Greek PM tears into lenders as euro zone prepares for 'Grexit'

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKBN0OW16320150616?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accused Greece's creditors on Tuesday of trying to "humiliate" Greeks with more cuts as he defied a growing drumbeat of warnings that Europe was preparing for his country to leave the euro. The unrepentant address to lawmakers after the collapse of talks with European and IMF lenders at the weekend was the clearest sign yet that the leftist leader has no intention of making a last-minute U-turn and accepting austerity cuts needed to unlock frozen aid and avoid a debt default within two weeks.

Financial markets, for months indifferent to wrangling over releasing billions of euros of aid for Greece, reacted with mounting alarm. European stock markets hit their lowest level since February and the risk premium on bonds of other vulnerable euro zone states leapt in one of the sharpest episodes of contagion since the height of Europe's debt crisis in 2012. The White House warned that agreement was needed to avoid shaking financial markets further and Tsipras assured U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that Athens aimed to bridge the differences with creditors. But with senior German lawmakers now openly discussing the once-taboo prospect of a "Grexit" from the single currency area, his fiery words suggested confrontation rather than reconciliation.

"I'm certain future historians will recognise that little Greece, with its little power, is today fighting a battle beyond its capacity not just on its own behalf but on behalf of the people of Europe," he said in a televised speech to legislators in his Syriza party, drawing loud applause.

Tsipras charged that the lenders were politically motivated in demanding pension cuts and tax hikes that hurt the poor, and their aim was to "humiliate not only the Greek government - this would be the least important - but humiliate an entire people". European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reacted angrily, accusing the Greek prime minister of misleading the public and insisting that he had made clear that he was personally against hiking taxes on power and pharmaceuticals. "And the prime minister knows that," he said. The rhetoric from Athens left it unclear whether Tsipras was preparing to default and risk economic collapse as the price of standing firm, or betting - wrongly according to creditors - on a last-minute effort by Europe to save Greece.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has held repeated phone calls with Tsipras in recent weeks to press him to agree on reforms with EU/IMF negotiators, struck a despondent note, saying it was unclear if a deal could be found when euro zone finance ministers meet on Thursday in Luxembourg.

"Unfortunately, there is little new to report," she told a news conference, repeating that Greece must meet its obligations. "I have always said I want to do everything possible to keep Greece in the euro zone. I remain dedicated to that."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-ecb-eu-idUSKBN0OW19U20150616

The European Central Bank won crucial backing from Europe's top court on Tuesday for its pledge to do whatever it takes to save the euro, defeating a German group's challenge as bloc member Greece edges dangerously close to default. A favorable ruling had been widely expected but the European Court of Justice's judgment is a firm endorsement for the ECB, granting it leeway to take dramatic action in an emergency, albeit with some general conditions. The case had been brought by a 35,000-strong group from Germany, including politicians and academics, who sought to dismantle the OMT bond-buying scheme the ECB created in 2012 but never used. In a statement explaining its ruling, the court set out certain conditions, saying safeguards must be built in to ensure any such program did not break rules that stop central banks from financing governments. Experts said the decision would strengthen ECB President Mario Draghi hand in managing emergencies such as a possible departure of Greece from the euro zone...


The OMT (Outright Monetary Transactions) program was launched at the height of the euro zone debt crisis, shortly after Draghi said in a speech that the ECB would do "whatever it takes" to prevent the collapse of the currency union. It allows the ECB to buy bonds of a euro zone country on the open market if its government has agreed a reform program in return for euro zone funding. The plan could yet be dusted down if Greece were to leave the euro, Fratzscher said. The judgment is a milestone in a long-running dispute between the ECB and skeptics in Germany, the largest of the euro zone's 19 members, about printing money and the limits of central bank power. It represents a victory for the ECB, which welcomed it on Tuesday. Executive Board Member Yves Mersch said it confirmed that the ECB had acted "prudently" and within its mandate.

Following the ruling, Germany's finance ministry restated its objections to any central banking financing of states and said the European court had asked for safeguards to ensure this would not happen. The case was a clear reminder that many in Germany have misgivings about a currency their then-chancellor Helmut Kohl helped create in the early 1990s but which they now fear has bound their nation to bail out spendthrifts such as Greece. Judges rebuffed German critics of bond-buying, who argue that by effectively printing money the ECB is taking pressure off countries to reform. They had argued that the OMT plan broke rules stopping central banks from financing governments. Hans-Werner Sinn, the head of Germany's Ifo think tank and long-standing critic of the ECB, attacked the court for its "regrettable mistake". Others, including Lutz Goebel, president of a German association for family-owned companies, were also critical of the ruling. "Through its actions, the ECB is going far beyond its mandate," he said.

The pro-ECB line could now set the European and German courts on a collision course. Germany's Constitutional Court, asked to rule on complaints by the German group, had said there was good reason to believe the OMT broke rules forbidding the ECB from funding governments. The Constitutional Court will now examine the European court's ruling in detail, spokesman Bernd Odoerfer said.

*******************

Bernd Lucke, a founder of Euroskeptic party Alternative for Germany (AfD), said he saw a massive conflict ahead.

"The verdict is a provocation and humiliates the Federal Constitutional Court, whose legal opinion is being dismissed as if it were the work of an unqualified apprentice," he said.

His party will soon launch a legal challenge to the ECB’s latest 1 trillion euro plus money printing program, he added.

*************************

Last week, a poll showed over half of Germans want Greece to quit the euro zone, compared with around a third in January.


LORD, WHAT FOOLS THESE GERMANS BE! AND THERE'S MORE...

HE'S NOT CATAPULTING THE GERMAN PROPAGANDA...OR IGNORING HIS PEOPLE'S REALITY

http://www.dw.de/tsipras-misleading-greece-says-eu-commission-chief-juncker/a-18521421

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has accused Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of misinforming his people. Athens' voters were not being told the truth about the commission's proposals, he alleges. The European Commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker targeted Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras with his criticism, saying the leader wasn't giving his citizens correct information about the EU's proposals.

"I don't care about the Greek government…I do care about the Greek people, mainly the poorest part," Juncker said at a news briefing in Brussels.

"The debate in Greece and outside Greece would be easier if the Greek government would tell exactly what the commission is really proposing," the commission chief added, referring to lenders' proposals which would pave the way for Athens to receive its 7.2 billion euro (8.1 billion dollars) installment - the last of the 240-billion-euro economic recovery package to the country.

Greece's creditors, which include the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposed a 10 percentage point increase in value added tax (VAT) on electricity. However, Juncker said he himself opposed the proposal: "I'm not in favor, and the prime minister knows that, I'm not in favor of increasing VAT on medicaments or electricity."

He said the commission had instead proposed a 35-billion-euro program to support investments in Greece and floated the idea of a "modest cut in the Greek defense budget," which constitutes two percent of the country's gross domestic product.

MORE FULMINATING AT LINK

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-britain-banks-hsbc-jpmorgan-idUSKBN0OW0A420150616?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) are in talks to relocate parts of their businesses to Luxembourg from the UK as they weigh the possibility of a British exit from the European Union, the Times reported.

JPMorgan is close to setting up a bank based in Luxembourg to handle the clearing of eurozone transactions, paving the way for the U.S. bank to transfer more of its business out of the UK in the event of a Brexit, the Times reported. (thetim.es/1GIE2d9) The banks are also considering the tougher rules imposed by the European Union for conducting business outside of the eurozone, the Times said. The changes are not likely to lead to a large number of jobs moving to Luxembourg and London would remain the European headquarters of JPMorgan for the present, the Times cited a source familiar with the matter as saying...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-jpmorgan-londonwhale-lawsuit-idUSKBN0OW1O620150616?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews


JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) officials including Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon do not have to face a shareholder lawsuit claiming they failed to properly investigate the "London Whale" trading scandal that caused $6.2 billion in losses, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said a lower court judge did not abuse his discretion by dismissing the lawsuit by shareholder Ernesto Espinoza.

Writing for a three-judge appeals court panel, Chief Judge Robert Katzmann said Espinoza did not meet the high standard of showing the board committed "gross negligence" in probing the losses and deciding not to sue people who were involved. JPMorgan executives and directors have won dismissals of three investor lawsuits in New York and Delaware that claimed they could have prevented the losses incurred in 2012 by Bruno Iksil, or failed to properly hold others responsible.

Iksil was known as the London Whale because of the size of his derivative bets, which caused losses in JPMorgan's chief investment office. The largest U.S. bank by assets still faces a separate shareholder lawsuit over Iksil's losses.

"Naturally, we're disappointed with the outcome," said George Aguilar, a lawyer for Espinoza. He said his client might ask the full appeals court to review the decision...JPMorgan paid more than $1 billion and admitted wrongdoing to settle U.S. and British probes into the London Whale losses. Two former JPMorgan traders, Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout, are charged with hiding losses linked to Iksil, a French national. Iksil is cooperating with prosecutors.

MORE

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/business/kirk-kerkorian-billionaire-investor-in-film-studios-and-casinos-dies-at-98.html

Kirk Kerkorian, the media-shy investor who became one of the richest Americans by betting his money on ventures like casinos and film studios, died Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 98...Born poor, Mr. Kerkorian was a brawling amateur boxer, a daredevil pilot and a high-stakes poker player before figuring out safer ways to amass a multibillion-dollar fortune. He pursued strategies that baffled business rivals and Wall Street analysts and that left him sometimes on the verge of bankruptcy. Other times, his moves brought him windfalls.

He bought and sold MGM three times. He created a commercial airline, sold it and then purchased it again before reselling it for good. And in his 80s he made an unsolicited but successful bid for Mirage Resorts, the giant casino company controlled by Stephen A. Wynn, the uncrowned king of Las Vegas...Mr. Wynn was not the only mogul to underestimate Mr. Kerkorian. Mr. Kerkorian had earlier outmaneuvered better-known and seemingly more powerful entrepreneurs. Howard Hughes tried to undermine his Las Vegas projects, and Ted Turner mistakenly thought he had bought MGM studios from Mr. Kerkorian for a song. But Mr. Kerkorian never publicly reveled in his successes and always avoided the limelight.

“What good does it do being rich?” the journalist Dial Torgerson quoted him as saying in the biography “Kerkorian: An American Success Story” (1974). “I can’t do what I want to do. I don’t like to get dressed up and go to see bankers. I hate that kind of thing.”

Mr. Kerkorian skipped most shareholder meetings at the companies he owned, and he said little when he did attend. But he resented being portrayed as a recluse.

“I have 30- or 40-year friendships that I prefer to meeting new people,” he told The Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1999 in one of his rare interviews. “Just because I don’t go to a lot of events and I’m not out in public all the time doesn’t mean I’m antisocial.”

His close friends included Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra, who often joined him at Los Angeles restaurants and Las Vegas gambling tables...He was a polarizing figure. Some said he was an unscrupulous manipulator who disregarded the rights of minority shareholders. On occasion he was sued and forced to settle such allegations out of court. But his defenders insisted that any investors who stuck by him were bound to make big returns.

“Kirk has always made money for people who buy in with him,” Lee Isgur, an analyst with Paine Webber, told The New York Times in 1985.

Kerkor Kerkorian — he Americanized his name to Kirk as a boy — was born in Fresno, Calif., on June 6, 1917, one of four children of Armenian immigrants. His mother, Lily, was a homemaker; his father, Ahron, was a fruit merchant whose get-rich-quick schemes often left his family struggling to stay afloat. “We moved at least 20 times when I was a kid,” Mr. Kerkorian told Fortune magazine in 1969."We often could not pay our rent and would get booted out.” Young Kirk got no further than the eighth grade, leaving school to take odd jobs. He became a promising lightweight boxer, winning 29 of 33 amateur bouts, but quit the ring in 1939 to take flying lessons and soon became a private pilot and later an instructor. In World War II, Mr. Kerkorian ferried bomber planes across the Atlantic and as far as India for the British Royal Air Force. After the war he purchased surplus military transport planes, refurbished them and sold them around the world, using the profits to buy a small air charter operation, based in Los Angeles, in 1947. Mr. Kerkorian often flew Hollywood entertainers into Las Vegas, which was becoming a gambling capital, and joined them at the blackjack and dice tables, where he became renowned as a high roller. It was in Las Vegas where he met Jean Maree Hardy, a dancer and choreographer. They married in 1954 and had two daughters. That marriage ended in divorce after almost 30 years. (His first marriage to Hilda Schmidt had also ended in divorce, in 1951.)

His daughters Tracy Kerkorian and Linda Kemper as well as three grandchildren survive him, a family spokesman said.

SO MUCH MORE TO HIS STORY....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/obamacare-lawsuit-poll_n_7587666.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business

The Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling in a major Affordable Care Act case that could force millions off their health insurance this June. But if you're like most Americans, you're pretty much clueless about it.

That's right: More than seven in 10 people have heard "nothing at all" or "only a little" about King v. Burwell, a lawsuit brought by conservative and libertarian activists that seeks to eliminate Obamacare's health insurance subsidies for 6.4 million people in 34 states, according to survey results published Tuesday by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The share of Americans saying they'd heard nothing -- 44 percent -- about this latest challenge to Obamacare's survival outnumber those who have heard "a lot" or at least "something" by almost two to one.

Although some of those millions who use these tax credit subsidies to purchase insurance are paying closer attention, the survey findings suggest the disappearance of that financial assistance, and the damaging effects that would cause to the health insurance market, will catch Americans by surprise if the Supreme Court sides with the plaintiffs when it issues its decision later this month.

At issue is a brief phrase contained in the Affordable Care Act -- "exchange established by the state" -- that the plaintiffs contend limits subsidies to health insurance exchange marketplaces set up by states like California, Idaho and New York, not the federally operated exchanges in most of the states, including Florida and Texas. The Obama administration maintains the statute provides for subsidies in every state, regardless what governmental entity built the exchanges....

MORE

http://voicenews.com/articles/2015/06/16//news/doc557af82e523ff381884332.txt



A graphic from Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump shows the proposed location of the dump, about 100 miles north of Port Huron, and communities that have passed resolutions against the dump. (Photo courtesy of STGLND)

A month after the Joint Review Panel decided that the best place for a Canadian nuclear waste dump is less than a mile from the shores of Lake Huron, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is calling for public comment on environmental conditions that would be imposed on Ontario Power Generation if the project gets a final go-ahead. The CEAA made the announcement on June 3. The general public, Aboriginal groups and registered participants in the Deep Geological Review process have 90 days to comment on 14 pages of "potential conditions." The deadline is Sept. 1...As a result, the agency has extended the timeline for a final decision by Minister of the Environment Leona Aglukkaq on the Environmental Assessment of the dump by 90 days. The deadline is now Dec. 2.

"It is interesting that the Minister of the Environment's decision on the nuclear waste dump is being postponed from Sept. 3 until December, which falls after the federal election in October," said Beverly Fernandez, founder of the Canadian organization Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump.

Critics of nuclear power were aghast at the Joint Panel's decision in May to endorse the dump. Western Michigan native Kevin Kamps works as a nuclear waste specialist for the Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear, an anti-nuclear group that supports renewable energy and nuclear disarmament. Kamps condemned the Joint Panel's decision to endorse the dump, calling OPG’s proposal "insane" and labeling it "a declaration of war against the Great Lakes." Kamps is expected to speak about ways to stop the dump at 7 p.m. June 16 at the Donald Dodge Auditorium at the St. Clair County Administration Building, located at 200 Grand River Ave. in Port Huron.

“Great Lakes Waterkeepers and Waterkeeper Alliance oppose this project, which could threaten the drinking water supply of 40 million Americans and Canadians,” Detroit Riverkeeper Bob Burns said in a statement on May 27.

Burns said the dump violates the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, which the United States and Canada updated in 2012, pledging to keep the lakes free of threats to water quality.

Nobody could be that stupid.

Oh, that IS what they're doing? Exactly that?

Didn't they look at a map? Lake Huron water eventually flows over Niagara Falls and into Lake Ontario, on which is located the city of Toronto with 5.5 million people in its Metro area. Then it flows into the Saint Lawrence River (not named after Lawrence of Arabia) and past Montreal with 4.1 million people in its Metro area. Those two metropolitan areas contain over one quarter of Canada's population. It also flows past millions of people in American cities, but that was probably their intended target.

I'm sure their Public Relations people are extremely confident that they could never, ever, ever spring a leak in their storage facility. Never ever. No way. Not a chance. And we should all trust Public Relations people. They have almost as much credibility as Dick Cheney.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/joe-firestone-tpp-fast-track-the-next-rounds-in-congress.html

Yves here. A Beltway source says that the Administration’s loss on the TAA vote last week was an abject humiliation for Obama, given that he had whipped for Fast Track personally and even deigned to make one of his rare visits to Congress to make a pitch. He also said that corporate interest and support for the TPP and Fast Track was far less than the media would have you believe. He’s seen far less in the way of lobbying than is normal for Administration priorities. The reason, apparently, is that the bill really does not do much for multinationals. They recognize that trade is substantially liberalized, and while that having better rights to protect their interests in Malaysia might have some economic value, they don’t see it as worth much to them. In other words, this bill is narrow and inefficient looting, with the meaningful beneficiaries comparatively few in number.

Nevertheless, it is very important to keep the pressure on. The TAA victory had many fathers, and the push by labor was a big factor, but another was the number of calls made by concerned citizens...The Administration is expected to make another try this week. The procedure they used last week was “splitting the question” in which they sought to pass Fast Track by severing the bill into three constituent parts and having each passed separately. That’s why the failure on TAA scuppered that effort. The Administration can try again on TAA alone to see if it can push it over the line (which seems unlikely given the magnitude of defeat) or it can try for a vote on the full Fast Track authority. The Administration had been loath to go that route since they’d have to go back to the Senate, and they are loath to do that ((I’m not clear on how the last week device of splitting the question solved that issue, but I am told it would have).

So please call your Representative today! Here is the roll call on TAA and on the Fast Track vote. Please tailor your message to how they voted (thanks if they voted against both and a reminder you expect them to do the same again, clear disapproval if they voted for Fast Track and/or the TAA). If you need to reprimand your Congresscritter, give a short reason or two why you opposed these deal, and make clear that a vote for either bill will cost them your vote. Enlist as many people as you can to make calls.

You can find phone numbers here. SEE OP FOR LINKS TO INFO

By Joe Firestone, Ph.D., Managing Director, CEO of the Knowledge Management Consortium International (KMCI), and Director of KMCI’s CKIM Certificate program. He taught political science as the graduate and undergraduate level and blogs regularly at Corrente, Firedoglake and New Economic Perspectives. Originally published at

The roll call 126-302 vote (Roll call 361) defeating the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bill was a result worth a little celebrating on Friday, since it was a very decisive victory on that particular vote, and also stopped the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) fast track bill from being sent to the President’s desk for signature. If the vote on TAA hadn’t failed, it would have been far more difficult (I don’t say impossible as many do) to defeat all manner of “free trade” agreements (aka multinational sovereignty agreements), including the currently scheduled Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services (TiSA) agreements over the next year or so.

Everything we know about these agreements is that they would have been a disaster for all but an extremely small segment of the people of the United States. So, we ought to be overjoyed that, for now, fast-track is stalled in the House, and may get pigeon-holed there for quite some time to come, if the re-vote on TAA fails. Still as Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, and Bill Black say in their recent posts, this stall may be short-lived if we don’t keep up the pressure and make sure that the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, along with the President are, unsuccessful in reversing Friday’s vote on the TAA. Our first job is to defeat the TAA in the House. It is unlikely that things will end there, but if we don’t, then the House’s package created by the Republican leadership, becomes law, including, most importantly, the TPA, will reach the President’s desk where he will, joyfully, sign it.

On the other hand, if the TAA, isn’t approved in the re-vote, then the House is likely to try to work out a compromise with the Senate to align their differing TPA bills and then return the result to each of the Houses for a vote on the compromise. So, first of all, what is the likelihood, that the TAA bill will be approved in the House? And if it is, then what is the likelihood that a compromise bill will be agreed upon in conference committee, and then approved In the House and the Senate? I’ve read every post-mortem on Friday’s TPA result I could find since Friday’s TAA vote. And while there’s a lot of speculation on what will happen if there is a re-vote of TAA on Tuesday, very little of the analysis seems to depart from an explanation of the actual roll call results of roll calls 361 and 362 by Party. Here are the results of these roll calls. Roll call 361 (the TAA Vote):

For: 126, 86 Republicans, 40 Democrats;
Against: 302, 158 Republicans, 144 Democrats.

Roll call 362 (the TPA vote):

For: 219, 191 Republicans, 28 Democrats;
Against: 211, 54 Republicans, 157 Democrats.

Since, on Friday, the TAA was perceived as the key vote on both the TAA and the TPA, why was roll call 361 so decisively against both, while roll call 362, on the TPA alone was narrowly in favor of the TPA? In other words, why were these votes so at variance with each other? No post-mortem I’ve seen has really considered this carefully, and tried to explain it. But plainly, one’s explanation has to be the foundation for projecting how any re-vote in the House on the TAA/TPA is likely to come out...So, what does the TAA/TPP vote mean? From a Republican point of view I think it means that by and large the Republicans in the House hate trade adjustment assistance much more than they like giving the President fast track authority. In fact, they pretty much don’t like that choice either, but since the Republican establishment wanted TPA, a majority of them might have gone along with that if they didn’t have to swallow TAA too, and defy lobby groups, such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action and various talk show hosts, as well as vote against their own ideological aversion to approving welfare programs, which is what TAA is from their point of view. In addition, TAA, as finally structured in the House bill, had gotten rid of the Medicare cut “pay-for” and replaced it with a tax enforcement and loophole closing one. This, too offended the Republican rank and file members who probably thought of this as a tax increase breaking their promises never to vote for one. In short, even though the mainstream view of the maximum limit of Republican opposition to the TPA was 57, roll call 361 shows 158 Republican votes against it, an entirely unexpected result showing that the Republican leadership has lost touch with their members when it comes to gauging the extent of their resentment against leadership attempts to force trade adjustment benefits and a small tax increase down their throats for the sake of the interests of Wall Street and the multinationals. Republicans might generally support corporations and view small business as one of their important constituencies, but that doesn’t mean they love foreign multinationals and the lemon socialism they are bringing to the table.

On the Democratic side, the Party’s traditional support for trade adjustment assistance was overcome with 144 votes against, because Democrats realized that a vote for the TAA was a vote for the TPA, and the vast majority of them were against that passionately. Not just out of principle, but because:

1) Democratic leadership was obviously divided on the issue with the Administration wanting it badly;

2) the formal leaders in the Houses were seemingly neutral, and many other influential Democrats, as well as the rank and file strongly against it;

3) the Democratic Party in the House was probably recognizing that the Administration had lost them the key election of 2010, and made them weaker in 2012 and 2014 then they otherwise would have been, with its insistence on passing and supporting a neo-liberal health care “reform” bill, bailing out the health care insurers, that couldn’t possibly begin to be effective until 2015;

4) the Administration had tried to lead them down a primrose path of more electoral failure with its failed “Grand Bargain” effort to cut the entitlements so important to Democratic constituencies and the identity of the Party;

5) the Administration’s determined effort to pass the potentially very unpopular package of the TPA, followed by the TPP, TTIP, and TiSA agreements would very likely also seriously erode their electoral support with their core constituencies; and

6) in the end, most of the Democratic members may have realized that there was no percentage in them voting against their own perceived interests for the sake of the President’s “legacy” and may, just perhaps, even gotten very angry over being asked to secure this legacy over their potentially very dead political bodies, in return for a TAA bill that would provide some $463 million in such assistance to be divided among a likely one million people and very possibly many more, that projections seemed to show would be put out of work by the contemplated trade agreements. Such Democrats might be forgiven for thinking that an attempt to buy them off with an average of $463 per unemployed person was not a very handsome offer from those wanting to pass the TPA and the subsequent likely trade agreements.

For many of the House Democrats this choice was probably a hard one, because they probably recognize the possibility that Republican challengers against Democratic incumbents will not hesitate to use their vote against TAA against them. But ultimately they probably decided after weighing the comparative political risks that, of the two risks, opposing TAA was far less risky than voting for TPA would have been. So, why did 86 Republicans and 40 Democrats vote for the TAA/TPA? Well considering all the monied interests pushing the TPA on both sides of the aisle and also that the Republican leadership in the House was 100% in back of the TPA, while the President was constantly lobbying for it, it would have been amazing if there were even fewer votes for TAA/TPA. So, I think the reason why there were as many as 126 votes for the TAA bill, isn’t much of a mystery, and I’ll rest now with these explanations of both the negative and the positive sides of the way both parties voted on roll call 361.

Why Were the Votes So At Variance with Each Other?

So, why was there such a reversal of the vote count in roll call 362 on the question of the TPA itself. First, I think there was probably confusion about this vote. The Republican leadership had let it be known earlier than the vote that it had no intention of going ahead with the TPA if the TAA vote were to fail, because a failure in the TAA vote would render the TPA vote ineffective in sending it to the President’s desk. So, the occurrence of the TPA vote was a surprise that coalitions in neither party were ready for, and also only 5 minutes had been scheduled between the two votes. So suddenly the TPA vote, which was considered meaningless, was thrust upon the members of both parties without them having the chance to be clear about the possible implications of the vote...Democrats, for their part improved their vote total against the TPA when voting on the clean TPA, gaining 13 votes on their previous 144 people. However, they didn’t reach previously predicted opposition totals of perhaps 164 to 168 against the TPA. Had they done so, TPA would have failed in the House on a close vote of 216 – 218, assuming the Republican opposition would have been constant at 54. So why did Democrats produce 28 votes for the TPA, rather than the 20 – 24 that were the most common predictions?

I think the explanation for this is that, probably, since TPA had already been stalled by the failure of TAA, this second vote didn’t seem as significant to them as the TAA was and some Democrats probably wondered why they had to further anger the Administration by voting down the TPA directly after it had already been blocked. The Republicans, too, probably had a similar motivation. 158 of them had collaborated with 144 Democrats to vote down the hated (by the Republicans) TAA, which vote also blocked TPA, so why did they have to anger their leadership and the various pro-TPA lobbying groups that had already lost over a “meaningless” vote. After all, expression of their anger and resentment was already fulfilled by the TAA vote, so why should they pour it on. One thing is certain, the TPA vote in the House wasn’t a true test of the relative strength of the pro- and anti – TPA sides in conflict over TPA approval and one can’t project from this second vote to the likely result of a re-vote. In particular, the anti-TPA forces on both sides were not fully focused on this vote and its outcome, since the Democratic leadership was clearly not enforcing discipline as it would have been if this were the decisive vote, especially since this vote was unexpected. On the other hand, for the pro-TPA forces on the Republican side, there was a tendency to go along with the leadership, since by the very act of scheduling the unexpected vote it was expressing a desire to have that vote and to have most Republicans give them something, even if that something was a small meaningless victory.

Implications of the Explanations for a Re-vote

I think the explanations suggest that the likely result of any re-vote on the TAA will be similar to the first vote for a number of reasons. First, for Democrats, there will be resentment over the fact that the Republican leadership, with the obvious encouragement of the President, isn’t respecting the decision taken by the House on Friday, and is trying to make them go on the record again in rejecting their TPA program. I think they will view this as adding insult to the injury that the Administration has done them by putting them in the position of having to vote on these trade issues in the face of their obvious desire to forget about NAFTA-like trade agreements that have already caused the Party so much grief in the past. They must be thinking, “why did this insufferably arrogant President push these deals for years when most of the Party wanted nothing to do with them, and why has he pushed them at a time when he is no longer vulnerable to voter retaliation while all of them retribution’? They may even be asking: “what right does he have to subject us to this risk of a major new “free trade” agreement, when he is all but a “lame duck” who can no longer help them, but only hurt them if he pursues an agenda that runs counter to the Party’s branding and likely 2016 populist orientation?”

Also, second, comes now Hillary Clinton, who just today title="Clinton reply to TPP criticism" href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/clinton-addresses-trade-deal-controversy-118989.html?hp=c3_3">responded to the constant calls for her to take a position on the Trade deals. Of course, she straddled the fence to some degree by refusing to declare either for or against the TPP and the other contemplated trade deals. However, she said:

”The president should listen to and work with his allies in Congress starting with Nancy Pelosi, who have expressed their concerns about the impact that a weak agreement would have on our workers to make sure we get the best strongest deal possible” . . . And if we don’t get it, there should be no deal.

This isn’t a complete repudiation of the fast-track legislation, but it is hard to see how the President could respond positively to this statement except by making the TPP and the other deals public, and negotiating their terms with the various stakeholders in Congress and elsewhere who are now opposed to the TPP, and the other deals based on leaked information about them. It is especially hard to see how he could do that without releasing the draft texts of the agreements, since he can hardly work with them if they don’t know what is in these drafts or cannot discuss them with their staffs.

MORE POLITICAL SPECULATION...UNDONE BY TODAY'S EVENTS (SEE BELOW)

Expect the kind of long, hot summer we enjoyed a few some years ago when the Affordable Care Act was moving through Congress, except that now there will anger coming from all sides directed at TPA proponents who will undoubtedly explain to us why their determination to do the bidding of the wealthy and powerful must be seen as a demonstration of extraordinary courage and integrity by the rest of us. Long past time for the pitchforks, I’m afraid.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/call-your-representative-to-oppose-administration-ruse-to-keep-taafast-track-alive.html

Lori Wallach of Public Citizen sent this alert by e-mail last night:

Tomorrow at 12:30, debate will start with a vote expected at 1:30 on the rules for the Intelligence bill. Stuck into that rules is an extension of the Motion to Reconsider. The extension runs through July 30 – meaning that the TAA revote could be called anytime between now and then under this rule. Voting down this rule is the goal. Most Dems would vote against the rule anyway. Can the eight who voted for the rule last Thursday be persuaded to do so? Will the Freedom Caucus remain in revolt and sustain their no votes from Thursday’s rule?

This move shows that the Fast Track package remains in serious trouble. This maneuver shows that the votes are not there to do a successful revote on TAA as the White House and GOP leadership planned.

The bill being used as a Trojan horse for this provision is H.R. 2596 – Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016.

Please call your Representative this morning! Here is the roll call on TAA and on the Fast Track vote. Please tailor your message to how they voted (thanks if they voted against both and a reminder you expect them to do the same again, clear disapproval if they voted for Fast Track and/or the TAA). If you need to reprimand your Congresscritter, give a short reason or two why you opposed these deal, and make clear that a vote for either bill will cost them your vote. Enlist as many people as you can to make calls.

House punts on trade

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/245070-house-gop-punts-on-trade

House GOP leaders are punting on voting again on President Obama's trade agenda, possibly until the end of July.

After Friday's failed vote to pass aid for workers displaced by trade deals, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) set up a process allowing the House to conduct a do-over of the vote by Tuesday.

But Obama and GOP leadership aren't yet in a position where TAA is any more likely to pass. So the House Rules Committee on Monday night attached a provision to a "rule" governing parameters for debate on the intelligence authorization bill that extends the possibility for the chamber to vote on TAA again to July 30.

The House will consider the rule containing the provision to extend the possible trade re-vote on Tuesday afternoon.

House Republicans are casting the extension as a means for buying time to move the trade package forward.

“We remain committed to getting TPA done, and this will give the president more time to communicate the consequences of not moving forward with his party," Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said.

I remember calling Congressman all over the U.S. to vote 'NO' on the TARP. The first vote failed, but then it passed on the 2nd vote. Here's why it passed...There was immense arm-twisting behind the scenes. If Congressman was in a safe district and was going to be re-elected, they were asked to vote for the TARP, and those were the votes that got the TARP passed.

This link lists the Congressmen who switched their TARP vote from no to yes. Only two: Knollenberg, Joe (R-MI) and Kuhl, John R. Randy (R-NY) did not survive their 2008 election:
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2010/01/persons-of-interest-congresspeople-who-switched-tarp-vote-then-left-office.html



This delay in Congress allows for more arm-twisting to get the trade deal passed.

Arm-twisting is beneath him.....he already allowed Congress to touch the hem of his cloak....

He's got so many people pissed off, on both sides of the aisle, it's amazing that Congress doesn't have torches and pitchforks. Too bad Monica is out of her internship...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/gaius-publius-isds-provisions-in-tpp-violate-article-iii-of-the-u-s-constitution.html

By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, Americablog, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. This piece first appeared at Down With Tyranny.

There’s a growing recognition within the legal community that the ISDS provisions of treaties like NAFTA, TPP, many trade agreements already signed and almost all agreements going forward … may well be unconstitutional. That is, they violate protections offered to citizens by important articles of the Constitution — for example, Article III, which establishes the judicial branch of the U.S. government, assigns its powers and establishes the right of trial by jury (my emphasis, obviously):



I recommend taking a moment to read the above. It’s from our founding document, and it’s pretty clear.

What Do Constitutional Lawyers Say About ISDS?

ISDS is shorthand for “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” provisions in current trade “agreements” — these are carefully not called treaties, apparently as an attempt to bypass the Treaty Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which mandates that treaties be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate:



ISDS provisions are described more fully below.I’ll offer the opinions of two constitutional experts. You can listen to conservative constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein in the following interview.



Conservative constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein agreeing with Alan Morrison: Fast Track is “defective constitutionally” (source: Thom Hartmann program)

In addition, consider the recent letter authored by Alan Morrison, described by Public Citizen as “a constitutional law professor and associate dean at George Washington University Law School who has practiced law for 45 years, taught at six law schools including Harvard, and argued 20 Supreme Court cases.” Here is what Dr. Morrison wrote in a letter to the U.S. Congress (pdf): http://www.citizen.org/documents/Alan-Morrison-ISDS-letter.pdf

Bottom Line First

I’m going to quote liberally from Dr. Morrison’s letter — Emphasis is mine except where specified.



LEGAL EXPLICATIONS LEADING TO THE BOTTOM LINE:

The Sole Defendant Is the Federal Government. The Sole Remedy is Money Damages.

This is an especially tough set of restrictions, since the real defendants in these cases are likely to be state and municipal governments, as you’ll see in the examples further down. In addition, even when the defendant is the federal government, for example, when federal “country of origin” labeling (COOL) laws are challenged, the response of the government — whose representatives, it must be said, depend on big money interests to maintain themselves in office — can usually be counted on to bend to big money interests.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-trial-libor-hayes-idUSKBN0OW2E420150616

Tom Hayes, a former trader on trial in London for alleged interest rate rigging, described the broking market he worked in as the "Wild West" with no rules and where relationships relied on lavish entertainment, a court heard on Tuesday. The court was told that this was also a high-pressure environment, which took its toll on Hayes, prompting him to threaten brokers and pick fights with colleagues in his efforts to move interest rates to aid his trading. The criminal trial heard how Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup yen derivatives trader, threatened to drop brokers if he felt they failed to help to persuade traders at other banks to move benchmark interest rates in directions to suit his trading book.

Hayes is the first person to stand trial on charges of alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate or Libor, used to price an estimated $450 trillion of financial contracts worldwide. British prosecutors allege Hayes was the ringmaster in a conspiracy with 25 staff from at least 10 banks and brokerages to rig the interest rate benchmark. He has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of conspiracy to defraud between Aug. 2006 and Sept. 2010 but has not yet had the chance to lay out his defense.

CALLING ALL HEROES

Prosecutor Mukul Chawla has said Hayes had made "complete confessions" to investigators during 82 hours of interviews after his arrest in December 2012. He had initially agreed to plead guilty and gave evidence against former peers and colleagues to become eligible for a lighter sentence.

Hayes also said he was open about his trading methods, which were backed by senior staff, and that Libor manipulation was widespread across the industry as banks tried to boost trading positions or the perception of their solvency during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The prosecution presented evidence, including computer chat and telephone calls between traders and brokers, which, they argued, showed how the banks worked together to drop their six-month yen-denominated Libor rates in July and August 2009.

"...I want some heroics from the boys on August 11," Hayes had announced to a broker on 27 July, 2009. "I need a lot lower 6m (six month). We (UBS) will help. So will some of my mates."

Hayes told investigators in evidence presented to the jury that bank compliance departments had never trained him on Libor. In the evidence, Hayes also said that many banks chose how to help to set rates according to a "collaborative process to make it the most advantageous for the bank."

In the world of trading, Hayes told investigators, a base salary was so irrelevant that traders said they "worked for free" if they failed to get a bonus.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-insurance-fed-regulations-idUSKBN0OW2A520150616

The U.S. Federal Reserve is considering a proposal for new nationwide insurance capital standards that would rely heavily on the current system of state-based regulations, according to a copy of the plan seen by Reuters and people familiar with the deliberations. The plan, which a group of the largest U.S. insurers discussed with the Fed on May 20, would avoid a fundamental overhaul of how state-based insurance firms are regulated, and be based on accounting methods already in use. At the same time, it would give the Fed a single benchmark to measure the risk in larger firms that consist of several such state-based units, enabling it to compare them to other U.S. or foreign financial firms for the first time.

Unlike Wall Street banks that are subject to Fed oversight, large insurance firms such as MetLife (MET.N) and Prudential (PRU.N) are overseen by a multitude of state regulators, and there are no nationwide rules that determine how much risk they can take on. This came to light when insurance giant AIG (IAG.N) collapsed in 2008 because of risky bets made by a little-known London unit, requiring a $182 billion U.S. government bailout. The proposal, if adopted by the Fed, would represent a middle ground between leaving the state-based rules unchanged, and a completely new capital regime that the industry first feared would be too costly.

"We do expect the Fed to make some pretty significant changes, but at least they will be starting from an accounting and reporting regime which is tailored to insurance," an insurance executive familiar with the talks said.

The Fed declined to comment...It is the first time that details of the insurers' proposal have emerged. The $1 trillion a year industry in February first presented its plan, Reuters reported in March.

After the financial crisis, the Fed was put in charge of overseeing roughly a third of the industry. It has been slow in building insurance expertise - it hired a former Connecticut state regulator to head the effort only last year - and has not given any indication of what the new nationwide capital standards it is developing will look like. Insurers fear they could be treated too much like the heavily-regulated Wall Street banks, given the Fed's history as a bank watchdog. Each of the 50 states in America has its own insurance regulator, whose primary interest is to protect policyholders' money rather than the wider financial system.

Bank of America analysts have estimated that large insurers could see their capital levels drop by 50 percent in a worst-case scenario under new Fed rules. But the plan proposed by the insurers would be far less drastic.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/06/16/many-affluent-americans-feel-they---too-much-debt/71256422/

...One in five respondents with investable assets of $100,000 to $1 million, and 1 in 10 with investable assets of $1 million up to $10 million believe they have too much debt and are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a poll taken by MaritzCX.

Among the 1,044 investors surveyed in November and December, 45% are worried they won't have enough income to last through retirement. And 30% believe they will have to work during that period of their lives.

"What this is saying to me is even when you start looking at people who have managed to accumulate some wealth, they are also concerned about their future and about retirement,'' says Rich Brose, senior director strategic consulting for financial services at MaritzCX, which provides customer experience software and research services to help companies improve sales and customer retention. "They share a lot of the same concerns as ... the middle class and even people who might be struggling a little bit more.''

Many seem to still be shaken by the deep recession of 2008 and its aftermath, despite the gradual uptick currently occurring n the economy.

"Since 2008, I have encountered more people worrying about retirement,'' says Artie Green, a certified financial planner based in Palo Alto, Calf. "Not so much whether or not they'll have enough to live on but really whether or not they'll be able to enjoy the kind of lifestyle they'd been planning. I think one of the key reasons is the vulnerability experienced by many in their 50s who lost jobs and subsequently discovered how difficult it has been to get new ones.''

SPEW ALERT--MORE OF THIS AT LINK

A million isn't what it used to be.

Marilyn Monroe wouldn't even look at a millionaire, these days...

I'm betting that they have loans against all that stuff and very little is free and clear.

Hence the angst about paychecks. It's all fun and games until cash flow dries up (i.e. job loss, retirement), then someone gets hurt.

A million isn't what it used to be, but I've got no sympathy for living beyond your means at that level. Violins indeed.

6/17/15 FedEx Falls With Quarterly Profit, Sales Trailing Estimates

FedEx Corp. slid in early trading after the operator of the world’s largest cargo airline posted a fourth-quarter profit that trailed analysts’ estimates.

Earnings excluding one-time items were $753 million, or $2.66 a share, short of the $2.69 average estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Sales of $12.1 billion also missed the $12.3 billion analysts expected, on lower fuel surcharges and unfavorable currency issues at FedEx Express.

Directors raised the mandatory retirement age for board members to age 75 from 72, a step that would allow Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith to stay on longer if he chooses. Smith, FedEx’s founder, turns 71 in August.

The stock dropped 1.2 percent to $179.99 at 7:49 a.m. in New York before regular trading.

Earnings excluding some one-time items will be $10.60 to $11.10 a share in the fiscal year ending May 31, FedEx said Wednesday. That compares with the average projection of $10.93 among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

FedEx said its 2016 outlook assumes continued moderate economic growth and doesn’t include its pending purchase of Netherlands-based TNT Express NV. The projection is also based on continued operational improvements during the final year of its plan to boost profits, which was primarily focused on FedEx Express and includes an expansion of the FedEx Ground network.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fedex-2016-profit-forecast-exceeds-113452200.html

Actually yesterday's though posted this morning.

Senate bill proposes centralizing Weather Service forecasting in 6 regional offices.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1232744



I'm linking to a post I put up on the Weather Forum as I think it has economic implications. Since the days of Reagan, Congress has periodically entertained these proposals and they have quickly been dismissed. To me, this would be the first step to privatization. And perhaps a way of controlling the NWS because NOAA talks climate change too much. As little as they do.

Interesting that the study that triggered this round came out of the NAS. Not a conservative think tank.


Also a direct link to the article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/06/16/senate-bill-proposes-centralizing-weather-service-forecasting-into-6-regional-offices/