STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday May 27

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday May 27, 2010

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Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold

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Handy Links - Market Data and News:Economic Calendar    Marketwatch Data    Bloomberg Economic News    Yahoo! Finance    Google Finance    Bank Tracker    
Credit Union Tracker    Daily Job Cuts

Handy Links - Economic Blogs:
The Big Picture    Financial Sense    Calculated Risk    Naked Capitalism    Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong      Bonddad    Atrios    goldmansachs666    The Stand-Up Economist

Handy Links - Government Issues:
LegitGov    Open Government    Earmark Database    USA spending.gov

Handy Links - Videos:
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class    Charlie Rose talks with Roubini    Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
    William Black: This Economic Disaster    Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn

Bush Administration Officials Convicted = 2
Names: David Safavian, James Fondren

Bush Administration Officials Charged = 1
Name(s): Richard Lopez Razo

Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 = 11

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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.

Read more: du

08:30 GDP - Second Estimate Q1
Briefing.com 3.4%
Consensus 3.3%
Prior 3.2%

08:30 GDP Deflator - Second Estimate Q1
Briefing.com 0.9%
Consensus 0.9%
Prior 0.9%

08:30 Initial Claims 05/22
Briefing.com 450K
Consensus 455K
Prior 471K

08:30 Continuing Claims 05/15
Briefing.com 4600K
Consensus 4600K
Prior 4625K

http://www.briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

SINGAPORE – Oil prices rose to above $72 a barrel Thursday in Asia as investors mulled the impact slower European economic growth could have on global crude demand.

Oil has dropped from $87.15 a barrel earlier this month amid investor concern that Europe's debt crisis will undermine a global economic recovery. Some analysts expect oil prices to move higher once the Europe crisis stabilizes and investors focus on surging crude demand in emerging countries.

Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal — four of the European countries with the biggest debt and fiscal problems — account for just 4 percent of the global economy and 2.6 percent of global crude demand, Barclays Capital said in a report.

In other Nymex trading in June contracts, heating oil rose 2.13 cents to $1.9420 a gallon, and gasoline gained 0.96 cent to $1.980 a gallon. Natural gas was steady at $4.186 per 1,000 cubic feet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

"That's right ladies and gents. Lay your bets down while you can! Watch the spinning wheel surge!"
.....and it's "surging crude demand" by a barrel!

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A Federal Reserve policymaker warned that the central bank's vow to keep rates unusually low for a long time could, if misread, perpetuate the boom and bust cycle that plunged the United States and the world into recession.

Despite noting risks associated with the extended period promise, Bullard has backed the Fed's decision to renew that pledge at its April meeting.

On Thursday, Bullard noted the policy can be successful at providing additional stimulus to an economy when borrowing costs are near zero, as they have been in the United States.

Flooding financial markets with bank reserves to induce economic growth, as the Fed's asset purchases did, can cause inflation if markets lose faith in a central bank's commitment to drain reserves in a timely manner, he said in Stockholm.

However, most Fed policymakers now agree that it will be advisable to sell some off some of the approximately $1.4 trillion in mortgage-related debt the Fed bought. That is because they believe there is a risk of inflation from too big a balance sheet and because they dislike providing help for a specific sector, housing, as they do by holding so much mortgage debt.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100527/bs_nm/us_usa_fed_bullard

LONDON – World stocks rose Thursday as investors put Europe's debt problems behind them — for now — and instead concentrated on strong Asian economic growth figures and expectations later of solid U.S. economic data.

European markets followed their Asian counterparts higher, with the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares up 46.29 points, or 0.9 percent, at 5,084.37 while Germany's DAX rose 81.41 points, or 1.4 percent, at 5,839.43. The CAC-40 in France was 18.60 points, or 0.6 percent, at 3,427.19.

In Asia earlier, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average rose 1.2 percent to 9,639.72 while South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.6 percent to 1,607.50. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index gained 1.7 percent to 4,379.10.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.2 percent to 19,431.37 and benchmarks in China, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia all rose more than 1 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

Futures are down.

It's getting fairly predictable lately. If futures are up in the morning, expect a lower finish. If they're down, expect a rally at 3:45, and a higher close.

I keep reading about 'hope'. That word is like a mating call for suckers.

People are going to take their profits before the markets crash again.

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators moved Wednesday toward requiring a uniform system for tracking all securities orders on U.S. exchanges, in hopes of making it easier to investigate market disruptions like the May 6 plunge.

Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed, on a 5-0 vote, requiring exchanges to maintain an "audit trail" covering trading orders from start to routing to execution.

The regulators say that would make it easier to investigate market disruptions like the so-called "flash crash" earlier this month that sent the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 1,000 points in less than 30 minutes.

The new system, however, would be phased in under the SEC proposal and wouldn't be fully operational until about three years from now, SEC officials said at a public meeting. It would cost market players, including exchange monitoring bodies and brokerage firms, about $4 billion to put into place and $2 billion a year to operate, according to SEC estimates.

A new system would allow regulators to get access in real time to most of the data needed to reconstruct the type of market disruption that occurred on May 6, with the remaining data available in days rather than weeks, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said before the vote.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_bi_ge/us_market_plunge_sec

Them fancy computers can do all sorts of stuff! Um, when they're not warping and distorting the markets with HFT.

The U.S. House is set to vote today on a scaled-back jobs bill that would raise taxes on managers of investment partnerships after Democratic leaders agreed to shave billions from the measure amid complaints over its cost.

Lawmakers agreed to shorten by about half a proposed 3½- year reprieve for doctors from scheduled cuts in their Medicare reimbursements. The legislation would also extend unemployment benefits until Nov. 30 rather than through the end of the year as originally proposed.

The legislation would total around $145 billion and add $84 billion to the federal deficit. It comes after a week of delays spurred by alarm among Democrats over widening the budget gap just months before the November congressional elections.

The legislation would extend both the unemployment benefits and a package of business tax cuts, provide subsidies for local infrastructure projects and aid state governments struggling to fill holes in their budgets. Other provisions would require retirement plan administrators to disclose more information about fees charged to 401(k) retirement accounts and give companies with underfunded pension funds more time to make those accounts solvent.

Lawmakers plan to finance the bill by raising taxes on the so-called carried interest paid to executives at private equity, venture capital and real estate firms. Other provisions would make it harder for lawyers and other professionals to avert Social Security and Medicare taxes by organizing what are known as S corporations. Oil companies would be another loser under the bill, which would increase to 34 cents from 8 cents a per- barrel tax to raise $12 billion.

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-27/house-to-vote-on-jobs-bill-with-buyout-firm-tax-increase.html

Howard Gellis, former head of the corporate debt group at Blackstone Group LP, isn’t taking Warren Buffett’s investment advice to pick stocks over cash.

“The events of the last month have reinforced why I’m absolutely not putting any new money in the stock market,” said Gellis, 56, who’s retired and lives in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. “You shouldn’t put any money in the market you can’t afford to lose.”

U.S. individual investors are sitting tight or returning to cash even as Buffett, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and money managers such as Jerome Dodson, president of Parnassus Investments, and Jeff Rubin, director of research at Birinyi Associates, say stocks are a good buying opportunity. Stocks are attractive because of corporate earnings forecasts and favorable valuations, said Rubin of Westport, Connecticut-based Birinyi Associates, a money management and research firm.

Investors pulled an estimated $14 billion from U.S. stock and bond mutual funds in the week ended May 12, the first net withdrawals since March 2009, according to the Investment Company Institute, a trade group in Washington. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has declined 5.2 percent this year and has gained 59 percent since the market low in March 2009.

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-26/retail-investors-in-u-s-seek-shelter-in-cash-shunning-buffett-s-advice.html

“You shouldn’t put any money in the market you can’t afford to lose.”

Yep.

And... you can't invest like Warren Buffett if you don't have spare billion$ to deploy, and all the deal-making power that comes with it.

(Up a little. Good day.)

(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 8,478,414,892,595.20 + 4,517,364,597,849.32
UP 937,216,055.27 + UP 5,746,864,858.16

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 309-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.23 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.7, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 13 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 309,340,793 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 04/09/2010 15:49 -> 309,034,742
Currently, each of these Americans owe $42,011.21.
A family of three owes $126,033.62. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 to 32 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 5,390,162,184.98.
The average for the last 30 days would be 3,952,785,602.32.
The average for the last 32 days would be 3,705,736,502.17.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 162 reports in 237 days of FY2010 averaging 6.70B$ per report, 4.58B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 971 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 14.3 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
05/25/2010 12,995,779,490,444.52 BHO (UP 2,368,902,441,531.44 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,085,950,486,932.80 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof10 +1,672,455,391,267.82 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
05/04/2010 +000,043,170,775.25 ------------*******
05/05/2010 +000,598,834,211.91 ------------********
05/06/2010 -014,947,673,650.95 -
05/07/2010 +000,000,195,077.74 ------------*****
05/10/2010 +000,804,647,162.22 ------------******** Mon
05/11/2010 -000,148,047,510.67 ---
05/12/2010 +000,782,970,242.92 ------------********
05/13/2010 +003,301,759,550.17 ------------*********
05/14/2010 -000,440,383,687.55 ---
05/18/2010 +000,360,533,772.20 ------------******** Tue
05/19/2010 +000,208,812,715.15 ------------********
05/20/2010 +010,103,129,083.31 ------------**********
05/21/2010 +000,263,393,058.28 ------------********
05/24/2010 +000,371,674,396.55 ------------******** Mon
05/25/2010 +000,937,216,055.27 ------------********

2,240,231,251.80 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4398505&mesg_id=4398523

(Up a little, really. Long day, yesterday. Good day.)

(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 8,479,472,082,662.04 + 4,507,802,040,048.66
UP 1,057,190,066.84 + DOWN 9,562,557,800.66

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 309-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.23 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.7, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 13 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 309,347,439 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 04/09/2010 15:49 -> 309,034,742
Currently, each of these Americans owe $41,982.81.
A family of three owes $125,948.42. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 4,859,550,650.22.
The average for the last 30 days would be 3,563,670,476.83.

There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 163 reports in 238 days of FY2010 averaging 6.61B$ per report, 4.53B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 970 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 14.3 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
05/26/2010 12,987,274,122,710.70 BHO (UP 2,360,397,073,797.62 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,077,445,119,199.00 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof10 +1,652,384,321,460.65 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
05/05/2010 +000,598,834,211.91 ------------********
05/06/2010 -014,947,673,650.95 -
05/07/2010 +000,000,195,077.74 ------------*****
05/10/2010 +000,804,647,162.22 ------------******** Mon
05/11/2010 -000,148,047,510.67 ---
05/12/2010 +000,782,970,242.92 ------------********
05/13/2010 +003,301,759,550.17 ------------*********
05/14/2010 -000,440,383,687.55 ---
05/18/2010 +000,360,533,772.20 ------------******** Tue
05/19/2010 +000,208,812,715.15 ------------********
05/20/2010 +010,103,129,083.31 ------------**********
05/21/2010 +000,263,393,058.28 ------------********
05/24/2010 +000,371,674,396.55 ------------******** Mon
05/25/2010 +000,937,216,055.27 ------------********
05/26/2010 +001,057,190,066.84 ------------*********

3,254,250,543.39 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4399983&mesg_id=4399995

If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery. In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. But is that really the case? Of course not. You would have to be delusional to believe that. What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time. But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse. The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever. At some point the charade is going to come crashing down.

And GDP is not a really good measure of the economic health of a nation. For example, if you would have looked at the growth of GDP in the Weimar republic in the early 1930s, you may have been tempted to think that the German economy was really thriving. German citizens were spending increasingly massive amounts of money. But of course that money was becoming increasingly worthless at the same time as hyperinflation spiralled out of control.

Well, today the purchasing power of our dollar is rapidly eroding as the price of food and other necessities continues to increase. So just because Americans are spending a little bit more money than before really doesn’t mean much of anything. As you will see below, there are a whole bunch of other signs that the U.S. economy is in very, very serious trouble.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=8878

I double-dog dare ya.

Hey, school's almost out. Might as well have some fun.

:hi:

Let's see how many negative recs I can get in the first hour. Back in a flash...

This post, with additional excerpts should really rattle some nerves.

and there were no negatives when I did. Tally at 1.

Edit - I can't even read yet - didn't notice my + 1 DID NOT CHANGE THE ZERO

I never did get straight how that all works with the count - anyway, I'll try to comment soon on it - still on first cuppa joe, as they say - it's a good article, I plan to send it to some people. I have been vastly entertained the last few days watching the market, even from my ignorant perspective it's funny - in a grimly ironic way, I guess, not real - argh, more coffe - still incoherent

Thanks to you, Marketeers. At the time of this posting - the rec count is at 2.

Now I must leave for the last day of school for students. Catch you this afternoon. :hi:

post it in GDP

that motherfucker will be unrecced to oblivion in there.

You caught some whoppers with that post. I got to add to my IGNORE list!

It's kinda like throwing rocks through the windows at the insane asylum. Some people. They just take things wayyy to personally. And rather than being either constructive or point-by-point refutive, they choose to attack me. Some even say I lend support to the tea partiers. Sheesh.

Anyway. I learned quite a bit from that experience.


And to YOU, Dr. Phool, never again double-dog dare me to do anything. Or I might just have to do it again! :evilgrin:

You gotta rattle their cages once in a while. Otherwise they sit around drooling or attacking innocent bystanders.

Went there once. Lost my temper. It's not allowed to have a point of view there. Will be watching Ozy's response if he gets one.

that's what I expected

I just gave it a rec, and it's still at "0". No greatest for you this morning.

Always fun venturing around the corner here these days.
I came across a critical Obama post last night that was producing some action. Tansy was holding court for awhile there and doing a great job!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8418948&mesg_id=8418948
After his sterling leadership job on the Gulf Coast this past month, erosion may be setting in for our once-beloved President - not to mention the topic of today's rants!

. . . . some of which are in agreement.

GD is a scary place. I do venture into that arena occasionally, and occasionally I am flamed. But yesterday (or maybe day before?) I went so far as to suggest the hero worship was approaching the level of a cult, and I had some agree with me, but I notice this morning that the sub-thread has been deleted.

Oh well.

It's pretty safe here.

:hi:



TG

Please continue to post the FACTS. That's what gets my attention the most (that, and the state of the local economy in my neighborhood).

(And yes, I'm risking even this post being pulled.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x316634


Tansy Gold, not diabetic and planning to stay that way

"You are ignoring the author of this thread"

Great minds are repelled by the same thing.

Not to get my post deleted, but there are some that see any negativity towards the current administration as a personal attack on them. Personally, I do not like to be agreed without any constructive thought, at the same time time, I do not like to be disagreed with the same circular strategy being used over and over again by the same posters.

I know these posters do have factual points, but they cannot connect the dots with historical facts and figures such as manipulation of the unemployment figures example: to have 4% to 6% of the working population (that excludes children, the retired, the disabled, the investor class, the prison population, and people who choose not to work ) to combat inflation (the 4% minimum)yet at the same time to have a growing economy (the 6% maximum), then someone like me (and Ozzy) puts up a fact that 309,359 new jobs are needed per year just to keep-up with population growth (that does not include the people who have been determined not looking for a job), but low and behold in the month of April 2010 (which is still being projected) there were 290,000 jobs created. The biggest creator of those jobs was the government at 56,000, the second biggest creator of jobs was the leisure and hospitality jobs at 45,000, the third biggest creator is health care and social assistance jobs at 26,400, and the fourth biggest creator are the temp jobs at 26,200.

Now for the deconstruction of these new jobs. The government is the biggest employer and there is no distinction between services and creating the common goods. The Leisure and Hospitality jobs are at best short term (for the summer), most do not pay much, and there are no benefits. The health care and social assistance jobs are two categories: 1) Nurses being fill by H1B1 workers not counted in the population growth and 2) Social Assistance jobs which do not pay enough for what the person does i.e. NGOs. Temporary jobs speak for themselves...

In short, the job market is no longer in free fall, with the information provided by the government, the unemployment rate did rise by 0.01%. This has been mentioned by other posters, there are not enough manufacturing jobs to sustain our economy, which I agree with. The manufacturing sector did gain in 2010, February 16,000, March 19,000, and April 44,000 for a total of 79,000 jobs (please remember March and April are still projected), whereas in April 2009 149,000 jobs were lost. That does not other months where there were other major losses.

Just a short explanation of jobs created vs. jobs lost. Jobs created is a leading indicator, whereas jobs lost is a lagging indicator. Although these are leading and lagging indicators, there can be a comparison as to which jobs are being created and what jobs are being lost as well as who is being hired. Those comparisons from the above information are higher paying jobs are being replaced by lower paying with less job security. That is not good for the American Worker!

Demeter--goddess of agriculture and obsessive motherhood.

"#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3% - the most in 16 years. Is it a sign of a healthy economy when food prices are increasing so dramatically?

#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005. So shouldn’t we at least wait until the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy is not setting new all-time records before we even dare whisper the words “economic recovery”?"

When the economy collapsed in 2008 and everyone was predicting it's continued failure, the one thing most people agreed to was that commodity prices, including fresh and dried vegetables, would skyrocket. They were saying this when everyone thought there was no saving the US economy from another RepubliCON Great Depression. Funny how it's happening now when we are supposedly recovering.

When pundits and the Obama administration claim we are in a recovery, they are saying that the people and families filing for bankruptcy are so unimportant to America that the economy can recover without them.

at least meditating on that calms me down... it's very hypnotic.

When is losing a million dollars a good thing? When you've only lost a million dollars.

Comedy from Australia

Thanks go to for Barry Ritholtz for finding this.

The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates and the biggest fiscal blitz in history.

The M3 figures - which include broad range of bank accounts and are tracked by British and European monetarists for warning signals about the direction of the US economy a year or so in advance - began shrinking last summer. The pace has since quickened.

The stock of money fell from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the three months to April, amounting to an annual rate of contraction of 9.6pc. The assets of insitutional money market funds fell at a 37pc rate, the sharpest drop ever.

The US authorities have an entirely different explanation for the failure of stimulus measures to gain full traction. They are opting instead for yet further doses of Keynesian spending, despite warnings from the IMF that the gross public debt of the US will reach 97pc of GDP next year and 110pc by 2015.

Mr Bernanke no longer pays attention to the M3 data. The bank stopped publishing the data five years ago, deeming it too erratic to be of much use.

This may have been a serious error since double-digit growth of M3 during the US housing bubble gave clear warnings that the boom was out of control. The sudden slowdown in M3 in early to mid-2008 - just as the Fed talked of raising rates - gave a second warning that the economy was about to go into a nosedive.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7769126/US-money-supply-plunges-at-1930s-pace-as-Obama-eyes-fresh-stimulus.html

---

The article reports that "creditism" is the new orthodoxy for central banks. Meaning: the extension of debt is the main economic growth ingredient. What fools!

Just gets deeper and deeper. Trying to pay off our home but letting loose of savings in this economy is scary.

Dow futures went from -50 points to + 218 in the time it took me to walk next door and feed a bird!

Gonna get wild today.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=almfWYYmhfPQ

Germany’s unilateral move to curb speculative trading of government bonds and some naked short selling last week forced lawyers to work long hours to interpret rules enacted with less than a day’s notice.

The nation’s financial regulator, BaFin, has been posting guidance about the rules online, while lawyers toiled over what countries the rules apply in, what constitutes a “naked” deal and whether the ban covers derivatives.

“The situation has been tough for all of us, lawyers and regulators alike,” said Jochen Kindermann, a capital markets lawyer at Simmons & Simmons in Frankfurt. “The step was dropped on us like a bomb and no one really had any time to prepare.” (I THINK THAT WAS THE INTENTION)

Germany was criticized for banning naked short selling of debt securities as well as naked credit-default swaps last week. BaFin published the ban late in the evening of May 18 and the rules took effect less than four hours later. Stocks around the world fell and Germany’s benchmark DAX Index has dropped more than 7 percent since the ban was announced.

Germany’s Finance Ministry proposed legislation that would extend the ban to all German stocks and certain euro currency derivatives. The plan would ban naked short selling in stocks off all German companies listed on a domestic exchange, the ministry said in draft legislation distributed to banks and industry groups today.

Not ‘Ideal Situation’

The International Swaps & Derivatives Association set up a conference call less than 20 hours after the BaFin ban was announced last week and 700 people from the finance industry dialed in, Okko Behrends, a capital markets lawyer at Allen & Overy LLP, said in an interview. It was the first time he had to advise on rules that were less than a day old, he said.

“It certainly wasn’t an ideal situation, because we were still discussing with Bafin what exactly the rules mean,” Behrends said. “Some of them are unprecedented and there is still a bit of uncertainly how far they reach.”

The confusion extends to regulators.

The U.K. Financial Services Authority said the ban doesn’t cover branches of German institutions outside Germany or in Britain. BaFin spokeswoman Anja Engelland said May 19 the ban on short selling of some financial shares and bonds applies outside Germany, while credit-default swap transactions are only covered when the deal is done within German borders.

‘BaFin’s Task’

The FSA comment was based on the information the U.K. regulator had when BaFin made its announcement, FSA spokesman Joseph Eyre said. “It’s BaFin’s task to clear the exact details of its rules and you have to contact them for that,” he said.

Lawyers also had difficulties defining what bonds are covered by the ban. The rules say they cover debt securities admitted for trading on the regulated market of a German exchange, mainly German and Austrian bonds. Because of a little known clause in Germany’s stock exchange act, there was a risk other euro-zone government bonds could have been included, said Kindermann and Behrends.

“We could clear with BaFin that they didn’t intend to include all the other countries’ debt,” Behrends said. “But you can see from that example how difficult it can be to draft rules -- and to advise clients.”

Short sellers borrow assets and sell them, betting the price will fall. They would buy them later and pocket the difference. In naked short-selling, traders never borrow the assets, so betting is unlimited.

German stocks fell last week on concern that European government leaders lacked a common position on how to resolve the sovereign-debt crisis. The DAX index fell for a fifth straight day today, declining 2.3 percent to 5,670.04.

Clients from the U.S., who were initially worried about the ban, concluded that it was a political move by Chancellor Angela Merkel that will have limited effects on their actions, said Andreas Lange, a banking lawyer at Mayer Brown LLP in Frankfurt.

“When they understood the limits of the rules, they pretty much shrugged and said: ‘Oh, well, just another odd move by the Germans,’” Lange said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7135625.ece

Prudential’s $35.5 billion takeover of AIG’s Asian insurance business will be a disaster, according to senior executives at AIA, the Hong Kong-based company that the Pru is struggling to acquire.

One source at AIA in Hong Kong told The Times that there was a “tangible undercurrent” of concern over the takeover and that several executives had questioned Prudential’s ability to manage AIA effectively.

The executives’ comments came as it was reported that Mark Wilson, AIA’s chief executive, had told friends and industry executives that he planned to quit if the deal went through.

According to press reports last night, Mr Wilson said that he would step down because the combination of AIA and the Pru’s Asian business was “unworkable”.

Two senior executives, Steve Roder, AIA’s finance director, and Peter Cashin, its legal head, have already quit the company.

The timing of the comments are inconvenient for Prudential, coming just hours before it debuts its dual listing in Hong Kong, with a secondary listing in Singapore.

Traders arriving early at their desks in Asia on Tuesday said that rumours over possible executive quittings would have a “definite negative” impact on today’s dual listing of the Prudential in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Prudential had said earlier this month that the 43-year-old American, who joined AIA in 2002 from AXA, the French insurer, would remain as chief executive under the new ownership.

AIG, which must extract maximum value from AIA in order to repay its giant US government bailout, scrapped a plan to float AIA in favour of a sale to Prudential, which was announced in March.

Mr Wilson had stood to make a fortune out of the float and would have been chief executive of the independent listed company.

Other top AIA executives are expected to follow him out the door, if the deal closes. One person at the company told The Times that a number of workers, also annoyed by the fact that AIA’s float was scuppered, were watching how Mark Wilson responds and intend to take their lead from him.

But the source also suggested that Mr Wilson may be allowing rumours of his intention to quit to try to get an early sense of his worth to Prudential, and that his decision to quit or stay would actually depend on how “hands on” Prudential intends to be in a region it has only limited experience in.

The Pru said on May 17 when it published its prospectus that Mr Wilson would remain as chief executive of AIA, suggesting he had given at least an informal commitment to stay on.

The timing couldn’t be more inconvenient for the Pru, coming just hours before its shares are due to start trading in hong kong and singapore.

The Pru declined to comment.

I EXPECTED A GEICO COMMERCIAL AFTER THAT HEADLINE....


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE64N0AQ20100524

The weekend bailout of a small Spanish savings bank could be the first of several rescues before a mid-year deadline for struggling lenders, but the news does not imply new risks for Spain's financial system.

Deals

In a grim reminder of the problems dogging the largely unlisted savings banks, which are most exposed to Spain's property sector slump, the Bank of Spain said early on Saturday it had taken control of CajaSur after its planned merger with peer Unicaja failed.

The Bank of Spain will tap the government's Fund For Orderly Restructuring (FROB) to bolster CajaSur's balance sheet with an initial 550 million euros, but the bailout could reach 2 billion euros, according to press reports on Monday.

The Bank of Spain's move is a salutary warning to other savings banks that they also risk being taken over if they drag their heels over mergers ahead of the FROB expiry date of June 30, said Santiago Carbo Valverde, Economic Analysis Professor at Granada University.

But the rescue arrived at a bad time for the Spanish government, which last week announced a 15 billion euros ($18.55 billion) austerity package to repair public finances and jitters spread over Greece. Investors fear that bank balance sheets in some euro zone countries could deteriorate to such an extent that the government will struggle to bail them out.

"We believe the intervention is quite negative news for the financial system, for the sovereign risk profile and for the economy in general," Credit Suisse analyst Santiago Lopez said in a note to clients.

Losses at the savings banks -- known as cajas -- could cost the state, via the FROB, 43 billion euros, Morgan Stanley analysts estimated last month.

The news weighed on Spain's listed bank shares on Monday as concerns re-emerged over the health of the country's leading financial institutions still reeling from S&P's sovereign ratings downgrade last month.

At 1220 GMT, shares in Spain's biggest Santander (SAN.MC) fell 2.63 percent to 8.37 euros, while BBVA (BBVA.MC) fell 2.91 percent to 8.47 euros.

But analysts said the stability of Spain's financial system was not at risk.

"Foreign investors could be reading the CajaSur intervention as a signal that further bank bailouts could be on the cards and are extrapolating the savings banks' situation to the rest of the system ... But there is no foundation for this," Renta 4 bank analyst Nuria Alvarez said.

The problems of the cajas are well known, and the Bank of Spain says it wants to more than halve the number of ailing small lenders to about 20.

The FROB was created after the Bank of Spain took over Caja Castilla La Mancha last March and has up to 99 billion euros at its disposal to facilitate mergers between the small lenders.

BAILOUTS TO OVERIDE POLITICS

But disagreements over cross regional tie-ups and local politics have ensnarled the consolidation process, however, in a similar way to that facing Germany's Landesbank.

Spanish banks have largely weathered the global financial crisis thanks to strict regulatory oversight, but the bursting of a decade-long housing bubble has left them with an over 300 billion euros ($408.4 billion) debt hangover.

The country's savings banks -- which hold half the assets of Spain's financial system -- are seeing profits eroded by soaring bad loans as real estate developers go the wall.

But unlike listed banks, their ownership model makes it difficult to for them to shore up their balance sheets as they are controlled by local politicians and can only issue non-voting shares with lots of strings attached.

CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING?

About a third of the savings banks have already completed mergers and another third are immersed in talks.

The government has said that about another third of these small lenders need to merge to survive.

Analysts said the Bank of Spain will now be monitoring the merger process involving Caja Guadalajara and CajasSol.

"It's tempting to take a negative cross-read from the CajaSur intervention...But it has prompted other savings banks to reactivate merger talks over the weekend," the analyst said.

According to press reports on Monday, Basque bank BBK and Alicante-based Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo are hoping to present their merger plans this week.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aQIQDMHLlUr4

The Federal Reserve will probably transfer record earnings exceeding $70 billion to the U.S. Treasury Department this year on income from assets including mortgage-backed securities, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“The Federal Reserve’s actions to stabilize the financial markets are likely to significantly increase the amount of its remittances over the next few years,” the CBO said in a report released today. It was prepared at the request of Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

The Fed returned $47.4 billion of its income last year, primarily from interest earnings on its assets, according to the Fed’s annual consolidated financial statements. The central bank earns interest income from its holdings of Treasury securities, loans to banks and its holdings of housing debt, the Fed said. The amount returned to the Treasury in 2009 was $15.7 billion higher than in 2008.

The Fed’s interest earnings soared as it purchased $1.43 trillion of housing debt to support mortgage lending, housing and credit markets. The mortgage-backed securities and Federal agency debt purchased by the Fed have higher yields than the Fed’s traditional holdings of Treasury securities.

The CBO report estimated that the value of subsidies from the Fed’s aid during the financial crisis was $21 billion. The biggest subsidies occurred through the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, where subsidies totaled $13 billion, according to the CBO’s estimate.

Risk of Losses

“The TALF exposes the Federal Reserve to the risk of losses from defaults because it provides multiyear funding against risky asset-backed securities,” the report said.

Those risks are partially offset by the Treasury’s commitment to absorb the first $20 billion in realized losses, collateral haircuts which limit the amount of the loan to less than the value of the assets backing it, and interest income, the report said.

“The expansion of the central bank’s activities has also significantly increased the uncertainty associated with its remittances over the next several years,” the report said. The Fed’s programs “entail considerably more risk of losses -- from increased interest rates, defaults, or prepayments of the mortgages backing its MBSs,” the report said.

The CBO’s assessment supports the assertion of Fed officials that the purchase of toxic assets from Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. will eventually be profitable. The CBO estimates that the Fed will earn $2 billion each from the two programs it created to help AIG and $200 million from the Bear Stearns rescue.

The CBO report estimates the earnings will remain above $70 billion in 2011 and fall to $41 billion by 2013 before rising to $55 billion by 2020.

Getting ready for a heckuva ride today on the WSExpress.
K&R!

After watching C span cover the "save social security club" last night there is not much left to say.

Recovery officially stalled?


http://www.businessinsider.com/us-gdp-first-quarter-2010-5

I'm going to be asking the condo to sue the Ex-P for embezzlement--the losses there were tangible, not fantasy paper!

There is no there, there.

and while it is Memorial Day, it would also be nice to have a humorous theme.

Seeing as I am fried by the successful ouster of a really bad person, all the meetings and scurrying that go into regime change, AND I am to be a cook at Monday's BBQ, AND it's hotter and humider than the body can take:

I am asking for suggestions of music, performance art, and the like to flavor the ghastly garbage that there is to post on WEE.

What cultural icon or thematic material haven't we honored yet? Ideas? Suggestions? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

I dunno. these things just pop into my head.


Tansy Gold, who never read Proust but has a copy of something of his on the shelf over here somewhere. . . . .

My fave for the Holiday would be the late, great, Phil Ochs singing "I Ain't Marching Anymore".
Also, perennial fave "War (what is it good for)" and "Forever Young" for all who have departed way too early in the many fiascos remembered on this day.
...and for the grill, here's a terrific idea for burgers that I can't wait to try! (apolgies if you are not a carnivore!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/dining/26mini.html?emc=eta1

is "stirring the pot" - under which goes "radical" or just anti-authoritarian music, drama, literature, comedy, social commentary, lives well lived, martyrs to oppression, all truth-tellers, seers, warriors for justice, and ... cooks and cooking - the inevitable lot of ... someone (but most often a woman)for holidays, including memorial day BBQs and picnics!

We could swap recipes, I suppose....odes to food, esp. chocolate...I'll let it simmer for a bit.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-charges-financial-adviser-rb-234639292.html;_ylt=AqDNO39mXhm3XpBRUbEO_pK7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE1YjExaGY2BHBvcwM5BHNlYwN0b3BTdG9yaWVzBHNsawNjZWxlYmFkdmlzb3I-?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kenneth Starr, a New York investment adviser to celebrities such as movie director Martin Scorcese and actor Uma Thurman, was arrested by U.S. agents on Thursday on charges of running an alleged investment fraud of as much as $30 million, prosecutors said.

According to an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court by an Internal Revenue Service agent, Starr ran a complex set of schemes involving his son, his wife, prominent New York Democratic Party politician Andrew Stein and "a former national official of a major political party," and "a partner at a prominent national law firm."

The criminal complaint charging Starr with wire fraud, investment adviser fraud and money laundering alludes to a "who's who" of wealthy New Yorkers as his clients or associates -- "an actress," "an elderly heiress," a "retired prominent basketball player" and a jeweler. None of them were identified in court documents.

snip

Starr, 65, is accused of bilking high net-worth investors through Starr Investment Advisers and Starr & Co. His wife, Diane Passage, and Colcave LLC, another firm Starr controlled, were also named as defendants in civil charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.


oh, wait... you thought I meant THAT Starr? You wish....

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

if the True Believers would still think everything is OK.

Goebbels would have sold his Soul to have control of the kind of conditioning that Americans live under.

. . . . but don't follow the link contained therein unless you are prepared to be marinated in Kool-Aid


It is scary.





TG

This one here is full of fun stuff and much stuff to be stuffed. Take a look and see what you think.

You've developed a very sick, evil kind of humor. You're delighting in torture.

I like it!



TG, who has her own sick brand of humor. . . . .

:think:

Why? It's a bloody joke anymore.

Sure there are a couple of days here and there with 10-20pt movement but I am seeing more 300-400pt+ swings recently. It looks like the volatility of 2008 is coming back.

Fri May 28, 2010 12:53am BST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The euro staged a broad rally and U.S. stocks jumped about 3 percent on Thursday, after China said Europe remains a key investment market for its foreign-exchange reserves.

Business

The People's Bank of China said a Financial Times report that Beijing was concerned about its euro-zone bond holdings due to the European debt crisis was groundless. The report had driven the euro to a near four-year low on Wednesday and cut short a rally in U.S. stocks.

Stocks in Europe and emerging markets also jumped and crude oil prices jumped 4 percent as the perceived risk that China might change the composition of its foreign exchange reserves was reduced.

"Reports from the front suggested that investors might become frightened that China could do something drastic," said Douglas Peta, an independent market strategist in New York. "Getting some assurance that Chinese sales of European sovereign debt isn't imminent is making everyone feel better."

European shares closed above the 1,000 mark for the first time in just over a week while government debt prices fell as the bid for safety ebbed. Stocks in emerging markets also surged, with Brazil shares up more than 3 percent.

Bargain hunters picked through stock markets that had been beaten down by fears that Europe's debt crisis could spark a credit crunch and undermine the global economic recovery.

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE64P2Z520100527

So, any chance anyone could sue the FT?

(Greetings from next door to the Alhambra, Granada on a dead-still but potentially thundery silent night. Silent but for the haunting sound of a Little Owl hunting through the woods outside: ping, ping, ping... like a submarine sonar. I understand that the theory is that the owl's potential prey, on hearing that sound approach, will freeze in justified fear. But every now and then some terrified small creature will panic and make a run for it. That is the one the hunter will home in on for the kill. Shit: there it is now.

On Saturday evening I take the ferry from Cadiz, after visiting Ronda I hope, for the Canary Islands. I'll be home on Monday, Atlantic storms permitting. Yes, long-distance diesel-powered driving is definitely to be recommended on the open roads of Spain, if you're brave but relaxed about it.

Sometimes it is nice to be alone, but not alone. :hi: )