STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 29 March 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 29 March 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 28 March 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 28 March 2013
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Dow Jones 14,578.54 +52.38 (0.36%)
S&P 500 1,569.19 +6.34 (0.41%)
Nasdaq 3,267.52 +11.00 (0.34%)


[font color=red]10 Year 1.94% +0.01 (0.52%)
30 Year 3.17% +0.02 (0.63%) [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
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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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
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
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."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.





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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. Cerberus seeks to bankroll investor landlords

NOW WE KNOW: THE CORPORATE INVESTOR/LANDLORD SCHEME IS DOOMED TO FAILURE

http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-cerberus-seeks-bankroll-investor-landlords-160140180--sector.html

Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management wants to provide financing to small investment firms that are buying foreclosed homes as part of a long-term bullish bet on the housing recovery, according to four sources familiar with the situation. Cerberus is targeting investment firms that are looking to buy a small number of homes in niche housing markets in the U.S. and rent them out, the sources said. These investors cannot tap the much larger financing deals being put together by banks such as Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs Group for institutional buyers of foreclosed homes. Cerberus' financing deals will be small, under $25 million, and many will be for less than $10 million, the sources said, declining to be identified as the new loan product has not been announced. A spokesman for Cerberus declined to comment. The move by the New York-based firm, with $20 billion under management, comes amid a rush over the past year by investor groups seeking to raise cash to buy up cheap homes.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has held mortgage rates near record lows, helping to fuel the housing market recovery. A drop in the flow of foreclosed homes coming on to the market has also helped to push up home prices, which soared 8.1 percent in January in 20 metropolitan areas tracked by S&P/Case Shiller, the biggest 12-month rise since June 2006. The National Association of Realtors said in February that roughly 32 percent of all single-family homes were purchased in all-cash transactions. Historically, the realtor group said all-cash deals have represented no more than 20 percent of all transactions. But many all-cash buyers also are leveraging themselves with cheap loans from banks.

Large institutional investors - led by private equity firm Blackstone Group, upstart firm American Homes 4 Rent and real estate firm Colony Capital - will spend up to $10 billion over the next two years to buy distressed single family homes, housing analysts estimate. That is part of a strategy to first rent out the homes and later sell them at a profit. So far, Blackstone is the most aggressive national buyer of homes sold at foreclosures auctions or by banks, amassing a portfolio of about 20,000 homes in largely a half-dozen states. The private equity firm has confirmed spending $3.5 billion on its acquisition strategy. Blackstone also recently secured up to $2.1 billion in bank financing led by Deutsche Bank. Cerberus' target investor operates on a much smaller scale. A website set up by the firm in February for the new lending platform, called First Key Lending, said Cerberus will provide "innovative financing solutions for stabilized portfolios of 1-4 family U.S. residential properties." Some housing analysts have said that spending by big institutional buyers has driven up prices for single family homes and made it difficult for smaller investor groups to compete at foreclosure auctions and inventory sales by banks. The people familiar with Cerberus' plan said the firm could look at some point to package the loans into a securitized note that could be sold to investors to reduce risk if housing prices were to suddenly fall and imperil the ability of investors to pay back the loan.

Cerberus, founded in 1992, has specialized over the years in investing in distressed companies and debt. The firm has portfolios that invest in mortgage-backed securities and non-performing residential loans. The firm has been looking at the market for foreclosed homes for a year. Cerberus began studying the market when rival firms like Blackstone made the plunge into the market for distressed single-family homes last March.

IF THERE'S NO EMPLOYMENT, THESE WISEGUYS WILL END UP WITH A WHOLE BUNCH OF MONEY PITS....

[Demeter]

2. BECAUSE: Job market: The kids are not alright

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/job-market-the-kids-are-not-alright-2013-03-28

The number of people applying for new unemployment benefits rose more than expected in the week ended March 23, reaching the highest level since mid-February. But while analysts cautioned against reading too much into the short-term numbers, noting that the job market has been improving over the longer stretch, one group seems to be struggling more than others in this economy: so called millennials. For young adults between the ages of 18 and 29, the unemployment rate is 12.5%, and it rises to over 16% when taking into account those who have given up looking for work, says Evan Feinberg, president of Generation Opportunity, a non-profit think-tank based in Arlington, Va. When including all 18-to-29 year-olds, Feinberg says, that higher rate remained persistently over 16% throughout 2012. That comes even as the overall jobless rate has fallen to 7.7%, the lowest level in four years.

Why is it tougher for teens and young adults? Jobs that typically went to recent college graduates are increasingly going to older Americans, who have more experience but are willing to stay in lower-paying, entry-level jobs in the absence of better options, say experts. “Young people suffer disproportionately when the economy doesn’t grow,” he says. “It’s tougher for them to break into the workforce.” College graduates are not immune. A recent Rutgers University study found that only a half of those who graduated since 2006 are now employed full time. As a result, many are forced to say home with mom and dad and face a future of paying off hefty student loans on less-than-adequate salaries. In fact, college graduates who obtained their first job between 2009 and 2011 earned an average of $27,000 a year, or 10% less than those who entered the workforce in the two previous years, the Rutgers survey found. “An entire generation of Americans won’t know what it means to live the American dream,” Feinberg says...

[Demeter]

4. Cheating Our Children By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/opinion/krugman-cheating-our-children.html?_r=0

So, about that fiscal crisis — the one that would, any day now, turn us into Greece. Greece, I tell you: Never mind...Over the past few weeks, there has been a remarkable change of position among the deficit scolds who have dominated economic policy debate for more than three years. It’s as if someone sent out a memo saying that the Chicken Little act, with its repeated warnings of a U.S. debt crisis that keeps not happening, has outlived its usefulness. Suddenly, the argument has changed: It’s not about the crisis next month; it’s about the long run, about not cheating our children. The deficit, we’re told, is really a moral issue. There’s just one problem: The new argument is as bad as the old one. Yes, we are cheating our children, but the deficit has nothing to do with it.

Before I get there, a few words about the sudden switch in arguments.

There has, of course, been no explicit announcement of a change in position. But the signs are everywhere. Pundits who spent years trying to foster a sense of panic over the deficit have begun writing pieces lamenting the likelihood that there won’t be a crisis, after all. Maybe it wasn’t that significant when President Obama declared that we don’t face any “immediate” debt crisis, but it did represent a change in tone from his previous deficit-hawk rhetoric. And it was startling, indeed, when John Boehner, the speaker of the House, said exactly the same thing a few days later. What happened? Basically, the numbers refuse to cooperate: Interest rates remain stubbornly low, deficits are declining and even 10-year budget projections basically show a stable fiscal outlook rather than exploding debt. So talk of a fiscal crisis has subsided. Yet the deficit scolds haven’t given up on their determination to bully the nation into slashing Social Security and Medicare. So they have a new line: We must bring down the deficit right away because it’s “generational warfare,” imposing a crippling burden on the next generation.

What’s wrong with this argument? For one thing, it involves a fundamental misunderstanding of what debt does to the economy. Contrary to almost everything you read in the papers or see on TV, debt doesn’t directly make our nation poorer; it’s essentially money we owe to ourselves. Deficits would indirectly be making us poorer if they were either leading to big trade deficits, increasing our overseas borrowing, or crowding out investment, reducing future productive capacity. But they aren’t: Trade deficits are down, not up, while business investment has actually recovered fairly strongly from the slump. And the main reason businesses aren’t investing more is inadequate demand. They’re sitting on lots of cash, despite soaring profits, because there’s no reason to expand capacity when you aren’t selling enough to use the capacity you have. In fact, you can think of deficits mainly as a way to put some of that idle cash to use.

Yet there is, as I said, a lot of truth to the charge that we’re cheating our children. How? By neglecting public investment and failing to provide jobs. You don’t have to be a civil engineer to realize that America needs more and better infrastructure, but the latest “report card” from the American Society of Civil Engineers — with its tally of deficient dams, bridges, and more, and its overall grade of D+ — still makes startling and depressing reading. And right now — with vast numbers of unemployed construction workers and vast amounts of cash sitting idle — would be a great time to rebuild our infrastructure. Yet public investment has actually plunged since the slump began. Or what about investing in our young? We’re cutting back there, too, having laid off hundreds of thousands of schoolteachers and slashed the aid that used to make college affordable for children of less-affluent families. Last but not least, think of the waste of human potential caused by high unemployment among younger Americans — for example, among recent college graduates who can’t start their careers and will probably never make up the lost ground. And why are we shortchanging the future so dramatically and inexcusably? Blame the deficit scolds, who weep crocodile tears over the supposed burden of debt on the next generation, but whose constant inveighing against the risks of government borrowing, by undercutting political support for public investment and job creation, has done far more to cheat our children than deficits ever did. Fiscal policy is, indeed, a moral issue, and we should be ashamed of what we’re doing to the next generation’s economic prospects. But our sin involves investing too little, not borrowing too much — and the deficit scolds, for all their claims to have our children’s interests at heart, are actually the bad guys in this story.

[Demeter]

5. The Ivy League Was Another Planet

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/opinion/elite-colleges-are-as-foreign-as-mars.html

IN 12th grade, my friend Ryan and I were finalists for the Silver State Scholars, a competition to identify the “Top 100” seniors in Nevada. The finalists were flown to Lake Tahoe for two days of interviews. On the plane, Ryan and I met a boy from Las Vegas. Looking to size up the competition, we asked what high school he went to. He said a name we didn’t recognize and added, “It’s a magnet school.” Ryan asked what a magnet school was, and spent the remaining hour incredulously demanding a detailed account of the young man’s educational history: his time abroad, his after-school robotics club, his tutors, his college prep courses. All educations, we realized then, are not created equal. For Ryan and me, of Pahrump, Nev., just an hour from the city, the Vegas boy was a citizen of a planet we would never visit. What we didn’t know was that there were other, more distant planets that we could not even see. And those planets couldn’t see us, either.

A study released last week by researchers at Harvard and Stanford quantified what everyone in my hometown already knew: even the most talented rural poor kids don’t go to the nation’s best colleges. The vast majority, the study found, do not even try. For deans of admissions brainstorming what they can do to remedy this, might I suggest: anything. By the time they’re ready to apply to colleges, most kids from families like mine — poor, rural, no college grads in sight — know of and apply to only those few universities to which they’ve incidentally been exposed. Your J.V. basketball team goes to a clinic at University of Nevada, Las Vegas; you apply to U.N.L.V. Your Amtrak train rolls through San Luis Obispo, Calif.; you go to Cal Poly. I took a Greyhound bus to visit high school friends at the University of Nevada, Reno, and ended up at U.N.R. a year later, in 2003. If top colleges are looking for a more comprehensive tutorial in recruiting the talented rural poor, they might take a cue from one institution doing a truly stellar job: the military.

I never saw a college rep at Pahrump Valley High, but the military made sure that a stream of alumni flooded back to our school in their uniforms and fresh flattops, urging their old chums to enlist. Those students who did even reasonably well on the Asvab (the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, for readers who went to schools where this test was not so exhaustively administered) were thoroughly hounded by recruiters. My school did its part, too: it devoted half a day’s class time to making sure every junior took the Asvab. The test was also free, unlike the ACT and SAT, which I had to choose between because I could afford only one registration fee. I chose the ACT and crossed off those colleges that asked for the SAT. To take the SAT II, I had to go to Las Vegas. My mother left work early one Friday to drive me to my aunt’s house there, so I could sleep over and be at the testing facility by 7:30 on Saturday morning. (Most of my friends didn’t have the luxury of an aunt in the city and instead set their alarms for 4:30.) When I cracked the test booklet, I realized that in registering for the exam with no guidance, I’d signed up for the wrong subject — Mathematics Level 2, though I’d barely made it out of algebra alive. Even if I had had the money to retake the test, I wouldn’t have had another ride to Vegas. So I struggled through it and said goodbye to those colleges that required the SAT II.

But the most important thing the military did was walk kids and their families through the enlistment process. Most parents like mine, who had never gone to college, were either intimidated or oblivious (and sometimes outright hostile) to the intricacies of college admissions and financial aid. I had no idea what I was doing when I applied. Once, I’d heard a volleyball coach mention paying off her student loans, and this led me to assume that college was like a restaurant — you paid when you were done. When I realized I needed my mom’s and my stepfather’s income information and tax documents, they refused to give them to me. They were, I think, ashamed. Eventually, I just stole the documents and forged their signatures. (Like nearly every one of the dozen or so kids who went on to college from my class at P.V.H.S., I paid for it with the $10,000 Nevada Millennium Scholarship, financed by Nevada’s share of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.) Granted, there’s a good reason top colleges aren’t sending recruiters around the country to woo kids like me and Ryan (who, incidentally, got his B.S. at U.N.R. before going on to earn his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Purdue and now holds a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship with the National Research Council). The Army needs every qualified candidate it can get, while competitive colleges have far more applicants than they can handle. But if these colleges are truly committed to diversity, they have to start paying attention to the rural poor.

Until then, is it any wonder that students in Pahrump and throughout rural America are more likely to end up in Afghanistan than at N.Y.U.?

Claire Vaye Watkins, an assistant professor of English at Bucknell, is the author of the short story collection “Battleborn.”

[Demeter]

7. Petty Revenge: Michigan Republicans Slash Higher-Ed Spending in Retaliation for Union Contracts

http://www.alternet.org/petty-revenge-michigan-republicans-slash-higher-ed-spending-retaliation-union-contracts?akid=10245.227380.9KRhSj&rd=1&src=newsletter815829&t=16

...both Wayne State University and the University of Michigan adopted eight-year contracts with their faculty and staff before the lame-duck-passed anti-union freeloader law could go into effect. Because the contracts were passed before the law went into effect, it won't affect faculty and staff at the universities until the contracts expire. That means that, while no one will have to join the union, people who don't join will have to pay a fee covering the costs of their representation.

But majority Republicans on the state House’s higher education subcommittee were furious at what they perceived as an attempt to get around the new right-to-work law.
So they voted to slash both schools’ state aid by 15 percent. That could mean a cut of $47 million for U of M and $27.5 million for Wayne State. One GOP lawmaker boasted that “we‘ve sent a serious message here,” and accused the universities of trying to violate state law.

It’s not clear how either school could have broken a law that is not yet in effect. And Wayne State president Allan Gilmour, a tough negotiator who was Ford Motor Co.’s longtime chief financial officer, told lawmakers that the long contract actually saves taxpayers money.

The "serious message" Michigan Republicans are sending here, of course, is "we're unrepentant assholes." And if passed into law, this particular piece of unrepentant assholery will hit not just faculty and staff at the two universities but students as well, since you don't cut university funding by 15 percent without leading to increased tuition, cuts that affect the quality of education offered, or—most likely—both.

[Demeter]

24. Hidden Victim of Austerity: State Universities That Educate Our Children

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/hidden-victim-austerity-state-universities-educate-our-children?akid=10236.227380.U7EBg7&rd=1&src=newsletter814352&t=19

Wise men and politicians are telling us that the federal debt will burden our children and must be reduced. But the real burden on young people is educational debt fueled by wrong-headed austerity policies. Our children are graduating college with overwhelming debts of $100,000 or more, and even those who fail to graduate still leave college with ample college debts. College debt has surpassed credit-card debt, and the President and Congress have wrangled about the interest rate to charge.

How did we get into this situation?

The trail leads through federal-state interactions, like so much of American history. States were largely independent of the federal government until the 1960s. The federal government began at that time to provide resources for states to expand their activities in health care and then other activities as well. These grants have risen from well under one billion dollars a year to around $500 billion in recent years. States rely on these funds to give grants to cities and for helping with many other expenses. The federal funds have been a welcome aid for states, as they have not been able to raise taxes enough to keep pace with their growing responsibilities. State taxes are subject to competition from neighboring states, and citizens in various states have limited the growth of property taxes. States consequently have searched for ways to reduce their expenses, and lowering support for state universities has been one way that minimizes political backlash.

State universities began during the Civil War when the transcontinental railroads were planned. The railroads were financed by granting land to developers and states, since the railroads would increase the value of the lands. Land-grant universities began then and flourished for a century. In recent years, however, states have found that running a good university system was becoming burdensome, and they have reduced their support of them. States now furnish only about 15 percent of the total costs of state universities. State universities have become private universities, in fact if not in name. In order to finance themselves, they charge tuition like other private universities. The tuition for state universities is lower than for other universities because of state aid, but they are still substantial. Poor students need to borrow to pay for their education as a result.

We normally consider education to be financed by parents in a cross-generational transfer. Parents agree to educate children, and children agree to support parents in their old age. The last part of that bargain was socialized in the Great Depression by Social Security. The first part has frayed as education has lengthened into college years and wages have stagnated. Current financial difficulties have brought this imbalance into crisis. Political support for Social Security remains strong, but support for state universities has not. These universities are financed at the state level, and local news is not as comprehensive as national. Education, frequently framed as the income of lackadaisical college professors, is largely under the radar. When states have to cut spending to balance their budgets, state universities take a hit. When federal austerity reduces grants to states, state universities take a hit...MORE DETAIL...American decline is not inevitable; we are the masters of our fate. We need to recognize the danger and confront it. To remove the burden of American decline from our children, we need two things: a renewed commitment to universally accessible education from birth through college, and an understanding that federal austerity harms state and local education by reducing the cascade of tax revenues from the federal government to states and then to cities.

Peter Temin is the Elisha Gray II Professor Emeritus of Economics, MIT, and co-author of The Leaderless Economy: Why the World Economic System Fell Apart and How to Fix It (Princeton University Press, 2013).

[Demeter]

3. Expenditures of the Aged Chartbook, 2010 FROM YOUR FRIENDLY SOCIAL SECURITY AGENCY

http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/expenditures_aged/2010/exp-aged-2010.pdf

[Demeter]

12. Senate Unanimously Votes Against Cuts to Social Security, Media Don't Notice DEAN BAKER

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/senate-unanimously-votes-against-cuts-social-security-media-dont-notice?akid=10246.227380.FWRplf&rd=1&src=newsletter815950&t=20&paging=off

There are few areas where the corruption of the national media is more apparent than in its treatment of Social Security. Most of the elite media have made it clear in both their opinion and news pages that they want to see benefits cut. In keeping with this position they highlight the views of political figures who push cuts to the program, treating them as responsible, while those who oppose cuts are ignored or mocked. This pattern of coverage was clearly on display last weekend. Both the New York Times and Washington Post decided to ignore the Senate's passage by voice vote of the Sanders Amendment. This was an amendment to the budget put forward by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders that puts the Senate on record as opposing the switch to the chained CPI as the basis for the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

Switching the basis for the COLA to the chained CPI is one of the most beloved policies of the Washington elite. The idea is that it would reduce scheduled benefits for retirees by 0.3 percentage points annually. This amounts to a cut of 3 percent after 10 years, 6 percent after 20 years, and 9 percent after 30 years. If a typical retiree lives to collect benefits for 20 years the average cut in benefits over their retirement ends up being around 3 percent. This is a much bigger hit to the typical retiree, who relies on Social Security for more than two-thirds of their income, than the tax increases put into law this year were to the typical rich person. But the magic of the chained CPI is that everyone gets to run around saying that they are not really cutting benefits, they are just "adjusting" the cost of living formula. And the media do their best to assist the politicians pushing these cuts. They almost always uses euphemisms like "changing" or "restructuring" Social Security, trying to conceal the simple reality that politicians are pushing cuts to the program.

It is also worth noting, in contrast to the claims of the pretentious elites, there is no -- as in zero, nada, none -- basis for the claim that the chained CPI would give a more accurate measure of the rate of inflation experienced by seniors. Research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the rate of inflation seen by seniors is actually higher than the CPI that provides the basis for the current COLA. While this research is far from conclusive, the answer for those interested in accuracy would be to have the BLS construct a full CPI for seniors. But the Washington elites don't give a damn about accuracy, which is why not one of them has called for a full elderly CPI. The elite want cuts to Social Security; accuracy is just something they talk about to children and reporters for major media outlets.

This is why the vote on the Sanders Amendment should have been newsworthy. Here was an opportunity for all the senators who have explicitly or implicitly supported the adoption of the chained CPI to step up and say why the switch to the chained CPI was a good and necessary measure. However, not one senator was prepared to stand up and argue the case. Not one member of the Senate wanted to go on record in support of this cut to Social Security. With all the Republicans who pronounce endlessly on the need to cut entitlement spending, there was not a single Republican senator who was prepared to say that switching the Social Security COLA to a chained CPI was a good idea. And even though President Obama has repeatedly stated as clearly as he could that he supported the switch to a chained CPI, there was not one Democratic senator who was prepared to stand up and speak in solidarity with the president. This is a clear case of the elite lining up together against the bases of both political parties. If the chained CPI were put to a vote of the people it would lose in a landslide. But the elites are prepared to use their control of the political process and the media to do everything they can to push this cut forward. The battle over the chained CPI provides a great case study in the state of American democracy. We will get to see whether the rich and powerful are able to attack a program that is vital to the security of almost all working people, even when the vast majority in both parties stand against them.

Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of the new book, The End of Loser Liberalism?

[DemReadingDU]

6. Canada Discusses Forced Depositor Bail-In Procedures

Last edited Fri Mar 29, 2013, 08:26 AM - Edit history (1)

Get ready, IMO forced depositor bail-ins coming everywhere


3/28/13

Inquiring minds in Canada managed to slog through a massive 433 page budget proposal and discovered Depositor Haircut Bail-In Provisions For Systemically Important Banks.

Sure enough. Right on page 145 (PDF page 155) of the Canada Economic Action Plan for 2013 We see ...

"The Government proposes to implement a bail-in regime for systemically important banks. This regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital. This will reduce risks for taxpayers. The Government will consult stakeholders on how best to implement a bail- in regime in Canada. Implementation timelines will allow for a smooth transition for affected institutions, investors and other market participants."

In case you are unfamiliar with bank parlance, deposits are not "assets" they are "liabilities". A plan that would turn "certain bank liabilities" into regulatory capital is a plan to confiscate deposits.

As noted in Fraudulent Guarantees; Fictional Reserve Lending; Comparison of US to Cyprus; What About New Zealand? I believe guarantees on deposits are inherently fraudulent. But at least the Reserve bank of New Zealand is upfront about the situation. Canada is not.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.ca/2013/03/canada-discusses-forced-depositor-bail.html


more info at additional links within the above posting


edit seen on twitter
Max Keiser @maxkeiser Germany successfully herds dazed Cypriot depositors into boxcars called 'capital controls' and sends them toward the financial death camps.

[DemReadingDU]

13. Reggie Middleton on the Keiser Report Discussing Cyprus

3/23/13

appx 13.5 minutes


3/21/13
Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the big picture of bank holidays and wealth confiscation in order to pay off the $100-trillion-error account banksters basically admitted to having at Davos in 2011. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Reggie Middleton of BoomBustBlog.com about Cyprus, the rules that have been revealed and his upcoming special investigation on certain European banks he’s discovered have been committing fraud.
http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/episode-421-598/ appx 27.5 minutes

[DemReadingDU]

21. Confiscation Planned For U.S. And U.K. Depositors

3/28/13 It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned For U.S. And U.K. Depositors
by Ellen Brown

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few eurozone "troika" officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated Dec. 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1306931-it-can-happen-here-the-confiscation-scheme-planned-for-u-s-and-u-k-depositors

12/10/12 A joint paper by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/news/2012/nr156.pdf 18 pages

[Demeter]

8. Cyberattacks Seem Meant to Destroy, Not Just Disrupt

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/technology/corporate-cyberattackers-possibly-state-backed-now-seek-to-destroy-data.html


American Express customers trying to gain access to their online accounts Thursday were met with blank screens or an ominous ancient type face. The company confirmed that its Web site had come under attack. The assault, which took American Express offline for two hours, was the latest in an intensifying campaign of unusually powerful attacks on American financial institutions that began last September and have taken dozens of them offline intermittently, costing millions of dollars. JPMorgan Chase was taken offline by a similar attack this month. And last week, a separate, aggressive attack incapacitated 32,000 computers at South Korea’s banks and television networks. The culprits of these attacks, officials and experts say, appear intent on disabling financial transactions and operations.

Corporate leaders have long feared online attacks aimed at financial fraud or economic espionage, but now a new threat has taken hold: attackers, possibly with state backing, who seem bent on destruction. “The attacks have changed from espionage to destruction,” said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a cybersecurity training organization. “Nations are actively testing how far they can go before we will respond.” Security experts who studied the attacks said that it was part of the same campaign that took down the Web sites of JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and others over the last six months. A group that calls itself the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has claimed responsibility for those attacks. The group says it is retaliating for an anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube last fall. But American intelligence officials and industry investigators say they believe the group is a convenient cover for Iran. Just how tight the connection is — or whether the group is acting on direct orders from the Iranian government — is unclear. Government officials and bank executives have failed to produce a smoking gun. North Korea is considered the most likely source of the attacks on South Korea, though investigators are struggling to follow the digital trail, a process that could take months. The North Korean government of Kim Jong-un has openly declared that it is seeking online targets in its neighbor to the south to exact economic damage.

Representatives of American Express confirmed that the company was under attack Thursday, but said that there was no evidence that customer data had been compromised. A representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not respond to a request for comment on the American Express attack. Spokesmen for JPMorgan Chase said they would not talk about the recent attack there, its origins or its consequences. JPMorgan has openly acknowledged previous denial of service attacks. But the size and severity of the most recent one apparently led it to reconsider. The Obama administration has publicly urged companies to be more transparent about attacks, but often security experts and lawyers give the opposite advice.

The largest contingent of instigators of attacks in the private sector, government officials and researchers say, remains Chinese hackers intent on stealing corporate secrets. The American and South Korean attacks underscore a growing fear that the two countries most worrisome to banks, oil producers and governments may be Iran and North Korea, not because of their skill but because of their brazenness. Neither country is considered a superstar in this area. The appeal of digital weapons is similar to that of nuclear capability: it is a way for an outgunned, outfinanced nation to even the playing field. “These countries are pursuing cyberweapons the same way they are pursuing nuclear weapons,” said James A. Lewis, a computer security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s primitive; it’s not top of the line, but it’s good enough and they are committed to getting it.” American officials are currently weighing their response options, but the issues involved are complex. At a meeting of banking executives, regulators and representatives from the departments of Homeland Security and Treasury last December, some pressed the United States to hit back at the hackers, while others argued that doing so would only lead to more aggressive attacks, according to two people who attended the meeting. The difficulty of deterring such attacks was also the focus of a White House meeting this month with Mr. Obama and business leaders, including the chief executives Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase; Brian T. Moynihan of Bank of America; Rex W. Tillerson of Exxon Mobil; Randall L. Stephenson of AT&T and others. Mr. Obama’s goal was to erode the business community’s intense opposition to federal legislation that would give the government oversight of how companies protect “critical infrastructure,” like banking systems and energy and cellphone networks. That opposition killed a bill last year, prompting Mr. Obama to sign an executive order promoting increased information-sharing with businesses. “But I think we heard a new tone at this latest meeting,” an Obama aide said later. “Six months of unrelenting attacks have changed some views.” Mr. Lewis, the computer security expert, agreed. “The Iranian attacks have tilted private sector opinion,” he said. “Hence the muted reaction to the executive order versus squeals of outrage. Companies are much more concerned about this and much more willing to see a government role.”

MORE

"I'VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS...." STAR WARS

[Demeter]

9. Bloggers, not hackers, are the real cyber threat: Online attackers shred reputations in one post

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE...YOU CAN'T DESTROY A BAD REPUTATION!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bloggers-not-hackers-are-the-real-cyber-threat-2013-03-28


Companies are so worried about cyber attacks that they’re rushing to buy insurance against it. According to a report on the news website Mashable, the purchase of cyber insurance is up 33% over last year. And can you blame these companies? They want protection against hacking, security breaches, data leaks, or just plain old vandalism. But these online attacks don't begin to articulate the real dangers companies face. A denial of service attack is relatively straightforward. Same with stealing credit card numbers.

What about a blog attack? Is your business or persona or reputation prepared for the damage it can wreak? Sen. Robert Menendez sure wasn't ready. The New Jersey Democrat was defenseless against The Daily Caller publishing a story accusing him of patronizing underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. He wasn't prepared for the rest of the media, which relies on and repeats gossip that begins on blogs, to make that story a national scandal. It didn't matter that the women had been paid to make up their story (and that they weren't underage). There was nothing Menendez could do — not when blogs will publish anything that fits their agenda or drives page views. As Menendez later told the Washington Post : "I don’t know more than what I have read but I do know from the very beginning I have said that nameless, faceless, anonymous sources . . . from the right-wing blogs took this story . . . before an election cycle, attempted to do it then and ultimately drove it into the mainstream press."

Such attacks can happen to anyone, not just politicians. In fact, in business the costs might be even higher and more immediate. When the blog Engadget posted a fake email announcing a supposed delay in the release of a new iPhone and Apple operating system, it knocked more than $4 billion off Apple’s stock price. The Daily Show was blindsided by dubious accusations of sexism by a blogger who was paid by how many page views her post did (it did more than half a million, in fact). When Overstock.com began losing business due to inaccurate online information or bogus and negative social media chatter, the company actually included the potential risk as a going concern in its 10-K filing with the SEC.

Soft targets

The threat is growing bolder, as we saw when the French yogurt giant Danone was approached by Fernando Motolese, a video producer in Brazil, with two hypothetical videos. One, he said, was a fun spoof of their yogurt, which was billed as improving digestive health and other bodily functions. The other, he said, was a disgusting version of the first video, with all the scatological images implied. Motolese said he might be more inclined to release the first version if Danone was willing to pay him a fee each time it was seen. How is that any different than a hacker threatening to release customer data or taking a company's website down unless they're paid off? It's a media attack — but it's cyber driven all the same. The threat is everywhere. The risk of being blindsided by a false controversy, or crucified unfairly for some misconstrued remark, hovers over everyone in the public sphere. Employees, good, bad, or disgruntled and desperate for money, know that they have the means to massively embarrass their employers with well-placed accusations of mistreatment or harassment. People know that going to a blog like Consumerist is the fastest way to get revenge for any perceived customer-service slight. Millions of eyes are watching — incentivized to demagogue their way to a traffic payday.

We know how to defend against attacks on technology. Those are hard assets. Companies have highly trained teams designed to respond to and repair any damage. But softer assets remain vulnerable. Reputation, brand perception, and your company's narrative are susceptible to blogs and social media that deal in lies and outrage and rumors — all with incredible speed. In fact, these purveyors thrive on such headline-generating information. One study found that "untrue" tweets spread faster than corrections ever can. That means an unstable customer or an unethical competitor could kick off a massively viral but entirely false claim about your business tomorrow. And there's little you can do about it. At any time, a deep hole could be drilled by blogs, Twitter or You Tube that a company must pay to fill in. Irreparable damage can be wrought on the business you worked so hard to build. And depending on the intentions of the person who did it, they may also ask to be paid to not dig anymore...When the online news cycle is driven decided not by what is important but by what readers are clicking; when the cycle is so fast that the news cannot be anything but consistently and regularly incomplete; when dubious scandals pressure politicians to resign and scuttle election bids or knock millions from the market value of publicly traded companies; when the news frequently covers itself in stories about how the story unfolded — we're all exposed to the cost.

There is no insurance for that. But perhaps there should be.

Ryan Holiday is the author of Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator and a PR strategist for brands and writers. He blogs at RyanHoliday.net and you can follow him on Twitter at @RyanHoliday or get monthly reading recommendations from him over email.

I CAN'T IMAGINE ANY INSURANCE COMPANY COULD UNDERWRITE SUCH AN INSURANCE SCHEME...

[Demeter]

10. Imperial Germany and the Pillage of Europe's Indebted Mediterranean Region

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15348-imperial-germany-and-the-pillage-of-europes-indebted-mediterranean-region

Not so long ago, imperial nations bent on punishing or destroying their economic rivals or pillaging other countries' resources did it the "natural" way: They engaged in naval blockades, ordered the landing of marines, or proceeded with the declaration of a war and then an outright invasion. The Muslim rulers of the North African Ottoman provinces had their wealth increased through attacks led by Barbary corsairs upon merchant shipping.

In today's neoliberal, antidemocratic and German-dominated European Union (EU), the pillage of wealth from the periphery to the core of the euro zone takes place in a physically nonviolent manner through "bailouts" and "bail-ins."

Following the outbreak of the euro zone debt crisis, an outcome caused primarily by the flawed architectural design of the European Monetary Union and intensified in turn by the uninspired policies implemented by the European leaders, Germany seized the opportunity to extend its economic domination over the euro zone. It adopted the same policy it had carried out toward East Germany after unification: the destruction of its industrial base and the conversion of the former communist nation into Berlin's satellite under a united Germany.

In our day, bank rescues masquerade as the rescue of nations, followed by the enforcement of unbearable austerity measures for the repayment of the "rescue" loans. Then comes the implementation of strategic economic policies aiming at reducing the standard of living for the working population and the shrinking of the welfare state, complete labor flexibility and the sale of public assets, including state-controlled energy companies and ports. This constitutes the context of a unified Germany strategy for the pillage of the economies of the Mediterranean region facing staggering debts....MORE DETAIL...It is clear that Germany is bent on imperial domination in the euro zone and that the euro has become an albatross around the neck of the southern Mediterranean economies. The only question now is how much longer will the political leaders and the citizens of the periphery of the EU tolerate Germany's imperial pursuits and the antidemocratic nature of the EE as they watch the economic and social devastation of their nations unfold.

If history is any guide, this whole euro zone business could end very badly.

[Demeter]

11. How Wall Street Will Screw You Over, Again; How can anyone still trust the banks?

http://www.alternet.org/how-wall-street-will-screw-you-over-again?akid=10241.227380.p3RUKJ&rd=1&src=newsletter815208&t=14&paging=off

It’s hard to believe considering what happened in 2008 on Wall Street and in Washington, but banking is built on trust. A worker hands his hard-earned dollars to a teller and trusts the money will be deposited and available for withdrawal when needed. Despite the crash on Wall Street, workers still trust bankers to safeguard deposits from robbers and reckless investments.

Granting banks a little less credulity might be wise. Just consider what happened in the past two weeks. A U.S. Senate investigation revealed that the 2010 Dodd-Frank banking reforms utterly failed in the case of the $6.2 billion “London Whale” gambling loss at JPMorgan Chase. Then a U.S. House committee passed seven measures to weaken Dodd-Frank. And there was the European Union’s demand that Cyprus expropriate money from depositors to prevent that nation’s big banks from failing. That means no depositor can trust that a government won’t dip its hands into savers’ accounts to bail too-big-to-fail banks. The trust is gone, baby. Last week’s bad banking news began in Cyprus. It’s a cautionary tale about trust in both politicians and bankers...Cypriot and European officials betrayed depositors, particularly small ones whose savings of less than $130,000 supposedly are insured. The newly elected president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, turned on his own people. He rejected a proposed deal under which Cyprus would take 12.5 percent from depositors with more than $130,000 euros and about half of that from smaller account holders. Anastasiades demanded the rich, often Russian oligarchs, pay less, which meant, of course, the smaller depositors, everyday Cypriot workers, would have to pay more. As a result, a deal was struck under which 9.9 percent would be taken from the wealthy and 6.75 percent from those with less than $130,000, effectively nullifying their insurance.

Naturally, the working people of Cyprus went crazy. Their president had focused on protecting rich foreigners. And he decided it was fine for the government to reach into workers’ savings accounts and grab money to rescue big banks. Cypriots asked how a depositor could trust any bank in the Euro Zone now that finance ministers had determined that countries could confiscate money from insured accounts.A 26-year-old Cypriot, Andreas Andreou, told the New York Times he’d withdraw all of his money as soon as the banks re-opened, adding: “I’d rather put the money in my mattress.” Trust is seriously breached when a mattress seems safer than a bank vault. Cypriots pointed out that no one should feel immune. If Cyprus can pinch depositors, any government can.

In 2008, the U.S. Congress did not take bailout money from depositors, but instead from every taxpayer. And it wasn’t a mere $700 billion in Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP) money. Including loans and other help offered by the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and FDIC, it’s more like $4.76 trillion, with $1.54 trillion not paid back. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was supposed to give taxpayers some trust that the banks would be sufficiently regulated, that too-big-to-fail wouldn’t happen again. But the London Whale drowned that fantasy...unless Americans step up the way Cypriots did and demand real regulation, as well as send the message that they don’t trust Wall Street by moving their money to community banks and credit unions, they can bank on being bilked. Again.

Leo W. Gerard president of the United Steelworkers union. President Barack Obama appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. Follow him on Twitter: @USWBlogger

[Demeter]

17. Think Your Money is Safe? Think Again: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors

http://www.alternet.org/economy/think-your-money-safe-think-again-confiscation-scheme-planned-us-and-uk-depositors?akid=10253.227380.XZrOE-&rd=1&src=newsletter816540&t=8&paging=off

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here SEE LINK); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds. New Zealand has a similar directive, discussed in my last article SEE LINK, indicating that this isn’t just an emergency measure for troubled Eurozone countries.

New Zealand’s Voxy reported on March 19th:

The National Government [is] pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts . . . .

Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out.

Can They Do That?

Although few depositors realize it, legally the bank owns the depositor’s funds as soon as they are put in the bank. Our money becomes the bank’s, and we become unsecured creditors holding IOUs or promises to pay. (See here and here.) But until now the bank has been obligated to pay the money back on demand in the form of cash. Under the FDIC-BOE plan, our IOUs will be converted into “bank equity.” The bank will get the money and we will get stock in the bank. With any luck we may be able to sell the stock to someone else, but when and at what price? Most people keep a deposit account so they can have ready cash to pay the bills. The 15-page FDIC-BOE document is called “Resolving Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions.” It begins by explaining that the 2008 banking crisis has made it clear that some other way besides taxpayer bailouts is needed to maintain “financial stability.” Evidently anticipating that the next financial collapse will be on a grander scale than either the taxpayers or Congress is willing to underwrite, the authors state:

An efficient path for returning the sound operations of the G-SIFI to the private sector would be provided by exchanging or converting a sufficient amount of the unsecured debt from the original creditors of the failed company [meaning the depositors] into equity [or stock]. In the U.S., the new equitywould become capital in one or more newly formed operating entities. In the U.K., the same approach could be used, or the equity could be used to recapitalize the failing financial company itself—thus, the highest layer of surviving bailed-in creditors would become the owners of the resolved firm. In either country, the new equity holders would take on the corresponding risk of being shareholders in a financial institution.

No exception is indicated for “insured deposits” in the U.S., meaning those under $250,000, the deposits we thought were protected by FDIC insurance. This can hardly be an oversight, since it is the FDIC that is issuing the directive. The FDIC is an insurance company funded by premiums paid by private banks. The directive is called a “resolution process,” defined elsewhere as a plan that “would be triggered in the event of the failure of an insurer . . . .” The only mention of “insured deposits” is in connection with existing UK legislation, which the FDIC-BOE directive goes on to say is inadequate, implying that it needs to be modified or overridden.

An Imminent Risk

If our IOUs are converted to bank stock, they will no longer be subject to insurance protection but will be “at risk” and vulnerable to being wiped out, just as the Lehman Brothers shareholders were in 2008. That this dire scenario could actually materialize was underscored by Yves Smith in a March 19th post titled When You Weren’t Looking, Democrat Bank Stooges Launch Bills to Permit Bailouts, Deregulate Derivatives.She writes:

In the US, depositors have actually been put in a worse position than Cyprus deposit-holders, at least if they are at the big banks that play in the derivatives casino. The regulators have turned a blind eye as banks use their depositaries to fund derivatives exposures. And as bad as that is, the depositors, unlike their Cypriot confreres, aren’t even senior creditors. Remember Lehman? When the investment bank failed, unsecured creditors (and remember, depositors are unsecured creditors) got eight cents on the dollar. One big reason was that derivatives counterparties require collateral for any exposures, meaning they are secured creditors. The 2005 bankruptcy reforms made derivatives counterparties senior to unsecured lenders.

One might wonder why the posting of collateral by a derivative counterparty, at some percentage of full exposure, makes the creditor “secured,” while the depositor who puts up 100 cents on the dollar is “unsecured.” But moving on – Smith writes:

Lehman had only two itty bitty banking subsidiaries, and to my knowledge, was not gathering retail deposits. But as readers may recall, Bank of America moved most of its derivatives from its Merrill Lynch operation [to] its depositary in late 2011.

Its “depositary” is the arm of the bank that takes deposits; and at B of A, that means lots and lots of deposits. The deposits are now subject to being wiped out by a major derivatives loss. How bad could that be? Smith quotes Bloomberg:

. . . Bank of America’s holding company . . . held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June . . . .

That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show. $75 trillion and $79 trillion in derivatives! These two mega-banks alone hold more in notional derivatives each than the entire global GDP (at $70 trillion). The “notional value” of derivatives is not the same as cash at risk, but according to a cross-post on Smith’s site:

By at least one estimate, in 2010 there was a total of $12 trillion in cash tied up (at risk) in derivatives . . . .

$12 trillion is close to the US GDP. Smith goes on:

. . . Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs. . . . Lehman failed over a weekend after JP Morgan grabbed collateral.

But it’s even worse than that. During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough in deposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress. This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors.

Perhaps, but Congress has already been burned and is liable to balk a second time. Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act specifically prohibits public support for speculative derivatives activities. And in the Eurozone, while the European Stability Mechanism committed Eurozone countries to bail out failed banks, they are apparently having second thoughts there as well. On March 25th, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who played a leading role in imposing the deposit confiscation plan on Cyprus, told reporters that it would be the template for any future bank bailouts, and that “the aim is for the ESM never to have to be used.”

That explains the need for the FDIC-BOE resolution. If the anticipated enabling legislation is passed, the FDIC will no longer need to protect depositor funds; it can just confiscate them.

MUCH MORE...INCLUDING NATIOALIZATION--SWEDISH STYLE


MUST READ!




Ellen Brown is an attorney, author, and president of the Public Banking Institute. Her latest book is Web of Debt.

[Demeter]

25. Bill Moyers: Are the Monster Banks on the Verge of Unleashing Fresh Economic Disaster?

http://www.alternet.org/economy/bill-moyers-are-monster-banks-verge-unleashing-fresh-economic-disaster?akid=10236.227380.U7EBg7&rd=1&src=newsletter814352&t=7

BILL MOYERS:...my guest, Sheila Bair, a long-time Republican, she was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006 to head the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. During the financial collapse, she oversaw the takeover of more than 300 banks that went belly up and was an outspoken opponent of the taxpayer bailouts. As one influential observer wrote during that time, Sheila Bair never forgot that her most important constituency isn’t the thousands of banks she regulates, but the millions of Americans who use them...She now heads the Systemic Risk Council. That’s an independent committee formed by the Pew Charitable Trusts to monitor what’s being done to prevent another financial collapse. She was at this table a few months ago to talk about her book, Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself...

SHEILA BAIR: ...I think the system's got incrementally safer, a little bit safer but nothing like the dramatic reforms that we really need to see to tame these large banks and to give us a stable financial system that supports the real economy, not just trading profits of large financial institutions...(JPMORGAN) There were a couple things going on. One was it's clear that they were trying to boost their regulatory capital ratios in anticipation of some new capital rules coming into effect. This is a key defect with the way regulators, bank regulators view capital adequacy at these large banks. They let those capital ratios to be determined in part by the risk models of the banks. So if the banks produce models that say, "These assets are safer," it means they can report a higher capital ratio. So it really gives them upside down incentives to manipulate their models...A capital ratio is simply the percentage of your assets, what's on your balance sheet, the percentage of that that is funded with common equity. So when banks have a low capital level, that means that they're borrowing a lot to support themselves. Whether it's a household or a big bank, you borrow too much and you don't have enough common equity to absorb losses you-- that's what it means to fail. You start having losses. You don't expect them. You have a very thin capital base. You can't make good on your debt obligations. You fail.

...I think..what was going on was they (JPM) were in this big power game with a bunch of hedge funds ... who realized that this London Whale trader was building up huge positions in a fairly narrowly traded product called tranche CDS. And so they outed them. You know, they were trying to squeeze them. They let the public know, "Hey, you know, JPMorgan Chase is exposed here." And then the losses really started to mount. And it's amazing that the papers picked up on it before the senior managers or the regulators, for that matter...we need a culture change with the regulators. I think and I talk about this a lot in my book. You've got a lot of good, well-intentioned people. But they confuse bank profitability with bank safety and soundness. They are not the same things...

There's the right way and there's the wrong way to make money. They're almost aligned themselves to some extent with bank managers and wanting to have the appearance of profitability, because they think that makes a sound banking system. And it's really upside down. You can't ignore the problems here. And some of that is overlooked. It’s overlooked a lot...the regulators tend to look at the world through the eyes of the banks. So they don't look at themselves as independent of the banks. They view themselves as aligned with the banks, that their charter is not to protect the public, but to protect the banks. And this is the premise of the bailouts, that somehow if you take care of the banks, you're going to take care of the broader economy. And it just didn't turn out that way. They're two very different things...

MORE BLATHER

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE REGULATORY CAPTURE, FOLKS

[Fuddnik]

26. Yes, with this criminal out of government, and getting his just punishment, we're all safer now

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022582341


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022582265

[Hotler]

41. I repeat myself........

[Demeter]

14. 10 Ways the Public Backlash Against Killer Drones Is Taking Off By Medea Benjamin, Noor Mir

http://www.alternet.org/world/10-ways-public-backlash-against-killer-drones-taking?akid=10246.227380.FWRplf&rd=1&src=newsletter815950&t=16

Rand Paul’s marathon 13-hour filibuster was not the end of the conversation on drones. Suddenly, drones are everywhere, and so is the backlash. Efforts to counter drones at home and abroad are growing in the courts, at places of worship, outside air force bases, inside the UN, at state legislatures, inside Congress--and having an effect on policy.

1. April marks the national month of uprising against drone warfare. Activists in upstate New York are converging on the Hancock Air National Guard Base where Predator drones are operated. In San Diego, they will take on Predator-maker General Atomics at both its headquarters and the home of the CEO. In D.C., a coalition of national and local organizations are coming together to say no to drones at the White House. And all across the nation—including New York City, New Paltz, Chicago, Tucson and Dayton—activists are planning picket lines, workshops and sit-ins to protest the covert wars. The word has even spread to Islamabad, Pakistan, where activists are planning a vigil to honor victims.

2. There has been an unprecedented surge of activity in cities, counties and state legislatures across the country aimed at regulating domestic surveillance drones. After a raucous city council hearing in Seattle in February, the Mayor agreed to terminate its drones program and return the city’s two drones to the manufacturer. Also in February, the city of Charlottesville, VA passed a 2-year moratorium and other restrictions on drone use, and other local bills are pending in cities from Buffalo to Ft. Wayne. Simultaneously, bills have been proliferating on the state level. In Florida, a pending bill will require the police to get a warrant to use drones in an investigation; a Virginia statewide moratorium on drones passed both houses and awaits the governor’s signature, and similar legislation in pending in at least 13 other state legislatures.

3. Responding to the international outcry against drone warfare, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, is conducting an in-depth investigation of 25 drone attacks and will release his report in the Spring. Meanwhile, on March 15, having returned from a visit to Pakistan to meet drone victims and government officials, Emmerson condemned the U.S. drone program in Pakistan, as “it involves the use of force on the territory of another State without its consent and is therefore a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.”

4. Leaders in the faith-based community broke their silence and began mobilizing against the nomination of John Brennan, with over 100 leaders urging the Senate to reject Brennan. And in an astounding development, The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African Americans, issued a scathing statement about Obama’s drone policy, calling it “evil”, “monstrous” and “immoral.” The group’s president, Rev. Anthony Evans, exhorted other black leaders to speak out, saying “If the church does not speak against this immoral policy we will lose our moral voice, our soul, and our right to represent and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

5. In the past four years the Congressional committees that are supposed to exercise oversight over the drones have been mum. Finally, in February and March, the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee held their first public hearings, and the Constitution Subcommittee will hold a hearing on April 16 on the “constitutional and statutory authority for targeted killings, the scope of the battlefield and who can be targeted as a combatant.” Too little, too late, but at least Congress is feeling some pressure to exercise its authority.

6. The specter of tens of thousands of drones here at home when the FAA opens up US airspace to drones by 2015 has spurred new left/right alliances. Liberal Democratic Senator Ron Wyden joined Tea Party’s Rand Paul during his filibuster. The first bipartisan national legislation was introduced by Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., saying drones used by law enforcement must be focused exclusively on criminal wrongdoing and subject to judicial approval, and prohibiting the arming of drones. Similar left-right coalitions have formed at the local level. And speaking of strange bedfellows, NRA president David Keene joined The Nation’s legal affairs correspondent David Cole in an op-ed lambasting the administration for the cloak of secrecy that undermines the system of checks and balances.

7. While trying to get redress in the courts for the killing of American citizens by drones in Yemen, the ACLU has been stymied by the Orwellian US government refusal to even acknowledge that the drone program exists. But on March 15, in an important victory for transparency, the D.C. Court of Appeals rejected the CIA’s absurd claims that it “cannot confirm or deny” possessing information about the government’s use of drones for targeted killing, and sent the case back to a federal judge.

8. Most Democrats have been all too willing to let President Obama carry on with his lethal drones, but on March 11, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and seven colleagues issued a letter to President Obama calling on him to publicly disclose the legal basis for drone killings, echoing a call that emerged in the Senate during the John Brennan hearing. The letter also requested a report to Congress with details about limiting civilian casualties by signature drone strikes, compensating innocent victims, and restructuring the drone program “within the framework of international law.”

9.There have even been signs of discontent within the military. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had approved a ludicrous high-level military medal that honored military personnel far from the battlefield, like drone pilots, due to their “extraordinary direct impacts on combat operations.” Moreover, it ranked above the Bronze Star, a medal awarded to troops for heroic acts performed in combat. Following intense backlash from the military and veteran community, as well as a push from a group of bipartisan senators, new Defense Secretary Senator Chuck Hagel decided to review the criteria for this new “Distinguished Warfare” medal.

10. Remote-control warfare is bad enough, but what is being developed is warfare by “killer robots” that don’t even have a human in the loop. A campaign against fully autonomous warfare will be launched this April at the UK’s House of Commons by human rights organizations, Nobel laureates and academics, many of whom were involved in the successful campaign to ban landmines. The goal of the campaign is to ban killer robots before they are used in battle.

Throughout the US--and the world--people are beginning to wake up to the danger of spy and killer drones. Their actions are already having an impact in forcing the Administration to share memos with Congress, reduce the number of strikes and begin a process of taking drones out of the hands of the CIA.

[Demeter]

15. How Brazil, Russia, India and China Are Standing Up to the American Empire

AND LET'S NOT FORGET--VENEZUELA! VIVA CHAVEZ POR SIEMPRE! AND CUBA!

http://www.alternet.org/world/how-brazil-russia-india-and-china-are-standing-american-empire?akid=10246.227380.FWRplf&rd=1&src=newsletter815950&t=24&paging=off


Reports on the premature death of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have been greatly exaggerated. Western corporate media is flooded with such nonsense, perpetrated in this particular case by the head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Reality spells otherwise. The BRICS meet in Durban, South Africa, this Tuesday to, among other steps, create their own credit rating agency, sidelining the dictatorship - or at least "biased agendas", in New Delhi's diplomatic take - of the Moody's/Standard & Poor's variety. They will also further advance the idea of the BRICS Development Bank, with a seed capital of US $50 billion (only structural details need to be finalized), helping infrastructure and sustainable development projects. Crucially, the US and the European Union won't have stakes in this Bank of the South - a concrete alternative, pushed especially by India and Brazil, to the Western-dominated World Bank and the Bretton Woods system.

As former Indian finance minister Jaswant Singh has observed, such a development bank could, for instance, channel Beijing's know-how to help finance India's massive infrastructure needs. The huge political and economic differences among BRICS members are self-evident. But as they evolve as a group, the point is not whether they should be protecting the global economy from the now non-stop crisis of advanced casino capitalism. The point is that, beyond measures to facilitate mutual trade, their actions are indeed becoming increasingly political - as the BRICS not only deploy their economic clout but also take concrete steps leading towards a multipolar world. Brazil is particularly active in this regard.

Inevitably, the usual Atlanticist, Washington consensus fanatics - myopically - can see nothing else besides the BRICS "demanding more recognition from Western powers"...But some long-term prospects are inevitable. BRICS will eventually become more forceful at the International Monetary Fund. Crucially, BRICS will be trading in their own currencies, including a globally convertible yuan, further away from the US dollar and the petrodollar...The BRICS push is part of an irresistible global trend. Most of it is decoded here, in a new United Nations Development Programme report. The bottom line; the North is being overtaken in the economic race by the global South at a dizzying speed. According to the report, "for the first time in 150 years, the combined output of the developing world's three leading economies - Brazil, China and India - is about equal to the combined GDP of the long-standing industrial powers of the North". The obvious conclusion is that, "the rise of the South is radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class."
..............................................

When Putin stressed that he does not see the BRICS as a "geopolitical competitor" to the West, it was the clincher; the official denial that confirms it's true. Durban may be solidifying just the beginning of such a competition. It goes without saying that Western elites - even mired in stagnation and bankruptcy - won't let any of their privileges go without a fierce fight.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is named Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

[xchrom]

16. Stop subsidizing Wall Street

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/federal-government-should-stop-subsidizing-wall-street/2013/03/28/c976b8d0-917a-11e2-9cfd-36d6c9b5d7ad_story.html

Imagine if the United States had an airline industry in which the biggest carriers that fly both domestically and internationally received a larger government fuel subsidy than those flying only domestic routes. Unfair? Yes — and that’s exactly how the U.S. financial system works.

The fuel of the largest firms in our financial services industry is subsidized, and the public bears the cost.

Financial firms can borrow money — their equivalent of fuel — more cheaply and with less market scrutiny when they have access to government guarantees of deposit insurance, loans from the Federal Reserve and, ultimately, taxpayer support such as we saw with the Troubled Assets Relief Program in 2008. This safety net was intended to stabilize the financial system by protecting the payments system that transfers money around the country and the world as well as the essential lending that commercial banks provide. But these protections also assure those who lend to banks that they will be repaid regardless of the condition of the bank. Under such circumstances, creditors give the firms a discount on the cost of the funds they borrow.

Things are made more difficult by the fact that the largest financial companies now combine traditional commercial banking with higher-risk activities such as trading so that both their banking and betting activities get access to these government protections and the multibillion-dollar subsidy that comes with them. Using subsidized money to finance the conglomerates’ bets encourages ever-higher levels of debt, risk and interconnectedness not attainable or sustainable in a truly free market.

[Demeter]

20. Only Democracies that operate under the Rule of Law Even Want to Be "FAIR"

And the US is neither.

[xchrom]

18. and it's good friday

[xchrom]

19. Jobs Act falls short of grand promises

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/jobs-act-falls-short-of-grand-promises/2013/03/28/5a660a14-8675-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html

When lawmakers unveiled the carefully named Jobs Act a year ago, backers expected it to get caught up in the typical grind of Capitol Hill: vigorous debate followed by a long wait for a vote that might never happen.

Instead, the legislation sailed through — perhaps too fast. Even supporters say they expected more time to work out the kinks in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which aimed to help small, private firms raise money and grow so they could hire more workers.

Now, nearly a year after its enactment, major portions of the act are in limbo, and other parts have failed to measure up to the grandiose job-creation promises.

The act underscores how difficult it can be for Washington to spur job creation, even when there’s strong bipartisan consensus on a plan. President Obama hailed it in a Rose Garden ceremony as “exactly the kind of bipartisan action needed” to help the economy. Republicans claimed it as their own. The measure came together months before last year’s election, making it politically difficult to resist a proposal that promised to yield jobs.

[xchrom]

22. Sweden dominates EU innovation ranking

http://www.thelocal.se/46972/20130327/#.UVWS9-1qP8s

For the third year in a row, Sweden finished first pm the Innovation Union Scoreboard, again nudging Germany, Denmark, and Finland aside in the top tier of countries performing well above the EU average.

2013 showed a general improvement for the union's 27 member states, according to the findings.

"The EU27 has managed to significantly close its performance gap with both the US and Japan but the gap with South Korea has increased," the report stated.

"Innovation performance in the EU has improved year on year in spite of the continuing economic crisis," the commission wrote in a statement.

[xchrom]

23. 'Sweden's youth pay for diluted job insurance'

http://www.thelocal.se/jobs/?site=tlse&AID=46926#.UVWTeu1qP8s

Amid the alarm bells about youth unemployment, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) on Monday announced that access to job insurance among Sweden's young has dropped by 76 percent in less than a decade.

Only 10 percent of jobless young Swedes get job insurance today, its statistics revealed. The report compared figures from 2006 and 2012 compiled from Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån) and looked at Swedes aged 15-24, not including full-time students.

"It's terrible that job insurance has been gutted to the point that 76 percent fewer young people have access to it," LO spokesman Dan Lindqvist Dahlin told The Local.

"Today you need to have been working for twelve months rather than six, of which you need to show that in a half-year period you have worked a minimum of 80 hours a month compared to the previous 70-hour requirement," Lindqvist Dahlin said of labour reforms enacted in 2007.

[Roland99]

27. Consumer sentiment rises in March (highest since November)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/consumer-sentiment-rises-in-march-2013-03-29?link=MW_home_latest_news

The University of Michigan-Thomson Reuters consumer-sentiment gauge rose to a final March reading of 78.6 -- the highest level since November -- from a final February reading of 77.6, reports said Friday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a final March reading of 73, with concerns about the government's economic policies taking a toll. A preliminary March reading pegged the level at 71.8. While stock prices have been rising, consumers also faced worrisome news over the large federal spending cuts making up the sequester. The sentiment gauge, which covers how consumers view their personal finances as well as business and buying conditions, averaged about 87 in the year before the start of the most recent recession. Economists watch sentiment data to get a feel for the direction of consumer spending. Elsewhere Friday, the government reported that consumer spending rose in February

[Demeter]

29. Eat, Drink and be Merry!

for tomorrow, who knows?

[Roland99]

32. Must be a Good Friday, eh?

[Demeter]

33. Not for me, it isn't

The Kid is without outside activities run by someone else for the next 10 days, and she's been home sick all week already.

[Roland99]

38. oh no... sorry to hear :(

I'll try and send some FL sunshine your way. A little dose of natural Vitamin D maybe.

[Demeter]

40. I've been feeding her vitamin D and the rest

This is her first really bad cold this season...I shouldn't complain, but...

[Roland99]

28. Markets still rising

Dow 14,579 +53 0.36%
Nasdaq 3,268 +11 0.35%
S&P 500 1,569 +6 0.39%
GlobalDow 2,109 -3 0.14%
Oil 97.28 +0.70 0.72
[font color="red"]Gold 1,597 -10 0.63%[/font]

[xchrom]

30. Is Steven A. Cohen Buying Off The U.S. Government?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/03/did-stevie-cohen-just-buy-off-the-us-government.html



Most scandals involving the cozy relationship between Wall Street and its regulators play out behind closed doors. Others happen in plain view, and this is one of the latter. In a Manhattan courtroom Thursday, a federal judge held a hearing on whether to approve a legal settlement in which Steven A. Cohen, one of the richest and most publicity-shy men in the country, appears to be buying off the U.S. government, which for years has been investigating wrongdoing in and around his hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisers.

Unless the judge, Victor Marrero, rejects the settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and SAC, which was announced a couple of weeks ago, Cohen will be free to go about his business, which has long been clouded by suspicions of insider trading, once he writes a check of six hundred and sixteen million dollars to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

There will be no further sanctions and no admission of wrongdoing. And in fact, Cohen already appears to be celebrating. According to a report in the Times, he has just purchased a Picasso painting, “Le Rêve,” for a hundred and fifty-five million dollars, and an ocean-front mansion in East Hampton, for sixty million dollars.

To his credit, Judge Marrero has, at least for now, refused to go along with this travesty. Reserving judgement on the case, he asked why the settlement didn’t include an admission of wrongdoing on the part of SAC and Cohen. “There is something counterintuitive and incongruous about settling for six hundred million dollars if it truly did nothing wrong,” the judge said. (A lawyer for SAC told the judge that the firm paid the fine because it didn’t want litigation hanging over its head for years.)
When the S.E.C. announced the agreement on March 15th, it played up the size of the settlement, most of which related to allegations of insider trading in the stocks of two big drug companies. “These settlements call for the imposition of historic penalties,” said George S. Canellos, the acting enforcement director of the S.E.C. But one man’s “historic penalty” is another’s drop in the ocean. The fund itself is paying the fine, but it is owned by and essentially synonymous with Cohen, its founder, who is worth $9.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The settlement was arguably the trade of his life. For 6.5 per cent of his fortune—the equivalent of four Picasso paintings—he has gone a long way toward removing a threat that could have destroyed his firm and possibly seen him facing charges.


Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/03/did-stevie-cohen-just-buy-off-the-us-government.html#ixzz2OwKieIaC

[Demeter]

35. If so, he's getting a bargain price!

Surely not the whole government, just the individuals with power to convict him....

[xchrom]

36. LOL -- it's not what you know -- it's who you can buy. nt

[xchrom]

31. Bail-In Blues: Luxembourg Warns of Investor Flight from Europe

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/luxembourg-warns-of-investor-flight-from-europe-a-891672.html


The debate over this week's "bail in" of bank account holders in Cyprus as part of the country's debt crisis bailout is continuing to simmer in Europe. In Luxembourg, Finance Minister Luc Frieden has warned that the example set in Cyprus by taxing people holding €100,000 ($129,000) or more in their accounts could drive investors out of Europe.

"This will lead to a situation in which investors invest their money outside the euro zone," he told SPIEGEL. "In this difficult situation, we need to avoid anything that will lead to instability and destroy the trust of savers."
Earlier this week, Euro Group President Jeroen Dijsselbloem sparked an enormous controversy after stating that the solution found in Cyprus could be applied throughout the euro zone in the future.

The remark triggered immediate criticism from his predecessor as head of the Euro Group, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker. "It disturbs me when the way in which they tried to resolve the Cyprus problem is held up as a blueprint for future rescue plans," Juncker told German public broadcaster ZDF earlier this week. "It's no blueprint. We should not give the impression that future savings deposits in Europe might not be secure. We should not give the impression that investors should not keep their money in Europe. This harms Europe's entire financial center."

[xchrom]

34. President François Hollande pleads for France's support

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/29/president-francois-hollande-france-support

François Hollande has appeared on live television to try to convince France he has a clear vision to steer the country out of the global economic crisis.

However the Socialist party president warned he had no magic wand to protect France against the pressures squeezing the country.

With rocketing unemployment, stagnant growth and record-low personal popularity ratings, Hollande made a direct appeal for the French population to cut him some slack, given the scale of the country's problems. "I have to succeed because the country cannot wait. The crisis continues, my duty is to get France out of the crisis," he said.

"I am confident in France. We are a country of great innovation … I need all French people, whatever their economic and social place. I am counting on our entrepreneurs."

[xchrom]

37. Cyprus Is Doomed: Why the Country Must Leave the Euro Immediately

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/cyprus-is-doomed-why-the-country-must-leave-the-euro-immediately/274300/

What if doing the right thing in Cyprus bankrupts Cyprus?

That's not so much a "what if" as a "what is". The finally agreed to Cypriot bailout and bail-in will save the Cypriot financial system by destroying it, along with the rest of their economy. In other words, Cyprus has traded default for depression, instead of devaluation. But this depression -- and it will be a capital-d "Depression" -- will make staying in the euro a political and economic nightmare. The sooner Cyprus wakes from it and abandons the common currency, the better.

The tiny island has become the epicenter of the latest round of euro-angst after its too-big-to-save banks got in need of saving. Those banks had inflated to seven times the size of the €18 billion ($23 billion) Cypriot economy due to massive inflows of (sometimes illicit) offshore money, mostly from Russia, looking to dodge taxes back home. Now, there are plenty of tax havens around the world, but none of the others made the balance-sheet-destroying mistake of investing in Greece. That left Cypriot banks woefully undercapitalized. And the Cypriot government was woefully unable to fill their capital holes.

That's when the tragicomedy of errors began. Cyprus, Russia, and the so-called Troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, entered into a potentially high-stakes game of chicken over who would pay for the island's insolvent banks. First, Cyprus rejected the Troika's plan to wind down its two biggest and most troubled banks; then rejected the Troika's backup plan to tax insured and uninsured bank deposits; then got rejected by Russia in its bid for a Hail Mary loan; and then, finally, under pressure from the ECB, agreed to ... wind down its two biggest and most troubled banks. In other words, it was a productive week, if their goal was to achieve nothing other than destroying all confidence in their economy.

[Doctor_J]

39. Trading on Good Friday! It's Wall Street's War on Easter!

Christianity Under Attack By Big Business! Where's O'Reilly???

[just1voice]

42. People more interested in kittycat pictures than losing their entire wealth

as little as that wealth may be. Sad but true, DU grumpy cat picture has more rec's.

Too bad because that Reggie Middleton post is a great one that most people, not just here at DU but everywhere, will ignore until it's too late as usual.