STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 26 March 2014

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 27 March 2014[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 26 March 2014

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 26 March 2014
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Dow Jones 16,268.99 -98.89 (-0.60%)
S&P 500 1,852.56 -13.06 (-0.70%)
Nasdaq 4,173.58 -61.00 (1.50%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.69% -0.05 (-1.82%)
30 Year 3.54% -0.06 (-1.67%) [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.
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.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.








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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. No, not even close.

But I won't argue. The anti-Putin, anti-Russian propaganda is risible, ridiculous, and totally false.

[Demeter]

2. Citi, four other banks see capital plan rejected by Fed By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/citi-four-other-banks-see-capital-plan-rejected-by-fed-2014-03-26?siteid=YAHOOB


Citigroup and four other banks had their capital plans rejected by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, in news that comes as a rebuke for the sprawling lender. Citi did not make sufficient progress in improving risk-management and control practices, the Fed found.

In a statement, Citi CEO Michael Corbat did not hide his disappointment. “Needless to say, we are deeply disappointed by the Fed’s decision regarding the additional capital actions we requested,” he said. The bank will continue to pay a penny a share dividend and continue its $1.2 billion stock buyback program. The news sent the stock down 4% in after-hours trade. Citigroup said it had asked to raise the quarterly dividend to 5 cents, and its share buyback program to $6.4 billion. Citi recently disclosed a loss of as much as $400 million in its Banamex unit, news that triggered fresh concerns about the risk controls in place at the bank. The rejection is especially ignominious since Citigroup had its capital plans rejected by the Fed once before, in 2012 — a development that likely helped lead to the ouster of then-CEO Vikram Pandit.

CLSA analyst Mike Mayo called the rejection a “shocker.” He noted that Citigroup’s projected capital levels were higher than the Fed required (6.5%, compared to the 5% minimum), and wondered if the development represented a new level of “Big Brother Banking.”

Citi was by far the biggest lender to be rebuked by the Fed. The U.S. arms of HSBC Holdings HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander also had their plans rejected, though that just means payments to their foreign parents will be restricted to last year’s levels. Zions had already announced that it was going to resubmit its capital plan.

Rival Bank of America was required to pare back its capital plan, but still managed to increase its dividend to 5 cents a share from a penny as it authorized a $4 billion stock repurchase program. Like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs had to pare back its initial plans and it didn’t disclose either its new dividend or buyback plans. A Federal Reserve official said both banks resubmitted the plans on Saturday after seeing the quantitative results released last week.

I FIND THIS BIZARRE...IF THEY WANT TO GO UNDER BY GUTTING THEMSELVES, WHY SHOULD THE FED STAND IN THE WAY? JUST REFUSE TO BAIL THEM OUT AND LET THEM DIE.

AND THIS, l&g, IS WHY THE MARKET IS DOWN....

[Demeter]

3. Bank of America to Pay $6.3 Billion to Settle Mortgage Securities Suit By MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/bank-of-america-to-pay-6-3-billion-to-settle-mortgage-securities-suit/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Bank of America is paying $6.3 billion to settle a lawsuit arising out of troubled mortgage-backed securities it cobbled together and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the run-up to the financial crisis. The bank agreed to pay that sum to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of the two government-sponsored mortgage finance firms by their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. As part of the settlement, Bank of America will also repurchase mortgage securities from Fannie and Freddie that are valued at about $3.2 billion. The settlement covers so-called private label mortgage backed securities sold by Bank of America and its affiliated entities like Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. The settlement with the housing finance agency is the latest in a string of deals that regulators have reached with big banks that sold mortgage securities backed by subprime mortgages, which quickly soured during the financial crisis and housing bust.

Including this latest settlement, the housing finance agency has recouped $16 billion in cash payments from banks and financial firms that sold mortgage-backed securities. The regulator, which filed 18 lawsuits, still has claims pending against seven banks and financial institutions.

The settlement came on the same day as Bank of America and its former chief executive officer, Kenneth Lewis, reached a deal to resolve another lawsuit arising from the financial crisis. Mr. Lewis, who stepped down in 2009, agreed on Wednesday to pay a $10 million penalty to settle a civil lawsuit arising out of the bank’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch at the height of the financial crisis. Companies often have insurance policies to cover the actions of corporate officers. Mr. Lewis would be entitled to seek indemnification from the bank for his portion of the settlement under that policy, said a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak publicly. The settlement between Mr. Lewis and New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, also bars the former bank executive from serving as an officer or a director of a public company for three years. Mr. Lewis, a Wall Street deal maker who also oversaw Bank of America’s acquisition of the troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, has kept a low profile since stepping down as chief executive at the end of 2009.

Bank of America also reached a settlement with Mr. Schneiderman’s office in which the bank will pay $15 million. The bank also agreed to institute a number of corporate governance changes, including the creation of a corporate development committee to monitor acquisition activities for the next five years. The lawsuit, filed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York when he was still the state’s attorney general, charged that Mr. Lewis and other bank executives misled Bank of America shareholders about the financial problems facing Merrill Lynch when the acquisition was announced in September 2008. The lawsuit said shareholders were not told that Merrill Lynch was facing up to $9 billion in losses, most of it tied to write-downs on the value of collateralized debt obligations backed by troubled mortgage securities. The deal to acquire Merrill Lynch was announced on Sept. 14, 2008, the same day that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and panic began to ensue across Wall Street.....The ill-timed acquisition of Merrill Lynch has led to much litigation and pain for Bank of America. Last year, Bank of America agreed to pay $2.4 billion to settle a securities class-action lawsuit over the merger brought on behalf of the bank’s shareholders. In 2010, the bank reached a $150 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle similar allegations that it had misled shareholders about the Merrill Lynch transaction.

“Today’s settlement demonstrates a major victory in our continued commitment to applying the law equally to individual as well as corporations,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a prepared statement. “I would hope this closes on chapter of our ongoing efforts to ensure the frauds that occurred in and around the financial crisis are not forgotten.”

Mr. Schneiderman’s office said it had not reached a settlement with Joe L. Price, the bank’s former chief financial officer, and intended to file a motion for summary judgment against him.

Bank of America said the settlement with the housing regulator is expected to reduce its first quarter 2014 income by approximately $3.7 billion before taxes. The bank is scheduled to report earnings on April 16.

[Demeter]

4. A stumble in tech stocks drags indexes lower

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fiw-wall-street-20140326,0,3021513.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fbusiness+%28L.A.+Times+-+Business%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

[Demeter]

5. THE NSA SUBTHREAD SERIES CONTINUES

Obama is cancelling the NSA dragnet. So why did all three branches sign off?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/25/obama-nsa-dragnet-phone-proposal-sign-off?CMP=ema_565

NOT SO FAST--HE'S ONLY MAKING NOISES. WAIT TILL HE ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING LEGALLY BINDING.



To anyone who criticized the National Security Agency's phone-records dragnet over the last nine months or so, the American intelligence community had this stock response: all three branches of government signed off on it. The intelligence community was right, at least in a sense, but what it presented as a defense of the surveillance program was actually an indictment of our oversight system. What it presented as a defense of the program was actually a scandal.

In today's New York Times, Charlie Savage reports that the administration has come to the belated realization that its intelligence interests can be accommodated without placing hundreds of millions of people under permanent surveillance. This is to the good, of course. But if the administration is right that the dragnet was unnecessary, we should ask how all three branches of government got it so wrong. The answer, in a word, is secrecy. When intelligence officials proposed the dragnet, there was no one on the other side to explain that the government's goals could be achieved with less-intrusive means. There was no one there to mention that the law the government was invoking couldn't lawfully be used to collect call-records. There was no one there to mention that the bulk collection of call records was unconstitutional. Instead, there was an entirely one-sided system in which government attorneys presented the supposed interests of the intelligence community in the most expansive way possible, and the judges of a poorly resourced court tried unsuccessfully, and sometimes halfheartedly, to imagine what ordinary citizens might say in response. Over time, and perhaps without entirely meaning to, the court developed a wholly new body of law, a body of law animated not by democratic principles but by the values of the intelligence community – collect, analyze, conceal.

The intelligence committees that were meant to serve as a further check on unwarranted government surveillance failed just as profoundly. They allowed the intelligence community to launch dragnet programs when narrower programs would have been equally effective. They allowed it to mislead the public about the scope of its surveillance activities. They allowed it to pretend that the government's surveillance technology was directed at suspected terrorists abroad when in fact it was directed at ordinary citizens.

One can confidently predict that the administration's proposal to end the NSA's bulk collection of phone records will not go far enough. According to the Times report, the administration's proposal will still have the NSA collecting records about people who are two steps removed from terrorism suspects, not just records about the terrorism suspects themselves. The administration doesn't seem to be contemplating new limits on the agency's authority to retain, analyze or disseminate the records it collects. And it isn't proposing to end bulk collection of all records – just the bulk collection of phone records. And of course Congress must approve the proposal. But, as David Cole has observed, this much can be said about the administration's proposal already: the president is acknowledging that a surveillance program endorsed by all three branches of government, and in place for more than a decade, has not been able to survive public scrutiny. It's an acknowledgement that the intelligence agencies, the surveillance court and the intelligence committees struck a balance behind closed doors that could not be defended in public. The question now is whether the administration's proposal with respect to the phone-records program signals a broader recognition that many of the NSA's surveillance activities lack democratic legitimacy. The truth is that there is a vast distance between what the American public has approved and what the NSA is actually doing. The proposal to end the phone-tracking program is, we can hope, a sign that the administration now sees this.​

I WOULDN'T BET ON IT.

The House's NSA bill could allow more spying than ever. You call this reform?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/25/house-nsa-bill-end-bulk-collection-act-reform?CMP=ema_565

The White House and the House Intelligence Committee leaked dueling proposals last night that are supposedly aimed at ending the mass collection of all Americans’ phone records. But the devil is in the details, and when it comes to the National Security Agency’s unique ability to twist and distort the English language, the devil tends to wrap his horns around every word. The House proposal, to be unveiled this morning by Reps Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, is the more worrying of the two. Rogers has been the NSA’s most ardent defender in Congress and has a long history of distorting the truth and practicing in outright fabrication, whether in touting his committee’s alleged “oversight” or by way of his attempts to impugn the motives of the once again vindicated whistleblower who started this whole reform debate, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. As a general rule, whenever Mike Rogers (not to be confused with incoming NSA director Michael Rogers) claims a bill does something particular – like, say, protect your privacy – it's actually a fairly safe assumption that the opposite will end up true. His new bill seems to have the goal of trading government bulk collection for even more NSA power to search Americans’ data while it sits in the hands of the phone companies.

While the full draft of the bill isn’t yet public, the Guardian has seen a copy, and its description does not inspire confidence. Under the Rogers and Ruppersberger proposal, slyly named the “End Bulk Collection Act”, the telephone companies would hold on to phone data. But the government could search data from those companies based on "reasonable articulable suspicion" that someone is an agent of a foreign power, associated with an agent of a foreign power, or "in contact with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power". The NSA’s current phone records program is restricted to a reasonable articulable suspicion of terrorism.

A judge would reportedly not have to approve the collection beforehand, and the language suggests the government could obtain the phone records on citizens at least two “hops” away from the suspect, meaning if you talked to someone who talked to a suspect, your records could be searched by the NSA. Coupled with the expanded “foreign power” language, this kind of law coming out of Congress could, arguably, allow the NSA to analyze more data of innocent Americans than it could before.

President Obama’s reported proposal sounds more promising, though we have even fewer details than the Intelligence Committee proposal. The administration’s plan would supposedly end the collection of phone records by the NSA, without requiring a dangerous new data retention mandate for the phone companies, while restricting analysis to the current rules around terrorism and, importantly, still requiring a judge to sign off on each phone-record search made to the phone companies – under what the New York Times described as "a new kind of court order". This phone plan, apparently, represents Obama coming full-circle as his self-imposed deadline on NSA reform arrives Friday, when the court order authorizing bulk collection runs out. But there’s no indication that the president's plan would stop other types of bulk collection – such as internet or financial records – and there’s still a big question about what the NSA could do with the data they receive on innocent people two "hops" away from a suspect...Critically, neither proposal touches the NSA’s under-reported and incredibly dangerous “corporate store”, at least that we know of. For years, the NSA has been allowed to search phone numbers up to three “hops” away from suspect, so long as it had “reasonable articulable suspicion” that the suspect was involved in terrorism. This was recently ratcheted down to two hops, but the hop-scotching method inevitably pulled millions of innocent people into the NSA’s dragnet.

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

Rep James Sensenbrenner’s bill, the USA Freedom Act, would make a much stronger and more comprehensive bill than either new proposal – at least for those interested in real NSA reform. Sensenbrenner, who originally wrote the Patriot Act provision that the NSA re-interpreted in secret, called the House Intelligence proposal "a convoluted bill that accepts the administration's deliberate misinterpretations of the law". Although, even his bill could be strengthened to ensure bulk collection of Americans' records is no longer an option for the NSA, or any other government agency.

In the end, there's a simple way to stop all forms of bulk collection and mass surveillance: write a law expressly prohibiting it.

Gmail Traffic Between Google Servers Now Encrypted To Thwart NSA Snooping

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/20/gmail-traffic-between-google-servers-now-encrypted-to-thwart-nsa-snooping/?source=gravity&cps=gravity

Today Google announced that it has enhanced encryption for its Gmail email service, bolstering security to protect customers from prying eyes, especially those of governments.

As of today, Gmail will “always use an encrypted HTTPS connection” whenever a user checks their mail, or sends a new missive. According to Google, the expanded protection will ensure that your mail is safe from being snooped on as it travels from your machine to Google’s data centers. This means you are protected regardless of what sort of network you are logged into, either a public connection or whatever else.

Perhaps even more importantly now, messages inside of the Google datacenter network will be encrypted — so as your note moves from one Gmail server to another, it will be protected.

This matters as it was revealed recently that the NSA was tapping the cables between foreign data centers of United States technology companies, to mine information directly. Google delicately calls the effort a “top priority after last summer’s revelations.”

In other words: Back off, NSA....

Obama’s New NSA Proposal and Democratic Partisan Hackery GLENN GREENWALD

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/25/obamas-new-nsa-proposal-democratic-partisan-hackery/?wpisrc=nl_wonk

I vividly recall the first time I realized just how mindlessly and uncritically supportive of President Obama many Democrats were willing to be. In April 2009, two federal courts, in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, ruled that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) required the Pentagon to disclose dozens of graphic photos it possessed showing abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Obama administration announced that, rather than contest or appeal those rulings, they would comply with the court orders and release all the photos. The ACLU praised that decision: “the fact that the Obama administration opted not to seek further review is a sign that it is committed to more transparency.”

This decision instantly turned into a major political controversy. Bush-era neocons, led by Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney, excoriated Obama, arguing that release of the photos would endanger American troops and depict the US in a negative light; Cheney expressly accused Obama of “siding with the terrorists” by acquiescing to the ruling. By contrast, Democrats defended Obama on the ground that the disclosures were necessary for transparency and the rule of law, and they attacked the neocons for wanting to corruptly hide evidence of America’s war crimes. I don’t think there was a single Democratic official, pundit, writer, or blogger who criticized Obama for that decision.

But then – just two weeks later – Obama completely reversed himself, announcing that he would do everything possible to block the court order and prevent it from taking effect. ABC News described Obama’s decision as “a complete 180.” More amazingly still, Obama adopted the exact arguments that Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney were making over the prior two weeks to attack him specifically and transparency generally: to justify his desire to suppress this evidence, Obama said that “the most direct consequence of releasing the [photos], I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger.”

Now, obviously, the people who had been defending Obama’s original pro-transparency position (which included the ACLU, human rights groups, and civil liberties writers including me) changed course and criticized him. That’s what rational people, by definition, do: if a political official takes a position you agree with, then you support him, but when he does a 180-degree reversal and takes the exact position that you’ve been disagreeing with, then you oppose him. That’s just basic. Thus, those of us who originally defended Obama’s decision to release the photos turned into critics once he took the opposite position – the one we disagreed with all along – and announced that he would try to suppress the photos.

But that’s not what large numbers of Democrats did. Many of them first sided with Obama when his administration originally announced he’d release the photos. But then, with equal vigor, they also sided with Obama when – a mere two weeks later – he took the exact opposition position, the very anti-transparency view these Democrats had been attacking all along when voiced by Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney.

At least for me, back then, that was astonishing to watch. It’s one thing to strongly suspect that people are simply adopting whatever views their party’s leader takes. But this was like the perfect laboratory experiment to prove that: Obama literally took exact opposition positions in a heated debate within a three week period and many Democrats defended him when he was on one side of the debate and then again when he switched to the other side.

When Democrats were defending Obama’s decision to suppress the photos, I kept asking whether there was a single one of them – just one – who had criticized Obama two weeks earlier when his administration announced they’d release the photos. After all, if they really believed (as they were now claiming) that suppressing the photos was the right thing to do because their release would endanger the troops, shouldn’t they have been objecting when Obama two weeks earlier said he’d release them?

I never found one Democrat defending Obama’s photo suppression who had criticized him earlier when he said he’d release them. That’s when I fully internalized that many Democrats literally had no actual political beliefs other than we support Obama in everything that he does, even when he takes precisely opposite positions in a three week period (most amazingly of all, Obama ultimately succeeded in suppressing the photos – which still have never been seen – not by successfully appealing the court order, but by supporting and then signing into law an amendment to the 40-year old FOIA - sponsored by Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham - that simply exempted the photos from the law).

We’re now about to have a similar lab experiment, this time in the context of the NSA. The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage reported last night that Obama “is preparing to unveil a legislative proposal for a far-reaching overhaul of the National Security Agency’s once-secret bulk phone records program in a way that — if approved by Congress — would end the aspect that has most alarmed privacy advocates since its existence was leaked last year.” In sum, “the NSA would end its systematic collection of data about Americans’ calling habits.”

This proposal differs in significant respects from the incredibly vague and cosmetic “reforms” Obama suggested in his highly touted NSA speech in January. Although bereft of details, it was widely assumed that Obama’s January proposal would not end the bulk data collection program at all, but rather simply shift it to the telecoms, by simultaneously requiring that the telecoms keep all calling records for 5 years (the amount of time the NSA now keeps those records) and make them available to the government on demand. But under Obama’s latest proposal, the telecoms “would not be required to retain the data for any longer than they normally would” (the law currently requires 18 month retention) and “the NSA could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order.”

As always with Obama, it remains to be seen whether his words will be followed by any real corresponding actions. That he claims to support a bill does not mean he will actually try to have Congress enact it. The details, still unknown, matter a great deal. And even if this did end the domestic bulk collection spying program, it would leave undisturbed the vast bulk of the NSA’s collect-it-all system of suspicionless spying...MORE

(THE FIRST (INDENTED) SECTION IS FOR ALL THE OBAMABOTS)

The NSA is burning down the web, but what if we rebuilt a spy-proof internet?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/24/david-byrne-nsa-rebuild-secure-internet?CMP=ema_565

IT'S GOOD TO HAVE A DREAM....

[Demeter]

6. First Amendment Train Wreck in the Making: U.S. Senate Tries to Define Who Is a Journalist

THE HUNT FOR SMEARING GREENWALD, SNOWDEN ET AL CONTINUES...

http://www.alternet.org/media/1st-amendment-trainwreck-making-us-senate-trying-define-who-journalist?akid=11639.227380.u_DNcE&rd=1&src=newsletter974344&t=10


A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING BILL.

[Hotler]

24. Gee, if the House and the Senate didn't have anything to hide.......

Hi everyone.

[Demeter]

7. Bitcoin to be treated as property instead of currency by IRS

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/25/bitcoin-property-currency-irs-rules?CMP=ema_565

It’s official, at least according to the taxman: bitcoin is not a currency. The Internal Revenue Service ruled Tuesday that the controversial cryptocurrency and its rivals will be treated as property, not cash, for tax purposes.

The ruling had been expected and marks another step in the wider attempt to make bitcoin mainstream. In its notice, the IRS said bitcoin would be treated much like stock or other intangible property.

"The notice provides that virtual currency is treated as property for US federal tax purposes. General tax principles that apply to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency," according to an IRS news release.

The ruling means gains in value will be treated as capital gains and as such could be subject to lower tax rates than income. The top long-term capital gains tax rate is 20%, while the top ordinary income tax rate is 39.6%....

MORE GRUESOME DETAIL

[Demeter]

8. ANOTHER CONSPIRACY THEORY

With the Disappearance of Malaysian Airlines MH-370, Jacob Rothschild Became the Sole Owner of 'Freescale Semiconductors' Patent

http://humansarefree.com/2014/03/with-disappearance-of-malaysian.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FYTqom+%28Humans+Are+Free-Blog%29

The disappearance of four members of a patent semiconductor traveling on Malaysia Airlines MH370 makes the famous billionaire Jacob Rothschild, the sole owner of the important patent.

The mystery surrounding the Malaysian Airlines MH-370 is growing as each day passes with more mysterious silence shadowing the disappearance of the airline. More and more conspiracy theories are beginning to boom on the internet. One of the conspiracies one is the Freescale Semiconductor’s ARM microcontroller ‘KL-03′ which is a new improvised version of an older microcontroller KL-02. This crazy story about how Illuminati Rothschild exploited the airlines to gain full Patent Rights of an incredible KL-03 micro-chip is going haywire across the internet especially when it’s involving Jacob Rothschild as the evil master plotter.

A US technology company which had 20 senior staff on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had just launched a new electronic warfare gadget for military radar systems in the days before the Boeing 777 went missing. Freescale Semiconductor has been developing microprocessors, sensors and other technology for the past 50 years. The technology it creates is commonly referred to as embedded processors, which according to the firm are “stand-alone semiconductors that perform dedicated computing functions in electronic systems”.

Why were so many Freescale employees traveling together? What were their jobs. Were they on a mission and if so what was this mission? Can these employees be the cause of the disappearance of this plane? Could the plane have been then hijacked and these people kidnapped? Did these employees hold valuable information, did they have any valuable cargo with them? Did they know company and technological secrets? With all the might of technology why cant this plane be located? Where is this plane where are these people?”

The 20 Freescale employees, among 239 people on flight MH370, were mostly engineers and other experts working to make the company’s chip facilities in Tianjin, China, and Kuala Lumpur more efficient, said Mitch Haws, vice president, global communications and investor relations.

“These were people with a lot of experience and technical background and they were very important people,” Haws said. “It’s definitely a loss for the company.”

[DemReadingDU]

27. A Rothschild Became the Sole Owner of 'Freescale Semiconductors' Patent

Interesting.
More likely just a coincidence, not due to a conspiracy of the missing MH370.

edit for typo

[Demeter]

31. These days I want proof that it's not possible before I dismiss any theory

[Demeter]

9. TWO BY ROBERT REICH

What's Really Tearing America Apart

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/whats-really-tearing-america-apart?akid=11644.227380.qaKCXK&rd=1&src=newsletter974694&t=15


Former secretary of labor says Dems and GOP no longer share the same basic values -- and that nationhood is dead...

Robert Reich on the Billionaires Who Are Warping Our Political System

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/robert-reich-billionaires-who-are-warping-our-political-system?akid=11646.227380.EMKFge&rd=1&src=newsletter975090&t=12

The Koch brothers and their imitators are undermining our democracy...

[Demeter]

10. Directly Destroying Democracy by Leo Gerard

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/leowgerard/directly-destroying-democracy?akid=11644.227380.qaKCXK&rd=1&src=newsletter974694&t=19

In the olden days, buying votes was a risky business. That’s not because the purchaser faced felony charges. No, the real peril was that the guy bribing voters wouldn’t get what he wanted.

The process was too indirect. The man with “walking around money” would tell voters what he wanted them to do in exchange for a few beers or bucks. But Americans, being the contrarians they are, could cast their secret ballots for the exact opposite candidates, then accept the booze anyway, thank you very much.These days, there’s a much more direct process. One percenters and corporations can secretly buy politicians. Using front groups, the wealthy can “donate” unlimited millions to elect a candidate and remain completely anonymous. So the public won’t know that the senator pushing for smiley faces to be printed on cigarette cartons instead of health warnings received $50 million in ads paid for by the tobacco industry.

Several news stories last week illustrated exactly how this threat to democracy, sanctioned by the gang of right-wingers on the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case, plays out. The most jaw dropping is the case of former Republican Utah state attorney general John Swallow, who used shadowy nonprofit organizations to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the vilest industry in America – payday lenders.

In exchange for the money, Swallow promised to use the office of attorney general to champion payday lenders, the flimflam men who exploit and bankrupt the poor with short-term loans at exorbitant interest rates...

MORE

[Demeter]

14. "Paid-what-you’re-worth" Is a Dangerous, fundamentally misleading meritocracy myth By Robert Reich

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38032.htm

It’s often assumed that people are paid what they’re worth. According to this logic, minimum wage workers aren’t worth more than the $7.25 an hour they now receive. If they were worth more, they’d earn more. Any attempt to force employers to pay them more will only kill jobs...According to this same logic, CEOs of big companies are worth their giant compensation packages, now averaging 300 times pay of the typical American worker. They must be worth it or they wouldn’t be paid this much. Any attempt to limit their pay is fruitless because their pay will only take some other form.

"Paid-what-you’re-worth" is a dangerous myth.

Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today’s dollars. Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour. Does this mean the typical GM employee a half-century ago was worth four times what today’s typical Walmart employee is worth? Not at all. Yes, that GM worker helped produce cars rather than retail sales. But he wasn’t much better educated or even that much more productive. He often hadn’t graduated from high school. And he worked on a slow-moving assembly line. Today’s Walmart worker is surrounded by digital gadgets — mobile inventory controls, instant checkout devices, retail search engines — making him or her quite productive. The real difference is the GM worker a half-century ago had a strong union behind him that summoned the collective bargaining power of all autoworkers to get a substantial share of company revenues for its members. And because more than a third of workers across America belonged to a labor union, the bargains those unions struck with employers raised the wages and benefits of non-unionized workers as well. Non-union firms knew they’d be unionized if they didn’t come close to matching the union contracts. Today’s Walmart workers don’t have a union to negotiate a better deal. They’re on their own. And because fewer than 7 percent of today’s private-sector workers are unionized, non-union employers across America don’t have to match union contracts. This puts unionized firms at a competitive disadvantage. The result has been a race to the bottom.

By the same token, today’s CEOs don’t rake in 300 times the pay of average workers because they’re “worth” it. They get these humongous pay packages because they appoint the compensation committees on their boards that decide executive pay. Or their boards don’t want to be seen by investors as having hired a “second-string” CEO who’s paid less than the CEOs of their major competitors. Either way, the result has been a race to the top. If you still believe people are paid what they’re worth, take a look at Wall Street bonuses. Last year’s average bonus was up 15 percent over the year before, to more than $164,000. It was the largest average Wall Street bonus since the 2008 financial crisis and the third highest on record, according to New York’s state comptroller. Remember, we’re talking bonuses, above and beyond salaries. All told, the Street paid out a whopping $26.7 billion in bonuses last year. Are Wall Street bankers really worth it? Not if you figure in the hidden subsidy flowing to the big Wall Street banks that ever since the bailout of 2008 have been considered too big to fail.

People who park their savings in these banks accept a lower interest rate on deposits or loans than they require from America’s smaller banks. That’s because smaller banks are riskier places to park money. Unlike the big banks, the smaller ones won’t be bailed out if they get into trouble. This hidden subsidy gives Wall Street banks a competitive advantage over the smaller banks, which means Wall Street makes more money. And as their profits grow, the big banks keep getting bigger. How large is this hidden subsidy? Two researchers, Kenichi Ueda of the International Monetary Fund and Beatrice Weder di Mauro of the University of Mainz, have calculated it’s about eight tenths of a percentage point. This may not sound like much but multiply it by the total amount of money parked in the ten biggest Wall Street banks and you get a huge amount — roughly $83 billion a year. Recall that the Street paid out $26.7 billion in bonuses last year. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a Wall Street banker to see that the hidden subsidy the Wall Street banks enjoy because they’re too big to fail is about three times what Wall Street paid out in bonuses. Without the subsidy, no bonus pool. By the way, the lion’s share of that subsidy ($64 billion a year) goes to the top five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo. and Goldman Sachs. This amount just about equals these banks’ typical annual profits. In other words, take away the subsidy and not only does the bonus pool disappear, but so do all the profits. The reason Wall Street bankers got fat paychecks plus a total of $26.7 billion in bonuses last year wasn’t because they worked so much harder or were so much more clever or insightful than most other Americans. They cleaned up because they happen to work in institutions — big Wall Street banks — that hold a privileged place in the American political economy. And why, exactly, do these institutions continue to have such privileges? Why hasn’t Congress used the antitrust laws to cut them down to size so they’re not too big to fail, or at least taxed away their hidden subsidy (which, after all, results from their taxpayer-financed bailout)? Perhaps it’s because Wall Street also accounts for a large proportion of campaign donations to major candidates for Congress and the presidency of both parties....According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the $26.7 billion of bonuses Wall Street banks paid out last year would be enough to more than double the pay of every one of America’s 1,085,000 full-time minimum wage workers. The remainder of the $83 billion of hidden subsidy going to those same banks would almost be enough to double what the government now provides low-wage workers in the form of wage subsidies under the Earned Income Tax Credit. But I don’t expect Congress to make these sorts of adjustments any time soon.

The “paid-what-your-worth” argument is fundamentally misleading because it ignores power, overlooks institutions, and disregards politics. As such, it lures the unsuspecting into thinking nothing whatever should be done to change what people are paid, because nothing can be done.

Don’t buy it.


Robert Reich: Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock" and “The Work of Nations." His latest, "Beyond Outrage," is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

[Demeter]

11. US Prepares To Provide A Billion To Ukraine As Detroit Plans Mass Water Shutoffs Over $260 Million

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-24/us-prepares-provide-billion-ukraine-detroit-plans-mass-water-shutoffs-over-260-milli

Moments ago the CBO released its estimate of what S. 2124, aka "Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014", better known as the "Payment of Overdue Gazprom Invoices Act" - here is the verdict:

"CBO estimates that enacting the bill would decrease direct spending by $373 million over the 2014-2024 period. S. 2124 would achieve that decrease mostly by rescinding funds that were provided as an emergency requirement. Certain sanctions, if enacted, would affect revenues, but CBO estimates that those effects would not be significant. Pay-as-you-go procedures apply because enacting the legislation would affect direct spending and revenues. CBO estimates that the statutory pay-as-you-go effects of S. 2124 (which, by law, do not including the effect of rescinding funds provided under the emergency designation) would be to increase the deficit by $320 million over the 2014-2024 period."

Of course, the total amount authorized is substantially higher at $1.3 billion, and will be met through various loan guarnatees, and other US-backed promises, which the CBO is assuming right now, will not result in outlays (they will).



Either way, one thing is certain: in order to enforce the fading Pax Americana in the Ukraine, and to keep the funding to the otherwise insolvent Ukraine flowing, which as everyone knows will be first and foremost used to pay Russia's Gazprom, the US is about to send lots of money abroad. As in, not in the US.

So when it comes to priorities, whom does Putin have to thank for the billions in Western funds he is about to receive? Maybe he can start in Detroit, where the local utility is planning mass water shutoffs over $260M in delinquent bills.

In other words, while the US is enforcing some odd international law, according to which a democratic vote is not credible but a violent coup is, US citizens are about to have no drinking water over a paltry $260 million...

DETAILS AT LINK

[Demeter]

12. Sinkhole of bureaucracy:Deep underground, federal employees process paperwork by hand in a long-outd

Deep underground, federal employees process paperwork by hand in a long-outdated, inefficient system...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/03/22/sinkhole-of-bureaucracy/

The trucks full of paperwork come every day, turning off a country road north of Pittsburgh and descending through a gateway into the earth. Underground, they stop at a metal door decorated with an American flag.

BREAKING POINTS

WHERE GOVERNMENT FALLS APART

First in a series examining the failures at the heart of troubled federal systems.

Behind the door, a room opens up as big as a supermarket, full of five-drawer file cabinets and people in business casual. About 230 feet below the surface, there is easy-listening music playing at somebody’s desk.

This is one of the weirdest workplaces in the U.S. government — both for where it is and for what it does.

Here, inside the caverns of an old Pennsylvania limestone mine, there are 600 employees of the Office of Personnel Management. Their task is nothing top-secret. It is to process the retirement papers of the government’s own workers...

[Demeter]

13. Today's Funnies

[xchrom]

15. IMF throws Ukraine financial lifeline, Russian economy to slump

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/uk-ukraine-crisis-idUKBREA2J1E820140327

(Reuters) - Ukraine won a $27-billion international financial lifeline on Thursday, rushed through in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea, as Moscow's economy minister spoke of the cost of military action in its former Soviet neighbour.

The International Monetary Fund announced agreement on a $14-18 billion standby credit for Kiev in return for tough economic reforms that will unlock further aid from the European Union, the United States and other lenders over two years.

The IMF deal, to be approved by the global agency's board next month, was a political boost for the pro-Western government that replaced ousted Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovich last month, prompting Moscow to seize the Black Sea peninsula.

"The financial support from the broader international community that the programme will unlock amounts to $27 billion over the next two years," an IMF statement said.

[Demeter]

26. "standby credit for Kiev in return for tough economic reforms"

So, Ukraine can stare at the IMF generosity all it wants, but it cannot touch, and meanwhile, a starvation diet has been ordered.



In other words...."No soup for you!"

[xchrom]

16. China to strengthen Internet security after U.S. spying report

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/uk-china-us-cybersecurity-idUKBREA2Q0JZ20140327


(Reuters) - China will beef up its internet security in response to recent reports that the U.S. government spied on a major telecommunications firm, the Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

Reports that the U.S. National Security Agency infiltrated servers at the headquarters of Huawei Technologies Co. "lay bare the United States's hypocrisy and despotic rule," ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng told a briefing.

"For a while now, some Americans have jabbered on and on, condemning Chinese hacking attacks," he said. "But the truth is that this is without any basis in fact, it's simply a thief crying 'Stop, thief!'"

The ministry did not say what steps would be taken to strengthen Internet security.

[xchrom]

17. Cyprus UN envoy says economic crisis could aid peace deal

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/uk-cyprus-un-idUKBREA2Q0SF20140327

(Reuters) - Cyprus's economic crisis could hasten a deal to end decades of enmity between the island's estranged Greeks and Turks, its outgoing United Nations envoy said on Thursday.

Reunification talks resumed between the two sides on February 11.

Peace prospects have come into sharper focus after the discovery of substantial natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean, and the need for routes to export the commodity to Europe. A deal in Cyprus could enable gas to be piped via Turkey, easing Europe's reliance on Russian gas.

"Do the math. If Cyprus were reunited it would lead to substantial investments to the island," Alexander Downer, U.N. special envoy since 2008, told journalists.

[xchrom]

18. Weak banks stamp out FTSE's nascent recovery

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/uk-markets-britain-stocks-idUKBRE8710BE20140327

(Reuters) - The top 100 shares fell on Thursday, reversing tentative signs of a rally, after some UK banks failed U.S. Federal Reserve stress tests.

Royal Bank of Scotland shed 1.4 percent and HSBC fell 0.5 percent. HSBC's decline knocked 2.5 points off the UK's benchmark index.

The U.S. units of the pair were among banks the Fed blocked from paying higher dividends or buying back their own shares, citing weaknesses in their capital planning.

Traders pointed out discussions about the stress tests are not over, so the banks could get off more lightly than it appears they will.

[xchrom]

19. Prodigal son returns, Lachlan Murdoch back in News Corp

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/uk-twentyfirstcenturyfox-appointment-lac-idUKBREA2Q08O20140327

(Reuters) - Lachlan Murdoch's appointment to senior positions within his father Rupert Murdoch's media empire marks the return of the prodigal son.

Nearly a decade after walking away from the News Corp inner circle in New York to set up his own investment company and settle in Sydney with his young family, it appears Lachlan has accepted the mantle of successor, whether alone or jointly with younger brother James.

"It's like the royal family," said Alan Knight, professor of journalism at the University of Technology in Sydney. "Murdoch senior has always treated News Corp as a family business and this guy is just basically accepting his inheritance."

Lachlan, 42, will become non-executive co-chairman of both entertainment company 21st Century Fox and publishing operation News Corp, sharing both roles with his father. He rejoins the company after quitting as deputy chief operating officer in 2005 amid friction with other News Corp executives.

[xchrom]

20. Bank of England readies tools to rein in risky mortgage lending

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/uk-britain-boe-idUKBREA2Q0LZ20140327

(Reuters) - The Bank of England urged banks on Thursday to consider the risk of future spikes in interest rates when they approve mortgages, and prepared tools to rein back potentially dangerous lending.

British house prices have risen by around 10 percent over the past year, and the central bank said mortgages were higher as a share of home-buyers' income than at any point since 2005, although other indicators remained weaker than average.

Some commentators argue that parts of Britain's housing market are already in a bubble and the BoE's Financial Policy Committee, which monitors risks to the financial system, said it was keeping a close eye on the sector.

"Given the increasing momentum, the FPC will remain vigilant to emerging vulnerabilities, will continue to monitor conditions closely and will take further proportionate and graduated actions if warranted," the Bank said.

[xchrom]

21. UK regulator issues warning notice to seventh Libor trader

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/uk-libor-britain-fca-idUKBREA2Q0TJ20140327

(Reuters) - Britain's financial regulator has issued a warning notice to another two traders for "significant failings" over a period of around two years, as part of an investigation into manipulation of benchmark interest rates.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which has already sent warning notices to five other traders, did not name the latest two. But it said one was a manager and trader at a bank, who was personally aware of and condoned other traders making requests to manipulate benchmark rate submissions.

The individual facilitated others' attempts to manipulate benchmark submissions and was aware of the inadequacy of the bank's systems, controls or policies governing the procedure for making interest rate benchmark submissions, but took no steps to address this, the FCA said in a statement on Thursday.

The warnings relate to allegations that traders rigged the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), a benchmark in the global financial system used to help to price about $450 trillion of financial products from student loans to complex derivatives.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

22. ETA News Release: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (03/27/2014)

Source: Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration

Read More: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/eta20140498.htm

Note: Calendar Year (CY) 2014 Seasonal Factors and revised seasonal factors and historical series for CY 2009-2013 for both initial claims and continued claims will be made available April 3, 2014, with the release of the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Weekly Claims News Release.

In addition, beginning April 10, 2014, the UI Weekly Claims News Release will be issued under a revised (.pdf) format. The new version of the release will include graphics and tables for additional information and ease of use.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending March 22, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 311,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 321,000. The 4-week moving average was 317,750, a decrease of 9,500 from the previous week's revised average of 327,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.2 percent for the week ending March 15, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 15 was 2,823,000, a decrease of 53,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 2,876,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,862,500, a decrease of 31,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 2,894,000.

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 273,411 in the week ending March 22, a decrease of 12,559 from the previous week. There were 315,620 initial claims in the comparable week in 2013.
....

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending March 8 was 3,306,871, a decrease of 43,157 from the previous week. There were 5,455,779 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2013.

== == == ==

Good morning, Freepers and DUers alike. I ask you to put aside your differences long enough to read this post. Following that, you can engage in your usual donnybrook.

[xchrom]

23. US ECONOMIC GROWTH FOR 4Q IS REVISED HIGHER

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ECONOMY_GDP?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-27-09-17-57

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the October-December quarter, slightly more than previously estimated, as consumer spending rose at the fastest pace in three years.

The fourth-quarter growth rate was a bit stronger than the 2.4 percent estimate made last month, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The revision reflected stronger consumer spending, which rose at an annual rate of 3.3 percent - its best quarterly pace since 2010.

Even with the upward revision, growth in the overall economy slowed from a 4.1 percent pace in the July-September quarter. Analysts think growth has slowed even more in the current January-March period to around a 2 percent annual rate. A harsh winter has disrupted factory production and kept people away from shopping malls.

But once warmer weather appears, analysts are looking for a rebound in economic activity with consumer spending expected to be helped by pent-up demand from purchases that were deferred during the bad weather.

[xchrom]

25. ASIA STOCKS VACILLATE ON CHINA DATA, EUROPE DRIFTS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WORLD_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-27-06-00-45

MUMBAI, India (AP) -- Asian stock markets vacillated as investors waited to see if weak Chinese economic data might prompt new economic stimulus. European shares drifted down.

Japan's Nikkei gained 1 percent to 14,622.89 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.2 percent to 21,834.45. China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.8 percent to 2,046.59.

Australia's S&P/ASX lost 0.5 percent at 5,350.10. Markets in Southeast Asia were little changed.

India's Sensex reached another new high Thursday, up 0.8 percent to 22,272.97 amid optimism that elections beginning next month would usher in a new, business-friendly government after two years of anemic economic growth.

[xchrom]

28. $1 TRILLION STUDENT LOAN DEBT WIDENS US WEALTH GAP

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WEALTH_GAP_STUDENT_LOANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-27-10-24-57

Every month that Gregory Zbylut pays $1,300 toward his law school loans is another month of not qualifying for a decent mortgage.

Every payment toward their student loans is $900 Dr. Nida Degesys and her husband aren't putting in their retirement savings account.

They believe they'll eventually climb from debt and begin using their earnings to build assets rather than fill holes. But, like the roughly 37 million others in the U.S. saddled with $1 trillion in student debt, they may never catch up with wealthy peers who began life after college free from the burden.

The disparity, experts say, is contributing to the widening of the gap between rich and everyone else in the country.

[xchrom]

29. CONTRACTS TO BUY US HOMES FELL IN FEBRUARY

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PENDING_HOME_SALES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-27-10-32-11

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes fell for the eighth straight month in February, a sign that real estate sales will likely slow over the next few months.

The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index dropped 0.8 percent to 93.9. The index has fallen 10.5 percent over the past 12 months.

Pending sales are a barometer of future purchases: A one- to two-month lag usually exists between a signed contract and a completed sale.

Higher mortgage rates, rising prices and a limited supply of homes have slowed sales since the index peaked in June. Snowstorms appear to have crimped purchases in the Northeast during February.

[xchrom]

30. HOME DEMOLITIONS TURN DETROIT INTO BLANK CANVAS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DETROIT_BLANK_CANVAS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-27-10-34-39

DETROIT (AP) -- The families of Detroit's Brightmoor area are delighted that the day is finally approaching when bulldozers will arrive to level more of their neighborhood. After that, their community's future will be like the cleared landscape - a blank canvas.

For years, Brightmoor residents pleaded with the city to demolish vacant homes that scavengers had stripped of wiring and plumbing and anything of value. Some structures are already gone, and now officials aim to do much more, possibly tearing down as many as 450 empty houses each week across more than 20 square miles of this bankrupt city - a vast patchwork of rotting homes comparable to the size of Manhattan.

The huge demolition project holds the potential to transform large parts of Detroit into an urban-redevelopment laboratory like the nation has never seen. But community leaders here and in cities that have attempted similar transformations say Detroit's best efforts could still wither from lack of money, lack of commitment or harsh economic realities.

"What's the plan for lots to keep them from becoming a different type of blight?" asked Tom Goddeeris, executive director of Grandmont Rosedale Development Corp., a nonprofit community improvement group representing a cluster of five Detroit neighborhoods.