money for a banker but, as Smith points out, there are more than 100,000 potential violations. Smith writes: "If (Harris) can get the individuals who were supervising the robosigning operations (better yet, the C level execs ultimately responsible) and the complicit law firms, she might bankrupt some well-placed people. This could be extremely entertaining."
................................................

From Yves Smith:

"Now Harris has been widely depicted as an opportunist. But she's kicking up more dirt on the banking front right now than any other official ... This case has enough headline value that Harris might go a few rounds before settling. JP Morgan is known for throwing vast amounts of lawyers at opponents to bury them in legal costs and busywork, so this case, sadly, is unlikely to go to trial. But if she can get the goods on the right sort of DOES, she might make some individuals pay in a serious way, which would have far more deterrent effect.

Adds Smith: "If nothing else, we should applaud what she's so far and press her to keep going."

I generally agree with all of the above. But some of us have been burned by even the most cautious cheerleading for seemingly promising Wall Street investigations and lawsuits. That's especially been true when the actions in question are being conducted by elected officials with any sort of connection to the Obama White House, an institution which has become synonymous with efforts to protect bankers and restrict their punishment to the merely symbolic. Attorney General Harris is considered close to the president. She's undoubtedly being either cajoled or pressured (or both) to cave on this issue. So I'm going to emphasize the words "press her" in Smith's last sentence. If Harris is determined to see this through, her suit is potentially the kind of sea change in banker law enforcement we've been waiting for. But that means she'll need emphatic expressions of support to strengthen her resolve (and to explain to the Administration why she can't and won't back down). And if this is merely another publicity stunt, she needs to know that a choreographed cave-in will be very poorly received by her constituents. Harris therefore deserves strong expressions of support, along with statements that citizens expect her to see this action through -- at least far enough to ensure that the malefactors involved pay some personal penalty for their misdeeds.

Richard Eskow is a writer, a senior fellow with the Campaign for America's Future, and the host of a weekly radio show, "The Breakdown."
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
13. Republicans Question Whether Obama Could Handle Actual Scandal by Andy Borowitz
Wed May 22, 2013, 06:39 AM
May 2013

I THINK BHO HANDLES REAL SCANDALS VERY WELL...THAT'S WHERE HE'S GETTING HIS BIPARTISANSHIP PAYOFFS...ABSOLVING THE BANKSTERS, AND OTHER NATIONAL DISGRACES

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/05/republicans-question-whether-obama-could-handle-actual-scandal.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28126%29

President Obama’s handling of controversies about the I.R.S., the Justice Department, and Benghazi has raised “grave doubts” about his ability to cope if he ever became involved in an actual scandal, prominent Republicans said today.

“If this is how he handles this stuff, Lord have mercy on him if he ever has to deal with a real scandal,” said newly elected Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S. Carolina). “Quite frankly, I don’t think he has what it takes.”

“The true test of a leader is this,” Rep. Sanford added. “When he gets in a fix, does he have the presence of mind to lie about his whereabouts? Sadly, I don’t think President Obama passes that test.”


Mr. Sanford’s concerns mirror those of another leading Republican lawmaker, Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana).

“If President Obama honestly thinks he’s dealing with scandals right now, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what a scandal is,” Sen. Vitter said. “And that’s very worrisome.”

“When you get that three A.M. phone call, and it’s a reporter claiming that a prostitute said you like to dress up in a diaper, are you prepared for that call?” Sen. Vitter said. “In the case of President Obama, I am afraid that the answer is no.”
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
16. Republicans Fight Obama Plan to Privatize the Hugely Popular, Cheap Energy Source of the TVA
Wed May 22, 2013, 07:07 AM
May 2013
http://www.alternet.org/economy/shocker-republicans-fight-obama-plan-privatize-hugely-popular-cheap-energy-source-tva?akid=10462.227380.1JBJCK&rd=1&src=newsletter843225&t=18&paging=off

Buried within the fine print of the 2014 Obama budget is a startling bit of history-changing policy. The government, the administration says, should consider selling off the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the nation’s largest publicly operated—that is, “socialist”—institutions, and the largest public power provider in the country...The TVA is a non-profi, free-standing public authority established by the Roosevelt administration during the Depression—a very large utility, if you like. It provides 165 billion kilowatt hours of power to 9 million Americans, has $11.2 billion in sales revenue, employs more than 12,500 people, and provides other educational, training and related services (such as navigation and land management, flood control, and economic development) to the people in the states and region around the Tennessee river basin.

Strikingly, it’s the free-market Republicans who object to this proposed privatization. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who has vehemently opposed government tax credits and subsidies for renewable energy, calls the proposal “one more bad idea in a budget full of bad ideas,” and fears that privatization would lead to higher energy costs for his constituents...Congressman John L. Duncan, Jr., another Tennessee Republican, says privatization is “something that has been proposed in the past and been determined to be a very bad idea.” Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama (a state also served by the TVA), says he will “carefully study any proposals to restructure TVA” in order to make sure that it won’t result in a price hike. And Tennessee’s other Republican Senator, Bob Corker, is clear: “I doubt this idea gains much traction.”

If we didn’t know better, we might think the administration has decided to call the Republicans’ bluff on the issue of “socialism”—a strategy that, however, seems to be beyond the clever quotient of the Obama political team. The basic problem is that this “socialist” institution is immensely popular. It has given the people of the region good service for roughly eight decades, and its prices are lower than those of many private corporations. An analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration found that consumers in Alabama and Tennessee pay considerably less for power than the national average. The low rates, former TVA Chairman S. David Freeman suggests, have earned TVA “the ‘mother love’ of a politically conservative region.”

Even among environmental groups—which often criticize the TVA for, among other things, its continued use of coal and nuclear power plants—there is little appetite for privatization. The Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club holds that privatization would be a mistake, potentially allowing new private corporate owners to “liquidate its assets by selling off TVA’s public lands along the Tennessee River and tributaries.” So why is the Obama administration pursuing a sell-off? Mainly for short-sighted budget appearances. Privatizing public assets like the TVA will generate some near-term revenue and help pay down a (very) small fraction of the nation’s debt. The White House also claims the TVA will likely have to issue more debt securities in the future in order to raise money to modernize its aging infrastructure, which would—in a purely accounting sense—slightly increase the deficit. This is an odd worry, since the TVA is, and would continue to be, entirely self-funded at no cost to the taxpayer, and the new debt is simply to finance the kind of updating and modernizing any major corporation routinely does. Most Americans do not realize that public ownership like that involved in the TVA, and a cornerstone of much decried “socialism,” can be found in communities in every state in the nation. For one thing, there are more than 2,000 public electric utilities—many in conservative rural areas—and, like the TVA, they are popular among local residents and politicians. Succesful public ownership of vital transportation facilities (such as roads, ports and airports) is also common. And, of course, roughly a third of the nation’s total land surface (and the minerals beneath and forests above) is owned and managed by the government...

MORE

bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
17. "Corporations Are Stealing Billions...Screwed Citizenry Turn On Each Other"
Wed May 22, 2013, 08:43 AM
May 2013
http://www.alternet.org/corporations-are-stealing-billions-tax-breaks-while-confused-screwed-citizenry-turn-each-other

apologies if already posted - have not even had time to look in for days ...

Robert Reich's Blog / By Robert Reich [1]
comments_image
Corporations Are Stealing Billions in Tax Breaks, While the Confused, Screwed Citizenry Turn On Each Other
May 20, 2013 |

As global capital becomes ever more powerful, giant corporations are holding governments and citizens up for ransom — eliciting subsidies and tax breaks from countries concerned about their nation’s “competitiveness” — while sheltering their profits in the lowest-tax jurisdictions they can find. Major advanced countries — and their citizens — need a comprehensive tax agreement that won’t allow global corporations to get away with this.

Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”

Baloney. The fact is, global corporations have no allegiance to any country; their only objective is to make as much money as possible — and play off one country against another to keep their taxes down and subsidies up, thereby shifting more of the tax burden to ordinary people whose wages are already shrinking because companies are playing workers off against each other.

... Meanwhile, At a time when you’d expect nations to band together to gain bargaining power against global capital, the opposite is occurring: Xenophobia is breaking out all over.


I have no hope. I see no future.

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19. IMF: UK 'should offset austerity'
Wed May 22, 2013, 08:52 AM
May 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22623519

The UK could do more to offset the negative impact of austerity measures on the economy, the IMF has said.

In the concluding statement of its mission to the UK, the global body said the economy was still a long way from "a strong and sustainable recovery".

It acknowledged the UK's austerity programme had earned the government credibility.

But it also warned that measures would act as a drag on economic growth.

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(108,903 posts)
20. Plunge in retail sales points to fragile economy{UK}
Wed May 22, 2013, 08:56 AM
May 2013
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/22/uk-britain-economy-idUKBRE94L0AB20130522

(Reuters) - British retail sales dropped at their sharpest pace in a year last month, a reminder of weakness in the country's economy after some recent signs of recovery.

Sales of food plunged 4.1 percent from March, the worst showing in almost two years.

As the government prepared to face a call from the International Monetary Fund to do more to help growth, official data also underscored the size of the budget deficit, which hit a record high on one measure last month.

Retail sales volumes including automotive fuel fell 1.3 percent in April from March, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. Compared with a year earlier, sales inched up 0.5 percent, with both readings much weaker than forecast by economists.

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(108,903 posts)
21. Ireland feels the heat from Apple tax row
Wed May 22, 2013, 08:58 AM
May 2013
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/22/uk-ireland-tax-idUKBRE94L0G620130522

(Reuters) - Ireland called on Wednesday for an international clampdown on multinationals shifting profits around the world to avoid tax, after criticism that Irish loopholes helped technology giant Apple to shrink its tax bill.

A U.S. Senate investigation into the tax affairs of the maker of iPhones, iPads and Mac computers has shone an uncomfortable spotlight on Ireland's tax regime and forced the government to defend itself against accusations of being Europe's onshore tax haven.

Other European governments, notably France, have previously criticised Ireland's low rate of corporation tax - 12.5 percent - but the revelations from Washington focus on loopholes in the Irish tax code that are more difficult to defend.

Richard Bruton, the minister in charge of attracting foreign companies to Ireland, admitted that companies need to be reined in.

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(108,903 posts)
22. Deadline nears in SAC insider-trading case
Wed May 22, 2013, 09:43 AM
May 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/deadline-nears-in-sac-insider-trading-case/2013/05/21/24278c62-c242-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html

All sides are playing hardball as the deadline to bring criminal charges against Steven A. Cohen nears, with only two months left for the government to snag the hedge fund industry guru in what it describes as the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever.

The clock started ticking in July 2008, when one of Cohen’s portfolio managers at the time allegedly got secret tips about the results of a clinical trial involving an Alzheimer’s drug, enabling the hedge fund and others to make more than $276 million.

While the government has accused several of the hedge fund’s current and former employees of illegal trading in the past, it has never accused Cohen of wrongdoing. This case stands out because it is the first to tangentially connect the billionaire to an illegal transaction, suggesting the industry’s godfather may be in the government’s crosshairs.

The outcome involves high stakes for both Cohen and the government, experts tracking the case said. Prosecutors have been working their way up the hierarchy at the hedge fund for years, they said, and this case gives them their best shot so far at Cohen — if they can act before the five-year statute of limitations lapses in late July.

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(108,903 posts)
23. Japan’s central bank keeps policy unchanged, says economy ‘picking up,’ as trade deficit grows
Wed May 22, 2013, 09:46 AM
May 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/japans-central-bank-keeps-policy-unchanged-says-economy-picking-up-as-trade-deficit-grows/2013/05/21/92117e40-c292-11e2-9642-a56177f1cdf7_story.html

TOKYO — Japan’s central bank says the world’s third-biggest economy is “picking up” as demand recovers in other countries and remains resilient at home, though the trade deficit widened in April, for the tenth straight month.

The Bank of Japan ended a policy meeting on Wednesday with no change to its strategy of doubling the monetary base to reach a 2 percent inflation target and jolt the economy out of two decades of stagnation. That outcome was expected.

The central bank said in a statement, though, that there is a “high degree of uncertainty concerning Japan’s economy” and that prices show no signs yet of rebounding.

Japan’s economy grew 3.5 percent last quarter, but progress in increasing exports and boosting corporate investment and wages has lagged. A weakening in the Japanese yen linked to the aggressive monetary easing has helped stabilize exports, which climbed 3.8 percent in April from a year earlier, but it is also accentuating rising import costs.

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(108,903 posts)
24. GOP moderates feud with conservatives over stall tactics on budget
Wed May 22, 2013, 09:49 AM
May 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/gop-moderates-feud-with-conservatives-over-stall-tactics-on-budget/2013/05/21/b60b3500-c262-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html

Long-simmering divisions among Republicans burst into public view Tuesday evening, when GOP moderates challenged tea-party conservatives on the Senate floor over their refusal to proceed to formal negotiations with Democrats over the federal budget.

On one side, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) insisted that the GOP must block any effort to name a conference committee to reconcile differences between the budgets approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate, which proposes nearly $1 trillion in new taxes over the next decade, and the Republican House, which proposes to eliminate the deficit within 10 years entirely through spending cuts.

Their reason: Democrats can’t be trusted not to sneak in an automatic increase in the federal debt limit.

“This fight right now is the fight over the debt ceiling, because what it would mean if we go to a conference committee is that as sure as night follows day, we would find ourselves in a month or two with a debt ceiling increase coming back ... with no conditions whatsoever,” Cruz said.

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(108,903 posts)
25. What’s Wrong With Jamie Dimon is What’s Wrong With America
Wed May 22, 2013, 09:59 AM
May 2013
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/22-1

A lot of people have attacked JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon over the years, including this author. After Tuesday’s shareholder votes at JPM, Mark Gongloff is right to describe Dimon as a “cult leader.” Gongloff quotes critics, like Public Citizen’s Bart Naylor who offer pointed and very valid criticism of Dimon and his board.

But that’s not the end of the story. It’s too easy to externalize responsibility by pinning the blame on villains. Every people has used the symbolism of demons in an attempt to extirpate something within themselves. The Jamie Dimon story shows that something more fundamental needs repair – in our economy, in our society, in us.

Don’t get me wrong. That isn’t meant to suggest that we’re guilty of fraud, or greed, or fiscal management. But we definitely have some work to do.

Men at Work

Chuck Prince. Robert Rubin. Lloyd Blankfein. Jeff Immelt. Brian Moynihan. Jamie Dimon. The bank CEO names roll off the tongue almost as rapidly as the billions pass algorithmically through cyberspace. What happens if one falls, as Prince did? Another takes his place before his precedecessor’s shadow has left the ground he was standing on.
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