STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 21 March 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 21 March 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 20 March 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 20 March 2012
[center][font color=red]
Dow Jones 13,170.19 -68.94 (-0.52%)
S&P 500 1,405.52 -4.23 (-0.30%)
Nasdaq 3,074.15 -4.17 (-0.14%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.36% +0.02 (0.85%)
30 Year 3.44% +0.01 (0.29%) [font color=black]


[center][/font]

[HR width=85%]

[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
[center]


[/center]

[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

[/center]

[center]

[/center]

[HR width=95%]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
[center]
Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
[center]
The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
[center]
LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
[center]
Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
[/center]

[div]
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



[HR width=95%]

[center]
[HR width=95%]
[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]

[TalkingDog]

1. Ran across this, thought SMW might find it.... interesting.

[Fuddnik]

2. Now we know who shorted Lehman.

[xchrom]

16. ...

i'm sure that reporter was like 'F-U-C-K'.

[DemReadingDU]

36. The background is...interesting

[Demeter]

3. EU defies carbon trade war threats

The threat of a trade war will not make the European Union back down on climate legislation, Connie Hedegaard, the bloc’s climate chief, said on Tuesday following pressure from foreign governments who want the EU to drop plans to charge airlines for carbon emissions

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/5F39HH/B5ULZK/Q38E1/WT2L1T/4CJ0XO/UP/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=20

[Demeter]

4. Billionaire floods super-Pacs with funds

Harold Simmons and his companies have donated $16.2m since 2010, including for most of the candidates competing for the Republican 2012 nomination

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/FKHBI8/YGZ3O/B597ZT/EXT5S7/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=20

WE SHOULD ENCOURAGE HIM TO WASTE MORE MONEY THIS WAY...

[Demeter]

6. Obama hits $45m fundraising mark

Wall Street curbs and disillusionment over his handling of economy blamed as number of wealthy benefactors drops to less than half the figure in 2008

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/FKHBI8/YGZ3O/B597ZT/HYGXFA/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=20


DISAPPOINTMENT? HE GAVE THEM EVERYTHING THEY ASKED FOR, AND MORE...

[AnneD]

45. I got a fund solicitation from Dem party....

Sent it back stating OWS was now representing me, not the DEM party.

[Demeter]

5. Saudi Arabia moves to calm oil market

The world’s largest oil producer will boost exports to the US and re-open old oilfields as it tries to prevent damage to the global economic recovery

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/6NPSBB/FKHBI8/YGZ3O/B597ZT/XHK1VN/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=20

SO, OPEN THE SPIGOTS ON THE STRATEGIC RESERVE, SQUEEZE THE SAUDI FIELDS, ANYTHING TO AVOID REGULATION IN THE GOLDMAN SACHS COMMODITY GAMBLING HELL.

[Ghost Dog]

13. Oil Rebounds From Biggest Drop in Three Months

Oil rebounded from the largest decline in three months in New York after an industry report showed crude stockpiles fell in the U.S, the world’s biggest consumer of the commodity.

Futures gained as much as 1.2 percent, recovering from a 2.3 percent drop yesterday after Saudi Arabia said it may boost supplies. U.S. crude inventories shrank 1.4 million barrels last week, the most in six weeks, according to the American Petroleum Institute. The Energy Department may say today that stockpiles climbed 2.2 million barrels, a Bloomberg News survey showed. Saudi Arabia can increase output by 25 percent immediately, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said. Prices have risen this year on concern tension with Iran threatens supply...

... U.S. gasoline stockpiles decreased 2 million barrels in the week ended March 16, according to the median estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Yesterday, the API yesterday said supplies slid 1.4 million barrels.

The Energy Department will release its weekly report at 10:30 a.m. in Washington.

Commercially held crude inventories in China, the second- largest oil consumer, fell 3.8 percent in February, according to a newsletter published by the official Xinhua News agency. That’s about 12.5 million metric tons, Bloomberg calculations showed. Supplies were down for the fourth time in five months.

Brent crude rallied 11 percent last month, the most in a year, on concern European Union and U.S. sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program will disrupt oil exports from the Middle East. Iranian output slipped 45,000 barrels to 3.45 million barrels a day in February, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts and producers.

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-20/oil-trades-near-three-day-low-on-saudi-output-increase-pledge.html

... Spinning, much?

[Demeter]

37. U.S. Exempts Japan, 10 EU Nations From Iran Oil Sanctions

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-20/u-s-exempts-11-nations-from-iran-oil-sanctions-on-banking.html

The Obama administration is sending a message to major buyers of Iranian oil -- in particular China, India and South Korea -- that they can avoid new U.S. sanctions by curtailing their imports of Iranian crude by the end of June, several U.S. officials said. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced yesterday that an “initial group” of countries -- Japan and 10 European Union nations -- have “significantly reduced” their Iranian oil purchases and thus qualified for an exemption from sanctions for a renewable period of 180 days under the law.

The U.S. didn’t grant waivers to China (CCCIIQIR), the leading importer of Iranian crude in the first half of last year, or to India and South Korea, which were the third- and fourth-largest buyers, according to the U.S. Department of Energy...Clinton praised the EU and Japan, which the Energy Department lists as the No. 2 importer of Iranian oil in the first half of last year, for taking actions that “were not easy” to cut back Iranian oil imports. “They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on for their energy needs,” she said in a statement.

Under a law enacted Dec. 31, countries have until June 28 to demonstrate they have “significantly reduced” the volume of their Iranian crude purchases -- or their banks that settle oil trades with Iran may be cut off from the U.S. financial system.

TEH STUPID...IT HURTS!

[Hugin]

41. Oil gains on US stocks draw (SURPRISE INSIDE!)

LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) - Brent crude oil rose on Wednesday as a surprise drawdown in U.S. stocks offset efforts by Saudi Arabia to lower prices by promising to ramp up supply if needed.
Industry data released on Tuesday showed an unexpected 1.4-million-barrel decline in crude stockpiles last week, intensifying worries about tight supply.
Comments from the Saudi oil minister reassuring the market that the world's top oil exporter was prepared to meet any supply shortfall kept a lid on gains.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said the kingdom had met all its customers' requests for oil and stood ready to raise output to full capacity of 12.5 million barrels per day (bpd), if needed.
"The lower stocks are giving support to the market, but the Saudi comments will put a short-term cap on the oil price, and ease fears of supply issues emanating out of Iran," said Ben Le Brun, market analyst with OptionsXpress in Sydney.
Brent crude gained 34 cents to $124.46 a barrel by 0940 GMT, after falling more than a dollar in the previous session on the Saudi comments.
U.S. crude was up 52 cents at $106.63. The benchmark fell more than 2 percent on Tuesday.

Source link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/10154616

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


SURPRISE!

[Demeter]

48. Did they look under the couch pillows?

Or behind the washing machine...I lose a lot of socks there.

Or MAYBE....they shipped it to Libya? And forgot to update the inventory list...

[Demeter]

7. Apple downloads $45bn to shareholders

Biggest company by market value plans first dividend in 17 years and $10bn to be spent buying back shares

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/YIQXNN/16EERV/K91WR/DWJ5MP/EXT5E8/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=20

[Demeter]

8. NY Mets owners buy time in Madoff case

$162m settlement with Ponzi scheme victims’ trustee could help Wilpon and Katz hold on to the financially troubled baseball team franchise

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/YIQXNN/16EERV/K91WR/DWJ5MP/HYGXS6/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=20

[Demeter]

9. Who Benefited? Insider trading 9/11 ... the facts laid bare By Lars Schall

http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NC21Dj05.html


Is there any truth in the allegations that informed circles made substantial profits in the financial markets in connection to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States? Arguably, the best place to start is by examining put options, which occurred around Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to an abnormal extent, and at the beginning via software that played a key role: the Prosecutor's Management Information System, abbreviated as PROMIS. PROMIS is a software program that seems to be fitted with almost "magical" abilities. Furthermore, it is the subject of a decades-long dispute between its inventor, Bill Hamilton, and various people/institutions associated with intelligence agencies, military and security consultancy firms. One of the "magical" capabilities of PROMIS, one has to assume, is that it is equipped with artificial intelligence and was apparently from the outset “able to simultaneously read and integrate any number of different computer programs or databases, regardless of the language in which the original programs had been written or the operating systems and platforms on which that database was then currently installed."

And then it becomes really interesting:

What would you do if you possessed software that could think, understand every major language in the world, that provided peep-holes into everyone else’s computer "dressing rooms", that could insert data into computers without people’s knowledge, that could fill in blanks beyond human reasoning, and also predict what people do - before they did it? You would probably use it, wouldn't you? Granted, these capabilities sound hardly believable. In fact, the whole story of PROMIS, which Mike Ruppert develops in the course of his book Crossing the Rubicon in all its bizarre facets and turns, seems as if someone had developed a novel in the style of Philip K Dick and William Gibson. However, what Ruppert has collected about PROMIS is based on reputable sources as well as on results of personal investigations, which await a jury to take a first critical look at. This seems all the more urgent if you add to the PROMIS capabilities "that it was a given that PROMIS was used for a wide variety of purposes by intelligence agencies, including the real-time monitoring of stock transactions on all the world´s major financial markets".

We are therefore dealing with a software that
a) Infiltrates computer and communication systems without being noticed.
b) Can manipulate data.
c) Is capable to track the global stock market trade in real time.

Point c is relevant to all that happened in connection with the never completely cleared up transactions that occurred just before September 11, and of which the former chairman of the Deutsche Bundesbank Ernst Weltke said "could not have been planned and carried out without a certain knowledge". I specifically asked financial journalist Max Keiser, who for years had worked on Wall Street as a stock and options trader, about the put option trades. Keiser pointed out in this context that he "had spoken with many brokers in the towers of the World Trade Center around that time. I heard firsthand about the airline put trade from brokers at Cantor Fitzgerald days before." He then talked with me about an explosive issue, on which Ruppert elaborated in detail in Crossing the Rubicon.

Max Keiser: There are many aspects concerning these option purchases that have not been disclosed yet. I also worked at Alex Brown & Sons (ABS). Deutsche Bank bought Alex Brown & Sons in 1999. When the attacks occurred, ABS was owned by Deutsche Bank. An important person at ABS was Buzzy Krongard. I have met him several times at the offices in Baltimore. Krongard had transferred to become executive director at the CIA. The option purchases, in which ABS was involved, occurred in the offices of ABS in Baltimore. The noise which occurred between Baltimore, New York City and Langley was interesting, as you can imagine, to say the least.

Under consideration here is the fact that Alex Brown, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank (where many of the alleged 9/11 hijackers handled their banking transactions - for example Mohammed Atta) traded massive put options purchases on United Airlines Company UAL through the Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE) - "to the embarrassment of investigators", as British newspaper The Independent reported.
On September 12, the chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, Mayo A Shattuck III, suddenly and quietly renounced his post, although he still had a three-year contract with an annual salary of several million US dollars. One could perceive that as somehow strange.

A few weeks later, the press spokesperson of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at that time, Tom Crispell, declined all comments, when he was contacted for a report for Ruppert´s website From the Wilderness, and had being asked "whether the Treasury Department or FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] had questioned CIA executive director and former Deutsche Bank-Alex Brown CEO [chief executive officer], A B 'Buzzy' Krongard, about CIA monitoring of financial markets using PROMIS and his former position as overseer of Brown's 'private client' relations."
Just before he was recruited personally by former CIA chief George Tenet for the CIA, Krongard supervised mainly private client banking at Alex Brown.

AND IT GOES ON FOR PAGES...

[Demeter]

10. "Keene, New Hampshire has no crime that would warrant rolling out a tank."

http://www.truth-out.org/standing-common-sense/1332163389


During a recent city council meeting, the mayor of Keene, New Hampshire leaned over to a council member and whispered excitedly: "We're going to have our own tank."

Yes, the tank (or, more specifically, the "armored personnel vehicle&quot is the latest must-have toy for mayors and police departments. Even in this picture-perfect and tranquil New England town of about 23,000 residents, officials hurl common sense to the wind at the very thought of having such a cool ride parked in front of town hall. Maybe they'll even get to drive it in the next 4th of July parade! Never mind that Keene has no crime that would warrant rolling out a tank.

Nonetheless, thanks to such richly funded boondoggles as the "war on drugs" and the "war on terrorism," the federal government is throwing money at cities and states to militarize their various police forces. Thus, Keene was granted $285,000 by the Department of Homeland Security to buy its very own "Bearcat," an eight-ton combat vehicle.

Of course, corporations that peddle such pricey hardware testily insist that Keene needs a tank. A sales executive for Lenco Industries, which makes the Bearcat, snapped to an inquiring reporter: "I don't think there's any place in the country where you can say, 'That isn't a likely terrorist target.' Wouldn't you rather be prepared?"

The sensible people of Keene, however, aren't swallowing the fearmonger pill, and they've forced the town council to reconsider. Local businesswomen Dorrie O'Meara says she hasn't met a single person who's in favor of having "this militaristic thing in Keene." She calls the tank "completely unnecessary. But it's more than that," she adds. "It's just not who we are. It's about what kind of town we want to be."

Wherever you live, take heart in the Keene example. Reject the corporate nonsense and insist on being the town you want to be.

THAT'S THE NEW HAMPSHIRE I REMEMBER

[tclambert]

21. If they need a tank, Mayberry needs a tank.

Sheriff Taylor: "Barney, get down offen that tank right now."

Deputy Fife: "Aw, Andy, you never let me have any fun. What if terrorists target Mayberry? We're only 20 miles from a major highway."

Sheriff Taylor: "Now, Barn, you know what happened when you put a bullet in your gun."

Deputy Fife: "That was an accident! And my foot healed up fine."

Sheriff Taylor: "You just ran over Mrs. Smith's poodle."

[InkAddict]

42. Introducing the Shredder

http://www.geekalerts.com/dtv-shredder-all-terrain-vehicle/

[IMG][/IMG]

[Demeter]

11. With Larry Summers' World Bank Bid in Trouble, Mexico Insists on Open Process

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/larry-summers-world-bank_b_1362716.html

Early last week the New York Times reported that despite all the previous fine rhetoric about the G20 and consultation and open process, the U.S. Treasury Department had decided to rule by decree and impose its own candidate for the next president of the World Bank, the G20 be damned. U.S. officials informed G20 officials that the U.S. intended to "retain control of the bank," as the Times put it. According to the Times, the G20 countries grumbled but showed no sign of being willing to fight Treasury. The U.S. candidate would be a "lock," the Times said, "since Europe will almost certainly support whomever Washington picks."

Since the International Monetary and the World Bank were created, the U.S. and Europe -- which control around half of the voting shares of these institutions -- have colluded behind closed doors to determine the institutions' top leaders, with Europe selecting the head of the IMF with U.S. support and the U.S. selecting the head of the World Bank with European support. In recent years, developing countries have complained loudly about this practice -- a practice which would be illegal if the World Bank were subject to the Illinois Open Meetings Act -- and under pressure the World Bank has adopted governance reforms that are supposed to guarantee an "open, merit-based process" in selecting the president. But Treasury was claiming that there wasn't going to be any open process, it was going to be Treasury diktat.

But over the course of the last few days, the world has changed.

First, development expert Jeffrey Sachs' public candidacy, and Treasury's rude dismissal of his candidacy -- not even putting Sachs on its "short list," although countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia have publicly endorsed Sachs' candidacy -- planted the seed of hope that there might be a real race after all. Then 27 Members of Congress, led by Michigan Democrat John Conyers and, sent a letter to President Obama, urging Obama to nominate Jeff Sachs. (SIGNERS LIST AT LINK)


Then, it turned out that the U.S. candidate was Larry Summers. And then it turned out that Europe wasn't going to go along with that after all, the New York Times' "almost certainty" notwithstanding. A week earlier, Treasury had leaked a purported "short list" consisting of former Harvard President Larry Summers, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and Senator John Kerry. But it turned out that Susan Rice and John Kerry were fake candidates, because neither one wanted the job. So it appears that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner really had a "short list" consisting of just one person: his buddy Larry Summers. Perhaps Geithner calculated that if he presented President Obama with a "short list" consisting of Larry Summers and two fake candidates, then Obama would have to choose Summers.

But apparently Geithner did not anticipate that Europe would object to Summers.

Late Friday night, AFP reported:

Harvard University economics professor and former World Bank chief economist Larry Summers is seen as divisive by some key allies of Washington.

Summers doesn't look like a candidate who will have strong support... Apparently, he cannot gain the backing of all Group of Seven countries," the person [close to the World Bank] said.

MUCH MORE AT LINK


And what of the U.S. nomination? The World Bank deadline for nominations was supposed to be this coming Friday, March 23, but Geithner might ask for an extension, because the dog ate his homework. Word has it that in spite of the G7 opposition, Geithner has not given up and is still pushing Summers. President Obama should ask Geithner for a completely new short list, one with three real candidates who all want the job, and all of whom can pass muster with the member countries of the World Bank. And that short list should include development expert Jeffrey Sachs, the only candidate who can say he has the support of governments in Africa, Latin America, and Asia -- not to mention 27 Members of Congress.

[Fuddnik]

12. You couldn't throw a pie at two more deserving maroons.

Summers and Geithner.

[Demeter]

17. Be a Waste of Pie

I'd pick something more....permanent.

And I'd expect some rigorous form of civil service exam for all appointments, starting with knowledge of the Constitution and common law, working up to knowledge specific to the office. And no, little black book contents wouldn't count....

[AnneD]

46. In Medieval times ...

folks use a primitive form of napalm known as 'Greek fire' to toss at their enemies and storming the castle.

Recipe.....

quick lime
salt peter...aka sodium nitrate
sulphur
resin
pitch

explodes on impact, sticks to what it hit, does not extinguish well with water. Given the situation in Greece now..I think this is a good choice.

I am thrilled that Summers has been rejected.

[Demeter]

49. It ain't over until SOMEONE ELSE has the job!

You know Obama, always persistent in his wrong choices....

[amandabeech]

56. " . . . Obama, always persistent in his wrong choices . . ."

You can say that again.

From Geithner, Gensler and Summers to the "surge" in Afghanistan to, in my opinion, dumping jobs and the economy to spend 1.5 years horsing around with implacable Republicans on health care, what can I say but, "Hell of a job, Barak!"

Yet, who else am I going to vote for in the fall? The dog torturer?

[Fuddnik]

57. That's an idea....

Write in the dog!

Seamus 2012!

[amandabeech]

58. That's the best idea that I've heard in a long time!

President Seamus!

Thanks Fudd!

[TalkingDog]

54. modern day versions (which probably now have me on some kind of watch list)

Empty jar
Stick (spoon, straw, etc.)
Citronella oil (Lighter's fluid will also work)
Powdered Sugar


Or the old standby styrofoam and gasoline.

The Poor Man's James Bond
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879472308

[AnneD]

55. It doesn't take much to get on a watch list these days....

FBI: Paying Cash For a Cup of Coffee a ‘Potential Indicator of Terrorist Activity’

http://www.prisonplanet.com/fbi-paying-cash-for-a-cup-of-coffee-a-potential-indicator-of-terrorist-activity.html

I can't buy a Farmer's Almanac with cash these days what with I don't feel like a criminal.

[Ghost Dog]

14. London impoverished by rise of the plutocrats

...London's population of millionaires has boomed in the last decade, both because of the lucrative jobs on offer in the finance industry and the arrival of thousands of foreign super rich, for whom it has become a favoured playground...

...A relatively equal distribution of wealth with a substantial middle class is a feature many economists associate with advanced levels of economic development and is what distinguishes the UK or France from countries like Nigeria or Brazil. London, some warn, may be drifting closer to the population profile of the latter.

According to the OECD, income inequality among adults has risen faster in Britain than in any other developed country since 1975. In London, wealth disparities are even more pronounced.

A study by the government's Department for Work and Pensions shows central London is Britain's most unequal region. Splitting the population into five income brackets, the study found that Inner London had 30 percent of people in the poorest fifth of the population, 27 percent in the richest and just 12 percent - the UK's lowest concentration - in the middle fifth...

...Data compiled by London's administrative authority the GLA shows inequality in London has risen in the last decade. The GLA uses the Gini score, a common measure of income distribution that rises from 0, representing total equality, to 100, where all income goes to one person. London's score rose from around 34 in 2002 to 36.2 in 2010, well above 32.4 for the rest of the UK and an OECD average of around 32...

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/20/uk-london-incomedisparity-idUKLNE82J02420120320

[Demeter]

18. Aren't We all!

So, London wants to look like the tonier addresses of the US...

[Ghost Dog]

44. Not the

real London.

[xchrom]

15. wednesday

[Demeter]

19. The birds are chirping too loud! I'm up already!

We had an excellent board meeting. The most gabby member has quit because when he said jump, we didn't say how high. The most vague member is embroiled in broken bones and stayed home. And my personal nemesis was out of town. So we got a lot done. And we had a quorum, too.

[xchrom]

22. most excellent!

yeah -- the birds are really having at it.

[Tansy_Gold]

32. Very good!

Birds are still sound asleep here, but Mattie woke me at 3:30. I refused to get up, so coasted until the alarm went off. Now here I am. . . . .

[Demeter]

20. Why 3.5 Million Job Openings Isn't Great News

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-19/why-3-dot-5-million-job-openings-isnt-great-news

If you’re out of work and hungry for a paycheck, the news from the government on March 13 sounded almost too good to be true: Employers have literally millions of jobs going unfilled. To be precise, there were 3.5 million job openings in the U.S. as of the last business day in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said. That was an increase of 45 percent since the depth of the recession in 2009.

The news is accurate, but it’s not entirely a good thing. There’s a reason those jobs aren’t being filled. In fact, it’s a sign of ill health in the job market that employers can’t seem to find the people they need, even as 12.8 million Americans are officially searching for work. (That’s the February number.) Typically, one would expect to see this many openings only if the unemployment rate were down between 5.5 percent and 6 percent, economist Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., said in a March 16 research note.

Here’s Shepherdson’s attempt to explain the discrepancy: ”The most likely explanation for this startling development is that employers regard people who have been out of work for some time with a degree of suspicion, worrying that perhaps their skills are stale or obsolete, or that they will find it hard to get back into the habit of working.”

If Shepherdson is right, it’s terrible news for America’s jobless. It’s also bad for the overall economy. Because it means the economy could start overheating—with “tight” labor markets and fast-rising wages—even with an unsatisfactorily high unemployment rate.

I WOULDN'T WORRY...IN THAT EVENT, THE EMPLOYERS WOULD "HOLD THEIR NOSES" AND HIRE THE DESPERATE AT BELOW-MARKET WAGES AS A "STARTER SALARY"...AND RESIST UNTIL THREATENED AT EVER RAISING IT.

[Demeter]

25. Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics

http://danielamerman.com/articles/2012/WorkC.html

When we look at broad measures of jobs and population, then the beginning of 2012 was one of the worst months in US history, with a total of 2.3 million people losing jobs or leaving the workforce in a single month. Yet, the official unemployment rate showed a decline from 8.5% to 8.3% in January - and was such cheering news that it set off a stock rally.

How can there be such a stark contrast between the cheerful surface and an underlying reality that is getting worse?

The true unemployment picture is hidden by essentially splitting jobless Americans up and putting them inside one of three different "boxes": the official unemployment box, the full unemployment box, and the most obscure box, the workforce participation rate box.



As we will explore herein, a detailed look at the government's own data base shows that about 9 million people without jobs have been removed from the labor force simply by the government defining them as not being in the labor force anymore. Indeed - effectively all of the decreases in unemployment rate percentages since 2009 have come not from new jobs, but through reducing the workforce participation rate so that millions of jobless people are removed from the labor force by definition.



When we pierce through this statistical smoke and mirrors and factor back in those 9 million jobless whom the government has defined out of existence, then the true unemployment rate is 19.9% and rising, and not 8.3% and falling. For the small percentage of people who are aware that the purported decline in unemployment rates is primarily based on the mysterious rapid decline in "labor force participation rates" rather than the number of new jobs, the government has a ready and sensible-sounding explanation: the Boomers are beginning to retire in large numbers, and with an aging population, the percentage of adults who are in the workforce should logically be declining. Based on in-depth analysis of the government's own numbers, we will present herein the true picture: 74% of the jobless who have been removed from unemployment calculations are in the 16-54 age bracket, with only 26% in the 55 and above bracket. Yes, the population is aging - but the heart of the workforce participation deception isn't about the old.



LOTS MORE DATA, ANALYSIS AND GRAPHIC PORN AT LINK

[Demeter]

27. THERE'S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO "DISAPPEAR" PEOPLE

THE SOUTH AMERICAN WAY IS PERHAPS MORE MERCIFUL AND LENDS GREATER "STABILITY" TO THE COUNTRY, THOUGH....

[Demeter]

35. Economists offer more pessimistic view on manufacturing in upcoming report

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/economists-offer-more-pessimistic-view-on-manufacturing-in-upcoming-report/2012/03/19/gIQAKSpZNS_story.html?hpid=z3

During the 2000s, as U.S. manufacturing was transformed by devastating job losses, prominent economists and presidential advisers offered comforting words. The paring of the manufacturing workforce, which shrank by a third over the decade, actually represented good news, they said. It meant that U.S. workers and factories had become more efficient and that, as a result, manufacturing companies needed fewer people. “What happened to manufacturing? In two words, higher productivity,” Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration, wrote in 2009....“The decline in U.S. manufacturing employment is explained by rapid growth in manufacturing productivity over the past 50 years,” said Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) under President George W. Bush.

But a handful of economists are challenging that explanation, chipping away at the long-offered assurances that the state of U.S. manufacturing is not as bad as employment numbers make it look. Instead, they say, it’s significantly worse.

What caused the job losses, in their view, is less the efficiency of U.S. factories than the failure of those factories to hold their own amid global competition and rising imports. The apparent productivity gains reflected in the official U.S. statistics have been miscalculated and misrepresented, they say, a position that has been at least partially validated by recent research. “I bought into this idea for a long time that it was superior labor productivity that caused most manufacturing job losses,” said Rob Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. “Then I began to dig into the numbers.” The arguments, which get a fresh airing in a report to be issued this week by the think tank, are being mounted as economists and politicians on the presidential campaign trial debate what, if anything, to do to help the nation’s manufacturers. Among the options are tax incentives, trade assistance and education credits.

“These numbers have been tossed about to say, ‘Look how productive U.S. factories have been,’ ” said Susan Houseman, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute, co-author with three Federal Reserve economists of a paper that raises questions about the accuracy of the productivity numbers. “The reality is a lot more complex and not as flattering.” As calculated by federal statisticians, the productivity growth of U.S. factories has seemed quite impressive. Between 1991 and 2011, productivity more than doubled, meaning that a single worker today produces what two did 20 years ago, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Looking at this number, many economists have concluded that the loss of manufacturing work could be considered a success story. Just as farming became more efficient over the previous century and fewer Americans found jobs on farms, U.S. manufacturing is simply becoming more efficient, as economists such as N. Gregory Mankiw, CEA chairman under Bush, and Austan Goolsbee, a recent CEA chief under President Obama, have argued...

ARGUMENTS THEN GO THROUGH SHREDDER OF FACTUAL ANALYSIS...MORE AT LINK

[DemReadingDU]

38. great link

People just hear headlines, and think economy is recovering.

[Demeter]

23. Wells Fargo Deals Major Setback to Administration Refinance Program

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/03/19/wells-fargo-deals-major-setback-to-administration-refinance-program/

An unusual technological quirk has delayed the Administration’s signature program for refinancing mortgages, and now it may lead to it becoming significantly narrowed from the original vision....The President announced a new initiative for HARP, the government’s mass refinancing program, all the way back in October. The idea was that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would allow a larger eligibility for refinancing on current underwater loans that they owned or guaranteed, and as an incentive to get the servicers to do the job, they would waive “representations and warranties” claims on the loans. This means that, if the loans failed, Fannie and Freddie would not try to get the underlying banks from which they bought them to repurchase the loans back from them. This eliminated a significant liability for the banks, and the thinking was that this would accelerate refinancing for millions of borrowers.

I’ve said consistently that this is more a program for stimulus than a program for saving homes. It only affects current borrowers, for example, and refis usually don’t prevent defaults nearly as well as principal modifications. However, if you believe – and many analysts, like Laurie Goodman at Amherst Securities – that underwater borrowers represent the leading edge of problems in the mortgage market, and their precarious situations put them one bad break away from delinquency or foreclosure, then it’s a good idea to allow them to reduce their monthly payments with a refi, even if ultimately they would continue to stay in negative equity. The Administration added some encouragements to apply the savings from the refis to principal pay-downs, which would reduce negative equity.

Anyway, we’ve been waiting since October for this crush of refis, and they haven’t really appeared. Refinance activity has actually fallen of late, though the percentage of those refis coming through HARP has increased. However, if you’re just re-routing refis through HARP without increasing them overall, that doesn’t complete the purpose of tweaking the government program. The idea was to get lots of extra refis and transfer wealth from banks to homeowners by lowering interest rates. Alone among most commentators, the website Calculated Risk had an explanation for the lack of a refi surge. There’s a program called Desktop Underwriter, which automates the underwriting process that has to be done for refinances. The elimination of representations and warranties, the key element of unlocking refis for the banks, had to be inputted into Desktop Underwriter. And it took many months for that program to actually get updated with the reps and warranties piece incorporated. That happened over the weekend, and so lenders can now use this automated system for refinancing, without having to be the initial servicer of the original loan. This is how most refis work – you can go to anyone for the new loan. With Desktop Underwriter complete, the theory went, we should see a surge of refi activity in the next several weeks.

Except that one of the biggest mortgage lenders in the country, Wells Fargo, decided to limit their participation in the program to loans that they also service. This makes Wells basically inaccessible to other borrowers who want to use HARP 2.0. Wells Fargo has decided to limit HARP 2.0 to loans that Wells services. If Wells is not the current servicer, then Wells will limit LTV to 105% – the same as HARP 1.0 guidelines. Wells Fargo wrote:

“After further assessment of the new parameters for DU Refi Plus transactions, and the current market environment, Wells Fargo has reconsidered our policy regarding loans not currently serviced by Wells Fargo. As a result we will not offer unlimited LTV/CLTV options for Loans not currently serviced by Wells Fargo.”

Furthermore, Wells announced that they would delay once again the use of HARP 2.0 loans on those that they service until late April. Put it this way. If every major servicer and lender followed Wells’ lead – and there are only a few others – HARP 2.0′s impact would be significantly limited. You would have to stay with your own servicer for your refi. And the servicer may not want to refinance you if you’re a current borrower, or they may offer you alternative products. The inability for the borrower to have flexibility, to shop around for the best rates, to use someone other than their current circumstance, will dampen the use of HARP, almost certainly. I’d guess that the total refi balance will end up, at the big 5 servicers, to be not much more than the $3 billion in refis they are obligated to perform under the foreclosure fraud settlement (and yes, HARP refis can apply to that, which means they get their Fannie and Freddie liability extinguished inside the settlement).

So we have yet another Administration housing program announced to much fanfare, whose ultimate result will disappoint. And the main reason for this is the discretionary nature of how the banks can use the programs. Deja vu all over again.

[Demeter]

24. Another Hidden Bailout: Helping Wall Street Collect Your Rent MATT TAIBBI

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/another-hidden-bailout-helping-wall-street-collect-your-rent-20120319#ixzz1pcvCY66p

Here's yet another form of hidden bailout the federal government doles out to our big banks, without the public having much of a clue.

This is from the WSJ this morning:

Some of the biggest names on Wall Street are lining up to become landlords to cash-strapped Americans by bidding on pools of foreclosed properties being sold by Fannie Mae...

While the current approach of selling homes one-by-one has its own high costs and is sometimes inefficient, selling properties in bulk to large investors could require Fannie Mae to sell at a big discount, leading to larger initial costs.

In con artistry parlance, they call this the "reload." That's when you hit the same mark twice – typically with a second scam designed to "fix" the damage caused by the first scam. Someone robs your house, then comes by the next day and sells you a fancy alarm system, that's the reload.

In this case, banks pumped up the real estate market by creating huge volumes of subprime loans, then dumped a lot of them on, among others, Fannie and Freddie, the ever-ready enthusiastic state customer. Now the loans have crashed in value, yet the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) are still out there feeding the banks money through two continuous bailouts.

One, they continue to buy mortgages from the big banks (until recently, even from Bank of America, whom the GSEs were already suing for sales of toxic MBS), giving the banks a permanent market for home loans. And secondly, they conduct these quiet bulk sales of mortgages, in which huge packets of home loans are sold to banks at a "big discount."

By now we've come full circle. Banks create the loans, make money selling them off on the market at high prices, then come back and buy them again when they're low. When the GSEs are in the middle of this transaction, it makes mortgage lending a basically risk-free proposition: Banks get paid for creating home loans and they end up owning valuable property on the cheap, but in between, they offshore the market risk to a government entity and/or to the idiot individual who bought the home mortgage in the first place. Even better, many of the banks/investors who buy these home loans back from Fannie/Freddie will rent out their properties instead of reselling them, which can vastly increase their revenue streams. From the WSJ:

Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate the annual yield on an investment on rental property nationwide averages about 6.3%, but can exceed 8% in cities that were hit hard during the housing bust, including Las Vegas, Detroit and Tampa. By contrast, mortgage bonds have average yields of just over 3%, and investment-grade corporate bonds are yielding about 3.5%, according the Barclays Capital U.S. Investment-Grade Index.

It gets better:

Warren Buffett, considered a sage investor and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in an interview with CNBC-TV last month that he would buy up "a couple hundred thousand" single-family homes if he could do so easily, given the high yields on rental investments.

Another potential buyer, according to the article, is John Paulson, the pillaging hedge-fund billionaire who was behind Goldman's notorious "Abacus" deal (in which Goldman allowed Paulson to pack a portfolio full of loser mortgages he was shorting before those same mortgages were dumped on a pair of Euro banks).

So congratulations, America, your quasi-governmental housing entity is about to subcontract out mass-landlording/slumlording jobs to the likes of John Paulson and Warren Buffett, so that they can add to their bottom lines collecting rent payments in the middle of a nationwide housing slump. As one hedge fund analyst put it to me this morning: "Help inflate the bubble, create a foreclosure crisis, buy homes in bulk, and rent them out to the same average homeowner." Is this what we had in mind when we created the "ownership society" – helping billionaires collect your rent?



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/another-hidden-bailout-helping-wall-street-collect-your-rent-20120319#ixzz1pkVQFa6L

[xchrom]

26. Bernanke warns of possible European 'contagion'

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/20/10781019-bernanke-warns-of-possible-european-contagion

Weakness in the eurozone is beginning to have an impact on the U.S. economy, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who will warn legislators Wednesday of possible "contagion."

“The difficulties in the euro area have affected the U.S. economy," Bernanke says, according to prepared text of his remarks. "The European Union accounts for roughly one-fifth of U.S. exports of goods and services. Not surprisingly, U.S. exports to Europe over the past two years have underperformed our exports to the rest of the world. In addition, weaker demand from Europe has slowed growth in other economies, which has also lowered foreign demand for our products.”

The Fed posted the prepared text on its website ahead of time after Fox Business News apparently obtained a copy and published excerpts on its website. Bernanke is scheduled to testify on Europe to the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform.

"U.S. financial firms and money market funds have had time to adjust their exposures and hedge their risks to some degree as the European situation has evolved, but the risks of contagion remain a concern for both these institutions and their supervisors and regulators," Bernanke says in the remarks. He warned in particular of potential danger to the financial sector.

[Demeter]

28. The A-List: Ian Bremmer - Greece could replace Syria as Russia’s Mediterranean friend

Assad’s days are likely numbered, and Syria’s next government may not be favourably disposed toward Moscow. So where can Russia turn to maintain a Mediterranean base for its navy? How about Greece?


Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/UXDMSS/QNZWWT/HI3M9/EXRW4H/GDG9IQ/SN/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=21

THAT WOULD HAVE A LOT OF ADVANTAGES FOR EVERYONE...INCLUDING THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, WHO WOULD HAVE AN EXTERNAL CHECK ON THEIR MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND IMPERIAL GREED...A RUSSIAN SABER IN THE HEART OF GOLDMANLAND....

[Demeter]

30. Insurance Pays Off in Greece

http://blogs.wsj.com/eurocrisis/2012/03/20/insurance-pays-off-in-greece/?mod=google_news_blog

A panel of dealers determined in an auction Monday that holders of Greek credit-default swaps would be paid 78.5 cents on the dollar after Greece's giant debt restructuring, a smooth result in line with expectations for a large payout to swapholders.

Credit-default swaps, or CDS, are insurance-like contracts designed to pay off if creditors suffer losses. The auction's outcome means that sellers of the $3.2 billion in outstanding swaps will pay $2.5 billion in compensation to buyers.

In the early days of the Greek debt crisis, European policy makers fretted that triggering payouts on Greek CDS contracts could have destabilizingconsequences for the broader financial system. The European Central Bank, especially, pressed hard to avoid doing do.

But by early this year the fears had abated, and a CDS payout was seen as an almost harmless byproduct of a necessary Greek debt default. Indeed, Monday’s auction had few ripples. Credit-default-swap prices on debt from Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy were all barely changed, according to data provider Markit, which also helped run Monday’s auction. “Despite the high-profile attention on the Greece CDS auction, many market participants felt that it was uneventful and sanitary,” said Otis Casey, a credit analyst at Markit in New York. “Uneventful and sanitary is probably the best compliment a credit-event auction can get.” ...

[Demeter]

29. JPMorgan ramps up China presence

Final approval for an agreement which will give the US bank a minority stake in Henan-based Bridge Trust is expected in the second quarter

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/YIQXNN/PFA5FR/FDFZE/R36NFH/QN7F5Y/ZH/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=21

----------
POPCORN TIME!

[xchrom]

31. U.K. Conservatives Come Up Short in Austerity Experiment

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-20/u-k-conservatives-come-up-short-in-austerity-experiment.html

Since 2010 Britain has been a laboratory for an important experiment in economic policy. The question: When economies slump and public borrowing soars, can fiscal restraint speed the recovery? Preliminary findings: No, and whatever made you think it could?

The unemployed weren’t asked whether it was all right with them, but Britain was a good place for the experiment. For a start, its government actually controls fiscal policy. On Wednesday, Finance Minister George Osborne will set out his new budget in the House of Commons and, strange as it seems in Washington, that will be that. Osborne won’t call for Parliament to change tax rates or urge it (perhaps seriously, perhaps not) to do one thing or another. He will set policy, period.

As a place for this test, Britain had another advantage. Like the U.S. but unlike France or Germany, it has its own currency and runs its own monetary policy. Osborne doesn’t have to frame his budgets knowing, as governments in the euro area know, that interest rates will be set somewhere else according to somebody else’s needs.

Sharp Break

Britain therefore had a lot of freedom to get fiscal policy right when the recession bore down in 2008. The Labour government then in power let automatic fiscal stabilizers work unimpeded and added a moderate amount of discretionary stimulus on top. Public borrowing surged. The Treasury said it was suspending its fiscal-policy rules until the economy was back at full strength.

[xchrom]

33. GOLDMAN MAKES AN EPIC BULLISH CALL: Stocks Are A Better Buy Than At Anytime In A Generation

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-the-long-good-buy-the-case-for-equities-2012-3



Goldman portfolio strategists Peter Oppenheimer and Matthieu Walterspiler are out with a doozy of report, basically presenting a big bullish case for stocks, relative to bonds.

Undoubtedly this is going to be the story of the day, and will be discussed quite heavily.

The report is titled The Long Good Buy; the Case for Equities, and it essentially makes an equity-risk premium argument that stocks are just impossibly cheap relative to bonds, and that the scenario currently being priced into the markets is just unrealistically negative... even with the bug runup in stocks since early 2009.

This piece of history that Oppenheimer and Walterspiler present offers the backbone of the case:

'In 1956, George Ross Goobey, the general manager of the Imperial Tobacco pension fund in the UK made a controversial speech to the Association of Superannuation and Pension Funds (ASPF) arguing the merits of investing in equities to generate inflation linked growth for pension funds. He became famous for allocating the entirety of the funds investments to equities, a move
that is often associated with the start of the so-called ‘cult of the equity’.

Prior to this, equities were largely seen as volatile assets that achieved lower risk adjusted returns than government bonds and, consequently, required a higher yield. As more institutions warmed to the idea of shifting funds into equities, partly as a hedge against inflation, the yield on equities declined and the so-called ‘reverse yield gap’ was born. This refers to the fall in dividend yields to below government bond yields; a pattern that has continued, in most developed economies, until recently.

In his speech to the ASPF, Ross Goobey talked about the long-run historical evidence that the ex-post equity risk premium was positive and that investors ignored this at their own peril.'

chart

[Demeter]

50. That's Absurd on its face

Goldman must be planning to dump all equities soonest.

In the long run, all those companies will have ceased to exist. The turnover in brand names is such that the DOW has few members that were on the index 20 years ago, let alone 50 or 100.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently consists of the following 30 major American companies:

Company Symbol Industry Year Added

3M MMM Conglomerate 1976 (as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing)

Alcoa AA Aluminum 1959- (as Aluminum Company of America)

American Express AXP Consumer finance 1982

AT&T T Telecommunication 1999 (as SBC Communications)

Bank of America BAC Banking 2008

Boeing BA Aerospace and defense 1987

Caterpillar CAT Construction and mining equipment 1991

Chevron Corporation CVX Oil & gas 2008

Cisco Systems CSCO Computer networking 2009

Coca-Cola KO Beverages 1987

DuPont DD Chemical industry 1935 (also 1924-01-22 to 1925-08-31)

ExxonMobil XOM Oil & gas 1928- (as Standard Oil of New Jersey)

General Electric GE Conglomerate 1907

Hewlett-Packard HPQ Technology 1997

The Home Depot HD Home improvement retailer 1999

Intel INTC Semiconductors 1999

IBM IBM Computers and technology 1979

Johnson & Johnson JNJ Pharmaceuticals 1997

JPMorgan Chase JPM Banking 1991 (as J.P. Morgan & Company)

Kraft Foods KFT Food processing 2008

McDonald's MCD Fast food 1985

Merck MRK Pharmaceuticals 1979

Microsoft MSFT Software 1999

Pfizer PFE Pharmaceuticals 2004

Procter & Gamble PG Consumer goods 1932

Travelers TRV Insurance 2009

United Technologies Corporation UTX Conglomerate 1939 (as United Aircraft)

Verizon Communications VZ Telecommunication 2004

Wal-Mart WMT Retail 1997

Walt Disney DIS Broadcasting and entertainment 1991


The components of the DJIA have changed 48 times in its 115 year history, and only General Electric remains in the index. As of 2011, General Electric has had the longest continuous presence on the index, with its latest addition being in 1907. When companies are replaced, the scale factor used to calculate the index is adjusted so that the value of the average remains the same.

[Fuddnik]

52. Calling all Muppets!

Step right up! Get your free money here!

[xchrom]

34. Mortgage Applications Have Been Collapsing Again

http://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-applications-collapse-2012-3

Some bad housing news:

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage applications fell 7.4% last week. That's worse than a 2.4% decline in the week before.

And in the weeks before that we had declines of 1.2% and 0.3%, so we're talking about four straight weeks of worsening numbers.

This number had been improving a bit closer to the beginning of the year, but is looking pretty saggy lately.

Refinancing applications lead the way down, falling 9.3%.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-applications-collapse-2012-3#ixzz1pkjw1VIq

[Demeter]

39. $1.5 billion: The cost of cutting London-Toyko latency by 60ms

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122989-1-5-billion-the-cost-of-cutting-london-toyko-latency-by-60ms

Starting this summer, a convoy of ice breakers and specially-adapted polar ice-rated cable laying ships will begin to lay the first ever trans-Arctic Ocean submarine fiber optic cables. Two of these cables, called Artic Fibre and Arctic Link, will cross the Northwest Passage which runs through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. A third cable, the Russian Optical Trans-Arctic Submarine Cable System (ROTACS), will skirt the north coast of Scandinavia and Russia. All three cables will connect the United Kingdom to Japan, with a smattering of branches that will provide high-speed internet access to a handful of Arctic Circle communities. The completed cables are estimated to cost between $600 million and $1.5 billion each.

All three cables are being laid for the same reasons: Redundancy and speed. As it stands, it takes roughly 230 milliseconds for a packet to go from London to Tokyo; the new cables will reduce this by 30% to 170ms. This speed-up will be gained by virtue of a much shorter run: Currently, packets from the UK to Japan either have to traverse Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic, US, and Pacific, both routes racking up around 15,000 miles in the process. It’s only 10,000 miles (16,000km) across the Arctic Ocean, and you don’t have to mess around with any land crossings, either.

The massive drop in latency is expected to supercharge algorithmic stock market trading, where a difference of a few milliseconds can gain (or lose) millions of dollars. It is for this reason that a new cable is currently being laid between the UK and US — it will cost $300 million and shave “just” six milliseconds off the fastest link currently available. The lower latency will also be a boon to other technologies that hinge heavily on the internet, such as telemedicine (and teleconferencing) and education. Telephone calls and live news coverage would also enjoy the significantly lower latency. Each of the fiber optic cables will have a capacity in the terabits-per-second range, which will probably come in handy too.

Beyond the stock markets, though, the main advantage of the three new cables is added redundancy. Currently, almost every cable that lands in Asia goes through a choke point in the Middle East or the Luzon Strait between the Philippine and South China seas. If a ship were to drag an anchor across the wrong patch of seabed, billions of people could wake up to find themselves either completely disconnected from the internet or surfing with dial-up-like speeds. The three new cables will all come down from the north of Japan, through the relatively-empty Bering Sea — and the Arctic Ocean, where each of the cables will run for more than 5,000 miles, is one of the least-trafficked parts of the world. That said, the cables will still have to be laid hundreds of meters below the surface to avoid the tails of roving icebergs. Each cable will be laid by a pair of ships: an ice breaker that leads the way, and a cable ship. Until now it has been impossible to lay cables in the Arctic Ocean, but the retreat of the Arctic sea ice means that the Northwest Passage is now generally ice-free from August to October; a big enough window that cable can be laid fairly safely. Existing cable ships (and there aren’t many of them) are all outfitted for balmier climes, so all three cables will require the use of a polar ice-rated ship that has been retrofitted to carry cable-laying gear.

NEAT MAPS AT LINK

[Demeter]

40. Spring Arrives with Equinox Tuesday, Earliest in More Than a Century

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=spring-arrives-with-equinox-tuesday-earliest-in-century

I'LL SAY SHE IS!

[xchrom]

43. Oil Rebounds From Biggest Drop in Three Months on Supply

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-21/oil-rebounds-from-biggest-drop-in-three-months-on-supply.html

Oil rebounded from the largest decline in three months in New York after an industry report showed crude stockpiles fell in the U.S, the world’s biggest consumer of the commodity.

Futures gained as much as 0.7 percent, recovering from a 2.3 percent drop yesterday after Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said his country can increase output by 25 percent immediately if necessary. U.S. crude inventories shrank 1.4 million barrels last week, the most in six weeks, according to the American Petroleum Institute. A Bloomberg News survey indicated that today’s Energy Department may show stockpiles climbed 2.2 million barrels.

“The API data showed a surprising draw on the crude inventories,” said Michael Poulsen, an analyst at Middelfart, Denmark-based Global Risk Management. “If these numbers are confirmed by the Energy Department, it would be a bullish factor for crude prices.”

Crude for May delivery rose as much as 79 cents to $106.86 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $106.43 at 12:20 p.m. London time. The contract dropped $2.49 yesterday to $106.07, the lowest close since March 15. The April future, which expired, fell $2.48 to $105.61. Front-month prices are up 7.7 percent this year.

[xchrom]

47. Swiss move closer to US crime data deal

http://www.thelocal.ch/2906/20120321/

The National Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee has voted by 15 votes to eight to continue negotiating with the United States over the release of Swiss police data requested by the US as aprt of a clampdown on serious crime and terrorism.

The US has threatened to re-introduce visa requirements for Swiss businesspeople and tourists travelling to the US if Switzerland refuses to agree to supply its police data, newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported.

There are fears that any agreement with the US would enable the FBI simply to trawl through Swiss police databases at will. In particular, it is feared that information on what Switzerland considers to be minor offences would be included in the transfer.

Despite what was described as a “sceptical and suspicious” mood at the Foreign Affairs Committee by its Vice-President and Federal Councillor, Simonetta Sommaruga, the vote was nevertheless passed because of three persuasive arguments.

[Demeter]

51. The Swiss know us well

They are hypocrites, though, when you look at Sweden and Assange...

[Ghost Dog]

53. Hmm. The article refers to "exchange" of data

...Any exchange of data would occur in two phases. First, fingerprints and DNA would be sent, but with no corresponding information. Then, where the US found a match, they would need to follow the usual legal procedural route by submitting a formal request for mutual assistance...

What similar type of cooperation (eg. on prosecuting suspected perpetrators of crimes against humanity, not to mention various financial crimes, heaven forbid) would the US be offering from its side?