Economy
Related: About this forumSTOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 31 May 2013
[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 31 May 2013[font color=black][/font]
SMW for 30 May 2013
AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 30 May 2013
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Dow Jones 15,324.53 +21.73 (0.14%)
S&P 500 1,654.41 +6.05 (0.37%)
Nasdaq 3,491.30 +23.78 (0.69%)
[font color=green]10 Year 2.11% -0.01 (-0.47%)
[font color=red]30 Year 3.27% +0.02 (0.62%) [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
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Bank Tracker
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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
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Calculated Risk
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Brad DeLong
Bonddad
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goldmansachs666
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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
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[/center][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.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
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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]
Tansy_Gold
(17,815 posts)(not really related to the economy but funny as hell)
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)AnneD
(15,774 posts)What is a Nimbus 2000 in good condition going for these days?????
Demeter
(85,373 posts)and look at the oil futures, lower than January, when prices weren't even close to $4....
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Guess I better fill up while the filling is good.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)WITH ENEMIES LIKE THIS, WHY ARE WE MESSING IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AND CREATING A FREE TRADE ZONE IN PACIFIC?
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Chinese-Military-Renews-Cyber-Attacks-Focusing-on-US-Electrical-Grid.html
In February the US government named and shamed Chinese hackers who had been attacking, and stealing secret data from US companies. A report compiled by Mandiant, a private security company that helps companies and government agencies defend themselves from hackers, listed the organisations that had stolen numerous government documents, and items of intellectual property over the past five years.
Following the report, Unit 61398, a cyber-division of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army, with its white, 12 story office building on the edge of Shanghai, became the symbol of Chinese cyber-power. Three months have since passed in relative peace, but now the Chinese hackers are back.
Mandiant has announced that Unit 61398 has begun to increase the number of attacks, focussing more on companies that have direct access to the US electrical grid. Using different IP addresses and different servers they have managed to install most of the hacking tools within the companies computer systems that they were using previously. Mandiant believes that they are already operating at 60% to 70% of the level they were working at before....
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The recent revolt against standardized tests as well as legislative concern over testing corruption are just some of the of the signs of an approaching education "revolution."
Its always hard to tell for sure exactly when a revolution starts, wrote John Tierny inThe Atlantic recently. Im not an expert on revolutions, he continued, but even I can see that a new one is taking shape in American K-12 public education.
Tierney pointed to a number of signs of the coming revolution:
Tierney linked to a blog post by yours truly, The Inconvenient Truth of Education Reform, explaining how the movement known as education reform has committed severe harm to the populations it professes to serve while spreading corruption and enriching businesses and political figures. Echoing Tierney, on the pages of Slate, The Nation, and elsewhere, David Kirp, education professor and author of a popular new book casting doubt on competitive driven, market-based school reform, declared that cheating scandals and parent rebellions over high stakes standardized testing were proof that much ballyhooed reform policies championed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are not a proven or even a promising way to make schools better.
Kirp declared that mounting evidence from school reform efforts in major U.S. metropolitan areas reveals its a terrible time for advocates of market-driven reform in public education. For more than a decade, their strategy which makes teachers careers turn on student gains in reading and math tests, and promotes competition through charter schools and vouchers has been the dominant policy mantra. But now the cracks are showing.
In a legislative view, the Progressive State Network, which supports left-leaning state legislators and monitors legislative policy in state houses, noticed a backlash is brewing in many states as more and more parents and legislators alike start asking questions about corporate education reform. The post on PSNs website referenced Tierneys article and highlighted a Minnesota bill that eliminates testing requirements for graduation and several states that are embroiled in battles to defeat measures known as the parent trigger, which enables private takeovers of public schools...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)From 1999-2010, the total U.S. prison population rose 18 percent, an increase largely reflected by the "drug war" and stringent sentencing guidelines, such as three strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentences.
However, total private prison populations exploded fivefold during this same time period, with federal private prison populations rising by 784 percent (as seen in the chart below complied by The Sentencing Project):
This stark rise in private prison populations is partially due to increased contracts granted at the state and federal levels to behemoth prison companies such as Correction Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group. These companies claim - against available data - that they can run corrections facilities at lower costs.
However, whether such companies can save governments money is not the central issue. What's at issue here is the corrupt, immoral dynamic that fuels such contracts: the concept of treating inmates as commodities that must be grown for profit...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)By concealing the Peterson Institute's ideological bias, the paper of record is muddling the record...the New York Times, in which the pernicious work of the decidedly right-wing Peter G. Peterson Institute is treated as ideologically unbiased while that of other organizations across the spectrum are consistently mentioned along with an ideological tag; often one designed to misguide readers on the actual nature of the organizations agenda...
Which brings us to the case of the Peter G. Peterson Institute, which, according to SourceWatch, is "founded, chaired, and funded" by Pete Peterson, a conservative Republican billionaire who made his money as a Wall Street hedge fund manager and served as secretary of commerce under President Richard Nixon. He has devoted himself and his billions to promoting deficit hysteria and convincing the public that programs like Social Security and Medicare will destroy the economy. His economic policies come from the far right and he has been dedicated to producing propaganda masquerading as serious research. He has a huge and well-paid staff (and one of them will be contacting me after the publication of this article attempting to brow-beat me into telling lies about their boss).
The mythology promoted by Peterson has done incalculable harm to America. His belief in the absurd efficient market theory, in which financial markets magically regulate themselves, has helped produce widespread and continuing fraud epidemics. He has consistently pushed austerity (based, as we now know, on the discredited research of Harvard economists Reinhart and Rogoff), which has led to job loss, economic stagnation and untold misery for millions. Austerity-champion Carmen Reinhart is, incidentally, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute.
Yet something interesting happens when you type "Peterson Institute into the New York Timesonline archives. When you see a descriptor, its one of praise Adam Davidson of the NYT Magazine, always eager to show off his affection for economic quacks, refers to the Peterson Institute as a prominent Washington policy group. The fact that the Peterson Institute never receives an ideogical tag conveys that its positions are neutral, and therefore highly credible....For what many people still consider the paper of record, this kind of reporting merely muddles the record and allows propaganda to disguise itself as truth.
Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet senior editor. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of 'Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.' She received her Ph.d in English and Cultural Theory from NYU, where she has taught essay writing and semiotics. She is the Director of AlterNet's New Economic Dialogue Project. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Les Leopolds latest book, How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away With Siphoning Off Americas Wealth, is necessary, alarming and really funny. His talent for deconstructing complex financial terms and topics constitutes a public service. What he reveals in a sardonic and appropriately irreverent tone, is more ominous. We exist in a political-economic system that allows people who manufacture nothing and bet on everything to control the financial destinies of the rest of the population with impunity, and make stupendous amounts of money doing it. Because, as Leopold writes, Making a million an hour means never having to say youre sorry.
That inanity is what makes Leopolds book so timely, especially now, when the powers-that-be are pretending were back to our pre-2008-financial-crisis statusand thats a good thing. Hey, the stock market's hitting all-time highsthats never happened ahead of a major catastrophe before!
His handbook approach to a pretty arcane topic is hilarious and horrifying. His lively chapters are divided so that they read like a twelve-step Capitalists Anonymous program on how to achieve wealth nirvana. Theres Step 2, Take, Dont Make, which asks how can these hedge fund managers who create absolutely nothing tangible be rewarded so outrageously for it? Theres Step 7, Dont Say Anything Remotely Truthfulwell, that speaks for itself. And Step 9, Bet on the Race After You Know Who Wins, gets to the heart of how these managers, who inspire a plethora of reverential business magazine profiles and books, arent doing anything particularly daring or even smart. Hell, its not hard to find the bodies if youre the one burying them.
Leopold opens with comparisons of wealthy categories of humans from top entertainers to sports legends to CEOs (including bank CEOs). Only then does he reveal the ones who warrant the books titlethe top 1 percent of the top 1 percent elite hedge fund managers who bag billions of dollars per year, and millions of dollars per hour, making 100 times more than the top bank and insurance CEOs. Some even approach $2 million an hour such as David Tepper did in 2009, or John Paulson did in 2010 (well, $2.4 million an hour)...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The answer appears so simple that even Saturday Night Live has made a gag of it. To escape the nightmare tide of rising debt, all Americans need do is control their consumption, right? Resist the pull of the flat screen TV, the closet full of brand names, the smart phone. Its just that easy.
Or is it?
In May 2012, members of the Occupy Wall Street publication Tidal and its working group, Occupy Theory, called for a series of open assemblies to re-evaluate the Occupy movements strategies. Conversations quickly coalesced around the topics of education and debt, and the Strike Debt group was born. Taking a cue from the student protests in Quebec, the group began to hold weekly assemblies in Washington Square Park and adopted Quebecs red square as a symbol of solidarity.
We realized that student debt, medical debt, housing debt, credit card debt these are all necessities of life, and people are stuck, said Susan Meaney, a member of Strike Debts organizing committee and a mother of two college-age children with student loans.
With roughly 75 percent of Americans mired in some kind of debt, much of it medical or educational, Meaney said, the blame cannot rest on the debtors. When basic necessities like health care and schooling are partially or entirely debt-financed, consuming less is not the answer.
Its a systemic problem, she said. Its not because [Americans] dont know how to handle their money. Theres a system in place that keeps them that way. We wanted to open up a conversation and let people know that they are not alone.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)...In the case of the banks suspected of funneling billions of dollars in tainted money through the American financial system HSBC and Standard Chartered authorities decided last year to level hefty fines rather than seek criminal charges. Those decisions raised concerns in Washington that some banks, having grown so large and interconnected, are too big to indict. The internal government documents, which revealed some tension among authorities about how aggressively to pursue the cases, suggest that at least one agency, the Treasury Department, was alert to such concerns. When authorities were being blamed for letting HSBC off the hook, Treasury officials assured top aides to Timothy F. Geithner, then the Treasury secretary, that monetary penalties were coming as quickly as possible, according to the documents reviewed by The New York Times. The agency also contacted and persuaded a news organization to withdraw a report that wrongly blamed Treasury for not indicting HSBC, the documents indicate. (Its the job of the Justice Department to decide criminal charges, Treasury explained.) Ultimately, Treasury assessed a record $875 million fine against HSBC, accusing it of allowing Mexican drug cartels to direct money through accounts in the United States. But some critics wanted more, noting that Treasurys own internal documents cite the banks egregious violations of money laundering laws as qualitatively worse than other banks.
I would like to see Treasury support zealous prosecution, and instead I see them managing their image, said Bart Naylor, a policy advocate at Public Citizen, a nonprofit group critical of the government for not taking a harder line with HSBC.
Treasury released the internal documents to Public Citizen through a Freedom of Information Act request. The group then shared the information with The Times. A spokesman for Treasury declined to comment.
In a sign that the British cases pitted authorities against one another, the Treasury Department raised concerns last year that New Yorks banking regulator acted against Standard Chartered without sufficiently notifying federal authorities, the documents show. Treasury officials explained the concerns in an internal memo to Mr. Geithner. The memo, internal e-mails show, was prepared for Mr. Geithner as talking points ahead of an October meeting with George Osborne, Britains chancellor of the Exchequer. In a September letter to Mr. Geithner, Mr. Osborne had expressed significant concerns about New Yorks action, given that the United States and Britain typically collaborate closely on such cases. While the talking points highlighted Treasurys coordination with British regulators, it also distanced Mr. Geithner from the New York regulator, Benjamin M. Lawsky.
Unfortunately, the memo said, Mr. Lawskys office notified federal authorities only hours before its public announcement.
But people close to the case argue that federal authorities were aware that Mr. Lawsky was poised to act. Three months before filing the case, Mr. Lawskys office informed Treasury and other federal officials that it planned to soon take action against Standard Chartered for illegally funneling money for Iranian banks and corporations, the people close to the case said. The tension reflected a culture clash between Mr. Lawskys aggressive approach and the more staid philosophy common at the Treasury Department. A former terrorism prosecutor, Mr. Lawsky adopted a broader view of Standard Chartereds wrongdoing than federal authorities, and even threatened to revoke its state banking license. At the time, Treasury and the Justice Department were not ready to act. Matt Anderson, a spokesman for Mr. Lawsky, declined to comment. In a speech this April, however, Mr. Lawsky played down the tensions, saying a dose of healthy competition among regulators is helpful and necessary to safeguarding the stability of our nations financial system.
But in Washington, some discussions have taken a more hostile tone as the Justice Department faces scrutiny for not indicting HSBC. The Justice Department has explained that it follows guidelines requiring prosecutors to weigh indictments of businesses with collateral consequences like job losses and, in the case of big banks, a threat to the economy. And in a recent letter to Congress, the department explained that it has contacted relevant government agencies to discuss such issues, including federal regulators. But in Congressional testimony in March, David S. Cohen, Treasurys under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said The decision whether to bring criminal charges is the exclusive prerogative of criminal prosecutors. He added that we were not in a position to offer any meaningful guidance in the HSBC criminal case. But inside the Treasury Department in late 2012, shortly after Congress scolded authorities for not yet punishing HSBC, officials appeared to make the civil case a significant priority. Over several weeks, Treasury officials consulted two of Mr. Geithners top lawyers, Christopher Meade and Christian Weideman. The involvement of the lawyers, who were known at Treasury as Mr. Geithners top problem solvers, reflected the seriousness of the approach. Treasury officials sent the lawyers new developments in the HSBC case. At one point, an official assured them that Treasury was moving as quickly as possible to put together administrative penalty actions. When Treasury joined the Justice Department in announcing the case in December, a media outlet ran an overnight article in which a professor speculated that Mr. Geithner had not criminally prosecuted HSBC to avoid putting it out of business. By dawn that day, Treasury officials e-mailed one another about the article. Shortly after, National Public Radio retracted the quote and issued a statement saying that Treasury had not been involved in the decision not to indict HSBC.
TRANSLATION: NEW YORK ACTED PROMPTLY BECAUSE THEY KNEW HOLDER AND GEITHNER WOULDN'T...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The Swiss government is considering a proposal to disclose bank client names and pay a multibillion-dollar fine to the United States to help resolve a long-running dispute between the two countries over the handling of tax-evasion cases, American and Swiss sources briefed on the matter said on Tuesday. The fine, which could reach at least $7 billion to $10 billion according to these people, could be paid in part by the Swiss government, which would then seek reimbursement from the banks.
The possibility of an agreement is a turning point in a deepening conflict between Switzerland and the United States over the matter. American prosecutors have been conducting criminal investigations of about a dozen Swiss and Swiss-style banks involving offshore private banking services that allowed at least tens of thousands of wealthy Americans to evade federal taxes. The Swiss government, which has long prized the secrecy of its banking system, now appears to be willing to cooperate with authorities, one person said. The Swiss banks that have been the targets of investigations include Credit Suisse, which disclosed in July 2011 that it had received a letter saying it was under a grand jury investigation; the Zurich-based Julius Bär; two cantonal, or regional, banks; the Swiss operations of HSBC Holdings; and three Israeli banks, Hapoalim, Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank and Bank Leumi.
Members of the top echelon of the Swiss government known as the Federal Council are expected to discuss the matter as early as Wednesday, according to people briefed on the talks. These people asked to be unidentified because the discussions were continuing. Hans Kaufmann, a Swiss parliamentarian and member of the conservative Swiss Peoples Party, said that various levels of Parliament would be informed of the Federal Councils decision in stages over the next 10 days or so. The Federal Council has already discussed the topic a few times in the last weeks, but has reached no conclusions so far, said Anne Césard, a spokeswoman for the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters, a part of Switzerlands finance ministry.
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the head of the finance ministry, told Swiss radio on May 18 that We are on the verge of presenting a solution, adding that it is clear that it will not be a pleasant solution.
.........................
American authorities have indicted dozens of Swiss bankers and their clients in recent years. A breakthrough came in 2009, after UBS, the largest Swiss bank, agreed to enter into a deferred-prosecution agreement. The bank turned over 4,450 client names and paid a $780 million fine after admitting to criminal wrongdoing in selling tax-evasion services to wealthy Americans. In 2012, the Justice Department indicted Wegelin & Company, Switzerlands oldest bank. The bank pleaded guilty in January, putting it out of business, and prosecutors have said off the record in recent months that more indictments could be coming. Whistle-blowers have been a crucial part of the investigations and could continue to be so. Last year, the Internal Revenue Service said it would pay Bradley Birkenfeld, a former UBS banker, more than $104 million for his cooperation in revealing the secrets of the Swiss banking system and in that way helping to collect millions in unpaid taxes from wealthy Americans. At least one other banker is said to be in discussions with American authorities. Swiss officials have been interested in a settlement since the United States threatened to press charges against cantonal banks. Most cantonal banks are wholly or largely owned by the cantons, or regions, in which they operate, making them state institutions backed by Swiss taxpayers. Two cantonal banks, Basler Kantonalbank and Zürcher Kantonalbank, are under scrutiny by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.
Every bank under investigation negotiates on its own, said Igor Moser, a spokesman for Zürcher Kantonalbank, in Zurich. He declined to elaborate but indicated that the bank would not be part of any global resolution that is reached.
Michael Buess, a spokesman for Basler Kantonalbank, said that the negotiations with U.S. authorities has been defined as strictly confidential.
In early May, prosecutors in New York sent a second request to the government of Liechtenstein, a tax haven now seeking to cooperate with the United States in rooting out tax evaders. Prosecutors are seeking details on eight or nine firms involved in setting up Liechtenstein-based foundations and establishments on or after Jan. 1, 2008, that may have helped American citizens evade taxes. The request reflects efforts by prosecutors to use Liechtenstein as a blunt wedge to pry open Switzerland, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Tearing a hole in the veil secrecy surrounding Swiss banking, UBS will pay $780 million to settle federal claims that it had helped wealthy Americans evade taxes, and it agreed to disclose the names of 19,000 clients, The New York Timess Lynnley Browning reports. Under the agreement, the bank will not have to pay additional fines and penalties that could have brought its deal to more than $1 billion. People briefed on the issue said the banking crisis and the recession were factors in prosecutors decision not to levy the additional fines and penalties. The action, unprecedented for a financial institution, is a blow for UBS the worlds largest private bank and to Swiss banking secrecy with laws that date from the 1930s but with traditions stemming from the Middle Ages.
Under the agreement, UBS admitted to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.
But in a shift from deferred prosecution agreements with other corporations in the past, the Justice Department will not require an outside corporate monitor on UBS. Instead, the bank must submit regular reports to United States authorities on its offshore undeclared banking business for Americans the practice that has been under investigation. UBS has said that it was formally closing the accounts associated with that business, but it will have to provide periodic written evidence of that to prosecutors for each account closed.
While the text of the deferred prosecution agreement did not cite the number of American accounts that UBS must now disclose, federal prosecutors have been looking at up to 19,000 such accounts. UBS had resisted turning over the names, even after some executives were indicted and implicated, in the offshore private banking business. The move by UBS to settle the case, on the eve of a Senate subcommittee hearing next Tuesday, signals how close the bank came to being indicted for not cooperating with prosecutors. Last month, prosecutors gave UBS several weeks to hand over scores of United States client names or face possible indictment. Prosecutors suspect that from late 2002 through 2007, UBS helped these clients hide $20 billion in violation of United States tax laws, thereby evading $300 million a year in taxes.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Yesterday, federal prosecutors in New York announced that the operators of a global online currency exchange, similar to PayPal, ran a $6 billion money-laundering operation, which acted as a central hub for criminals trafficking in everything from child pornography to identity theft. Over a period of seven years, Liberty Reserve conducted more than 55 million transactions for millions of customers around the world, including 200,000 here in the U.S. On Friday, officials in Spain arrested Liberty Reserve founder Arthur Budovsky, whos among seven people arrested and charged in the case. All of those charged face counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
So, it looks like those responsible for the biggest online cyber money laundering case in history will be held criminally accountable for their actions. If only the same thing could be said for money launderers in big banks, like HSBC. Back in December of last year, Department of Justice and U.S Treasury officials announced that HSBC, the world's largest bank and the second largest bank in the United States had laundered money for some of the most notorious international drug cartels in the world, while also illegally conducting transactions on behalf of customers in Iran, Libya, Cuba, Sudan and Burma. Between 2006 and 2009, according to federal officials, HSBC failed to monitor a staggering $670 billion in wire transfers and an additional $9.4 billion in cash transactions from its operations in Mexico. As a result, according to officials, at least $881 million in drug trafficking money, including money from the Sinaloa Cartel of Mexico and the Norte del Valle Cartel of Colombia, was laundered through the big bank. The Department of Justice also said that HSBC helped process $660 million in illegal transactions from Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Libya and Burma by intentionally hiding the identities of these countries. At the initial news conference announcing the bust, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny Breuer said that, HSBC is being held accountable for stunning failures of oversight. The record of dysfunction that prevailed at HSBC for many years was astonishing. But what does being held accountable really mean? Does it mean sending banksters who helped to perpetuate a bloody drug war and laundered billions for drug kingpins to jail?
No.
Being held accountable means signing a deferred prosecution agreement, or DPA, with the Department of Justice, under which no criminal charges will be brought against the bank or any of its banksters provided that it meets certain conditions. Those conditions include paying a $1.9 billion dollar fine. Despite laundering hundreds of billions of dollars illegally, dealing with some of the worlds most notorious drug cartels, allegedly laundering for terrorist groups and moving money for customers in nations that the U.S. has no diplomatic ties with, HSBC is getting off with a slap on the wrist from the Department of Justice. Even Republicans find the notion of HSBC getting off with what amounts to a slap on the wrist, despite committing blatantly criminal actions, appalling....Fortunately, the HSBC slap-on-the-wrist agreement with the DOJ appears to have stalled. Judge John Gleeson, whos overseeing the case, is now believed to be considering rejecting the so-called settlement and deferred prosecution agreement, which could open up HSBC to being criminally prosecuted and losing its charter to do business in the U.S. But if history is any indicator, don't hold your breath. Regardless of whether or not Judge Gleeson rejects the deal, how is that a big bank that launders billions and billions of dollars for criminals hasn't seen a single perp-walk, but an online company can have its CEO arrested and prosecuted, along with several other executives?
Its because Liberty Reserve isnt a real bank, and its employees arent real banksters, so they cant hide behind millions in campaign contributions to American politicians. Since the executives at Liberty Reserve werent the anointed elite of the Jamie Dimons and Lloyd Blankfeins of the world, theyll face the full force of the American justice system. Right now, we have two criminal justice systems in America: One for the wealthy elite, corporations and big banks; and a second one for everyone else. Thanks to this double-standard, corporations like Wal-Mart that dump toxic waste get off with a fine, but if an American citizen, an actual person, did the same exact thing, theyd face years in jail. Its time to end this double-standard! Corporations and big banks need to be held accountable for their actions, just like everyone else. ...Back in the 1980s, after Ronald Reagan deregulated the S and Ls and they predictably went on a binge of illegal activity and then collapsed, Reagan investigated and prosecuted thousands of banksters, and sent several hundred banksters to jail. The most famous was Charles Keating, who went to jail even though he'd been giving huge payoffs to the infamous Keating 5 senators, including John McCain. If Reagan could send politically-connected banksters to jail, President Obama and his administration can do it too!
Demeter
(85,373 posts)In case you had any doubt that federal prosecutors favor corporations over individuals, check out Mythili Ramans testimony before a House hearing this week. Raman is the acting chief of the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. She appeared before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee. The title of the hearing Who Is Too Big to Fail: Are Large Financial Institutions Immune from Federal Prosecution? In a nutshell, the answer is Yes they are immune from federal prosecution.But its not just them. Its the vast majority of major corporate criminals, which now are granted deferred and non prosecution agreements when twenty years ago they were forced to plead guilty.
This sea change in corporate crime practice was ushered in by then Deputy Attorney General Holder in 1999 when he drafted the Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations. (Holder has been through the revolving door since over to Covington & Burling to defend the corporations hes now charged with prosecuting, then back to the Justice Department as Attorney General under President Obama. And no doubt, soon back to Covington.)
Under the subsequent rewrites of the Holder memo, federal prosecutors must now take into consideration the collateral consequences of a criminal prosecution on a major corporation including whether there is disproportionate harm to shareholders, pension holders, employees, and others not proven personally culpable, as well as impact on the public arising from the prosecution. And this, along with the the eight other factors that prosecutors must take into account before prosecuting a corporation tilts the balance away from prosecution and toward deferred and non prosecution agreements. Raman made it a point to emphasize twice during her testimony that individuals are not given the same consideration.
For individuals, collateral consequences never enter into the equation, Raman said.
Why not?
After all, collateral consequences for individuals can be devastating.
His drivers license may be automatically suspended, and he may no longer qualify for certain employment and professional licenses. If he is convicted of another crime he may be subject to imprisonment as a repeat offender. He will not be permitted to enlist in the military, or possess a firearm, or obtain a federal security clearance. If a citizen, he may lose the right to vote. If not, he becomes immediately deportable.
And Raman says that federal prosecutors cant take these into consideration.
But must take the collateral consequences of a corporate conviction into consideration.
Why the difference?
Because the corporate crime lobby has marinated the justice system. And morphed our criminal justice system from one that was meant to deliver equal justice for all to one where corporate criminals reign supreme.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)British banking giant HSBC agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion settlement Tuesday after a broad investigation by U.S. federal and state authorities found the bank violated federal laws by laundering money from Mexican drug trafficking and processing banned transactions on behalf of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma .
The settlement, a combination of forfeitures and civil penalties, shows the London-headquartered financial powerhouse for years deliberately channeled hundreds of millions of dollars of the prohibited transactions through its U.S. arm.
"HSBC is being held accountable for stunning failures of oversight and worse that led the bank to permit narcotics traffickers and others to launder millions of dollars through HSBC subsidiaries, and to facilitate hundreds of millions more in transactions with sanctioned countries," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in announcing the largest settlement of its kind.
"The record of dysfunction that prevailed at HSBC for many years was astonishing," said Breuer.
AND NOW, CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE DYSFUNCTION THAT PREVAILS AT THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT?
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., under fire over investigative tactics in leak cases, has opened internal discussions over tightening rules on when prosecutors may seek phone logs and other information that could identify reporters sources as he began a series of a meetings on Thursday with leaders of news media organizations.
According to an adviser familiar with the deliberations, Mr. Holder has discussed expanding a requirement for high-level review of proposed subpoenas for reporters phone records so that it would include e-mails. He is also examining whether to tighten a standard for when officials may seek such records without giving prior notice to the news organization.
NOW, ABOUT THOSE BANKSTERS, ERIC...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)...In 2011, the average CEO salary was $9.6 million, an all-time high, but now it turns out that CEO salaries in 2012 averaged a whopping $9.7 million, for the head of a typical large public company. Overall, health care and media CEOs picked up the highest pay, while utility CEOs enjoyed a meager $7.5 million.
Why do CEOs earn so much? Companies say they need to attract the best talent, and huge salaries are the way to do it. Whatever their justification, the shocking fact is that the average CEO in 2012 earned 354 times more than the average worker.
This was not always true. Income inequality has greatly increased over the past 30 years: in 1980 the average CEO made 50 times more money than the average worker while today the average CEO makes over 300 times more than the average worker.
Thanks to deregulation in the 1980s the top one percent of Americans have seen skyrocketing salaries, while worker pay has stagnated.
WHAT REGULATION WAS THAT?
...Whats more disturbing is that the United States currently has more income inequality than Pakistan or the Ivory Coast, according to a study by ThinkProgress using data from the CIA factbook. Income inequality in the United States is actually higher than at any other time in modern history since the Great Depression. While the average CEO makes that $9.7 million, nearly 50 million Americans, more than 16 percent of the population, are barely surviving. Figures released by the Census Bureau in 2012 found an increase in poverty numbers, going from 49 million in 2010 to 49.7 million in 2011. One of the most depressing and shameful findings is that almost 20 percent of American children continue to live in poverty...
xchrom
(108,903 posts)(Reuters) - Unemployment has reached a new high in the euro zone and inflation remains well below the European Central Bank's target, stepping up pressure on EU leaders and the ECB for action to revive the bloc's sickly economy.
Joblessness in the 17-nation currency area rose to 12.2 percent in April, EU statistics office Eurostat said on Friday, marking a new record since the data series began in 1995.
With the euro zone in its longest recession since its creation in 1999, consumer price inflation was far below the ECB's target of just below 2 percent, coming in at 1.4 percent in May, slightly above April's 1.2 percent rate.
That rise may quieten concerns about deflation, but the deepening unemployment crisis is a threat to the social fabric of the euro zone. Almost two-thirds of young Greeks are unable to find work, exemplifying southern Europe's 'lost generation'.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)(Reuters) - European Commission's economic chief, Olli Rehn, said on Friday he was "amazed" that France had criticized his team for recommending reforms while Paris also proposed more economic coordination for the euro zone.
France's President Francois Hollande on Thursday pledged to carry out economic reforms but added it was up to Paris, not the European Commission, to determine how they are implemented.
Hollande, together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have also proposed that the 17-nation euro zone should appoint a full-time president and hold more frequent summits to coordinate economic policy.
"I'm slightly amazed how France on one day underlines the need for euro zone economic governance and on another it criticises the Commission for giving well-grounded recommendations," Rehn, the EU's economic and monetary affairs commissioner, told a seminar in Helsinki.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)and Brussels has not distinguished itself in the euromess.
Olli's an idiot, anyway.
Good morning, X! How is it all? I've been better...maybe someday the Kid will be well, and I'll be uncontaminated.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)well, i hope your week finishes off better.
it ain't easy out there.
you and The Kid have our best thoughts.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)(Reuters) - Spain's bank restructuring fund, or FROB, should move forward rapidly with the sale of two banks that are being wound down and that it controls, Bank of Spain head Luis Maria Linde said in a speech on Friday to the bank's board.
Linde did not name the two banks in his speech. But the two that fit the description are Catalunya Banc and NCG Banco. The FROB has struggled to sell off Catalunya Banc, as potential buyers have balked at absorbing what they are argue are additional risks on its balance sheet.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)DOW -0.5%
NASDAQ -0.4% [/font]
AnneD
(15,774 posts)Universal Towel Day was last Saturday.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)Give us a head's up next year, please, AnneD!
I'm ready to throw in the towel, in Real Life. TGIF! Doc and I are going to the bars in 3..2..1..
AnneD
(15,774 posts)on the calender. I didn't remember it until I saw Roland's post and remembered it was May. I never have a problem remembering the 5th of November and a few other odds and ends, but I write most of them down. At my age and this time of year, I am luck to remember to put my scrub pants on in the morning.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)No, it's not a Louie Gohmert press conference.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)I like it.
http://www.popularresistance.org/
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Good going! First drink's on me.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)I can't figure out what the hell is going on. It's all a jumble.
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)5/31/13 What Happened The Last Time Chicago PMI Soared
Presented with little comment aside to warn - beware the serial extrapolators...
Chicago PMI "soared" well above expectations to 57.9 in Auguest 2008, only to 'plummet' to 37.8 by October 2008...
As an additional gentle reminder, while the official data was blithely ignorant of the fact at the time, when Chicago PMI went from 46.6 in Feb '08 to 56.8 by Sept '08, we were already 9 months into the recession!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-31/what-happened-last-time-chicago-pmi-soared
The power of illusion to mask reality
Roland99
(53,342 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Warpy
(110,900 posts)It was nice while it existed on paper, the only place it ever existed.