STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 28 May 2014

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 28 May 2014[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 27 May 2014

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 27 May 2014
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Dow Jones 16,675.50 +69.23 (0.42%)
S&P 500 1,911.91 +11.38 (0.60%)
Nasdaq 4,237.07 +51.26 (1.22%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.52% -0.02 (-0.79%)
30 Year 3.36% -0.03 (-0.88%) [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.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.








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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. Messing with politicians

It's an escalating war.

[xchrom]

2. German Unemployment Unexpectedly Jumps Its Most In 5 Years

http://www.businessinsider.com/german-unemployment-2014-5

There's an ugly number from Germany, the economic powerhouse of the Eurozone: Unemployment in April unexpectedly surged 23,937.

Economists were expecting a drop of about 15,000.

Not only was this a massive miss, the number was Germany's worst in 5 years. That being said, some people are blaming the weather.

This is actually not the first sloppy data we've seen from Germany lately.

Earlier this month we saw ugly German factory orders and exports.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/german-unemployment-2014-5#ixzz330UO7ZbO

[xchrom]

3. Someone Posted A Bunch Of Private Equity 'Trade Secrets' That The Industry Wants To Keep Under Wraps

http://www.businessinsider.com/private-equity-lpas-leaked-2014-5

***SNIP

In other words, some of these agreements are written so that firms make a bundle at everyone else's expense. Moreover, they're considered trade secrets so not a lot of people get to see them. Over the holiday weekend, though, blog Naked Capitalism managed to get their hands on 12 LPAs from the Pennsylvania Treasury's public e-contracts library and published them. (Via Fortune's Dan Primack)

This is complex stuff so we'll give you two big ideas people are taking from the documents.

In a few instances firms elect to waive their management fee and collect only fees that could be considered capital gains. Some might call this a tax dodge since management fees are taxed at a much higher (35%) rate than capital gains income (15%).
The LPAs don't seem to contain any trade secrets at all, just vague language about the firm's fee structure that can, as Bowden suggested, could work against the firms' PE buy. Bowden specifically called out "monitoring fees" in his speech. Those are fees that PE firms collect for advising a company that it owns. Usually the firms collect those fees for as long as a company is in their custody, but in some cases the fee collection extends beyond that time. The SEC hates this, and, as Primack pointed out, Gretchen Morgenson wrote a big piece about it in the NYT this weekend. Expect to hear more about this.
"By far, the most common observation our examiners have made when examining private equity firms has to do with the adviser’s collection of fees and allocation of expenses. When we have examined how fees and expenses are handled by advisers to private equity funds, we have identified what we believe are violations of law or material weaknesses in controls over 50% of the time," said Bowden last month.

If that doesn't get some people in Congress angry, what can?



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/private-equity-lpas-leaked-2014-5#ixzz330Uy6vNb

[xchrom]

4. Here's What Conservatives Don't Understand About The Modern US Economy

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-conservatives-dont-understand-about-the-modern-us-economy-2014-5


U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) (C) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) (R) depart the Senate floor after their speeches before the night-time budget vote at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 16, 2013.

A new manifesto making the rounds in conservative circles is as much a time-travel tale as the new comic-book movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Activists hope that embracing supposedly timeless economic policies, such as tax cuts and balanced budgets, will unite and then ignite the Republican Party.

Reagan-era nostalgia, unfortunately, is not much of a superpower.

Without recognition that new economic challenges require new thinking and new solutions, this tired GOP sequel is unlikely to attract much of an audience.

***CONSERVATIVE PUBLICATION CRITICIZES CONSERVATIVES.

Read more: http://theweek.com/article/index/262104/what-conservatives-dont-understand-about-the-modern-us-economy#ixzz330VvPSdZ

[Demeter]

17. Definition of Insanity Applies Here

Reaganomics was simply plundering the savings of people and prudent manufacturing firms and governments.

But 40 years of plundering means there's nothing left. America is a dried husk, an empty shell. The entire Western world is a dried husk.

Turn off the Reaganomics/Thatchernomics/neoliberal/neoconservative BS, let us return to the TRUE old ways of slow sustainable growth, real savings, and living wages, and let's see what happens.

[xchrom]

5. Bidding For The 2022 Olympics Is A Disaster - Everyone Figured Out That Hosting Is A Total Waste

http://www.businessinsider.com/2022-olympics-host-cities-2014-5

Researchers have known for years that hosting large sporting events like the Olympics always costs more than expected and always yields less revenue and useful long-term infrastructure than estimated. Now voters and politicians in democratically elected countries are starting to realize the same thing.
Potential host cities are dropping out of the bidding process for the 2022 Winter Olympics like crazy.

Deadspin's Barry Petchesky has a breakdown of the cities that have scrapped their campaigns to host the event.

Krakow, Munich, and Davos/St. Moritz all withdrew their bids after the public voted against hosting. Stockholm withdrew after the city's government said that "revenues will likely be lower and costs higher" than estimated.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/2022-olympics-host-cities-2014-5#ixzz330aNyOJU

[xchrom]

6. Mortgage Rates Fell, Purchase Applications Fell, Refinancings Fell

http://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-rates-purchase-applications-refinancings-fell-2014-5

From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease Slightly in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

Mortgage applications decreased 1.2 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 23, 2014. ...

The Refinance Index decreased 1 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent from one week earlier. ...

...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) decreased to 4.31 percent, the lowest level since June 2013, from 4.33 percent, with points decreasing to 0.15 from 0.20 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.



The first graph shows the refinance index.
The refinance index is down 73% from the levels in May 2013 (one year ago).

As expected, with the mortgage rate increases, refinance activity is very low this year.



Read more: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/05/mba-mortgage-applications-decrease.html#ixzz330bAhftR

Read more: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/05/mba-mortgage-applications-decrease.html#ixzz330b0FRtL

[xchrom]

7. RBS Slashes Most Of Its US Mortgage Business And Hundreds Of Jobs

http://www.businessinsider.com/rbs-cuts-2014-5

(Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L> has become the latest overseas bank to shrink its business in the United States after announcing it would cut its mortgage trading business by two-thirds, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The British bank will eliminate hundreds of jobs in the United States over the course of two years as part of an effort to reduce its assets ahead of new rules set out by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the FT reported citing people familiar with an internal announcement made by RBS on Tuesday.

An RBS spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed response that "as the financial services industry continues to evolve so must RBS's U.S. Corporate & Institutional Banking business. Our ultimate goals are to enhance our client focus and connectivity, simplify our operating model, mitigate risk and reduce cost."



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/rbs-cuts-2014-5#ixzz330cZK63U

[xchrom]

8. Thai military rulers appoint anti-Thaksin advisers

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/28/uk-thailand-politics-idUKKBN0E802R20140528

(Reuters) - Thailand's junta has appointed two retired generals with palace connections as advisers, putting powerful establishment figures hostile towards former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra firmly in the ascendant in the country's long-running power struggle.

Hoping to show things are getting back to normal, the military also relaxed a night-time curfew brought in after it seized power in a May 22 coup, and is expected to speed up efforts to get the economy moving again after months of debilitating political protests.

Data on Wednesday showed trade shrank in April and factory output fell for a 13th straight month, underscoring the damage political unrest has caused and the tough job the military government faces reviving an economy on the brink of recession.

The Information Technology Ministry said it had blocked Facebook at the request of the military to stem protests. But the site was back up after about 30 minutes and the military denied involvement, saying a technical problem was to blame.

[DemReadingDU]

9. Bloomberg: Sanofi Seeks to Sell Lilly's Cialis Without Prescription

5/28/14 Sanofi to Sell Lilly Erection Drug Cialis Without Prescription

Sanofi (SAN) will seek to sell Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY)’s erectile dysfunction drug Cialis without a prescription after the companies reached an agreement on marketing rights for the orange pills. Sanofi will apply for approval of Cialis as an over-the-counter treatment in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia, and will market the drug after certain patents expire, the Paris-based company said in a statement today, without disclosing the terms of the agreement with Indianapolis-based Lilly. The plan gives Sanofi access to a drug that garnered $2.16 billion in sales last year, and will face generic competition starting in 2017.

more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/sanofi-to-sell-lilly-erection-drug-cialis-without-prescription.html

[xchrom]

10. Class War: Thailand’s Military Coup

http://www.thenation.com/blog/180023/class-war-thailands-military-coup


After declaring martial law on Tuesday, May 20, the Thai military announced a full-fledged coup two days later. The putsch followed seven months of massive street protests against the ruling Pheu Thai government identified with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The power grab by army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha came two weeks after Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck, was ousted as caretaker prime minister by the country’s Constitutional Court for “abuse of power” on May 7.

The Thai military portrayed its seizure of power as an effort to impose order after two rounds of talks between the country’s rival factions failed to produce a compromise that would provide Thailand with a functioning government.

Deftly Managed Script

The military’s narrative produced few takers. Indeed, many analysts saw the military’s move as a coup de grâce to Thailand’s elected government, following what they saw as the judicial coup of May 7.

It is indeed difficult not to see the putsch as the final step in a script deftly managed by the conservative “royalist” establishment to thwart the right to govern of a populist political bloc that has won every election since 2001. Utilizing anti-corruption discourse to inflame the middle class into civil protest, the aim of key forces in the anti-government coalition has been, from the start, to create the kind of instability that would provoke the military to step in and provide the muscle for a new political order.

[xchrom]

11. Median CEO Pay Passes The $10 Million Mark For First Time

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/27/3441675/median-ceo-pay-record/

The median CEO pay package hit $10.5 million last year, according to the Associated Press, cracking eight figures for the first time since the wire service began calculating the statistic.

The median compensation number rose by 8.8 percent from 2012 and has now climbed by more than 50 percent over the past four years. By contrast, average weekly wages for working Americans rose just 1.3 percent last year, the AP notes. That disparity is all too typical of the modern U.S. economy. CEO compensation has increased 127 times faster than worker pay over the past three decades.

According to the wire service’s figures, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay now stands at 257 to 1. That is a slightly more optimistic portrait of the relationship between earnings at the top and middle of the income distribution than other recent analyses. The real ratio of CEO to worker pay is more like 273 to 1, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and in some sectors of the economy it is as high as 1,200 to 1.

There are a variety of different methods for determining what a typical CEO earns, and the AP’s estimate confirms some other recent analysis of 2013 compensation for the top officers at large public companies. A USA Today review earlier this year found the same $10.5 million median figure. But that earlier analysis was based on a smaller pool of companies — 200 of the S&P 500, as opposed to 337 of those companies captured in the AP study — so Monday’s figures strengthen the evidence that median CEO pay has breached the $10 million mark.

[xchrom]

12. Nasdaq Nears 13-Year High as Technology Becomes Loved

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/nasdaq-nears-13-year-high-as-technology-goes-from-hated-to-loved.html

Technology stocks are back.

A four-day rally in the Nasdaq 100 Index has pulled the gauge within 0.1 percent from erasing a 7.5 percent selloff from earlier this year. Exchange-traded funds that buy computer and software shares absorbed $1.1 billion of fresh cash last week, more than any other industry tracked by Bloomberg. That’s a reversal from earlier in 2014 when investors were taking money out of the ETFs.

Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. are up more than 9 percent in the past month as investors shopped for larger companies with stable earnings and found bargains among shares that had fallen the most. While shares of EBay Inc. and Amazon.com (AMZN) Inc. have yet to recover, ETFs tracking the industry have done well, thanks to higher weightings of bigger stocks, according to Kevin Divney, chief investment officer at Beaconcrest Capital Management.

“Looking at the economy, one of the most compelling secular growth stories is technology and that’s not going to change,” Divney said in a phone interview last week from Boston. “As some of the high-flying tech companies with higher valuations were down 10 to 20 percent over the past six weeks, investors are going to start to see value.”

[xchrom]

13. Toll Brothers Earnings Climb After Homebuilder Raises Prices

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/toll-brothers-earnings-increase-after-homebuilder-raises-prices.html

Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL), the largest U.S. luxury-home builder, said fiscal second-quarter profit gained as the company raised its prices and delivered more properties.

Net income climbed to $65.2 million, or 35 cents a share, in the three months through April from $24.7 million, or 14 cents, a year earlier, the Horsham, Pennsylvania-based company said today in a statement. Revenue advanced 67 percent to $860 million.

“Current demographics seem to suggest that new home sales should pick up,” Executive Chairman Robert Toll said in the statement. “If the tight supply bumps into increasing demand, prices could rapidly rise.”

Toll Brothers continued raising prices and boosting sales in the costlier New York and California markets even as inclement weather and falling affordability slowed delivery of new homes nationwide in the first four months of the year. New homes (NHSLTOT) nationwide sold at an annual pace of 433,000 in April, down 4.2 percent from a year earlier, the Commerce Department reported on May 23.

[xchrom]

14. Yen Gains to End as BOJ Easing Seen Unavoidable: Market Reversal

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-27/yen-gains-to-end-as-boj-easing-seen-unavoidable-market-reversal.html

The yen is set to snap this month’s advance against its Group of 10 peers, trading patterns suggest, amid speculation the Bank of Japan will have to expand monetary easing to ensure it meets an inflation target.

Technical indicators approached overbought levels as the yen tested 200-day moving averages against the euro and U.S. and Australian dollars. Citigroup Inc. said the Japanese currency’s failure to push beyond its moving average versus the greenback signals a decline, while Commonwealth Bank of Australia projected a drop against the Aussie.

“The yen is getting stretched,” Joseph Capurso, a Sydney-based currency strategist at CBA, said by phone yesterday. “Japan’s probably got the weakest fundamentals, at least when it comes to how it affects the yen. I think there’s more upside to dollar-yen and euro-yen, as well as Aussie-yen.”

Foreign-exchange analysts forecast the yen will drop to 107 per dollar, a level unseen since September 2008, while 75 percent of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News estimate the BOJ will boost stimulus by the end of the year. The yen has gained against all of its major peers except the Canadian dollar this month as BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda refrained from expanding easing even as consumer price growth stalled.

[xchrom]

15. Debt Crisis Hangover Wipes Euro Off Vote Agenda for Denmark

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/debt-crisis-hangover-wipes-euro-off-vote-agenda-for-denmark-1-.html

Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt signaled her country is no closer to considering euro adoption than it was at the height of Europe’s debt crisis.

“We, as a government, are in favor of the euro but you have to have the right time to take that discussion with the electorate,” she said in an interview after meeting with her Nordic counterparts in the north Icelandic town of Akureyri. “And the way we see it, the time is not now.”

Danish opposition to adopting the euro reached fever pitch in late 2011, when the no side would have won a referendum by 44.6 percentage points, calculations by Danske Bank A/S show. Back then, yields on AAA-rated Danish 10-year debt plunged well below those on similar-maturity German bunds as investors fled Europe’s core fearing the region’s crisis might degenerate into a break-up of the single currency bloc.

Denmark, which pegs its krone to the euro, was forced to fight off the capital influx at the time by lowering rates into uncharted territory. In July 2012, the central bank took the unprecedented step of cutting its deposit rate below zero.

[xchrom]

16. Yellen Concerned by Housing Slowdown She Has Scant Power to Cure

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/yellen-concerned-by-housing-slowdown-she-has-scant-power-to-cure.html

The hesitant housing recovery has surprised and concerned Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and her colleagues at the central bank. It’s not clear how much they can do about it.

While the industry is rebounding from a weather-ravaged first quarter, the pickup will probably fall short of previous projections, according to economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. of New York and Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in St. Louis. As a result, they trimmed their forecasts for economic growth in the second half of 2014 to about 3.25 percent from 3.5 percent.

“Housing is a growing worry,” said Macroeconomic Advisers’ senior economist Ben Herzon.

Yellen and many of her colleagues agree. The Fed chair flagged the industry as a risk to the outlook in testimony to Congress on May 7, while Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley said last week he had been surprised by how weak it had been recently. He added that he still expects gross domestic product to “get back on a roughly 3 percent growth trajectory” after stalling in the first quarter.

[Demeter]

18. Yellen should stick to her knitting and do her job

Stop haring off after other people's jobs.

[Demeter]

19. It's the American Way---Totally Unfunny

[Demeter]

20. Our Elites Are Extremely Isolated from Real Life in America -- and That's Dangerous

...Imagine for a moment you’re Tim Geithner. You’re intelligent, competent, and hard-working. Your friends like you. Your bosses appreciate you. You’re a good family man. You worked under extraordinary pressure to save the financial system. And all you get for it is grief. Naturally you want to write a book to set the record straight.

It’s all perfectly understandable, at least from Geithner’s point of view.

Now imagine that you’re a middle-class wage earner who’s worked hard all your life. You bought a house, perhaps sometime in the 1990s. The talking heads on TV said it was a great investment, your bank’s assessor said the house was valuable, and politicians from both parties had been telling you for decades that homeownership is the American Dream.

But you were defrauded by lawbreaking bankers, and then abandoned by presidential administrations of both parties. You’ve been unemployed for years now – thanks to a financial crisis that the banks created by manipulating people like you – but in Washington they’ve stopped talking about job creation. You’re slipping down the economic ladder, rung by rung. Maybe you’re suicidal, like some of the people who wrote to me back in 2010.

Nobody’s asking you to write your memoirs. In fact, nobody seems particularly interested in your story anymore. If you’re a little bitter at all the attention Tim Geithner’s new memoir is receiving, that’s understandable. A lot of the economists and bankers who ruined your life are featured prominently and flatteringly in Geithner’s book...

MUCH MORE AT LINK--MUST READ

http://www.alternet.org/our-elites-are-extremely-isolated-real-life-america-and-thats-dangerous?akid=11849.227380.8D-VfW&rd=1&src=newsletter996430&t=7&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

[antigop]

21. China Pushes Banks to Remove IBM Servers Over Spying Claims

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-05-27/china-said-to-push-banks-to-remove-ibm-servers-in-spy-dispute

The Chinese government is reviewing whether domestic banks’ reliance on high-end servers from International Business Machines Corp. (IBM:US) compromises the nation’s financial security, people familiar with the matter said, in an escalation of the dispute with the U.S. over spying claims.

Government agencies, including the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance, are asking banks to remove the IBM servers and replace them with a local brand as part of a trial program, said the four people, who asked not to be identified because the review hasn’t been made public.

The review comes a week after American prosecutors indicted five Chinese military officers for allegedly hacking into the computers of U.S. companies and stealing secrets, while former contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations last June of a National Security Agency spying program already hurt U.S. technology sales in China. Last week, China’s government said it will vet technology companies operating in the country, while the Financial Times reported May 25 that China ordered state-owned companies to cut ties with U.S. consulting firms.

[antigop]

22. Colleges are getting millions to steer students toward certain banks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/27/colleges-are-getting-millions-to-steer-students-toward-certain-banks

There are a few things I remember about my college ID: the goofy picture, class insignia and resident hall sticker on the card. One thing that crucial piece of plastic did not feature was a debit card function. Things have changed.

Now many student IDs double as debit or prepaid cards that come loaded with financial aid money. Colleges promote these hybrid cards as a convenient way for students to manage funds. But the terms of the accounts aren't always transparent, and some cards are riddled with fees. And what's in it for the schools? A few million dollars in payments from financial firms.

A group of 65 congressional Democrats, led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), introduced legislation last week to end this payoff system and prevent universities from steering students into payment products.

According to a report from the General Accountability Office, at least 852 schools, or 11 percent of colleges and universities in the United States, were peddling debit or prepaid cards to students as of July 2013. Most schools let students receive federal aid on the cards and outsourced the processing of that money to their financial partners on the card deal.

[democrats4us123]

23. And for the dance between economy and politics... (Wall Street Derivatives)

Derivatives could be a shot in the arm...

[link:

|

[Demeter]

24. I think they aim a bit lower than that

Welcome! Come early and often! We're here every day. The graphs seem to be broken, but we're working on it.