STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 18 May 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 18 May 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 17 May 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 17 May 2012
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Dow Jones 12,442.49 -156.06 (-1.24%)
S&P 500 1,304.86 -19.94 (-1.51%)
Nasdaq 2,813.69 -60.35 (-2.10%)


[font color=green]10 Year 1.69% -0.07 (-3.98%)
30 Year 2.78% -0.11 (-3.81%) [font color=black]


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

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



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

[Demeter]

1. When the NIKKEI Starts Out at -145

You have a premonition how the week will end....with a whimper, not a bang.

[Fuddnik]

35. Minus 145----now minus 207 is not a whimper.

It's a major bang. An implosion.

Gonna be a good day for drinking tomorrow. Laughably, US Futures are slightly up.

[girl gone mad]

37. The worriers might want to stay in bed tomorrow.

No recovery after the lunch break, looks like it will be strong selling into the close. With the exception of the Swiss market and British Columbia, all futures and indices are in the red.

[Tansy_Gold]

60. Up at 3:00 a.m. n/t

[Demeter]

2. Anybody want to bet when the DOW crosses 12,000?

We could run a pool for bragging rights.

[westerebus]

7. Before Memorial Day.

Do we need to be more specific?

To me personally, tomorrow looks good.

But, the FED likes to ring out the shorts by the weekend.

Say Greece goes belly up this Sunday.

The FED will buy with both hands come Monday. All of TARP x 2 plus plus.

Tuesday, if Greece is not engulfed in flames, maybe a touch above 12.

Wednesday being hump day is out. Except for Italy which is due for a down grade and other bad news.

Next Thursday's good. It will not matter that Spain screams: no mas!

When's the next full moon?

[Demeter]

9. Two weeks

Saw the last sliver this morning.

[Po_d Mainiac]

34. 2 days after 12,325 (support) gets taken out

[Roland99]

110. and that just might happen today. at 12,359 right now.

[Roland99]

113. missed it by 12pts just a few min ago but then the DJIA rebounded over 30pts

[Demeter]

42. Apocalypse Fairly Soon By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/opinion/krugman-apocalypse-fairly-soon.html

Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union — could come apart at the seams. We’re not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years. And the costs — both economic and, arguably even more important, political — could be huge...This doesn’t have to happen; the euro (or at least most of it) could still be saved. But this will require that European leaders, especially in Germany and at the European Central Bank, start acting very differently from the way they’ve acted these past few years. They need to stop moralizing and deal with reality; they need to stop temporizing and, for once, get ahead of the curve.

I wish I could say that I was optimistic.

The story so far: When the euro came into existence, there was a great wave of optimism in Europe — and that, it turned out, was the worst thing that could have happened. Money poured into Spain and other nations, which were now seen as safe investments; this flood of capital fueled huge housing bubbles and huge trade deficits. Then, with the financial crisis of 2008, the flood dried up, causing severe slumps in the very nations that had boomed before. At that point, Europe’s lack of political union became a severe liability. Florida and Spain both had housing bubbles, but when Florida’s bubble burst, retirees could still count on getting their Social Security and Medicare checks from Washington. Spain receives no comparable support. So the burst bubble turned into a fiscal crisis, too.

Europe’s answer has been austerity: savage spending cuts in an attempt to reassure bond markets. Yet as any sensible economist could have told you (and we did, we did), these cuts deepened the depression in Europe’s troubled economies, which both further undermined investor confidence and led to growing political instability.

And now comes the moment of truth.

Greece is, for the moment, the focal point. Voters who are understandably angry at policies that have produced 22 percent unemployment — more than 50 percent among the young — turned on the parties enforcing those policies. And because the entire Greek political establishment was, in effect, bullied into endorsing a doomed economic orthodoxy, the result of voter revulsion has been rising power for extremists. Even if the polls are wrong and the governing coalition somehow ekes out a majority in the next round of voting, this game is basically up: Greece won’t, can’t pursue the policies that Germany and the European Central Bank are demanding. So now what? Right now, Greece is experiencing what’s being called a “bank jog” — a somewhat slow-motion bank run, as more and more depositors pull out their cash in anticipation of a possible Greek exit from the euro. Europe’s central bank is, in effect, financing this bank run by lending Greece the necessary euros; if and (probably) when the central bank decides it can lend no more, Greece will be forced to abandon the euro and issue its own currency again. This demonstration that the euro is, in fact, reversible would lead, in turn, to runs on Spanish and Italian banks. Once again the European Central Bank would have to choose whether to provide open-ended financing; if it were to say no, the euro as a whole would blow up. Yet financing isn’t enough. Italy and, in particular, Spain must be offered hope — an economic environment in which they have some reasonable prospect of emerging from austerity and depression. Realistically, the only way to provide such an environment would be for the central bank to drop its obsession with price stability, to accept and indeed encourage several years of 3 percent or 4 percent inflation in Europe (and more than that in Germany). Both the central bankers and the Germans hate this idea, but it’s the only plausible way the euro might be saved.

MORE

[Demeter]

43. Editorial: Germany, the Crisis and the G-8

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/opinion/germany-the-crisis-and-the-g-8.html

When the leaders of the Group of 8 gather at Camp David on Friday, President Obama and the others must press Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to commit to a euro-zone growth package. This is no time to mince words: Her one-size-fits-all austerity program has been a failure, pushing heavily indebted countries deeper into recession, making it even harder for them to pay off their debts. It is putting the already-weak recovery in the United States at risk and is fueling instability and extremism in Europe.

After months of obstinance, Ms. Merkel has softened her stance — saying that Germany is open to stimulus to spur growth, employment and development in Greece and pledging to work with the new French president, François Hollande, on a program to promote growth across recession-racked Europe. It is unclear, however, whether her comments reflect a true and lasting change of heart.

Ms. Merkel’s new talking points appear to be driven mainly by the defeat in France of Nicolas Sarkozy, her longtime partner-in-austerity, and the spreading chaos in Greece, where anti-austerity voters brought down the government this month and fears that the country could soon exit the euro have provoked a run on the banks and capital flight.

German officials made things worse by talking about the euro zone’s ability to carry on without Greece. Ms. Merkel is now insisting that she wants Greece to remain, but it will take more than kind words to change things...

[Demeter]

45. EU, ECB working on Greece exit contingency: paper

http://news.yahoo.com/eu-ecb-working-greece-exit-contingency-paper-084831393.html

The European Commission and the European Central Bank are working on an emergency scenario in case Greece has to leave the euro zone, EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht said in an interview published on Friday.

The comments would appear to be the first time that an EU official has confirmed the existence of contingencies being taken for a possible Greek exit from the currency bloc. Speculation has been rife about such plans, but their existence has not been confirmed.

"A year and a half ago there may have been the danger of a domino effect," he said in an interview with the Belgium's Dutch-language newspaper De Standaard.

"But today there are, both within the European Central Bank and the European Commission, services that are working on emergency scenarios in case Greece doesn't make it."

[Demeter]

3. "What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate"

[westerebus]

4. badda bing!

If Scott Walker was a woman?

I am NOT going there.

Not gonna do it.

Tempting? YES

I will resist.

[Demeter]

5. I don't get it

But I haven't been paying much attention to Wisconsin...if it's too ugly, send me email with explanation.

[Po_d Mainiac]

24. If Scott Walker was a woman

u woodn't screw it with the Fudd's dick?

[westerebus]

29. I never said a word.

Not a word.

[Fuddnik]

36. No, but my motorcycle mechanic could probably sum it up.

He's an old Hells Angel, who's not always on his meds, but, he knows his shit.

[Roland99]

84. Been a nice theme this week.

[Turbineguy]

6. Selling

to free up money to buy facebook?

[Demeter]

10. Selling to buy cheap gold, more likely

[Po_d Mainiac]

26. That P/E of 107 is appealing aint it! n/t

[Demeter]

8. Facebook prices IPO at $38

Facebook has raised $16bn in an initial public offering that values the world’s largest social networking group at $104bn, vaulting the eight-year-old company to among the 25 most valuable public groups in the US.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/VKY5JJ/8Z16XI/Q38E1/EXNOYE/HYVPVF/W1/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

41. Facebook launches biggest tech IPO on record

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-17/markets/31743809_1_ipo-analyst-pricing-renaissance-capital

Shares fetch $38 price in $16 billion sale; trading begins Friday...The size of the deal makes Facebook (US:FB) the third largest IPO ever in the U.S. market, and the biggest debut since Visa Inc.’s $17.8 billion IPO in March 2008, according to IPO market-research firm Renaissance Capital.

The social-networking giant’s shares will begin trading Friday morning on the Nasdaq Stock Market, under the ticker symbol “FB.” Trading on the shares is expected to begin around 11 a.m. Eastern, according to a Nasdaq statement.

The pricing of the IPO comes in at the high end of the company’s previously expected range of $34 to $38 per share. Facebook had raised both the price range and share count of the offering earlier this week, in the face of strong investor demand for what is the largest technology debut on record.

But some investors may consider the debut price a bit of a disappointment, as some expectations were creeping more to the $40 range and higher, prior to Thursday’s market close.

The weak stock market likely played some factor in Facebook’s pricing, according to James Krapfel, IPO analyst for Morningstar....

[Demeter]

55. Giant Tax Loopholes and Tax Breaks: All About the Multi-Billion Dollar Facebook IPO

http://www.alternet.org/story/155488/giant_tax_loopholes_and_tax_breaks%3A_all_about_the_multi-billion_dollar_facebook_ipo?akid=8805.227380.YwWqJE&rd=1&t=18

Shares of the social network go on sale Friday at an initial public offering expected to be one of the largest ever--so how's it managing to get a $3 billion tax break? ...Thanks to a loophole, Facebook (and other corporations) is able to issue stock options to its employees as part of their compensation, and then write them off on its taxes. That means that even though the company's expected to be worth around $100 billion after the IPO, its tax bill for this year will likely be wiped out—and it might even get a half-billion-dollar refund.

“For every dollar in stock options its employees take (which cost the company nothing to give out), Facebook can take a dollar of 'net operating loss' tax deductions,” wrote Dan Cantor of the Working Families Party. “So how much are taxpayers losing in this deal? At least $3 billion this year alone, plus hundreds of millions in retroactive refunds.”

Robert McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice explains further:

According to Facebook’s SEC filing (in connection with its upcoming initial public stock offering), the company has issued options to favored employees which will allow them to purchase 187 million Facebook shares for little or nothing in 2012. Options for 120 million of these shares (worth $4.8 billion) are owned by [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg. The company indicates that it expects all of the 187 million vested options to be exercised in 2012.

Under current tax law, exercise of all of the options will generate $7.5 billion in tax deductions for Facebook, which will produce $3 billion in federal and state tax reductions for the company.

Just so we're clear: the company is issuing 421 million shares today—or possibly more if the "demand is high." Those shares will cost between $34 and $38 each, and be sold mostly to the posh clients of underwriters Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, among others. Facebook will likely raise $16 to $18 billion in one day with this stock offering.

The IPO will be “one of the biggest transfers of wealth in market history,” Lee Munson, head of the asset management firm Portfolio LLC, told Forbes. Munson is warning clients away from purchasing Facebook shares because Zuckerberg will remain in control of voting rights, as he'll retain the majority of stock...

MORE

[Tansy_Gold]

62. Someone once said something about

loopholes and nooses.

Who was that, I wonder?

[Demeter]

11. Iran ships oil on behalf of Syria

A tanker attempts to evade detection by switching flags and ownership, as it assists the Assad regime in bypassing international sanctions

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/0QSDPP/YBQ32K/CWSVD/PF6500/8ZTELR/6C/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

12. Moody's prepares for sweeping downgrade of Spain's banking sector

Moody's is preparing a sweeping downgrade of Spain's banking sector likely to be announced as early as tonight, several lenders told the Financial Times.

It was not clear which specific banks would suffer, but was thought to include at least the majority of the country's large banks.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/2SRI11/08SUOK/87I64/979LJS/NJ5B75/6C/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

39. Moody's Downgrades 16 Spanish Bank Ratings

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152950667/moodys-downgrades-16-spanish-bank-ratings?ft=1&f=1001

...Moody's lowered its rating by one to three notches on the long-term debt and deposit ratings for 16 Spanish banks and one U.K. subsidiary on Thursday.

Moody's said it took the action because the banks face a rising tide of bad loans with Spain's economy in recession, its real estate market a shambles and its unemployment rate stubbornly high. Spain's banking sector is further threatened by its exposure to the eurozone debt crisis.

The ratings on the banks now range from low-end investment grade to the high-end of junk status. The country's bank ratings are below most Western European banking systems.

[Demeter]

44. Nicosia acts to shore up Cypriot bank

Cyprus attempts to reduce its vulnerability to the Greek debt crisis by moving to underwrite a €1.8bn share capital increase by Popular Bank

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/VKY5JJ/2ORTZU/6ADGM/PF6WPG/PFW6J0/MQ/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=18

[Demeter]

49. Big banks need extra $566bn, says Fitch

Rating agency suggests 29 ‘global systemically important financial institutions’ face hurdles if they are to meet the tougher Basel III standards

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/WDI4RR/XHE3V3/06MUC/MSBZ87/VLEABX/UP/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=18

[Ghost Dog]

51. Spanish banks defy Moody’s downgrade

Spanish banks rebounded on Friday to shrug off a wide-ranging downgrade by Moody’s on Thursday and news that the Spanish government was beginning an audit of its banking sector.

Bankia, which was part-nationalised last week and fell hardest on Thursday clawed back over 30 per cent in early trading to lead the charge as Spain’s benchmark index, the Ibex, rose 0.4 per cent overall to 6,561.1. Bankia’s gains cooled as the session developed and the stock eased back to trade up 18.5 per cent by mid-morning at €1.69...

... The bank was also helped by reports that the Spanish government had hired Goldman Sachs to carry out an independent valuation of Bankia, while analysts suggested the stock was benefiting from speculative buying and a potential short squeeze – there is currently some 6.2 per cent of stock Bankia stock out on loan...

...Other Spanish banks also bounced following falls on Thursday. BBVA jumped 2.5 per cent to €4.89 while Santander gained 2 per cent to €4.54. Caixabank and Banko Populare joined the fun, bouncing 1.6 per cent to €2.23 and 1.1 per cent to €1.10 respectively.

/... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2468908a-a0c5-11e1-9fbd-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fmarkets%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

[Demeter]

13. JPMorgan unit has $100bn of risky bonds

The unit at the centre of JPMorgan Chase’s $2bn trading loss has built up positions totalling more than $100bn in asset-backed securities and structured products – the complex, risky bonds at the centre of the financial crisis in 2008.

These holdings are in addition to those in credit derivatives which led to the losses and have mired the bank in regulatory investigations and criticism.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/8P1R88/5V3BSD/GYN7Q/QNO4C2/VLE2JH/4O/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

17. How JPMorgan’s storm in a teapot grew

The bank’s idea for hedging credit risk, which went spectacularly wrong, has become something of an epic tale for hedge fund managers

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/H60H77/MSZ5KN/LSLXF/XH79G9/ZGJ2CN/6C/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

22. Les Leopold: Don't Look Now -- Banks Are Still Ruining America: 6 Harsh Lessons from the JP Morgan F

http://www.alternet.org/story/155431/don%27t_look_now_--_banks_are_still_ruining_america%3A_6_harsh_lessons_from_the_jp_morgan_fiasco?akid=8788.227380.tbrr1O&rd=1&t=8

...The truth is that there are no good banks and bad banks among the giants of finance. That’s just a feel-good story that gives us false hope that individuals and individual institutions can fix a system that is rotten to the core.

JP Morgan Chase is no different than other big banks, except that it is the biggest. It is part of an entwined system of too-big-to-fail institutions that are ripping us off. Leading up to the 2008 crash, it was up to its eyeballs packaging and selling mortgage-backed securities that were designed to fail. It helped pump up the housing bubble, profited while it was inflating and profited again while it burst. It was forced to pay a $153 million fine last year for “misleading big investors about the riskiness of mortgage-related securities it was selling just as the home-loan market was melting down.”

JP Morgan helped to crash our system in 2008 and profited handsomely from the bailouts it claimed it really didn’t need (but thank you very much, we’ll take them anyway). And now it's back in the gambling business just like all the other big banks and hedge funds. And should another crash come, we’ll again be asked to pick up the tab -- it's still “too big to fail” according to the conventional wisdom.

But the problem is bigger and deeper than it was even before the horrendous crash. On a day-to-day basis, these large financial institutions use their vast gambling enterprises, to extract profits from our economic system while creating little or no value in return. Economists call these profits “economic rents.” That's French for “rip-offs.” Where does this money come from if the banks are not creating new economic value? It comes from the rest of us in the form of stagnating wages, higher fuel costs and excessive financial fees on mortgages, credit cards and loans. It also comes from tax breaks for the super-rich that the rest of us have to make up. And finally it comes from the costs associated with financial crashes – bailouts, job loss and deficit-related problems.

How big is big?

The top five U.S. banks own approximately 60 percent of all U.S. banking assets.

Their combined assets total $8.5 trillion which is slightly larger than China’s GDP ($7.2 trillion).

JP Morgan Chase heads the list with $2.3 trillion in assets, which is about the size of Great Britain's GDP. We’re talking big.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

23. Are JPMorgan’s Losses a Canary in a Coal Mine? (THE PROVERBIAL 600 LB CANARY)

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9199-are-jpmorgans-losses-a-canary-in-a-coal-mine

VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT AT LINK

[Demeter]

31. JPMorgan's Dimon says will testify before Congress

http://news.yahoo.com/senate-banking-committee-ask-dimon-testify-191710494--sector.html

JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has agreed to testify before Congress over the bank's recent trading losses, which have ignited a political debate over whether large U.S. banks need to be reined in by regulators or new laws.

U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson said in a statement on Thursday that his panel will invite Dimon to appear before Congress.

He did not say on what date the committee wants Dimon to testify but that it would follow a set of hearings with regulators on the trades and efforts to implement Wall Street reforms that will conclude on June 6....

[Demeter]

54. Memo to Mayor Bloomberg: JP Morgan Blow-Up is Not a ‘Hiccup’ -- It's a Giant, Ugly Warning

http://www.alternet.org/story/155449/memo_to_mayor_bloomberg%3A_jp_morgan_blow-up_is_not_a_%E2%80%98hiccup%E2%80%99_--_it%27s_a_giant%2C_ugly_warning_?page=entire

New York's Mayor Bloomberg rarely loses an opportunity to rush to the defense of the reckless financial industry where he first cut his fangs as an investment banker. His recent excuse of fellow 1 Percent Boy’s Club member Jamie Dimon in the wake of the JP Morgan blow-up was no exception. What was exceptional, even for the tone-deaf mayor, was his particular characterization of the loss of a chunk of change big enough to exceed the Gross National Product of, oh, several dozen countries:

“Jamie Dimon, I think — and I think you’d get general consensus — is one of the smartest people in the financial industry,” the mayor said. JPMorgan, as he put it, has “had a stellar reputation up until this hiccup.”

$2.2 billon and counting. A hiccup....

Only an avatar of the New Gilded Age like Bloomberg could view a couple of billion dollars gone up in smoke with the same alarm you and I might feel looking for a lost quarter under the sofa cushion. Or give unwavering praise to a man who heads the firm that was -- besides cheating the public with untold numbers of creative schemes -- the chief bank and swindle-abettor for Bernie Maddoff. (Oh, wait. President Obama defended Dimon, too.)

....A list of the most asinine things that have issued from the mouth of the mayor is rich and varied, of course. One cannot forget the 1998 assertion in response to an employee’s claims of being raped by one of his company’s honchos that he would believe a rape charge only if it was supported by "an unimpeachable third-party" witness.

Admittedly, that’s hard to match. But his drooling adoration of fatcat financiers and contempt for ordinary Americans has been especially noxious since the Wall Street-driven crash that cost millions of people their jobs, pensions and homes. Back in March, for example, he spoke fondly of Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein after derivatives salesman Greg Smith quit the firm and wrote an op-ed in the New York Times describing its habit of ripping off customers while laughing at their expense: “He’s trying to lead this firm at a time when God couldn’t lead it without being criticized.”

I'M TRYING TO IMAGE CHRIST DRIVING THE MONEY CHANGERS OUT OF THE TEMPLE, THEN PUTTING ON AN ARMANI SUIT TO MEET WITH THE BOARD OF GOLDMAN SACHS FOR ANNUAL BONUS AWARDS....

[Tansy_Gold]

61. The worst of it is that this wasn't "real" money

In other words, it wasn't wealth created through actually making things that real people use; it's $2.2 billion skimmed off the earnings of real people who did make things.

Wankers. Wankers all.

[Demeter]

64. Public vs. Private Morality Robert Reich

http://www.nationofchange.org/public-vs-private-morality-1337170668

Mitt Romney’s reaction to J.P. Morgan Chase’s mounting losses from reckless trades is “the market will take care of it.” His spokesman says “no taxpayer money was at risk” so we don’t need more financial regulation. Romney has even promised to repeal Dodd-Frank if he’s elected president.

Yet at the same time, Romney has come out strongly against same-sex marriage. He’s also against abortion. He has no problem with government intruding on the most intimate of decisions a person makes.

He’s got private and public morality upside down. He doesn’t want to regulate where regulation is necessary — at the highest reaches of the economy, where public immorality has cost us dearly, and will cost even more unless boardroom behavior is constrained. Yet he wants to regulate where regulation is least appropriate — at the level of the individual, in bedrooms and other intimate spaces, where private morality should govern.

This is a dangerous confusion. It should be a matter of personal choice whom to marry and when to have children. But it is undoubtedly a matter of public choice whether big banks should be allowed to take the kind of risky bets that plunged the economy into the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and whether people with great wealth and should be able to buy our democracy with huge campaign contributions.

Please see the attached video and pass it on.

[Demeter]

66. The Dog That Didn’t Bark: Obama on JPMorgan By Robert Reich

http://www.nationofchange.org/dog-didn-t-bark-obama-jpmorgan-1337263711

The dog that didn’t bark this week, let alone bite, was the President’s response to JP Morgan Chase’s bombshell admission of losing more than $2 billion in risky derivative trades that should never have been made.

“JP Morgan is one of the best-managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion,” the President said on the television show “The View,” which aired Tuesday, suggesting that a weaker bank might not have survived.

That was it. Not a word about Jamie Dimon’s tireless campaign to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill; his loud and repeated charge that the Street’s near meltdown in 2008 didn’t warrant more financial regulation; his leadership of Wall Street’s brazen lobbying campaign to delay the Volcker Rule under Dodd-Frank, which is still delayed; and his efforts to make that rule meaningless by widening a loophole allowing banks to use commercial deposits to “hedge” (that is, make offsetting bets) their derivative trades. Nor any mention Dimon’s outrageous flaunting of Dodd-Frank and of the Volcker Rule by setting up a special division in the bank to make huge (and hugely profitable, when the bets paid off) derivative trades disguised as hedges. Nor Dimon’s dual role as both chairman and CEO of JPMorgan (frowned on my experts in corporate governance) for which he collected a whopping $23 million this year, and $23 million in 2010 and 2011 in addition to a $17 million bonus.

Even if Obama didn’t want to criticize Dimon, at the very least he could have used the occasion to come out squarely in favor of tougher financial regulation. It’s the perfect time for him to call for resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act, of which the Volcker Rule – with its giant loophole for hedges — is a pale and inadequate substitute. And for breaking up the biggest banks and setting a cap on their size, as the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve recommended several weeks ago.

Wall Street’s biggest banks were too big to fail before the bailout. Now, led by JP Morgan Chase, they’re even bigger. Twenty years ago, the 10 largest banks on the Street held 10 percent of America’s total bank assets. Now they hold over 70 percent. This would give Obama a perfect way to distinguish himself from Mitt Romney — who has pledged to repeal Dodd-Frank altogether if he’s elected President, who has also been raking in more than $20 million a year through financial games, and who shares the same prevailing Wall Street view of the economy as profits to be maximized while people are minimized (to Romney, corporations are people). But the Obama campaign has so far chosen to attack Romney’s character rather than his place in the new American plutocracy, with ads highlighting the jobs that were lost when Romney, as head of Bain Capital, took over a Midwest steel company. It’s the same personal attack Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry leveled at Romney. But Gingrich and Perry had little choice. They didn’t want to criticize the system that allowed Romney to do this because their party celebrates no-holds-barred free-market capitalism. Obama does have a choice. He can assail Romney’s character but he can also take on the system that allows private-equity managers, as well as Wall Street’s biggest banks, to continue to make huge profits at the expense of average Americans. Romney is the poster-child for the excesses of that system, just as is Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase.

We are still at the very early stages of the 2012 campaign. There’s still time for Obama to come out swinging – not only at Romney but also at the system of which Romney is a part, and to base his campaign on policies that will make that system work for ordinary people. Let’s hope he does.

BUT FIRST, OBAMA BETTER "MOVE HIS MONEY" OUT OF THAT JPMORGAN CHECKING ACCOUNT....

[Hotler]

118. Nothing but a dog and pony show. Does the U.S. Senate Banking Committee really

need to hold a hearing to know just how fucked up things have become due to the likes of worms such as jamie Dimon and his fucking friends. Those fuckers need burried up to their waist in the public square and stoned to death, or better yet, let thousand of people walk by and piss on them. Are we (the SMW crew) the only people in this country that are pissed at the rat fuckers on Wall ST.?????

[Demeter]

119. That will only work if you take the Senate down at the same time

Cronies in crime, you know

[Demeter]

71. How Did the Original J.P. Morgan Do It?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-15/how-did-the-original-j-dot-p-dot-morgan-do-it

The United States emerged as the world’s leading industrial nation between the Civil War and the First World War. The towering heights of American capital were dominated by a handful of investment banks, with the most prestigious firm being J.P. Morgan & Co. Despite their considerable power, the investment banks were small. Morgan had a baker’s dozen of partners with at most three clerks per partner in the early 1900s, according to J. Bradford De Long, economist at the University of California, Berkeley. Even as late as the 1960s, Wall Street comprised some 20 partnerships with an average of 500 employees and an aggregate capital base of less than $100 million, estimates Roy Smith, former Goldman Sachs (GS) partner and economic historian at New York University Stern School of Business.

Today, Wall Street companies are global behemoths with hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide. The three best-known names—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley (MS), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM)—sport a combined market capitalization of some $222 billion. Over the past three decades, finance transformed itself into a growth business. The downside was painfully revealed during the global credit crunch of 2008. And an ugly reminder of the risks inherent trading just came when JPMorgan Chase announced it had lost $2.3 billion on a derivative-based profit-making strategy gone bad...

Odds are strong that financial regulations will neither hurt the economy nor dampen innovation—two traditional cautions. The reason is that the modern finance industry has become a bloated, inefficient sector of the economy. Put it this way:

“The finance industry of 1900 was just as able as the finance industry of 2010 to produce loans, bonds, and stocks, and it was certainly doing it more cheaply,” says Thomas Phillippon, finance economist at NYU’s Stern School of Business at New York University. Taken altogether, he adds, the “finance industry’s share of gross domestic product is about 2 percentage points higher than it needs to be, and this would represent an annual misallocation of resources of about $280 billion for the U.S. alone.”

...What happened in finance? It seems that much technological innovation dramatically hiked trading. The level of trading activity as a percentage of GDP is three times larger than at any time in history. Foreign-exchange trading volumes are more than 200 times greater than in 1977. Trading is a major revenue generator for the largest banks. Yet Phillippon says there’s little evidence that market prices are more informative than before or that risk sharing has improved. “We should all treat financial innovation with skepticism,” notes James Montier, a member of the asset allocation team at GMO, the Boston-based money manager. “All too often, financial innovation is just thinly veiled leverage.”

This isn’t to say there hasn’t been financial innovation in recent decades. The advent of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index in the mutual fund sector opened up low-cost, economically savvy investing for individuals. The ATM liberated checking accounts from bank branch hours. The rise of angel investing organizations created new capital-raising opportunities for entrepreneurs. Still, it’s striking how little financial innovation has benefited the economy and how much it has cost in recent decades. Perhaps we would all gain from a smaller financial system that played a supporting role to American business, rather than dominating it.

[Demeter]

75. Sen. Mark Warner, Leading Democratic Critic of Volcker Rule, Invests With JP Morgan Unit...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9149-senator-mark-warner-leading-democratic-critic-of-volcker-rule-invests-with-jp-morgan-unit-likely-affected-by-volcker-rule

In March, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) led members from both parties in introducing legislation to delay the implementation of the Volcker Rule, a new regulation to limit risky trading by big banks. He was joined by Pat Toomey (R-PA), one of the biggest proponents of financial deregulation in the Senate. The legislation may come back to haunt Warner, who has cultivated close financial ties with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Until the news last week, revealing that J.P. Morgan lost at least $2 billion due to a synthetic credit securities trading scheme, the bank had been leading an impressive lobbying campaign to weaken financial reform. The bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, and his legions of K Street lobbyists (over 48 registered lobbyists), had worked to chisel away at the Volcker Rule. The measure, scheduled for implementation this summer, would have applied to the type of trading that resulted in the loses for the bank.

An analyst with Guggenheim Securities recently observed that a delay in the Volcker Rule would be a very positive step for big banks like J.P. Morgan.

Just as J.P. Morgan’s lobbying now faces new scrutiny, Warner’s ties to the investment bank should be placed under the microscope. The Huffington Post noted that in the first three months of last year, the senator had received over a quarter of his donations from the bank, which had organized a fundraiser in his honor. But the ties between Warner and J.P. Morgan run deep. A Republic Report review of Warner’s personal finance disclosures reveal that the Virginia senator keeps a large amount of his money invested with Dimon’s bank. Most surprising is the fact that Warner is among the elite group of investors with money in Highbridge Capital, a J.P. Morgan-owned hedge fund that might be affected by the Volcker Rule....

[Demeter]

76. Some highlights from the Warner disclosure:

Warner invests up to $5,015,000 in J.P. Morgan’s Strategic IncomeOpportunities Fund
Warner invests up to $5,015,000 in J.P. Morgan’s Asia Equity Fund
Warner invests up to $600,000 in J.P. Morgan’s Tax Free Bond Fund
Warner invests up to $250,000 in J.P. Morgan’s Tax Free Reserve Sweep Fund
Warner invests up to $1,000,000 in J.P. Morgan’s U.S. Equity Fund
Warner invests up to $5,000,000 in J.P. Morgan’s Highbridge Capital
Warner invests up to $5,000,000 in J.P. Morgan’s Highbridge Quantitative Commodities

[Demeter]

77. JPMorgan Chase Chairman Jamie Dimon, the Whale Man and Glass-Steagall

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9134-jpm-chase-chairman-jamie-dimon-the-whale-man-and-glass-steagall

...Yes, $2 billion in the scheme of JPM Chase's book and quarterly earnings is tiny, a 'trading blip' as it's been called by some business press. But that's not a mitigating factor in what it represents. In this era dominated by a few consolidated and complex banks, the very fact that it's a relatively small loss IS the red flag.

First - because the loss could (and will) grow. Second, because even if it doesn't, it's a blatant example of a big bank incurring un-due risk within a barely regulated, highly correlated financial markets. It only takes another Paulson hedge fund, or a trading desk at Goldman Sachs, to short the hell out of the corporates that JPM Chase is synthetically long, or take whatever the other side really is, to create a liquidity crisis that will further screw those least able to access credit – individuals, small businesses, and productive capital users.

We know this. We've seen this. We're in this. There's no such thing as an isolated trading loss anymore. And yet Jamie Dimon, seated atop the most powerful bank in the world, has smugly led the charge to adamantly oppose any moves to alter the banking framework that allows him, or any bank, to call a bet - a hedge or client position or market-making maneuver - with central bank, government official, and regulatory impunity....

[Demeter]

79. What Did JPMorgan Execs Know and When Did They Know It?

http://www.propublica.org/thetrade/item/what-did-jpmorgan-execs-know-and-when-did-they-know-it

...The first lesson is that when they are in trouble, banks will mislead the world about their financials. And some will lie. Richard S. Fuld Jr. of Lehman Brothers, E. Stanley O’Neal and Charles O. Prince of Citigroup all played down their banks’ exposures before their institutions took vast losses. Were they deliberately misleading? Because of the failures to investigate the financial crisis adequately, we still don’t know.

But we do know that when banks hide their problems, they metastasize and can hurt the economy.

So before we move on to other vital discussions — about tightening the Volcker Rule, preventing the rollback of Dodd-Frank’s derivatives provisions, whether these banks are Too Big to Manage and more — we need to go back to the basics:

What did Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive, and Doug Braunstein, the chief financial officer, know and when did they know it? Were JPMorgan’s first-quarter earnings accurate? Were top JPMorgan officials misleading when they discussed the chief investment office’s investments?

MORE

[Demeter]

14. Greeks urged to run poll as euro vote

Warnings from Paris, Berlin and Brussels form co-ordinated effort to change election from referendum on bailout to one on euro membership

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/KC2844/R3WYKR/4VXHZ/979LS2/4CP5M4/SN/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

15. Merkel sacks minister after election defeat

Norbert Röttgen, until recently one of the chancellor’s favourite ministers and seen as a potential successor, takes blame for CDU’s defeat

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/KC2844/R3WYKR/4VXHZ/979LS2/TUY8GV/SN/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

ANGELA, ANGELA, ANGELA...I HOPE YOU HAD GROUNDS, AND NOT JUST A FIT OF PIQUE. DID HE TRY TO TELL YOU SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR?

[Demeter]

30. Obama seeking to move Merkel, Hollande closer (INQUIRING MINDS MUST ASK: WHY?)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-seeking-to-move-merkel-hollande-closer-2012-05-17?siteid=YAHOOB

...Over the last few days, administration officials have stuck to public stances that Europe has the will and the means to solve the crisis.

Obama will get to sit down with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hollande. Heather Conley, a senior fellow and director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the administration “wants Europe to finally get ahead of this crisis and to staunch it.”

The goal of the talks, according to Conley, is to help Merkel and Hollande reach a consensus on how to proceed...

I WONDER HOW MUCH THIS WILL COST US?

[girl gone mad]

38. Do you ever feel like you're in one of those films..

trapped in a hallway that never ever ends? No matter how fast you run it just keeps going on... and... on... forever....

We will never escape this crisis!

[Demeter]

40. It's much worse for the banksters

They truly will never escape. We are just collateral damage.

[Demeter]

16. Shell warns on US natural gas bounce

Chief executive Voser predicts strong recovery from the 10-year lows the fuel has hit as a result of the boom in shale gas production

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/H60H77/MSZ5KN/LSLXF/XH79G9/FK0S9H/6C/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

18. GE Capital resumes dividend to parent

Finance arm to make first payment since 2009 of nearly $5bn plus about 30% of earnings in a move seen as signalling company’s recovery

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/H60H77/MSZ5KN/LSLXF/XH79G9/SPDGBH/6C/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

19. Judge to allow wiretaps in Gupta case

A US judge plans to allow the government to play at trial recordings of three phone calls involved in the insider trading case against the former Goldman Sachs board member.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/H60H77/MSZ5KN/LSLXF/XH79G9/QNXHT2/6C/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=17

[Demeter]

20. LOCAL ALARM: Great Lakes oil spill

Last week, Debbie Stabenow's opponent in the US Senate race, Pete Hoekstra, said he backs plans to slant drill the Great Lakes for oil, putting the world's largest source of fresh water at risk.

I saw firsthand what 1 million gallons of crude spilled into the Kalamazoo River in 2010 looks like. Imagine what a larger BP-sized disaster would do to Lake Michigan, Huron, and Superior?

Senator Stabenow is fighting to make sure that kind of catastrophic disaster never happens. She wrote the law that bans the reckless Great Lakes drilling that Pete Hoekstra now supports.

I'm outraged that Pete Hoekstra wants to do away with Senator Stabenow's Great Lakes drilling ban, and I intend to do everything I can to support Debbie in this fight.

You can support her too by donating $5 or whatever you can afford right now.

Take a moment and think what would happen to our Great Lakes if Pete Hoekstra's slant drilling scheme goes wrong. Think about the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on our Lakes. Think about our drinking water. And think about our Michigan way-of-life.

Pete Hoekstra wants you to believe that drilling the Lakes is going to help our economy, but the truth is, it would only help Big Oil's bottom line at the expense of Michigan's most precious resource.

Now is the time to stand up and support Senator Debbie Stabenow.

While I'm no great fan of triangulating Stabenow, Hoekstra is just what he sounds like, the phlegm-clearing result of a rude noise.

[Demeter]

21. Weisbrot and Krugman are Wrong: Greece cannot pull off an Argentina

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/05/16/weisbrot-and-krugman-are-wrong-greece-cannot-pull-off-an-argentina/

Mark Weisbrot has been arguing, for some time now, that Greece must try to emulate Argentina; that is, to default on its debts not as a bargaining strategy that yields a New Deal within the Eurozone but, rather, in the context of exiting the Eurozone altogether and going it alone. Recently, Paul Krugman has endorsed this position ... I think they are profoundly wrong. There are two arguments against the recommendation that Greece and Argentina are similar enough to warrant an Argentinian road for Greece. There are those, like the Cato Institute and IMF diehards, who never forgave Argentina for having successfully escaped the clutches of the poisonous austerity (and internal devaluation) that the IMF had imposed upon the country so as to sacrifice a whole people’s prosperity in the interest of creditors, rentiers and assorted speculators who had flooded the country with dollars (during the era of the currency board). Believe me when I say that I am not one of them. Indeed, I salute the Argentinian people for having toppled a regime, and more than one government, that tried so desperately to sacrifice a proud people on the altar of IMF-led austerity. No, my criticism of the idea that Greece can ‘do’ an Argentina today stems from the view that the circumstances Greece is facing today are genuinely different to those of Argentina a decade ago. The differences between the two cases, which render the analogy redundant, are three:

1st difference: The potential of exports to act as shock absorbers

2nd difference: Greece has no peg with the euro. It has the euro!

3rd difference: Greece is perfectly capable of poisoning the water it is swimming in (Europe)

When Argentina defaulted and broke the peg, the ill effects on its trading partners (China, Brazil etc.), as well as on the broader macro-economy in which it was functioning, were negligible. If Greece leaves the euro, however, the results will most certainly prove catastrophic for our ‘economic ecology’, and in a never-ending circle of negative feedback, will bite our struggling nation back. To begin with, Greece must exit not only the Eurozone but also the European Union. This is non-negotiable and unavoidable. For if the Greek state is effectively to confiscate the few euros a citizen has in her bank account and turn them into drachmas of diminishing value, she will be able to take the Greek government to the European Courts and win outright. Additionally, the Greek state will have to introduce border and capital controls to prevent the export of its citizens euro-savings. Thus, Greece will have to get out of the European Union.

Setting aside the domestic ramifications over loss of agricultural subsidies, structural funds and possibly trade (following the possible introduction of trade barriers between Greece and the EU), the effects on the rest of the Eurozone will also be cataclysmic. Spain, already in a black hole, will see its GDP shrink by more than Greece’s current deflationary record rate, interest rate spreads will tend to 20% in Ireland and in Italy and, before long, Germany will decide to call it a day, bailing itself out (in unison with other surplus countries). This chain of events will cause a bitter recession in the surplus countries clustered around Germany, whose currency will appreciate through the roof, while the rest of Europe will sink into the mire of stagflation.

How good will this environment be for Greece? I submit it to you, dear reader, that the answer is: Not good at all! In short, whereas Argentina’s and Iceland’s successful default-devaluation strategy did not have adverse effects on the overarching environment in which they had to exist after their bold move, a Greek euro-exit will be the equivalent to poisoning the pool in which we must swim.

Epilogue

Does this mean that Greece ought to grin and bear the massive and misanthropic idiocy of the bailout-austerity package imposed upon it by the troika (EU-ECB-IMF)? Of course not. We should certainly default. But within the Eurozone. (See here for this argument.) And use our readiness to default as a bargaining strategy by which to bring about a New Deal for Europe (in a manner that I have written about here).

LOTS OF STUFF AT THIS BLOGSITE.

[Demeter]

73. In South America, Separating Fact From Fiction RE: ARGENTINA'S DEFAULT By Paul Krugman

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9152-in-south-america-separating-fact-from-fiction

The columnist Matt Yglesias, who just spent time in Argentina, recently wrote in Slate about the lessons of that country's recovery following its exit from the one-peso-one-dollar "convertibility law." As he says, it's a remarkable success story, and one that arguably holds lessons for the euro zone.

"Default and devaluation were hardly a party. They destroyed the country's banking system and wiped out many Argentines' savings," Mr. Yglesias wrote on May 1. "But it did work. Argentina has grown rapidly in subsequent years and its unemployment rate has fallen steadily to 6.7 percent, a rate we envy in the United States."

I'd just add something else: press coverage of Argentina is another one of those examples of how conventional wisdom can apparently make it impossible to get basic facts right. We keep getting stories about Ireland's recovery when there is, in fact, no recovery — but there should be, darn it, because they've done the "right" thing, so that's what we'll report....And conversely, articles about Argentina are almost always very negative in tone — they're irresponsible, they're renationalizing some industries, they talk populist, so things must be going very badly. Never mind the data, shown on this page.

[Demeter]

25. Wells Fargo: Blood on Its Hands: Man Suicides After Shocking Foreclosure Mistreatment

http://www.alternet.org/story/155442/wells_fargo_has_blood_on_its_hands%3A_desperate_man_commits_suicide_after_shocking_wells_fargo_foreclosure_mistreatment_?page=entire




Norman and Oriane Rousseau were one more couple pushed by a huge, greedy bank to the brink of homelessness. On Sunday, desperate and with nowhere to go, Norman Rousseau shot himself.

This is the story of what happens when an average couple is up against a giant, wealthy, powerful bank. Unfortunately the result is what the result always is when people are on their own against the wealthy and powerful: the bank ends up with all of their money, takes their house to sell and throws them out onto the street. In this case the bank is Wells Fargo.

The quick version of this terrible story is that Norman and Oriane Rousseau of Newbury Park, California were scammed into a predatory mortgage. But they made their payments anyway, always paying with a cashier’s check in person at the same branch. Then one day the bank misapplied their payment and said they still owed the money. This started a long, nasty process that led to the bank evicting the Rousseaus from their home.

Here’s the shocker: right at the start the Rousseaus came up with proof that the bank had received the payment and had cashed the check. But the bank continued to claim it had missed the payment, gave the Rousseaus the runaround, started applying fees, and used it as an excuse to foreclose on the house anyway.

The Rousseaus fought back, the bank dragged it out for so long and pulled so many tricks, getting its way every step of the process, until this last Sunday Norman Rousseau finally gave up and shot himself in despair – two days before the scheduled eviction, Tuesday, May 15. (The Rousseau’s lawyer just said he was able to win a 2-week delay.)



It is a tragic story, but when you dig into the details it becomes much worse...

[Demeter]

27. Preying on the Poor: How Government and Corporations Use the Poor as Piggy Banks

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9198-preying-on-the-poor-how-government-and-corporations-use-the-poor-as-piggy-banks

...In a study of 15 states, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University found 14 of them contained jurisdictions that charge a lump-sum “poverty penalty” of up to $300 for those who cannot pay their fees and fines, plus late fees and “collection fees” for those who need to pay over time. If any jail time is imposed, that too may cost money, as the hapless Edwina Nowlin discovered, and the costs of parole and probation are increasingly being passed along to the offender.

The predatory activities of local governments give new meaning to that tired phrase “the cycle of poverty.” Poor people are more far more likely than the affluent to get into trouble with the law, either by failing to pay parking fines or by incurring the wrath of a private-sector creditor like a landlord or a hospital.

Once you have been deemed a criminal, you can pretty much kiss your remaining assets goodbye. Not only will you face the aforementioned court costs, but you’ll have a hard time ever finding a job again once you’ve acquired a criminal record. And then of course, the poorer you become, the more likely you are to get in fresh trouble with the law, making this less like a “cycle” and more like the waterslide to hell. The further you descend, the faster you fall -- until you eventually end up on the streets and get busted for an offense like urinating in public or sleeping on a sidewalk.

I could propose all kinds of policies to curb the ongoing predation on the poor. Limits on usury should be reinstated. Theft should be taken seriously even when it’s committed by millionaire employers. No one should be incarcerated for debt or squeezed for money they have no chance of getting their hands on. These are no-brainers, and should take precedence over any long term talk about generating jobs or strengthening the safety net. Before we can “do something” for the poor, there are some things we need to stop doing to them.

[Demeter]

28. Video Helps Acquit Student In First Occupy Wall Street Trial

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/05/16/152854265/video-evidence-helps-acquit-student-in-first-occupy-wall-street-trial

Alexander Arbuckle, the defendant in the first Occupy Wall Street case to go to trial, has been found not guilty after video of the incident he was involved in showed him breaking no laws. The Village Voice reports:

"The protesters, including Arbuckle, were in the street blocking traffic, Officer Elisheba Vera testified. The police, on the sidewalk, had to move in to make arrests to allow blocked traffic to move. But there was a problem with the police account: it bore no resemblance to photographs and videos taken that night."

In an ironic twist, Arbuckle was actually working on a New York University photojournalism project aimed at defending police officers working at Occupy protests when he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

"I felt the police had been treated unfairly on [sic] the media," he said to the Village Voice. "All the focus was on the conflict and the worst instances of brutality and aggression, where most of the police I met down there were really professional and restrained."

Occupy videographer and indefatigable live-streamer Tim Pool's clip was used as evidence along with the NYPD's own video footage in the trial. The video shows protesters clearly using the sidewalk like they were asked to. (Watch the arrest around minute 35 of Pool's video.)

"What's happening is very similar to what happened in 2004 with the Republican National Convention," Arbuckle's lawyer told the Voice. "It's just a symptom of how the NYPD treats dissent. But what has changed is that there is more prevalence of video. It really makes our job a lot easier to have that video."

[Demeter]

32. Bedtime, Bambinos!

Sweet dreams and a fair morning!

[FarCenter]

33. Hoteliers put the blame on politicians

The shortfall in hotel bookings from abroad after the May 6 election has risen to between 30 and 50 percent, depending on origin and location, the Panhellenic Hoteliers’ Association said Thursday.

The drop is reported highest in the Peloponnese, on Corfu and on Crete, around 40 percent on Kos and about 30 percent in Halkidiki and on the Cycladic islands.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_17/05/2012_442697

[Demeter]

46. Deficit Reduction: The Great Distraction By Dean Baker

http://www.nationofchange.org/deficit-reduction-great-distraction-1337089527

RIGHTEOUS RANT--WORTH READING!

[Demeter]

47. US urges allies to make Afghanistan pledges

The Obama administration is engaged in last-minute arm-twisting to secure financial support for Kabul from other Nato members ahead of a weekend summit

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/VKY5JJ/2ORTZU/6ADGM/PF6WPG/VLEAUA/MQ/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=18

I DON'T KNOW WHETHER THIS IS CHUTZPAH OR STUPIDITY...OR BOTH

[Demeter]

48. Romney gains on Obama in funds race

President Obama raised $43.6m in April, while Mitt Romney was close behind with $40.1m, but May’s figures will be the first to be on a level playing field

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/VKY5JJ/2ORTZU/6ADGM/PF6WPG/ZGJ5H8/MQ/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=18

[Demeter]

50. Banks poised to seize YPF stake

Petersen Energía has defaulted on a loan from Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and Itaú that was used to fund its purchase of YPF shares

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/WDI4RR/XHE3V3/06MUC/MSBZ87/4CPD2U/UP/t?a1=2012&a2=5&a3=18

I GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS...



ACTUALLY, THAT'S "SQUID..WHY IS IT ALWAYS VAMPIRE SQUID?"

[Demeter]

52. Chicago's Cracking Down on Protests but Nurses Union Still Planning Huge Rally with Tom Morello

http://www.alternet.org/story/155104/chicago%27s_cracking_down_on_protests_but_nurses_union_still_planning_huge_rally_with_tom_morello?page=entire

G-8 leaders may seclude themselves at Camp David, but National Nurses United and groups will continue with their plans for a massive rally and protest on May 18 in Chicago...Activists claimed victory when the White House moved the G-8 to Camp David. Thousands of people had vowed to protest the meetings and the city of Chicago was struggling to prepare for security concerns with both G-8 and the NATO summit happening so close together. Success has only fueled their efforts for continued Chicago demonstrations.

The May 18 rally was originally planned to begin after a march from the hotel the nurses will be staying at and holding a conference. Last week, Chicago officials decided to pull the permit and force the rally to Grant Park, a location that would have pushed the protest out of view of the more business-friendly downtown. Ultimately both sides reached an agreement that would allow the rally to remain at Daley Plaza but cancel any plans to march in the downtown area.

National Nurses United Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro said the ordeal started after the organization placed in an ad in the Chicago Reader. DeMoro said the Chicago officials claim they were worried about former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello drawing hundreds of thousands of people to Daley Plaza. Yet the nurses have advertised the rally with flyers and emails for a couple of months now, boasting of Morello’s attendance. Morello responded to the city’s claim by saying he should run against Rahm Emanuel if the mayor is afraid of his popularity.

"I've always been welcome in Chicago. You know who is not welcome?" asked Morello. "The G-8."

MORE

[Demeter]

53. Clinton, Boehner, Other Rich White Guys Had A "Summit" And Agreed: It's Your Fault By RJ Eskow

http://www.alternet.org/story/155464/bill_clinton%2C_boehner%2C_and_some_other_rich_white_guys_had_a_%22summit%22_and_agreed%3A_it%27s_your_fault?akid=8799.227380.ow25Rg&rd=1&t=21

This week a bunch of rich white guys held a "Fiscal Summit" and agreed that:

1. Despite the fact that unemployment is causing untold suffering for millions of people, it's not very important.

2. Despite the fact that wage stagnation is destroying the middle class, that's not important either.

3. Despite the fact that we need the social safety net more than ever after what they've done to the economy, it's expendable.

4. Despite the fact that our government can borrow money at record low rates and use it to put people to work, thereby ending the recession and jumpstarting the economy, that option's not even worth discussing.

5. Despite the fact that these men all possess great power, wealth, and/or influence, everything that's wrong with the economy is your fault.

6. Since it's all your fault, you better get ready to pay up.

Oh, and one other thing:

7. They're all very smart and very brave. It's too bad the rest of you people are such jerks.
Any questions? Let's hope not, because they're all busy men and it's great golfing weather this week in DC.

The Summiteers convened in a nation wracked by unemployment and filled with crumbling schools and bridges. There they concluded that our most urgent problem is ... government deficits. That's like preaching about water conservation when your house in on fire.

The best that can be said about this billionaire-funded display of arrogance, ignorance, and self-satisfied moral decay is this: If bullish*t were nickels they could have ended the deficit today...The low point of the day was the spectacle of former President Clinton mouthing false platitudes designed to gut everything his party once represented. The bogus arguments put forward by Clinton and the session's other willfully uninformed participants have been decisively refuted time and time again since they were first raised - in 1935! And they were decisively put to rest by a bipartisan committee (doesn't the sacred word "bipartisan" help?) assembled by a Republican President - in 1958. Think of it: The Bowles/Simpson plan touted by Clinton would gut student loans and other educational programs that might someday help some other young kid from Hope, Arkansas follow in his footsteps. You'd think that would mean something. But then, like the other major participants, Bill Clinton's already got his.

Maybe that should have been the event's name: "I Got Mine 2012."

MORE BILE AT LINK

[Demeter]

58. Debt Limit Debacle, Part 2: GOP Will Drag Government, Economy to Hell to Appease Wingnuts

Wheels Within Wheels By Ed Kilgore

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_05/wheels_within_wheels037375.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+washingtonmonthly/rss+%28Political+Animal+at+Washington+Monthly%29

Yesterday Speaker John Boehner announced that House Republicans would again take hostage any measure to increase the public debt limit—which might be needed prior to the end of the year, though likely after the elections—unless their demands are met to (a) extend the Bush tax cuts, due to expire December 31, (b) enact spending cuts equal to or more than the increased debt authorized, and (c) cancel the planned “sequestration” of defense appropriations agreed to as a fall-back measure in last year’s debt limit agreement.

There’s a lot of tricky timing involved in this scenario. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has indicated it might be possible to go without a debt limit increase until early next year, which could decouple both the Bush tax cut expiration and the Pentagon sequester from the debt limit increase unless Republicans can find some way to force the issue. It’s also likely the election results will affect the dynamics significantly. Would House Republicans want to present a president-elect Mitt Romney with a debt limit crisis? Or would they try to kick the can into 2013, and if so, would Democrats cooperate?

In any event, it’s a mite strange that Boehner is raising the threat so early. At TPM, Congress-watcher Brian Beutler examines various reasons he might be doing so, and concludes it’s mostly about the familiar pressure Boehner faces from a radicalized conservative movement that keeps him on a very short lease:

Boehner’s big announcement Tuesday was almost certainly conceived in the same cramped box his unruly conference has kept him in since the first day of his speakership. His conservative members are still bloodthirsty, and untrusting of the leadership. He’s had countless fights with them blow up in his face over the past year and a half, and they’ve defected from some of his key, successful initiatives by the dozens. To make matters worse for him, his party is expected to lose House seats in November. If Boehner’s fighting for his speakership, this is a way to make a final appeal to the radicals in his party.

But there are wheels within wheels in the GOP radicalization machine. Boehner’s not the only GOPer having to deal with chronic mistrust from movement conservatives: the legendary House GOP class of 2010 is being accused of creeping RINOism as well, as evidenced by a new Club for Growth “study” (really just a subset of its annual rating of Member of Congress according to the Club’s litmus tests) that’s getting lots of attention in the wingnutosphere...

MORE

[Demeter]

59. Why Republicans Are Flirting With Debt Limit Debacle 2.0

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/john-boehner-debt-limit-house-republicans-obama-elections-budget.php

Whether or not he can make it stick in any meaningful way, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) revealed on Tuesday that Republicans still have an appetite for debt limit brinksmanship — even after the last round nearly crippled the economy, and left the GOP’s congressional approval ratings in the sewer.

When Republicans went home for recess last August, after placing the country’s AAA credit rating at risk, and narrowly avoiding a self-imposed default on the national debt, they caught such an earful from constituents that they spent several weeks toning down their rhetoric and avoiding big public spats with Democrats.

So what gives? Why would Republicans signal to voters that they want to put the country through the same fiasco again — particularly when the outcome of the presidential election remains in doubt and Boehner’s House Republicans are already expected to lose several seats?

There are several plausible, in some ways self-reinforcing, explanations. And they all reflect the degree to which the Republican Party has been radicalized and behaves as if it’s in the midst of an insurgency. But they don’t change the fact that selling the public — and more to the point, voters in swing districts — on the idea of a Christmas-time debt limit fight is going to be deadly politics...MORE

[Demeter]

63. Fiscal Summit: Boehner, Ryan Show Peterson Summit’s True Colors

http://www.nationofchange.org/fiscal-summit-boehner-ryan-show-peterson-summit-s-true-colors-1337177329

Multibillionaire Peter G. Peterson's Fiscal Summit may have started with conciliatory nods toward bipartisanship, but it did not climax that way. And that had to have been by design. Peterson and the people who planned the Fiscal Summit had to have known when they planned to have House Speaker John Boehner as the day's closing speaker that he would deliver the right-wing, red-meat, no-compromise speech that even Peterson himself was too polite to give. If that was the case, Boehner did not disappoint, declaring that he would once again risk having the federal government default in order to ram his conservative austerity agenda down the throat of the nation. The middle finger pointed at the American Majority could not have been more plain. He said in his speech:

Yes, allowing America to default would be irresponsible. But it would be more irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling without taking dramatic steps to reduce spending and reform the budget process.

We shouldn’t dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction.

... When the time comes, I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase. This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance.

We already know what this looks like because the House last week passed its budget, based on the budget plan written by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the House Budget Committee chairman. (Ryan was at the summit as well, as its lunchtime speaker, followed by his Democratic counterpart on the budget committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.) This is the measure that breaks a budget deal between Congress and the White House in order to impose deeper cuts in aid to struggling Americans in order to protect the Pentagon from budget cuts.

As Greg Kaufmann reported in The Nation, these cuts in 2013 include $36 billion less in spending on food assistance to the poor (the SNAP, or food-stamp, program), eliminating 5.5 million children from eligibility for the Child Tax Credit and eliminating programs under the Social Services Block Grant that serve millions of low-income children and seniors. At the same time, under the Ryan budget millionaires would receive on average $265,000 in additional tax cuts on top of the $129,000 in tax savings they would already receive by extending the Bush tax cuts beyond their planned expiration at the end of the year. Because neither the Senate nor President Obama will stand for this disastrous budget plan—literally taking food from the mouths of the poor to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and more wasteful contracts for the military-industrial complex—Boehner in essence said that he will take by extortion what he cannot win through a democratic process.

Note what he said: "We shouldn't dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It's an action-forcing event..."

This fits the Peterson narrative. As Ryan Grim writes in The Huffington Post, Peterson "has spent lavishly to shape a national conversation focusing on the deficit rather than on jobs and economic growth"—in fact, at least $458 million since 2007, based on an examination of the tax records the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. And while all this money appears to have had scant effect on general public opinion, it has had significant effect on inside-the-Beltway elite consensus that, as Peterson himself stated in his opening remarks, that the federal deficit is "a transcendent threat to our economic future." The Fiscal Summit was carefully designed to reinforce that consensus, even as it allowed in a trickle of differing points of view about how to address the deficit...

FOR THE OPPOSITION'S ARGUMENT, SEE LINK

[Demeter]

82. Obama's clean debt-ceiling request stuns Boehner

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obamas-clean-debt-ceiling-request-stuns-boehner-2012-05-17?link=MW_latest_news

President Barack Obama's refusal to tie spending cuts to a hike in the U.S. debt limit "almost took my breath away," House Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday. Obama met Boehner and other congressional leaders for a White House lunch on Wednesday and reportedly clashed over raising the debt ceiling. Boehner wants spending cuts to equal any hike in the debt limit.

[Roland99]

101. And, should Romney win in November, anyone think Mr Oompa Loompa will hold him to the same standard?

[Demeter]

56. Independents in Swing States Want Obama to Hold Wall Street Accountable for Economic Collapse

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/930359/new_poll%3A_independents_in_swing_states_want_obama_to_hold_wall_street_accountable_for_economic_collapse/#paragraph2

A new Public Policy Polling survey found that Independent voters in swing states reportedly disagree with President Barack Obama's handling of the mortgage and housing crisis, and that they also largely believe that the Obama Administration is not holding Wall Street accountable for the crimes that caused it. The majority of these Independents (polled in Nevada, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania) also say that Wall Street executives' crimes caused the economic crisis.

64% of Independent voters polled in North Carolina to 76% of Independents in Pennsylvania said that the economic crisis results at least in part from criminal actions by Wall Street executives. What's more, a range from 60% of Independents polled in both North Carolina and Florida, to 73% in Nevada, say Obama did not do enough to hold banks accountable for the housing collapse. 21% of Independents in Nevada, 34% in North Carolina, 48% in Pennsylvania, and 70% in Nevada said they did not approve of Obama's handling of the housing and mortgage crisis.

“The polling clearly shows that the President needs to move immediately to investigate criminal activity on Wall Street,” said Becky Bond, Political Director of CREDO Action. “The Wall Street banker vote is probably the only category of the electorate that doesn't overwhelmingly want to see criminal investigations of the people who drove our economy off a cliff.

WATCH FOR FLYING PIGS IN FIVE, FOUR, THREE...

[Demeter]

57. Elizabeth Warren Expresses No Confidence in Current Bank Accountability Measures

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/05/17/elizabeth-warren-expresses-no-confidence-in-current-bank-accountability-measures/

This has been the week where we got a taste of how Elizabeth Warren would comport herself as a US Senator. Since JPMorgan Chase’s Fail Whale trade, which has reportedly already grown to a $3 billion loss, nobody in the political arena has been more vocal – or more knowledgeable – about the trade and what it means for reforming the financial system than Warren.

She has criticized big banks for their lobbying efforts to weaken Wall Street reform, but she has also gone beyond that. She has explained why a bad trade like this isn’t just “the normal course of business,” as Mitt Romney suggested yesterday, but a scary reminder of the significant risks being taken by banks with federally insured deposits, access to cheap credit and an implicit subsidy from being too big to fail. She advocated for a reinstitution of the Glass-Steagall Act, to explicitly separate commercial and investment banking activity. She demanded that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon step down from the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. And she has taken the lead among a growing number of Democratic candidates, reinvigorating a debate about financial reform and accountability for Wall Street. One thing we know; Warren knows how to use the bully pulpit, especially on an issue where she has credibility.

I’m going to post a transcript, edited somewhat for clarity, of an interview I did with Professor Warren yesterday afternoon. But I want to highlight the very last thing we talked about. After Warren discussed how, without meaningful civil and criminal investigations of the financial sector, it will not be possible to “clean out the system and rebuild it,” I asked her if she was confident that the current set of investigations, in particular the task force co-chaired by Eric Schneiderman, looking into criminal actions in the securitization process, would yield this level of accountability. She had a simple answer:

“I am not confident. No. And that’s the answer to your question. The American people are pushing for more accountability. They need to keep on pushing until it happens.”

VIDEO AND MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

65. Why Sallie Mae Should Take Google’s Advice: Don’t Be Evil By Molly Katchpole

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-sallie-mae-should-take-google-s-advice-don-t-be-evil-1337175702

Sallie Mae is the country’s largest provider of private student loans — and despite their innocuous name, they’re guilty of some pretty awful practices. Sallie Mae has a dual role of a lender and collector. As Elizabeth Warren said, “Sallie Mae gets to play every hand at the poker table.” And, “Student-loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious.”

When customers call seeking assistance, Sallie Mae representatives say pretty terrible stuff — a story from one of our members: “I encouraged my grandson to pursue a college degree, because I thought as a Black male, his chances of landing a decent paying job would be much improved. Since he graduated, he has been unable to find a job with a living wage. His paycheck barely covers the gas he needs to go to a low paying job, much less repay his student loans. Because I co-signed, I now use a great portion of my Social Security check to pay the loans. When I called Sallie Mae to work out a payment plan, the representative told me to tell my grandson to sell his blood plasma to pay the loan.”

As a debt collector, Sallie Mae is highly abusive, using the Freedom of Information Law to collect personal information about students from their schools, and contacting borrowers’ employers, families, and neighbors, to the point of violating the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. One Rebuild the Dream member shared this story with us: “My son not been able to find a decent job, is barely making ends meet so has not been able to start paying his loans. He’s talked to Sallie Mae regarding this but they continue to call him daily, including Saturday and Sunday. Then they started calling me daily since I was listed as a secondary contact. When I complained to their representative that this was harassment, I was informed that they can call each contact number up to eight times per day.”

Charges unnecessary and exploitative forbearance fees — $50 per loan, per 3-month block — essentially an “unemployment penalty”

Successfully lobbied Congress to strip away basic consumer protections from student loans, such as bankruptcy protection on private student loans.

Successfully lobbied Congress to obtain Draconian collections practices, including garnishment of wages, tax returns and federal benefits such as Social Security, without a court order to make it easier for them to harass.

Angry yet? Click here to sign our petition telling Sallie Mae’s CEO Albert Lord: Work with students — not against them. We’ll be delivering signatures next week at Sallie Mae’s shareholder meeting in Delaware.

http://act.rebuildthedream.com/sign/petition-sallie-mae/?source=BLG

[xchrom]

67. la vie en rose -- bon jours!

QUELLE FROMAGE!

[Demeter]

68. New York and Los Angeles City Councils Approve Responsible Banking Ordinances By Travis Waldron

http://www.nationofchange.org/new-york-and-los-angeles-city-councils-approve-responsible-banking-ordinances-1337225517

City councils in the nation’s two largest cities have approved laws aimed at forcing banks to invest more in their local communities. The Los Angeles city council unanimously passed its “responsible banking” ordinance yesterday afternoon; the New York’s city council passed its own shortly after by a vote of 44-4.

The laws were supported and pushed by activists from the 99 Percent Movement and religious groups who have led campaigns to move money from the nation’s largest banks. The ordinances give preference for city contracts to banks that make the most substantial investments in the local community through small business loans, home loans, foreclosure prevention, and other programs, according to the PICO National Network, a coalition of religious organizations that pushed for the Los Angeles ordinance:

The New York City ordinance would require banks to provide information on reinvestment activities, including foreclosure and loan modification information, that would be used to evaluate the banks that want to hold city deposits. The Los Angeles ordinance will gather data on banks’ participation in foreclosure prevention and home loan principal reduction programs, as well as other community reinvestment information.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is likely to veto his city’s ordinance, another poke at 99 Percent Movement activists who have butted heads with him over the last eight months. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to sign his city’s version into law. Cleveland became the first major city to adopt a responsible banking ordinance in 1991, and they have spread quickly since the 99 Percent Movement ignited last fall. Pittsburgh and San Diego recently passed similar ordinances, and city councils in Seattle, Boston, and San Francisco are all considering laws now.

[Demeter]

69. Chomsky: Occupy Movement "Has Created Something That Didn't Really Exist" in US--SOLIDARITY!

http://www.nationofchange.org/chomsky-occupy-movement-has-created-something-didn-t-really-exist-us-solidarity-1337271587

WHEN CHOMSKY FEELS OPTIMISTIC, SOMETHING'S GOING RIGHT!

[xchrom]

70. Analysis: A curious case of German risk and safety

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/17/business-us-markets-germany-prices-idUKBRE84G0SH20120517

(Reuters) - Investors can't seem to buy enough German government bonds and yet the cost of insuring against a German default has slowly crept up.

It might seem counterintuitive that the two phenomena are occurring at the same time but they have a common driving force - growing concern the euro zone crisis has worsened so much that Greece could end up leaving the single currency.

Given European officials are publicly discussing the risk of an event they once said was unthinkable, German bonds are viewed as the safest option in the euro zone and are finding ready buyers even though yields have fallen to record lows.

But while investors prefer to hold German government bonds rather than ones issued by pretty much any other euro zone country, financial markets are also assessing what Germany stands to lose as the crisis deepens.

[xchrom]

72. Bank of Ireland lays out scheme for further job cuts

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/uk-bankofireland-idUKBRE84H0DO20120518

(Reuters) - Bank of Ireland (BKIR.I) has agreed a voluntary redundancy scheme with employees which their trade union said would pave the way for up to 1,000 more job cuts at Ireland's largest bank.

The bank has already reduced its workforce by around 20 percent since the country's property crash in 2008, is in the midst of a sector-wide overhaul that will see it cut its balance sheet by 30 billion euros by the end of 2013.

Chief Executive Richie Boucher said in February that the bank would be look at making efficiency gains for a "long, long time" and a spokeswoman for the bank said it had not identified an exact number of employees it expected to take the package.

The Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA), the trade union representing the bank's employees, said in a statement that it would recommend the terms to its members for acceptance.

[xchrom]

74. {go figure} Poll shows Greece electing pro-bailout government

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/17/uk-greece-idUKBRE8440DC20120517

(Reuters) - Greek voters are returning to the establishment parties that negotiated its bailout, a poll showed on Thursday, offering potential salvation for European leaders who say a snap Greek election next month will decide whether it must quit the euro.

The poll, the first conducted since talks to form a government collapsed and a new election was called for June 17, showed the conservative New Democracy party in first place, several points ahead of the radical leftist SYRIZA which has pledged to tear up the bailout.

EU leaders say that without the bailout, Greece would be headed for certain bankruptcy and ejection from the common currency, which would sow financial destruction across the continent. The prospect SYRIZA would win the election has sent the euro and markets across the continent plummeting this week.

The poll predicted New Democracy would win 26.1 percent of the vote compared to 23.7 percent for SYRIZA.

[xchrom]

78. German finance minister calls for directly elected EU president

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0518/1224316280646.html

GERMAN FINANCE minister Wolfgang Schäuble has called for a directly elected European Union president to further European integration and improve the bloc’s democratic legitimacy.

In Aachen, after receiving the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to European integration, Mr Schäuble warned of a weakening link between European citizens and Brussels institutions. “The political unity of Europe needs a face, a face that represents a legitimate power,” said Mr Schäuble. “This would then be the political pinnacle of a European executive.” Though not the first time he has made such a call, Mr Schäuble’s Aachen message had an urgent resonance given continued uncertainty over Greece and the who’s who of Europe listening in the audience.

The 69-year-old politician said the lesson of the financial crisis was the need for greater pooling of economic and financial responsibility – with a parallel debate over which tasks are best left at local and national level.

He said agreement on an elected European president should be reached before the next European parliamentary elections.

[Demeter]

94. From Last June: EU's "Edifice Complex": EU president unveils new £280m 'gilded cage'

Guess who is building a palatial new digs? The EU President...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8597299/EU-president-unveils-new-280m-gilded-cage.html#.TgUiCp224qA.email

With its "humane gathering place", "diversity carpet" and £280m cost it is perhaps apt that it has been heralded as the building that "houses the heart of Europe". While Herman Van Rompuy, the EU president, has described his "Europa building" as a "jewel box", David Cameron has been less enthusiastic dubbing it a "gilded cage". But perhaps even more unfortunate is the moniker the edifice, which will house Mr Van Rompuy's presidential office and be home to future Brussels summits from 2014, has earned from EU officials. Built as a state of the art glass and wood wing to an existing Art Deco building, the complex will be focused around a womblike central structure providing a home for summits and meetings of Brussels officials or diplomats. And it this organic looking "urn" shape has already been nicknamed the "E-Uterus" by Council of the EU officials who will be working in the new building.

"It looks like a womb and, I am sure, many grand visions of Europe will be birthed from there," quipped one official.

The building was unveiled to EU leaders by Mr Van Rompuy in a 14-page slick colour prospectus, produced at a cost of £100,000, when they sat down to a Brussels summit dinner on Thursday night formally dedicated to imposing a savage austerity programme on Greece. Before discussing the Greek debt crisis that has threatened the existence of the euro, Mr Van Rompuy surprised EU leaders, who were tucking into a starter of scallops with artichoke vinaigrette, by trumpeting the venue, due to open in 2014, which will come complete with a "colourful woven carpet" to represent "European diversity".

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, expressed his anger at the promotion of a grandiose Brussels project at a moment when EU leaders were supposed to be taking tough decisions that would lead to painful austerity measures imposed on millions of people.

"When you see a document being circulated, a great glossy brochure about some great new building for the European Council to sit in, it is immensely frustrating. You do wonder if these institutions get what every country, what every member of the public, is having to go through as we cut budgets and try make our finances add up," he said.

"I do think it's important as we do that that the politicians aren't sitting in some gilded cage asking everyone else to take responsibility."

Bill Cash, chairman of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee said: "We need an investigation into the extravagance and the cost of this Aladdin's palace. It is a cross between the bonfire of the vanities and Kafka's Castle."

Over the last 14 years, EU leaders, ministers and diplomats have been meeting in a building called the Justus Lipsius which is regarded as too cramped and drab to represent a body that has grown from 15 member states to 27. The complex of buildings will also house the offices of Mr Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, a job created by the Lisbon Treaty.

Mr Cameron, who had dined the night before with other leaders on black cod with onion ragout washed down with a 2009 Sancerre wine, said that he regretted that the decision, taken seven years ago, to build a new EU venue could not be reversed.

"I've only been to this building seven times in the last year but it seems to me to be to do a perfectly good job. The microphones work, there is plenty of room and the food isn't bad either," he said.

With almost 27,000 sq metres of floor space, the new edifice is the latest development in a burgeoning post-Lisbon Treaty euro quarter in Brussels. It will be a new environmentally friendly addition to the existing Residence Palace, built in the 1920s to houses luxury apartments for officials, commercial offices, a private theatre, swimming pool and restaurants. The palace was requisitioned in 1940 as the headquarters of the German army during the Nazi occupation of Belgium during the Second World War.

Emma Boon of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "We're cutting back at home and we can't afford more ludicrous spending by Eurocrats. This is yet more evidence that we shouldn't hand any more money to Europe, they're already wasting the millions we give them each day."

SUPER FANCY SLIDE SHOW OF ARCHITECT'S DRAWINGS AT LINK
i WILL HAVE TO SEE IF THIS MONSTROSITY IS ACTUALLY BEING BUILT...

[xchrom]

97. interesting and even more interesting cameron said they couldn't back off of it.

sure they can.

[Demeter]

105. According to EC Website, It Should be completed in 2013

http://www.european-council.europa.eu/the-institution/europa-building

[Demeter]

115. The Eurozone may be totally "completed" by then, too

as in completely disintegrated

[xchrom]

80. Stocks head for worst week in six months as Irish bond yields widen

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0518/breaking27.html

European stocks dropped this morning, on course for their biggest weekly sell-off since September, amid signs of slowing growth in China and after Moody's Investors Service downgraded Spanish lenders.

Back at home, the yield on the Irish 5% October 2020 bond, the longest-dated bond in issue, continued to widen this morning, surpassing 7.4 per cent on a bid basis, although it was in thin trading. So far this week, the yield on Irish bonds has increased by about 40-50 basis points, as uncertainty continues to grip the Eurozone, and analysts expect the yield to continue to widen.

After a period of stability, Irish bonds are now under-performing their European counterparts, as a “flight to quality” means that yields on German and UK bonds, continue to tighten. Indeed German government bond yields
hit record lows today and were expected to fall further amidst fears that the current uncertainty could evolve into
a euro zone financial meltdown. Yields on French and Spanish 10-year bonds are also widening, but to a lesser degree than in Ireland.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 fell to its lowest level since late November, down by 42.44 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 5,295.94 points by 10.25am. The index had closed below 5,400 points for the first time this year on Thursday, and was set to record its third consecutive week of losses.

[xchrom]

83. Ireland may need second bail-out

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0518/breaking28.html

Ireland's bailed-out banks may need as much as €4 billion more loan loss provisions than assumed in stress tests last year, which could "tip the balance in favor" of the country requiring a second aid program, Deutsche Bank said in a report today.

"A new, even modest, increase in capital requirements could deter sovereign investor participation and tip the balance in favor of the sovereign requiring a second loan program," said Deutsche Bank analysts David Lock and Jason Napier.

The government's plan to introduce new personal insolvency laws creates "risks", even as politicians and the financial regulators seek to avoid widespread residential mortgage debt forgiveness, the bank said.

"Although resilient during 2009 and 2010, mortgage arrears have risen sharply over the past year, house prices are continuing to fall, market liquidity is limited, and over half of customers are now in negative equity," said Deutsche Bank analysts in the report. "We fear the size of negative equity balances for some mortgage holders may greatly reduce their incentive to cooperate, pushing them towards default."

[Demeter]

81. A US Financial Transaction Tax: How Wall Street Can Pay for Its Mess

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9155-a-us-financial-transaction-tax-how-wall-street-can-pay-for-its-mess

Members of the National Nurses United union are campaigning for a small tax, or “Robin Hood” tax, that the financial sector would pay on commercial transactions of stocks and bonds. Proponents say the tax could generate billions of dollars — which could go toward debt reduction, social services and job-training programs — and has the potential to curb one of the causes of the financial crisis: speculative trading on Wall Street. Those opposed to the tax argue that additional costs could be damaging to markets, and that banks would pass the costs on to consumers in the form of higher commission rates and other fees.

In this essay, economist Robert Pollin, the co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass-Amherst, explains the financial transaction tax in greater detail, and shares why he thinks it’s the right idea...SEE LINK

[Roland99]

85. US Futures feeling bright and lively

S&P 500 1,307.50 6.25 0.48%
DOW 12,459 46.00 0.37%
NASDAQ 2,515 10.25 0.41%

[Demeter]

93. 42 points of irrational exuberance at open

up like a rocket, down like a rock...

[Roland99]

98. Facebook Momo FTW!! By the way...speaking of Facebook >>>>

Facebook shares flash to 50,000 EURO / share!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/facebook-pulls-reverse-bats-flash-smashes-%E2%82%AC50000share

[Demeter]

86. See you all tonight on the Weekend Thread

Life has fallen back into its groove...I came home Thursday tired, in pain, and starving. Dinner fixed most of that, and early bed. But the vacation is definitely over. At least it wasn't an exercise in futility. But more vacation is definitely in order....

[xchrom]

87. El Dorado in Angola Portuguese Find Oasis from Crisis in Former Colony

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/tens-of-thousands-of-portuguese-emigrate-to-fast-growing-angola-a-833360.html

What does a Portuguese father of four school-age children do when he makes only €900 ($1,141) a month?

He decides to emigrate.
That's why António Sàágua, 45, a soon-to-be economic migrant, is sitting in the stark gray office of Ema Partners International on a sunny spring afternoon. The employment agency, located on a quiet side street off of Lisbon's grand Avenida da Libertade, places skilled personnel and managerial staff. Sàágua is dressed as if he were going for a job interview, in a suit, a starched shirt, gold cufflinks and polished shoes.

The applicant has a lot to show for himself, including a degree in ergonomics and a doctorate in marketing management. He teaches at a leading business school in the Portuguese capital. He also has 20 years of experience as a team leader in the healthcare industry. "I was a pioneer in organizing work processes for my clients in ways that made more sense while saving costs at the same time," he says with a thin smile. But despite his qualifications, he is earning less than €1,000 a month in his current job, which involves reorganizing a hospital near Lisbon. It means that he can no longer afford to send his children to a private school and keep the family's centrally located apartment, which has a view looking out over blossoming trees.

Jorge Fonseca, 42, slaps Sàágua on the back and greets him as "amigo." On this day, he will train his "friend" in one of the agency's secluded offices for his upcoming job interviews. Fonseca, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and looking overdressed in a dark blue suit, approaches all of his clients with the same cheery demeanor. He is their "career coach," which includes digging up about 1,000 potential employers from the company's database for each of his clients and fine-tuning their application documents. An economist with contacts around the world, Fonseca dashes back and forth between the laptop on his desk and the conference room, printing out lists of contacts and abbreviated versions of the leading career advice books published abroad. He is obsessed with the details as he prepares Portuguese executives for a new professional future.

[Po_d Mainiac]

88. Are trout smarter than the average American?

This is the time of year that the first mayflies start to leave the aquatic environment and take to the sky. It coincides with warmer water temps and the beginning of the growth cycle for Salmonids.

The early Hendrickson hatch is nature’s version of an all you can eat buffet for not only fish but a variety of birds as well. Swallows, martins and phoebes congregate en masse for the event.

I tie flies. I tie good imitations of what is on the buffet table. I know how to put the flie in front of a feeding trout in a way that more likely than not, will sting the fish’s lips.

Fish can only add, till they’ve been stung by a hook. Does it float right? Plus 1. Right color? Plus 1. Right size? Another plus. They can see the hook, but without subtraction, the sum is still +3. They can see the leader, but their math still gets to 3.

If that fish hits, feels the metal and I miss it, or net it and set it free…That fish ain’t gonna ignore the minuses any longer.

Banksters ain’t like me when they cast to prey. I try to do as little damage as possible and let the fish live. The bankster will take a chunk of meat, and care less if the prey goes belly up.

If people were as smart as fish, after getting hooked once, they woodn’t bite again. But many who have had a chunk of flesh removed seem to like being played and filleted.

Tight Lines

[Tansy_Gold]

89. +1

[Demeter]

95. You should put that out for pay, Po

It's at least good enough for Reader's Digest, if not better rags.

[Po_d Mainiac]

102. Go for it.....I'll settle for 50% n/t

[xchrom]

90. China Home Prices, Car Inventory Add To Signs Of Slowing

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-18/china-home-prices-car-inventory-add-to-signs-of-slowing.html

China’s home prices fell in a record number of cities last month and car dealers posted inventory levels that foreshadowed deeper price cuts, adding to signs of slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Prices of new homes fell from a year earlier in 46 of the 70 cities tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics, the agency said today. Dealerships for Honda Motor Co., Chery Automobile Co., BYD Co. (1211) and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. had more than 45 days of inventory at the end of last month, according to an official from the government-backed China Automobile Dealers Association.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. today joined banks including Citigroup Inc. and UBS AG in lowering its estimate for China’s second-quarter growth after weaker-than-forecast economic data released last week. The nation’s expansion may drop to a 13-year low this year, a Bloomberg News survey this week showed, as Europe’s debt crisis crimps exports and a campaign to rein in property speculation curbs domestic demand.

“There is no doubt that the level of activity growth in April is significantly below the government’s comfort zone,” Goldman economists Song Yu and Michael Buchanan wrote in a report distributed today. “It is clear that there is a consensus within the government that policy should be loosened further.”

[xchrom]

91. Shoppers Skipping Pomegranates Show India Rate Dilemma: Economy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-18/shoppers-skipping-pomegranates-show-india-rate-dilemma-economy.html

Chetna Desai eyes mangoes and pomegranates at a stall in South Delhi after buying the essentials of onions and potatoes. She decides against the fruits after the vendor tells her the price.

“Everything from milk to vegetables and fruits is so expensive these days,” said the 33-year-old, who earns 60,000 rupees ($1,100) a month as a consultant on children’s rights with the government. “Although I can afford it, every trip to the market to buy groceries has me gasping about the prices.”

Surging food costs offer the most visible sign of India’s inability to contain price pressures, threatening spending in the world’s second-most populous nation. Even as the nation’s benchmark wholesale-price inflation has eased to below 9 percent after breaching that level most of last year, a recently introduced consumer-price gauge shows how little room the central bank has cut to cut interest rates and spur growth.

India’s consumer-price index climbed 10.36 percent from a year earlier in April as prices of cereal, pulses, milk and meat products rose, compared with a revised 9.38 percent advance in March, a report showed today. The gauge was created in January 2011 and today’s release gives the year-on-year data for the fourth time. Wholesale-price inflation in April was 7.23 percent, with food prices jumping 10.5 percent.

[xchrom]

92. Market Volatility Prompts Warning From Japan To S. Korea

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-18/japan-s-korea-worried-about-currency-moves-as-stocks-slide.html

Financial markets are becoming unhooked from economic fundamentals, officials warned in Japan and South Korea, as policy makers monitor the dangers posed by any Greek exit from the euro region.

“We’ve seen the yen appreciate rapidly from the low-80s to the mid-79 range over a short period of time, those are rough movements,” Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said at a press conference in Tokyo today. “We will watch the currency market with more caution and take appropriate action in a timely manner” if needed, he said.

About $4 trillion has been wiped from global equity markets this month as Europe’s deepening debt crisis threatens the global recovery. European leaders are now openly talking about a possible Greek euro exit after the country’s attempts to form a ruling coalition broke down, prompting Malaysian central bank Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz to say such an event could cause contagion comparable to the Asian financial crisis.

Asian stocks slid today, erasing this year’s gains, and South Korea’s won weakened after Moody’s Investors Service lowered debt ratings of 16 Spanish banks and a gauge of U.S. manufacturing unexpectedly contracted. The yen climbed to its highest level since February yesterday against the dollar and yields on 10-year government bonds fell to their lowest since July 2003.

[Fuddnik]

96. Looks like the dead cat has bounced!

Back on the floor again.

[Roland99]

99. not very far. Europe markets mixed. US markets mixed, too.

[Roland99]

100. Looks like another Bungee Market Day

[Roland99]

103. Whoa...100pt drop now from daily highs. wtf?

Facebook IPO running into delays starting.

Guess the momo didn't last long.

[Demeter]

104. Anyone who thinks Facebook is going to make their fortunes

deserves to be broken on the rocks of Reality.

[Roland99]

107. It's fallen below $40...back to initial IPO of $38. and NASDAQ can't even execute buy/sell orders!!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/think-you-bought-facebook-think-again

[TalkingDog]

106. Looks like it's going to be that kind of day

[Roland99]

108. ayup...50pt bounce off that 100pt drop.

[Roland99]

109. 2:30pm update - S&P blows under 1,300. Oil approaching $91/bbl

[font color="red"]Dow 12,391 -51 -0.41%
Nasdaq 2,793 -21 -0.74%
S&P 500 1,299 -6 -0.48%
GlobalDow 1,756 -18 -1.02%
Oil 91.56 -1.00 -1.08% [/font]
Gold 1,590 +15 +0.97%

[Roland99]

112. bunch of last-minute buying. S&P was -1.00% 2 min. ago. Now it's only -0.74%.

[just1voice]

111. Morgan Stanley manipulates FB stock to keep it over $38

"Free markets", LOL!

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c7bfd916-a113-11e1-9fbd-00144feabdc0.html

"Facebook’s underwriters, a group of 33 investment banks led by Morgan Stanley, also stepped in when the shares fell back to their original offer price and bought shares to keep the price from dipping further, according to a person familiar with the intervention."

[girl gone mad]

114. It's a common practice for IPOs.

I'm surprised the underwriters were able to prop FB up all afternoon. Someone could be looking at real losses next week.

This offering was overpriced.

[Po_d Mainiac]

116. There is a lot of support at $0.50 n/t

[Po_d Mainiac]

117. Wunner if Goldman Suchs is still holding? (old news)

Goldman Sachs has reached out to its wealthy private clients, offering them a chance to invest in Facebook, the hot social networking giant that is considering a possible public offering in 2012, according to people familiar with the matter.

On Sunday night, a number of Goldman clients received an email from their Goldman broker, offering them the opportunity to invest in an unnamed “private company that is considering a transaction to raise additional capital.” Another person briefed on the deal said that Goldman clients would have to pony up a minimum of $2 million to invest and would be prohibited from selling their shares until 2013.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/goldman-invests-in-facebook-at-50-billion-valuation/

forced to hold till 2013

[Hugin]

120. LOL @ FB

Anyone knows that TPTB wouldn't allow their golden boy (Zuckerberg) to fail. But, even one as jaded as I've become with respect to the machinations of the entitled cadres of the Ivy Leaguers was surprised by the scrambling to keep the FB valuation at target instead of where it rightfully belongs. (MAYBE, $2.00/share) I'd say yesterday was the hardest many of those people have worked in their lives.

One word for it: FAIL!

But, amusing... And enlightening.

[DemReadingDU]

121. ditto