STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 17 July 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 17 July 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 16 July 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 16 July 2012
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Dow Jones 12,727.21 -49.88 (-0.39%)
S&P 500 1,353.64 -3.14 (-0.23%)
Nasdaq 2,896.94 -11.53 (-0.40%)


[font color=red]10 Year 1.47% +0.02 (1.38%)
30 Year 2.56% +0.03 (1.19%) [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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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."



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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]

[MsLeopard]

1. First Rec!

A first for me!!

Long time lucker, very long time. Have learned a lot over the years here. Thanks for all you do!

[Tansy_Gold]

3. Whoo Hoo!

[tclambert]

2. Romney logic:

"Obama's campaign must be desperate, bringing up Bain Capital. I want to talk about the real issues, like how my experience as a businessman, when I ran Bain Capital, would make me a great President. But without talking about Bain Capital, what it did, what I did as CEO, when exactly I was CEO, how much money I made, or how much taxes I paid, or didn't pay."

[Tansy_Gold]

4. LOL

But true. . . .

[Demeter]

5. HSBC allowed money laundering, Senate says

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hsbc-allowed-money-laundering-senate-says-2012-07-16?siteid=YAHOOB

HSBC Holdings PLC allowed drug traffickers, terrorists and rogue states to launder several billions of dollars because of poor controls, the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations said in a statement late Monday.

The committee plans to hold a hearing on the report Tuesday morning, including testimony from HSBC officials and federal regulators, some of whom were also criticized in the report for failing to address the problem successfully.

“Foreign HSBC banks actively circumvented U.S. safeguards ... designed to block transactions involving terrorists, drug lords, and rogue regimes,” the subcommittee said.

Among the charges, HSBC serviced high-risk customers in drug-trafficking countries with weak anti-laundering measures; allowed $19.4 billion in transactions linked to Iran to go through their affiliates over a seven-year period; and provided services to certain banks in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh despite their ties to terrorist financing, the subcommittee’s statement said....


SO THEY ARE REALLY PISSED OFF ABOUT THE IRAN MONEY...AND PROBABLY DIDN'T GET THEIR RETAINERS, EITHER....SUCH HYPOCRISY

[Demeter]

6. "Fiscal Cliff" Baloney; Economy Can Recover if Obama Focuses on What We Really Need: Jobs!

http://www.alternet.org/story/156304/so-called_fiscal_cliff_is_baloney%3B_our_economy_can_recover_if_obama_focuses_on_what_we_really_need%3A_jobs!?page=entire

By Marshall Auerback

...When it comes to federal budget deficits there appear to be only two respectable positions, which are both, unfortunately, wrong. The first is the “deficit hawk” position that argues that budget deficits are never acceptable because they only lead to complete crowding-out: every dollar of government spending, so the story goes, is offset by a dollar of private spending. In this view, long-run problems occur because government debt will have to be repaid in the future, which means higher taxes and less private spending. So they continually claim that the stimulus package did not save any jobs and will actually cost us jobs later. This is a minority view among economists and policy makers, although it remains popular among those Republicans who have a political interest in denying that the Democrats and the Obama administration have done anything right.

The second view—the “deficit dove” position--is that deficits are probably acceptable for the short run, and perhaps even necessary to save the economy from another great depression. However, say the deficit doves, the benefits we receive today are partially offset by costs in the future when we will need to tighten our belts to repay the debt. Even President Obama has repeated the line that deficits today leave our grandchildren with a heavy burden, which is why he has retained this tragic obsession with entitlement reform. The pain is said to be compounded by the imminent retirement of baby-boomers, which will increase “entitlement” spending. So the deficit doves tell us that we need to get the budget “under control” as quickly as possible. James Carville is one of the few who pushes back on the deficit doves. He has argued that the Democrats made a "fundamental error" backing off on their steadfast support of entitlement programs to give way to the idea that they need trimming in order to cut the deficit. That, as Carville has noted, is a political loser for the Democrats, and it’s also bad economics.

Why is that the case? Because Democrats end up embracing a form of Augustinian “fiscal chastity” (“Oh Lord, make me fiscally chaste, but not yet”), which leads us down the same path the Republicans want to take. A world with an eviscerated social safety net; where our homeless remain house-less in spite of today’s housing glut; where our sick and elderly get inadequate healthcare and are precluded from living the last years of their life in relative dignity...The reality is that the whole “debt crisis” is a manufactured issue designed to destroy entitlement spending once and for all. The truth is that for the 82-year period since 1930, the U.S. government’s budget has been in deficit of varying proportions of total economic output 67 of those years (that is, 84 percent of the time). Each time the government tried to push its budget into surplus, a major recession followed that forced the budget back into deficit because automatic stabilizers like social welfare payments, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc. had to kick in.

............................................

At the rate we’re growing jobs, it will take at least a decade before the employment levels of the mid-2000s are reached. By contrast, in the 1930s, the jobs lost in the aftermath of the Great Crash had been fully restored within seven years. The difference was the New Deal, which created jobs for 13 million Americans. President Obama has never displayed any Rooseveltian sense of purpose and he will not propose any comprehensive job creation programs like the New Deal’s WPA and CCC (the Works Progress Administration, in existence from 1935 to 1943 after being renamed the Work Projects Administration in 1939, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942). Even Ronald Reagan did a better job in the 1980s, when 8 percent unemployment was still considered to be politically unacceptable...As for the canard that only private sector jobs are “real” jobs, that’s bunk. Businesses don’t really care who’s on the buying end of the transaction. They just want to sell everything they produce. It can be bought by domestic households, foreign households, domestic government or foreign government. Makes no difference. What they need – what benefits them – is an environment that maximizes the probability that there will be a demand for what they are trying to sell. If there isn’t enough total spending in the economy, then the government can cut taxes or raise government spending (good deficits) to induce the right amount (non-inflationary) of spending...

MORE

[Demeter]

7. How to Get People to Go After Bankers and Financiers and Stop Attacking Public Employees

http://www.alternet.org/story/156245/how_to_get_people_to_go_after_bankers_and_financiers_and_stop_attacking_public_employees?page=entire

...The strength of organized labor was once a muscular way for working people to push back against plutocracy. In union there is strength -- that was the old saying and it was true. But the percentage of union members in the American workforce has declined in the last sixty years from 35 to 12 percent, and labor has faced a pounding series of setbacks of which the Supreme Court’s Knox decision is just the latest. And yet, with corporations continuing to put the squeeze on employees, with joblessness and inequality rampant, now would seem the perfect time for people to turn back to unions to fight for them against the monied interests. Why haven’t they?

Stephen Lerner has spent more than three decades as a labor and community organizer, and as architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign. He was director of SEIU’s Private Equity project – which worked to expose the Wall Street feeding frenzy that would end in catastrophe especially for the working class. Bill Fletcher Jr. graduated from Harvard and went to work as a shipyard welder, along the way becoming a labor activist fighting for racial justice and union democracy. He has worked with SEIU and the United Auto Workers, among others. He’s the author of this upcoming book. “They’re Bankrupting Us – And Twenty Other Myths about Unions.”...

[Warpy]

61. Tell it to the fuckers in Congress, Marshall

who wouldn't allow debate on the jobs bill Obama sent them. They killed it in committee. Bastards.

Until we clean out Congress, inaction on jobs and unconstitutional antiabortion bills are all we can expect.

[Demeter]

8. The Real Libor Scandal By Nomi Prins and Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.nationofchange.org/real-libor-scandal-1342444435

According to news reports, UK banks fixed the London interbank borrowing rate (Libor) with the complicity of the Bank of England (UK central bank) at a low rate in order to obtain a cheap borrowing cost. The way this scandal is playing out is that the banks benefitted from borrowing at these low rates. Whereas this is true, it also strikes us as simplistic and as a diversion from the deeper, darker scandal....Banks are not the only beneficiaries of lower Libor rates. Debtors (and investors) whose floating or variable rate loans are pegged in some way to Libor also benefit. One could argue that by fixing the rate low, the banks were cheating themselves out of interest income, because the effect of the low Libor rate is to lower the interest rate on customer loans, such as variable rate mortgages that banks possess in their portfolios. But the banks did not fix the Libor rate with their customers in mind. Instead, the fixed Libor rate enabled them to improve their balance sheets, as well as help to perpetuate the regime of low interest rates. The last thing the banks want is a rise in interest rates that would drive down the values of their holdings and reveal large losses masked by rigged interest rates. Indicative of greater deceit and a larger scandal than simply borrowing from one another at lower rates, banks gained far more from the rise in the prices, or higher evaluations of floating rate financial instruments (such as CDOs), that resulted from lower Libor rates. As prices of debt instruments all tend to move in the same direction, and in the opposite direction from interest rates (low interest rates mean high bond prices, and vice versa), the effect of lower Libor rates is to prop up the prices of bonds, asset-backed financial instruments, and other "securities." The end result is that the banks' balance sheets look healthier than they really are....On the losing side of the scandal are purchasers of interest rate swaps, savers who receive less interest on their accounts, and ultimately all bond holders when the bond bubble pops and prices collapse.


We think we can conclude that Libor rates were manipulated lower as a means to bolster the prices of bonds and asset-backed securities. In the UK, as in the US, the interest rate on government bonds is less than the rate of inflation. The UK inflation rate is about 2.8%, and the interest rate on 20-year government bonds is 2.5%. Also, in the UK, as in the US, the government debt to GDP ratio is rising. Currently the ratio in the UK is about double its average during the 1980-2011 period. The question is, why do investors purchase long term bonds, which pay less than the rate of inflation, from governments whose debt is rising as a share of GDP? One might think that investors would understand that they are losing money and sell the bonds, thus lowering their price and raising the interest rate. Why isn’t this happening?

PCR’s June 5 column, “Collapse at Hand,” explained that despite the negative interest rate, investors were making capital gains from their Treasury bond holdings, because the prices were rising as interest rates were pushed lower. What was pushing the interest rates lower? The answer is even clearer now. First, as PCR noted, Wall Street has been selling huge amounts of interest rate swaps, essentially a way of shorting interest rates and driving them down. Thus, causing bond prices to rise. Secondly, fixing Libor at lower rates has the same effect. Lower UK interest rates on government bonds drive up their prices. In other words, we would argue that the bailed-out banks in the US and UK are returning the favor that they received from the bailouts and from the Fed and Bank of England’s low rate policy by rigging government bond prices, thus propping up a government bond market that would otherwise, one would think, be driven down by the abundance of new debt and monetization of this debt, or some part of it.

How long can the government bond bubble be sustained? How negative can interest rates be driven? Can a declining economy offset the impact on inflation of debt creation and its monetization, with the result that inflation falls to zero, thus making the low interest rates on government bonds positive? According to his public statements, zero inflation is not the goal of the Federal Reserve chairman. He believes that some inflation is a spur to economic growth, and he has said that his target is 2% inflation. At current bond prices, that means a continuation of negative interest rates. The latest news completes the picture of banks and central banks manipulating interest rates in order to prop up the prices of bonds and other debt instruments. We have learned that the Fed has been aware of Libor manipulation (and thus apparently supportive of it) since 2008. Thus, the circle of complicity is closed. The motives of the Fed, Bank of England, US and UK banks are aligned, their policies mutually reinforcing and beneficial. The Libor fixing is another indication of this collusion. Unless bond prices can continue to rise as new debt is issued, the era of rigged bond prices might be drawing to an end. It would seem to be only a matter of time before the bond bubble bursts.

[Demeter]

9. U.S. crops wilting despite scattered Midwest rains

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/14/us-usa-drought-crops-idUSBRE86D09820120714?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

Scattered rains over the last 24 hours provided little relief for U.S. Midwest corn and soybean crops that are rapidly deteriorating in the worst drought since 1988, and the forecast is for scant rain for the next two weeks, meteorologists said on Saturday. "Overall the rain yesterday won't put a dent in the drought because they were spotty hit or miss kind of rains. Certainly some isolated areas will benefit, but it was not a significant drought buster," said AccuWeather meteorologist Dan Pydynowski. Thunderstorms on Friday left from 0.25 inch to 0.50 inch of rain in portions of eastern Iowa and northern Illinois, including Chicago, with isolated amounts up to one inch, meteorologists said. There were similar showers of "0.25 inch or so" in portions of parched southern Indiana and southern Illinois, Pydynowski said. Some showers were expected in the Midwest from Saturday through the end of next week, MDA EarthSat Weather meteorologist Steve Silver said. But the minimal amount of rain accompanied by high temperatures will continue to stress crops. "There won't be enough rain to dent the drought," Silver said.

Only about 25 percent of the Midwest received some rain on Friday with most of the moisture in Wisconsin, Minnesota, eastern Iowa, northeast Missouri and a few spots in central and northern Illinois, said Joel Widenor, meteorologist for Commodity Weather Group (CWG). "There was some local relief and about 20 to 25 percent of the Midwest will see similar rains during the next 1 to 5 days," Widenor said.

Meteorologists agreed that the combination of high temperatures and minimal rainfall will continue to erode production prospects for the 2012 corn and soybean crops. "The general pattern is still hot and dry, especially in the west half of the Midwest. High temperatures in the west will reach the 90s (degrees Fahrenheit) to 100s during the next week and the low to mid-90s in the east," Widenor said. Drought and heat led the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday to slash its U.S. corn production forecast to 12.970 billion bushels, down from its previous outlook for 14.790 billion. USDA on Monday dropped its estimate for U.S. corn good-to-excellent condition rating to 40 percent from the previous 48 percent. Traders expect USDA to show a similar decline in updated weekly crop progress data this Monday, including a decline in soybean conditions.

The worst drought in a quarter century tightened its grip on the Midwestern United States over the past week, a report from climate experts said Thursday. Nearly two-thirds of the nine-state Midwest region was in some stage of drought in the week ended July 10, up from just over 50 percent a week earlier, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly report on drought throughout the country compiled by U.S. climate experts. A third of the region was in severe to exceptional drought, up from about a quarter of the region a week earlier, it said.

NO SIGNIFICANT RAIN IN MICHIGAN FOR NEARLY 2 MONTHS...

[amandabeech]

58. Out in Western Lower Michigan,

my Mom is watering her big white birch. She doesn't want to lose it because it is the centerpiece of the front yard and shades the southwest side of the house. It's gorgeous and worth the effort.

Our neighbor has his irrigation equipment out in his sweet corn field. As you know, Demeter, Michigan farmers don't often need irrigation, and no one in my Mom's area has enough equipment or water sources to keep all their fields.

The fruit crop was taken out by the weird spring weather, and now the summer and fall veggies look like they're in trouble, too.

Jobs at the packing plants will be few and far between. One packer has a contract with McDonald's for those little packages of apple slices, but there are almost no apples around. McDonald's is very, very insistant and he may have to import apples from the West Coast for his operation in order to fill those contracts. Not good.

[Demeter]

10. The Future-Proof Enterprise By Simone Cicero

http://www.nationofchange.org/future-proof-enterprise-1342361861


Peer-to-Peer. It's in these three words that we can identify the fundamental paradigm-shift the market-society is going through these days. In fact, P2P means fewer intermediaries, less constraints, direct relationships: relationships that—being from person to person—inevitably lead to a humanization of the exchanges, behind solely commercial relationships. In this regard, it is worth citing this Campbell Mithun research where emotional benefits ranked among the most valued by sharing economy participants:

Generosity—I can help myself and others
Community—I'm valued and belong
Lifestyle—I'm smart
Lifestyle—I'm more responsible
Cultural—I'm part of a movement

Four out of five reasons are related to the empathic and community sphere, with inherently social implications. While the so-called sharing economy is sometimes awaited by some as the next big business thing and depicted by others as the final affirmation of access over ownership, this radical change also has a strong characteristic of being a pursuit of efficiency and innovation at all costs...In this context it is crucial, for anyone involved in generating wealth, to understand how the market will change in the future basically melting with society, mixing together the actors, reversing values, breaking down traditional barriers. In fact, if there is a second key to understanding what is happening, in addition to seeking efficiencies, there is democratization. Internet pervasiveness, the "cloud" revolution, the commons-ification of knowledge, easier access to advanced technologies (until recently exclusively available to manufacturing giants), and crowdfunding all facilitate the entry of new players.

Today’s opportunities are for new actors, informal, with innovative labor relations, which even have a different concept of jobs. It is not difficult to see—or at least envision—today, megacorporations colliding with small, innovative startups, perhaps financed with crowdfunding, or also with non-profits, and voluntary-based projects. Therefore, in a context that goes precisely in the opposite direction, that of competition and commoditization, with a multiplication of productive actors, every player today should aim for a difficult mission: to become unique, inimitable, essential. This can be achieved by harvesting a community, by creating a tribe of supporters and fans around its services and products.

The "future-proof enterprise" then is one that thrives in the world as it should and inexorably will be: socially sustainable, cooperative, inclusive, p2p, local, decentralized and more equitable in terms of profits. There's no viable alternative. Old models based on control, large scale, and protection failed. Companies can no longer act as monolithic, centralized, revenue generation machines. Instead, they must become inclusive, create shared value, and thrive amidst radical change....In short, basing a business on a competitive advantage nowadays is very risky: the pace of change can quickly transform you from a leader into a follower...What, then, does it mean to be the market-leading company of tomorrow? First we must set new goals, such as seeking innovation and value "socialization" (humanization) rather than inequitable profit maximization since the world itself is evolving towards a new landscape that simply will prevent this from happening by virtue of protectionist strategies. The company of tomorrow will have to create a unique and in-commodifiable value built around relationships of trust with the community that will outlast any competitive advantage. The future proof enterprise must become a platform of value creation and exchange, by looking at co-production mechanisms—to involve the community—in addition to more traditional employment relationships.

If we were to summarize the ten commandments for the future-proof enterprise they would be:

Give up competitive advantage
Embrace change, don’t fear it
Create an empathic relationship with the community
Create hackable products and services
Focus on existing gaps, don't create new artificial ones
Seek sustainability, not profitability
Become a platform of value creation and exchange among peers
Co-design yourself to become the company that the community wants
Don’t seek customers, instead seek supporters and ambassadors
Stand by the right side

Being a resource for the community will make your business unique and able to face the future. Eventually, it will make yours a resilient enterprise with the hope of make a lasting contribution to humanity.

[xchrom]

11. Tuesday - bringing Happiness and Joy where ever She goes...

[westerebus]

14. That's one HAPPY dog!! n/t

[xchrom]

12. Here's Proof That The Fed Is Feeding The Rich

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-feds-feed-the-rich-2012-7



The Daily Reckoning…proved right again!
We’ve been sticking our necks out. We had a strong hunch that the rich had gotten a whole lot richer not because they were suddenly greedier or suddenly smarter, but because of the feds. The feds were handing out money. The rich were first in line.
But we didn’t have any real proof…until now.
Relatively speaking, the rich have gotten a lot richer over the last 30 years. The whiners and fixers want to do something about it. They say the rich weren’t taxed heavily enough…and they weren’t regulated enough.
That had little to do with it, we pointed out. Instead, the meddlers themselves caused the rich to get richer.
Who’s right? We are, of course…
A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests that the bulk of equity returns for more than a decade are due to actions by the US central bank. Theoretically, the S&P 500 would be more than 50 percent lower — at the 600 level — if the bullish price action preceding Fed announcements was excluded, the study showed. Posted on the New York Fed’s web site Wednesday, the study sought out to explain why equities receive such a high premium over less risky assets such as bonds. What they found was that the Federal Reserve has had an outsized impact on equities relative to other asset classes. For example, the market has a tendency to rise in the 24-hour period before the release of the Fed’s statement on interest rates and the economy, presumably on expectations Chairman Ben Bernanke and his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, would discuss or implement a stimulus measure to lift asset prices. — CNBC


Read more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dailyreckoning/~3/Pa5txDy2Tjc/#ixzz20sSjGOxN

[xchrom]

13. German investor optimism drops unexpectedly

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-17-06-23-27

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- A key measure of German investor confidence fell unexpectedly in July in another sign that the eurozone financial crisis is weighing on Europe's largest economy, which has so far proved resilient.

The ZEW institute said Tuesday its index fell for the third month in a row to minus 19.6 points from minus 16.9 in June. Market analysts foresaw a small increase to minus 15.0.

Germany is the largest economy in the 17-country eurozone and has an outsized impact on the currency union and its efforts to dig out of a crisis over too much government debt. It has enjoyed economic growth and low unemployment even as financially troubled countries such as Spain and Italy were sinking into recession. German growth of 0.5 percent in the first quarter kept the eurozone as a whole from sliding into recession, and the German economy is still expected to post modest growth this year.

Yet economic indicators have worsened recently as the financial turmoil heightened economic uncertainty in other eurozone members, Germany's main trade partners. The European Central Bank cut its key interest rate July 5 to a record low 0.75 percent to stimulate the eurozone economy.

[Demeter]

25. The Logical Result of Beggaring One's Neighbors

not to mention grosser, more indecent forms of assault.

They really didn't think this euro thing through, so don't cry for Deutschland.

[amandabeech]

57. I always like to hear about German capitulation. n/t

[xchrom]

15. House panel to probe LIBOR scandal; CalPERS might seek damages

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-libor-house-financial-services-committee-calpers-bernanke-geithner-20120716,0,4927033.story

WASHINGTON -- A House committee is launching a bipartisan investigation into allegations that large banks rigged a key interest rate and plans to question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner at upcoming hearings.

At the same time, officials at the country’s largest public pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, said Monday they were examining the impact of the rate-fixing scandal and might seek damages if they could be calculated.

“Once again, the financial services industry demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to make decisions in the long-term interests of investors,” said CalPERS Chief Investment Officer Joseph Dear.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) and the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced their probe on Monday, joining investigations by regulators.

[Demeter]

26. Another couple of fool's errands

Don't mind me, I'm cranky and it's weather-related.

[xchrom]

16. After 800 years, the barons are back in control of Britain

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain


King John, surrounded by English barons, ratifying the Magna Carta at Runnymede. Photograph: Time Life Pictures/Getty Image

Hounded by police and bailiffs, evicted wherever they stopped, they did not mean to settle here. They had walked out of London to occupy disused farmland on the Queen's estates surrounding Windsor Castle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that didn't work out very well. But after several days of pursuit, they landed two fields away from the place where modern democracy is commonly supposed to have been born.

At first this group of mostly young, dispossessed people, who (after the 17th century revolutionaries) call themselves Diggers 2012, camped on the old rugby pitch of Brunel University's Runnymede campus. It's a weed-choked complex of grand old buildings and modern halls of residence, whose mildewed curtains flap in the wind behind open windows, all mysteriously abandoned as if struck by a plague or a neutron bomb.

The diggers were evicted again, and moved down the hill into the woods behind the campus – pressed, as if by the ineluctable force of history, ever closer to the symbolic spot. From the meeting house they have built and their cluster of tents, you can see across the meadows to where the Magna Carta was sealed almost 800 years ago.

Their aim is simple: to remove themselves from the corporate economy, to house themselves, grow food and build a community on abandoned land. Implementation is less simple. Soon after I arrived, on a sodden day last week, an enforcer working for the company which now owns the land came slithering through the mud in his suit and patent leather shoes with a posse of police, to serve papers.

[xchrom]

17. This global financial fraud and its gatekeepers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/14/global-financial-fraud-gatekeepers

Last fall, I argued that the violent reaction to Occupy and other protests around the world had to do with the 1%ers' fear of the rank and file exposing massive fraud if they ever managed get their hands on the books. At that time, I had no evidence of this motivation beyond the fact that financial system reform and increased transparency were at the top of many protesters' list of demands.

But this week presents a sick-making trove of new data that abundantly fills in this hypothesis and confirms this picture. The notion that the entire global financial system is riddled with systemic fraud – and that key players in the gatekeeper roles, both in finance and in government, including regulatory bodies, know it and choose to quietly sustain this reality – is one that would have only recently seemed like the frenzied hypothesis of tinhat-wearers, but this week's headlines make such a conclusion, sadly, inevitable.

The New York Times business section on 12 July shows multiple exposes of systemic fraud throughout banks: banks colluding with other banks in manipulation of interest rates, regulators aware of systemic fraud, and key government officials (at least one banker who became the most key government official) aware of it and colluding as well. Fraud in banks has been understood conventionally and, I would say, messaged as a glitch. As in London Mayor Boris Johnson's full-throated defense of Barclay's leadership last week, bank fraud is portrayed as a case, when it surfaces, of a few "bad apples" gone astray.

In the New York Times business section, we read that the HSBC banking group is being fined up to $1bn, for not preventing money-laundering (a highly profitable activity not to prevent) between 2004 and 2010 – a six years' long "oops". In another article that day, Republican Senator Charles Grassley says of the financial group Peregrine capital: "This is a company that is on top of things." The article goes onto explain that at Peregrine Financial, "regulators discovered about $215m in customer money was missing." Its founder now faces criminal charges. Later, the article mentions that this revelation comes a few months after MF Global "lost" more than $1bn in clients' money.

[xchrom]

18. New York and Connecticut look into Libor rate-fixing allegations

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/16/new-york-connecticut-rate-fixing-allegations

New York and Connecticut attorneys general have joined forces to investigate alleged manipulation of the Libor interest rates.

The scandal is already being investigated by the US justice department and financial regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. But the involvement of New York state is likely to ramp up the investigation.

New York state's Martin Act gives its attorney general the most wide-ranging investigative powers of any state. Eliot Spitzer used the act to force a massive settlement out of Wall Street following the analysts scandal of the early 2000s.

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman and Connecticut attorney general George Jepsen are working together in the investigation. A spokeswoman for the Connecticut attorney general confirmed that two state lawyers had been working on the Libor issue "over the last several months" looking at "alleged anti-competitive conduct related to potential rigging and manipulation of benchmark interest rates."

[xchrom]

19. HSBC executives to apologise at US Senate hearing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18867054

HSBC will apologise to the US Senate after an investigation claimed that the bank was being used to launder dirty money around the world.

In a statement, Europe's largest bank, said it expected to be held accountable for what went wrong.

HSBC will appear before the Senate at 09:30 local time (13:30 GMT).

On Monday, a Senate report said that suspicious funds from countries including Mexico and Syria had passed through the bank.

[Tansy_Gold]

28. Well that sure makes everything a-okay now, doesn't it?

wankers.

[Roland99]

20. Oh Happy Day

Futures:
S&P 500 +0.4%
DOW +0.4%
NASDAQ +0.5%

[Roland99]

21. Today's Reports

[Roland99]

22. June US Consumer Prices >>>>

* Core CPI climbs 0.2% in June
* Food index rose 0.2% in June
* U.S. consumer prices flat in June

[Roland99]

23. Inflation-adjusted hourly wages rise 0.2%

[Tansy_Gold]

27. Over how long? The past decade? :-( n/t

[Roland99]

24. Cost of energy fell 1.4% last month

[Demeter]

40. Whre? Where?

Show me the utility bills, please.

[Roland99]

44. I'm sure mostly from gas going down. But it's come back up a bit lately.

We were *almost* going to get under $3.00. Even saw a Hess at Disney World at $2.99(9) but then oil started going back up and we're about $3.20 right now.

[Demeter]

50. On Keiser Report, his guest claims that gas will be driven down to $2.50 for the election

and that oil prices are supported by strategic stockpiling for war, profiteering and whatever.

SEE AT: http://www.democraticunderground.com/101741783

[Roland99]

42. NAHB home builder sentiment up 6 pts to 35

[Roland99]

43. Industrial production edges up 0.4% in June

[xchrom]

29. Foreign investment in China slips 6.9% as economy slows

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18866471

Foreign direct investment into China fell in June as an economic slowdown dampened companies' appetite for expansion.

Inbound investment fell 6.9% from a year earlier to $12bn (£7.7bn), figures showed. This comes after a six-month slide and only a 0.1% gain in May.

The Chinese economy grew at its slowest pace in three years in the second quarter of this year.

Premier Wen Jiabao has said China faces downward pressures.

[xchrom]

30. UK legislators grill former Barclays official {video @ link}

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2012/07/2012716222748453168.html


One of the key figures in the Barclays Bank scandal says he was merely acting under orders when he asked his staff to manipulate interest rates.

Jerry del Missier was giving evidence at a parliamentary inquiry in London on Monday.

Del Missier told the inquiry that he was instructed by the former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond to manipulate the bank's Libor interest rate submissions.

The scandal revolves around the London Interbank Offered rate, or Libor, which affects trillions of dollars worth of financial transactions. It also influences everything from mortgages to student loans and credit cards.

[xchrom]

31. Profit and security at the London Olympics

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/2012717114635368792.html




G4S - the Anglo-Danish conglomerate - has put the security of the London Olympics at risk. Or so it would seem according to recent headlines.

The largest private security company in the world, G4S employs over 650,000 people in 125 countries. But the news broke last week that it could not provide the 13,000 security guards it had promised for the Olympics.

Britain's muckraking journalists responded with aplomb. The papers abounded with stories of inept trainees asleep in classes or lacking in English. Other would-be security guards failed to spot pistols, bombs and grenades.

Certainly, G4S' shenanigans have laid the ground for a scandal of Olympic proportions if terrorist attacks do occur.

[Demeter]

36. They were going to do it with.......VOLUNTEERS!

And when John Bull didn't step up and volunteer, their gaudy plans fell to pieces.

In a nation with soaring unemployment, they wanted VOLUNTEERS to take on hazardous work....and guarding is hazardous, on its face, because it creates the expectation that things will go wrong.

Still, nobody's talking about not paying the mercs.

[DemReadingDU]

32. Graham Summers: The End of the Bernanke Put is Here

7/17/12 The End of the Bernanke Put is Here
Graham Summers

For well over a year, even after Ben Bernanke admitted that the consequences of QE outweighed the benefits, the financial media world is awash with claims that QE 3 is just around the corner. It doesn’t matter than it’s been over a year. Nor does it matter that the Fed has staged 10 FOMC meetings without launching more QE, everyone claims QE is coming. Guess what? It’s not. And I’m going to lay this idiotic theory to rest right here and now.
.
.
More QE pushes the US Dollar down. So for the Fed to engage in more QE would mean the Fed would be buying appreciating assets from the banks (which can be leveraged up for trades… remember all the big banks are now basically hedge funds) in exchange for cash which yields next to nothing and would be depreciating in value if more QE was announced. The banks need all the Treasuries they can get their hands on. I know, I know, ultimately Treasuries will be worth much less when the debt crisis hits the US. But it hasn’t yet.

If you’re a large bank what would you rather own? Treasuries or some other sovereign bond which either yields nothing (Germany, Japan, France) or which is about to default (the PIIGS and others)? The answer is obvious. You want Treasuries. We’re not talking about ideals here; we’re talking about reality. And in today’s financial reality, Treasuries are the best senior most asset a bank can buy. WHY would a bank want to hand these off to the Fed for cash, which yields nothing?

I could go on and on, but the reality is the above arguments alone erase any reason for the Fed to launch QE any time soon, if ever. The ONLY reason the Fed would launch QE would be if liquidity needs were so desperate for the banks that the would be willing to give up their senior most assets in exchange for cash to meet day to day liquidity needs. And if we get to that point in the US again, QE will be the LAST of our worries.

So, QE is not coming. End of story. You can continue to argue otherwise based on some idealistic view of the world, but the reality is Europe and Japan’s bond markets are both on the brink of collapse. US banks want all the Treasuries they can get. In a perfect world, they’re not great investments, but they’re far more attractive that the alternatives in the REAL world.

So… if you’re still investing based on the idea that QE is coming and that the Bernanke Put is firmly in place, you’re going to be in for a HUGE surprise in the coming months. QE isn’t coming. And the Bernanke Put is losing its credibility rapidly. Which means… the primary prop underneath the US stock market and financial system (namely Fed intervention) is slowly being removed. What follows will not be pretty and smart investors should be taking steps now to prepare in advance.

more...
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-07-17/end-bernanke-put-here

[Demeter]

37. I know where I'D Like to Put Bernanke

Gitmo. By way of some Central European torture chamber.

[xchrom]

33. The US can't afford Romney

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/2012715121236211572.html


Barack Obama has not been a good president. On a host of issues, he has been a bad president. But the United States could do worse.

New York City throbbed with manic celebrations four years ago. Obama had beaten John McCain and people were overcome and overwhelmed for the right reasons. His candidacy had proven that the country could be as good as its promise and that the promise extended to everyone. It was a good time for the US and the world.

But the candidate failed to live up to his promise, even if the country did not. He betrayed core constituencies - liberals and Latinos - to a mercenary decision-making process. His priorities appeared to be informed more by the value of historic gestures and legacy-building than by immediate necessity. The universal provision of healthcare matters, but not more than the corrosive economic malaise endured by so many for years now.


*** if this were the guys locker room -- EVERYBODY'S ASS would be stinging from the towel snapping this guy gives.

[Demeter]

38. "the United States could do worse...."

Don't worry, it will. Nobody ever got rich underestimating the stupidity of the average American.

[xchrom]

34. Number of Spaniards emigrating up 44 percent in first half of 2012 as economic crisis bites

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/markets/number-of-spaniards-emigrating-up-44-percent-in-first-half-of-2012-as-economic-crisis-bites/2012/07/17/gJQA9RBxqW_story.html

MADRID — The National Statistics Institute says the number of Spaniards leaving the recession-wracked country in the first six months of the year was up 44 percent from the same period last year.

The institute says Tuesday that current estimates show 40, 625 Spaniards emigrated between January and the end of June, compared to 28,162 last year.

It says a total of 269,515 people left the country in the six-month period, 228, 890 of whom were foreigners.

The figures are based on municipal censuses.

[xchrom]

35. Plan drawn up to cut military personnel by 20,000 {spain}

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/07/17/inenglish/1342525776_142934.html

The Spanish Defense Ministry has drawn up plans to cut 15,000 military posts and another 5,000 civilian jobs over the next 13 years, a reduction equivalent to 13 percent on current staffing levels.

The drop in personnel is included in a plan named Vision 2025 drawn up by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Fernando García Sánchez, which aims to transform Spain's armed forces into an "agile, adaptable, sustainable and technologically advanced" unit by that year.

The armed forces' budget has been cut by 25 percent over the past four years and currently stands at 6.3 billion euros, equivalent to 0.6 of GDP. As a result, the number of hours spent on training exercises has been drastically reduced as have plans for modernization, while personnel costs have risen 73 percent. The armed forces have also run up debts of 27 billion on arms purchases that are impossible to pay back.

However, Defense Minister Pedro Morenés has avoided speaking of the need for cuts in personnel, putting the focus instead on analyzing the security risks Spain is facing and the measures needed to confront those risks. The biggest risk, however, is that posed by the economic crisis, and a number of Spain's European partners have already drastically slimmed down their armed forces. On Tuesday the minister admitted that the plan to cut back on personnel had been drawn up by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but that it was merely “an opinion.”

[Demeter]

39. That must have been a "Crack" Rally

Peak to crash in 30 minutes.

[Demeter]

45. Bernanke Did It: Wall Street erases gains on Bernanke comments

http://news.yahoo.com/stock-futures-rise-ahead-bernanke-testimony-113159911--sector.html

Stocks turned negative on Tuesday as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank stands ready to offer additional monetary support to an economy that has slowed significantly, but provided few details.

[DemReadingDU]

49. Bernanke Offers No Hint On Easing

7/17/12 Bernanke Offers No Hint On Easing

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke offered no new hints Tuesday that the central bank is planning more easing, but he repeated his pledge that the Fed "is prepared to take further action as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery."

In prepared testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Bernanke said economic uncertainty is increasing, mainly due to the European debt crisis and the looming "Fiscal Cliff" in the US.

"Risks to economic growth have increased," he said, and "Europe's financial markets and economy remain under significant stress."

"Reduction in unemployment likely to be frustratingly slow," Bernanke said, but he said there were "modest signs of improvement in housing."

more...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bernanke-offers-no-hint-easing-142223317.html



and the markets go red

[Po_d Mainiac]

47. He said 'fiscal'

Not ease.....

[xchrom]

41. how Iceland stalks its banksters

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/2339301-how-iceland-stalks-its-banksters

Prior to the economic crisis, Olafur Hauksson was police commissioner in Akranes, a small port town of 6,500 inhabitants stranded at the end of a frozen peninsula some fifty kilometres from Reykjavik. Since 2009, he tracks down and brings to justice those who played a role in the country's economic collapse of 2008.

At the end of 2008, the Icelandic bubble burst as a consequence of the subprime crisis in the United States. Two weeks after the dramatic fall of Lehman Brothers, the country's three major banks – valued at 923% of gross domestic product (GDP) – collapsed. The crisis swept through the island, the Icelandic krona dropped in value and no intervention could halt its downward spiral. On October 6, 2008, live on national television, the then-prime minister ended his speech by asking God to "save the island".

Since that fateful day, Iceland has known troubled times. In 2009, the Icelanders, although not used to demonstrating over social issues, shouted their anger against the politicians and the "neo-Vikings" of finance that betrayed them. The "revolution of pots and pans" forced the resignations of the Parliament and of the conservative government.

One of the demands of that movement was that those that profited from the economic situation and who pushed Iceland into the economic abyss be brought to justice. Early legislative elections [in 2009] brought the left to power. The new prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, wanted to quickly appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the causes of the crisis but candidates applying for the post were hard to find.

[Po_d Mainiac]

46. I keep looking for AWOL Holder and the porn gang...no joy

http://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

[Eugene]

48. CFTC's Gensler acknowledges failure in Peregrine's oversight

Source: Reuters

CFTC's Gensler acknowledges failure in Peregrine's oversight

By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON | Tue Jul 17, 2012 9:03am EDT

(Reuters) - The U.S. futures regulator acknowledged on Tuesday that the regulatory system "failed" the customers of Peregrine Financial Group, which collapsed last week as its founder admitted he had committed a $100 million fraud that spanned two decades.

In testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler will outline his agency's plans to contain the fallout from the Peregrine case, which has shaken investor confidence in the futures markets.

He also provided a few new details into the CFTC's investigation into whether banks tried to rig the Libor benchmark international lending rate.

Gensler said the agency launched its investigation in April 2008 "after media reports raised questions about the integrity of the index" and said the CFTC will continue to use its enforcement powers following its settlement with Barclays Plc last month.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/17/us-peregrine-cftc-gensler-idUSBRE86G0KF20120717

[Demeter]

51. Selling of American Democracy: The Perfect Storm By Robert Reich

http://www.nationofchange.org/selling-american-democracy-perfect-storm-1342272391

Who’s buying our democracy? Wall Street financiers, the Koch brothers, and casino magnates Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn. And they’re doing much of it in secret.

It’s a perfect storm: The greatest concentration of wealth in more than a century — courtesy “trickle-down” economics, Reagan and Bush tax cuts, and the demise of organized labor.

Combined with… Unlimited political contributions — courtesy of Republican-appointed Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy, in one of the dumbest decisions in Supreme Court history, “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission,” along with lower-court rulings that have expanded it.

Combined with…Complete secrecy about who’s contributing how much to whom — courtesy of a loophole in the tax laws that allows so-called non-profit “social welfare” organizations to accept the unlimited contributions for hard-hitting political ads.

Put them all together and our democracy is being sold down the drain.

With a more equitable and traditional distribution of wealth, far more Americans would have a fair chance of influencing politics. As the great jurist Louis Brandeis once said, “we can have a democracy or we can have great wealth in the hands of a comparative few, but we cannot have both.” Alternatively, inequality wouldn’t be as much of a problem if we had strict laws limiting political spending or, at the very least, disclosing who was contributing what. But we have an almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and unlimited political spending and secrecy.

I’m not letting Democrats off the hook. Democratic candidates are still too dependent on Wall Street casino moguls and real casino magnates (Steve Wynn has been a major contributor to Harry Reid, for example). George Soros and a few others have poured big bucks into Democratic coffers. So have a handful of trade unions. But make no mistake. Compared to what the GOP is doing this year, Democrats are conducting a high-school bake sale. The mega-selling of American democracy is a Republican invention, and Romney and the GOP are its major beneficiaries. And the losers aren’t just Democrats. They’re the American people.

You need to make a ruckus. Don’t fall into the seductive trap of cynicism. That’s what the sellers of American democracy are counting on. If you give up on our system of government, they win everything. This coming Monday, for example, the Senate has scheduled a cloture vote on the DISCLOSE ACT, which would at least require that outfits like the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s “Crossroads GPS” disclose who’s contributing what. Contact your senators, and have your friends and relatives in other states — especially those with Republican senators (who have been united in their opposition to disclosure) — contact theirs. If the DISCLOSE ACT is voted down, hold accountable those senators (and, when and if it gets to the House, those House members) who are selling out our democracy for the sake of their own personal ambitions.

[Demeter]

52. If We’re Headed Toward Greece, Republicans are Driving Us There By Joe Conason

http://www.nationofchange.org/if-we-re-headed-toward-greece-republicans-are-driving-us-there-1342184900

When Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters on Tuesday that Mitt Romney's foreign investment accounts don't trouble him because "it's really American to avoid paying taxes," he must not have realized that he was calling his party's nominee-to-be a liar. "As long as it was legal, I'm OK with it," said the South Carolina Republican. "I don't blame anybody for using the tax code to their advantage. ... It's a game we play. Every American tries to find the way to get the most deductions they can. I see nothing wrong with playing the game because we set it up to be a game." Graham assumes — no doubt correctly — that Romney sent his money offshore to avoid taxes. But the Republican candidate and his flacks have repeatedly insisted that the Romneys' admittedly minimal tax bill was not reduced at all by their remarkable maze of holdings in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It is "the very same" as if he had kept those millions of dollars in the United States, or so they claim. But Graham clearly doesn't buy that alibi. In fact, nobody does. And eventually Romney may be forced to realize complete information about his investments that may yet indicate the extent to which he and his family have escaped taxation.

Meanwhile, what Graham unwittingly evoked with his clumsy endorsement of tax avoidance is the specter of Greece — a nation whose fiscal drama incites endless Republican prattle about the need for austerity. Warnings that as a nation we are on "the road to Greece" have become a favorite Republican cliche, regurgitated by every politician who wants to be considered for vice president as well as by the presidential candidate himself...What Graham, Romney and all the other Republican politicians and pundits consistently fail to mention — or perhaps don't know — is that the central Greek problem isn't overspending per se. The central problem is the Greek government's failure to collect what taxpayers (especially wealthy taxpayers) actually owe under the law.

That's because over the years so many Greeks have adopted an attitude toward taxes resembling that of Romney and Graham. Indeed, Greece has developed a culture of tax evasion, with wealthy citizens sending their money out of the country and poorer citizens bribing officials or conducting their business off the books. The amount of tax owed but not paid in Greece is estimated at roughly a third of total receipts — or enough to cover the nation's deficits and begin to restore its credit. Sociologists who have studied the Greek tax situation say that rampant evasion by the rich has trickled down to infect the rest of society, ruining the "tax morale" of wage-earners and small business owners. As James Surowiecki explained in The New Yorker, people here and elsewhere don't pay taxes simply because they fear prosecution; they pay because they are "social taxpayers" who "feel a responsibility to contribute to the common good." But that sense of shared obligation gradually dissipates when taxpayers suspect that many others, especially the rich, are not participating fairly and fully.

Despite growing debt and deficits, we are not on the road to Greece. With investors around the world rushing to purchase U.S.Treasury bonds and driving rates to historic lows, this country is far from the plight of the homeland of democracy. For now, it is safe to ignore right-wing rhetoric that shrieks the fiscal sky is falling. But if such troubles lie ahead, the real cause will not be spending on income security, health care, infrastructure, education or any of the other programs that have made America a great nation. If we are driven toward national bankruptcy someday, the likeliest cause will be our failure to raise and enforce taxes on those who can afford to pay — because we, too, have encouraged a culture of evasion rather than responsibility.

[Demeter]

53. Thousands fall victim to utility payment scam By SCOTT BAUER

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UTILITY_SCAM?SITE=CAANG&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

As much as President Barack Obama wants your vote, he's not actually offering to pay your monthly bills.

But thousands of Americans have been persuaded otherwise, falling victim to a fast-moving scam that claims to be part of an Obama administration program to help pay utility bills in the midst of a scorching summer.

The scheme spread quickly across the nation in recent weeks with help from victims who unwittingly shared it on social media sites before realizing they had been conned out of personal information such as Social Security, credit card and checking account numbers.

"No one knows who is behind this," said Katherine Hutt, spokeswoman for the Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Va. "We're pretty concerned. It seems to have really taken off."

DETAILS AT LINK

[Demeter]

54. It's 102F and only 1 PM

I am whimpering in my cave. There's 5 more hours of heating, and I don't buy for a second the notion that a "strong cold front" will be heading to the rescue this evening.

It is impossible to pretend that everything is normal, when life as we know it is impossible.

There is a wave of anticipation on DU that Romney will "disappear" before the election or maybe, even before the convention. I think this is beyond delusional, way past tinfoil hat conspiracy. If one thinks the revolution has happened already, one is partaking of too many stimulants. I'll gladly eat my hat if it happens, but that's just not how it works, and we have lots of proof of that, from previous elections and sleazy candidates, most of whom were actually elected, in one way or another...

Now, if Holder were to impanel a grand jury and indict Romney...but this Administration would never do anything so shocking as confront a criminal in a court, so that's a non-starter.

So no, I have no hope, I see no future, unless it seriously starts to rain around here.

[Po_d Mainiac]

62. Wish I could send you some water

Cuzz I can afford to.

How about a bushel of summer squash and a few quarts of blueberries to go with it?

[Demeter]

63. I'm not cooking, Po

I'm hardly even eating. It's too hot. I'm afraid to open the next electric bill. I try very hard to take no more than two showers a day.

[DemReadingDU]

55. Video - Facts matter: Eliot Spitzer refutes Maria Bartiromo

7/16/12 Facts matter: Eliot Spitzer refutes Maria Bartiromo’s claims about case against Hank Greenberg, AIG

When “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” last Friday, they had a spirited exchange about the fraud charges Spitzer brought against former AIG Chairman Hank Greenberg while Spitzer was attorney general of New York. Bartiromo addressed their interview in a segment on “Closing Bell” today, and Spitzer responded to her attempt to “rewrite history” by laying out the facts about the case.
“Maria, every statement I’ve made about Hank Greenberg’s role in these frauds is proven and accurate,” Spitzer says. “It’s too bad Wall Street’s leadership — and some of their favorite voices — can’t learn the lessons from the past and move forward.”
He then urges Bartiromo to “stick to the facts, not the press releases from Greenberg’s attorneys and press machine.”

video appx 9.5 minutes
http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/facts-matter-eliot-spitzer-refutes-maria-bartiromos-claims-about-case-against-hank-greenberg-aig/

[DemReadingDU]

56. Video - LIBOR: Eliot Spitzer, Matt Taibbi, Dennis Kelleher

7/16/12 Will banks be held accountable for Libor manipulation?
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone contributing editor, and Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets Inc., join “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer to assess the scope of the unfolding Libor scandal given news that the U.S. Justice Department is building criminal cases and expects to “file charges against at least one bank later this year,” according to The New York Times.
“It can’t be just one bank,” Taibbi says. “By its very nature this scandal has to involve multiple banks, so if it’s only one company or one individual, that tells you that the scandal has been – that the scope of this investigation has been artificially narrowed. But if you can’t put somebody in jail for manipulating an $800 trillion market, what can you put them in jail for?”
“There’s never been any accountability on Wall Street,” Kelleher observes. “Wall Street’s a high crime area and the criminals are just let to run free. This would never be tolerated anywhere else in America and it’s time to end the two sets of laws. We apply laws to everybody in this country and we pamper Wall Street.”

video appx 7.5 minutes
http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/will-banks-be-held-accountable-for-libor-manipulation/

[Demeter]

59. The charts are oscillating

In a circuit, unwanted oscillation is a sign of DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

In the hospital, it's a sign of convulsive failure.

In a market, well, it's not fairies, exactly. More like trolls....

[Fuddnik]

60. And Leon is getting larger!

[Demeter]

64. Who or what is LEON?

and why am I so out of it?

[DemReadingDU]

65. I don't know either

I think I live in a cave sometimes

[Fuddnik]

66. Airplane!

"The fog is getting thicker"
and
"Leon is getting larger"

Guess I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

[Roland99]

67. Well played.

Actually used that line at work yesterday!