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Demeter

(85,373 posts)
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:09 PM Dec 2014

Weekend Economists Second the Notion! December 12-14, 2014

Well, as mentioned last weekend, we are celebrating the season in all its (Christian) variation, on the premise that most people are familiar with some of the ritual, legend, history that has accreted to it, but perhaps not all.

Last weekend coincided with the Feast of St. Nicholas, whose schtick was gifts in stockings, shoes or boots for the kiddies, and whose territory was mainly the once-Catholic Empire of Europe. This weekend is the Feast of St. Lucia or Lucy, whose origins are much more pagan and whose reach is much less widespread...



Saint Lucy's Day is on 13 December, in Advent. Her feast once coincided with the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year before calendar reforms, so her feastday has become a festival of light. St. Lucy’s Day is celebrated most commonly in Scandinavia, where it is a major feast day, and even in Italy with each emphasizing a different aspect of the story. This feast is particularly seen in Scandinavian countries, with their long dark winters. There, a person dressed in a white dress and a red sash (as the symbol of martyrdom) carries palms and wears a crown or wreath of candles on her head. In both Norway and Sweden, girls (or sometimes boys) dressed as Lucy carry rolls and cookies in procession as songs are sung. It is said that to vividly celebrate St. Lucy's Day will help one live the long winter days with enough light.

In Italy, the Saint Lucy's Day is a church feast day dedicated to Lucia of Syracuse (d.304), also known as Saint Lucy, and is observed on 13 December. A special devotion to St. Lucy is practiced in the Italian regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige, in the North of the country, and Sicily, in the South, as well as in Croatian coastal region of Dalmatia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Lucy%27s_Day


The Scandinavian Lucia festivities include Lussekatter, cookies in the shape of cat's tails



Today is December 13 and in Sweden we celebrate the life of Saint Lucia, a fourth-century Italian martyr. There are many different stories about Saint Lucia but the most common story told is that she would secretly bring food to the persecuted Christians in Rome who lived in hiding in catacombs under the city. To light the way she wore a wreath of candles on her head so both of her hands were free to carry things. December 13th was also the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the old Julian Calendar (winter solstice today is on December 21st), and a pagan festival of lights in Sweden was turned into St. Lucia’s Day.

While Saint Lucia is not an official holiday, it is often celebrated by the entire town. Offices, schools, churches, and community groups select their own “Lucia”. She is dressed in white with a red sash around her waist and wears a crown of candles (ljuskrona) on her head. She is accompanied by other girls dressed in white, each holding a candle, and a procession of “star boys,” (“stjärngossar”), who wear cone-shaped hats and carry wands with stars on the end. Boys also occasionally dress up as Santa’s elves (tomtenissar) and gingerbread cookies (pepparkaksgubbar) and they all join in to sing Lucia songs. A national Lucia is also chosen. Lucias also visit hospitals and nursing homes to sing songs and give out treats. Lucia’s day symbolically starts the Christmas celebrations in Sweden, bringing hope and light during the darkest months of the year.

A holiday isn’t complete without fika. Gingerbread cookies (pepparkakor), saffron buns (lussekatter), coffee (kaffe), and mulled wine (glögg) with raisins (russin) and almonds (mandel) are proper for the occasion...http://livintheswedelife.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/luciadagen/


Necessity is the mother of invention...and it's DARK in Scandinavia in winter solstice! If the sun shines at all, it's for less than 6 hours at the southern-most point, and not at all at the Polar Circle and points north...

Saint Lucy is one of the few saints celebrated by the overwhelmingly Lutheran Nordic people — Danes; Swedes; Finns and Norwegians (who call her Lucia) but also in USA and Canada and Italy. The St. Lucy's Day celebrations retain many indigenous Germanic pagan, pre-Christian midwinter elements. Some of the practices associated with the day predate the adoption of Christianity in Scandinavia, and like much of Scandinavian folklore and even religiosity, is centered on the annual struggle between light and darkness.

The Nordic observation of St. Lucy is first attested in the Middle Ages, and continued after the Protestant Reformation in the 1520s and 1530s, although the modern celebration is only about 200 years old. It is likely that tradition owes its popularity in the Nordic countries to the extreme change in daylight hours between the seasons in this region.

The pre-Christian holiday of Yule, or jól, was the most important holiday in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Originally the observance of the winter solstice, and the rebirth of the sun, it brought about many practices that remain in the Advent and Christmas celebrations today. The Yule season was a time for feasting, drinking, gift-giving, and gatherings, but also the season of awareness and fear of the forces of the dark.

13 December

It was commonly believed in Scandinavia as late as until the mid 18th century that this was the longest night of the year, coinciding with Winter Solstice. The same can be seen in the poem "A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day" by the English poet John Donne. While this does not hold for our current Gregorian calendar, a discrepancy of 8 days would have been the case in the Julian calendar during the 14th century, resulting in Winter solstice falling on December 13. With the original adoption of the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century the discrepancy was 10 days and had increased to 11 days in the 18th century when Scandinavia adopted the new calendar, with Winter solstice falling on December 9.

It is very difficult to tell the exact date of the Winter solstice without modern equipment (although the Neolithic builders of the Newgrange monument seem to have managed it). The day itself is not visibly shorter than the several days leading up to and following it and although the actual Julian date of Winter solstice would have been on the December 15 or 14 at the time when Christianity was introduced to Scandinavia, December 13 could well have lodged in peoples mind as being the shortest day. The choice of 13 December as Saint Lucy's day, however, obviously predates the 8 day error of the 14th century Julian calendar. This date is attested in the pre-Tridentic Monastic calendar, probably going back to the earliest attestations of her life in the 6th and 7th centuries, and it is the date used throughout Europe.

At the time of Saint Lucy's death, Winter solstice fell on December 21 and the date of the birth of Christ on the 25th. The latter was also celebrated as being the day when the Sun was born, the birthday of Sol Invictus, as can be seen in the Chronography of 354. This latter date was thought by the Romans to be the Winter solstice and it is natural to think of the sun being born that day. Early Christians considered this a likely date for their saviour's nativity, as it was commonly held that the world was created on Spring equinox (thought to fall on March 25 at the time), and that Christ had been conceived on that date, being born 9 months later on Winter solstice.

Lussi

Lussinatta, the Lussi Night, was marked in Sweden December 13.[7] Then Lussi, a female being with evil traits, like a female demon or witch, was said to ride through the air with her followers, called Lussiferda. This itself might be an echo of the myth of the Wild Hunt, called Oskoreia in Scandinavia, found across Northern, Western and Central Europe.

Between Lussi Night and Yule, trolls and evil spirits, in some accounts also the spirits of the dead, were thought to be active outside. It was believed to be particularly dangerous to be out during Lussi Night. According to tradition, children who had done mischief had to take special care, since Lussi could come down through the chimney and take them away, and certain tasks of work in the preparation for Yule had to be finished, or else the Lussi would come to punish the household. The tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake through the Lussinatt to guard oneself and the household against evil, has found a modern form through throwing parties until daybreak. Another company of spirits was said to come riding through the night around Yule itself, journeying through the air, over land and water.



You could say, this is the darker side of the season.

St. Lucy


According to the traditional story, Lucy was born of rich and noble parents about the year 283. Her father was of Roman origin, but died when she was five years old, leaving Lucy and her mother without a protective guardian. Although no sources for her life-story exist other than in hagiographies, St. Lucy, whose name Lucia refers to "light" (Lux, lucis), is believed to have been a Sicilian saint who suffered a sad death in Syracuse, Sicily around AD 310. Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend first compiled in the 13th century, a widespread and influential compendium of saint's biographies, records her story thus: She was seeking help for her mother's long-term illness at the shrine of Saint Agnes, in her native Sicily, when an angel appeared to her in a dream beside the shrine. As a result of this, Lucy became a devout Christian, refused to compromise her virginity in marriage and was denounced to the Roman authorities by the man she would have wed. They threatened to drag her off to a brothel if she did not renounce her Christian beliefs, but were unable to move her, even with a thousand men and fifty oxen pulling. So they stacked materials for a fire around her instead and set light to it, but she would not stop speaking, insisting that her death would lessen the fear of it for other Christians and bring grief to non-believers. One of the soldiers stuck a spear through her throat to stop these denouncements, but to no effect. Soon afterwards, the Roman consulate in charge was hauled off to Rome on charges of theft from the state and beheaded. Saint Lucy was able to die only when she was given the Christian sacrament. All the details of her life are the conventional ones associated with female martyrs of the early 4th century. John Henry Blunt views her story as a Christian romance similar to the Acts of other virgin martyrs. In another story, Saint Lucy was working to help Christians hiding in the catacombs during the terror under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and in order to bring with her as many supplies as possible, she needed to have both hands free. She solved this problem by attaching candles to a wreath on her head.

There is little evidence that the legend itself derives from the folklore of northern Europe, but the similarities in the names ("Lussi" and "Lucia&quot , and the date of her festival, December 13, suggest that two separate traditions may have been brought together in the modern-day celebrations in Scandinavia.




Lyrics in Swedish:
Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring,
sprid i vår vinternatt glans av din fägring.
Drömmar med vingesus under oss sia,
tänd dina vita ljus, Sankta Lucia.

Kom i din vita skrud, huld med din maning.
Skänk oss, du julens brud, julfröjders aning.
Drömmar med vingesus, under oss sia,
tänd dina vita ljus, Sankta Lucia.


English (sorry it's a bit of a poor translation):

Saint Lucia, bright clear mirage,
spread in our winter splendor of your beauty.
Dreams with wings rustling, over us prophesy,
light your white candles, Santa Lucia.

Get your white robe, gracious with your call.
Give us, you Christmas Bride, an idea of Christmas.
Dreams with wings rustling over us prophesy,
light your white candles, Santa Lucia.






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Weekend Economists Second the Notion! December 12-14, 2014 (Original Post) Demeter Dec 2014 OP
With all that's going on, I doubt that any bank failures will occur Demeter Dec 2014 #1
Word for the Week: Cromnibus! Demeter Dec 2014 #2
Republicans Dealt A Quiet Blow To O-Care In The CRomnibus Demeter Dec 2014 #3
How Wall St. got its way Demeter Dec 2014 #4
Why Citi May Soon Regret Its Big Victory on Capitol Hill Demeter Dec 2014 #5
MORE NUANCE Demeter Dec 2014 #6
GO, LIZZIE, GO! Demeter Dec 2014 #7
Elizabeth Warren Escalates Fight over Treasury Nominee Antonio Weiss, Goes to War with Wall St Dems Demeter Dec 2014 #9
+1 and bravo lady Crewleader Dec 2014 #16
Cromnibus definition DemReadingDU Dec 2014 #8
The Ominous ‘Cromnibus,’ A Budget Bill That Should Have Died Demeter Dec 2014 #18
Michael Hudson: U.S. New Cold War Policy Has Backfired Demeter Dec 2014 #10
Please Sign Urgent Occupy the SEC Petition Against Derivatives Deregulation Demeter Dec 2014 #11
HORRIBLE PUNS--AND HORRIBLY TIMELY (LOTS OF CURRENT EVENT TIE-IN) Demeter Dec 2014 #12
My wife is going to kill me over those. Fuddnik Dec 2014 #19
Don't tell her until Easter Demeter Dec 2014 #21
I read a few to her tonight. Fuddnik Dec 2014 #22
Richest Russian Buys Watson’s Nobel Medal, Plans to Return It Demeter Dec 2014 #13
Alles Uber mit Uber Demeter Dec 2014 #14
Uber Is Now a Pawn in China’s Internet Taxi War Demeter Dec 2014 #56
More Than A Quarter Of The World's Countries Helped The CIA Run Its Torture Program Demeter Dec 2014 #15
Hypocrites DemReadingDU Dec 2014 #34
The four business gangs that run the US December 31, 2012 Ross Gittins AUSTRALIA! Demeter Dec 2014 #17
Sanctioned Russian banks begin testing national payment system next week Demeter Dec 2014 #20
Musical Interlude hamerfan Dec 2014 #23
You're so clever! I wouldn't have thought of that one! Demeter Dec 2014 #37
Here's How Cyber-Warfare Started And Where It's Going xchrom Dec 2014 #24
The FBI Is Warning US Businesses About A New Sophisticated Iranian Hacking Operation xchrom Dec 2014 #25
As the kids say: D'oh! Demeter Dec 2014 #38
A New Bonus Plan Could Mean All-Time High Pay For UBS Brokers xchrom Dec 2014 #26
Congress Passes $577 Billion Bill To Expand The Fight Against ISIS xchrom Dec 2014 #27
A One-Chart Summary Of The Global Economy In 2014 xchrom Dec 2014 #28
Don't believe it Demeter Dec 2014 #39
Argentina Is Calling Its Nemesis Hedge Fund Manager's Bluff xchrom Dec 2014 #29
OIL PLUNGES AGAIN, REACHES RECESSION-LEVEL DEPTHS xchrom Dec 2014 #30
WEALTH GAP WIDENS BETWEEN WHITES AND MINORITIES xchrom Dec 2014 #31
FITCH DOWNGRADES FRANCE'S RATING A NOTCH TO 'AA' xchrom Dec 2014 #32
Oil Seen Dropping to $55 Next Week as Price Rout Deepens xchrom Dec 2014 #33
Well, here's your European future for you, Ukraine. Hope you enjoy it! MattSh Dec 2014 #35
OMG! Demeter Dec 2014 #40
Simple truth? The USA wants a war... MattSh Dec 2014 #59
That only makes sense if you are insane--it's Dr. Strangelove, all over again Demeter Dec 2014 #61
Ukraine’s frozen war brings dramatic changes to world economy By Anatole Kaletsky Demeter Dec 2014 #65
U.S. Congress readies new sanctions on Russia By Timothy Gardner Demeter Dec 2014 #66
Meet And Greet Natalie Jaresko, US Government Employee, Ukraine Finance Minister | Dances With Bears MattSh Dec 2014 #36
Well, that explains why she willingly gave up her US citizenship, doesn't it? Demeter Dec 2014 #41
A song for the season Demeter Dec 2014 #42
For you, Demeter -- 2013 Tony Awards -- "A Christmas Story" antigop Dec 2014 #43
thank you, antigop! That was .... unique Demeter Dec 2014 #44
don't know -- I only saw the stage play, not the musical. I just loved the tap dancing. nt antigop Dec 2014 #45
The dancing was excellent Demeter Dec 2014 #47
I have a dog like that DemReadingDU Dec 2014 #53
After spending most of Friday wrapped in blankets trying to raise a sweat Demeter Dec 2014 #46
Head of Gazprom: The Role of Ukraine as a Gas Transporter Will Go Down to Zero Demeter Dec 2014 #48
Ukraine says Russia has resumed gas flow Demeter Dec 2014 #49
Russia must face 'consequences' for violating Ukraine's sovereignty, says Merkel Demeter Dec 2014 #50
Oil slump leads Wall Street to worst week in 2-1/2 years Demeter Dec 2014 #51
Why U.S. Women Are Leaving Jobs Behind Demeter Dec 2014 #52
G.O.P. Angst Over 2016 Led to Provision on Funding Demeter Dec 2014 #54
Obama’s Pleas Foreshadow Tense Relationship With a New Congress Demeter Dec 2014 #55
Paul Krugman Warns That Severe Austerity Measures are Pushing Countries to the Brink of Fascism Demeter Dec 2014 #57
I disagree with the last paragraph magical thyme Dec 2014 #58
They know what they think they are doing--but blowback! Demeter Dec 2014 #63
New Harley Davidson electric motorcycle prototype Fuddnik Dec 2014 #60
Looks good! Sleek! Demeter Dec 2014 #62
This Week in Religion: Kentucky Govt Finally Cuts Off Subsidies to Noah's Ark Museum Demeter Dec 2014 #64
Uruguay Takes on London Bankers, Marlboro Mad Men and the TPP Demeter Dec 2014 #67
Citigroup Will Be Broken Up By Simon Johnson Demeter Dec 2014 #68
Citigroup to Move Headquarters to U.S. Capitol Building By Andy Borowitz ALTERNATE REALITY Demeter Dec 2014 #69
ADVENT--1st season of the Xtian church year, leading up to Xmas and including the 4 preceding Sunday Demeter Dec 2014 #70
Japan's Hyper-Easy Abenomics Economics Experiment Just Got A Fresh Mandate xchrom Dec 2014 #71
Japan is cooked goose Demeter Dec 2014 #75
OPEC Official Says The Oil Price Drop Goes Beyond Market Fundamentals xchrom Dec 2014 #72
So much for what it's not, tell us what it is! Demeter Dec 2014 #76
A New Storm Is Headed For California On Monday xchrom Dec 2014 #73
Big Companies Can’t Stop Cooking Their Books xchrom Dec 2014 #74
China PBOC Economist Says 2015 GDP Growth to Slow to 7.1 Percent xchrom Dec 2014 #77
Wholesale Prices in U.S. Fall More Than Forecast on Energy xchrom Dec 2014 #78
Bail-In and the Financial Stability Board: The Global Bankers' Coup By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Demeter Dec 2014 #79
That's all, Folks! Demeter Dec 2014 #80
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
1. With all that's going on, I doubt that any bank failures will occur
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:12 PM
Dec 2014

but it's early...check back later!

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
2. Word for the Week: Cromnibus!
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:30 PM
Dec 2014
With all zeros showing on the clock, it was 213-213. A total embarrassment for Boehner, who’d spent the past two weeks twisting arms in his own caucus and begging Pelosi to twist arms in hers to get to a bare majority.

In the end, he failed to get a single Democratic vote. But then, magic!

Who was the man who switched from no to yes at the last second, sparing the GOP leadership a crushing defeat? Apparently it was … Kerry Bentivolio, the former reindeer rancher, actor, and conservative from Michigan who got elected to his first term in Congress two years ago after incumbent Thad McCotter failed to get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot and who then lost his own primary earlier this year to an establishment Republican — by more than 30 points. With today’s vote, I guess he figured there’s no sense delaying his return to the private sector by another week or two.

Good question from DrewM:

So the flaky guy GOP leadership primaried and beat pulls their ass out of the fire. What cushy gig did he just land?

...There’s no mystery what happened here, though: Boehner got caught in a pincer movement between liberals, led by Elizabeth Warren, who object to the bill’s provisions on campaign finance and Wall Street regulation, and conservatives, who object to its bloat, cronyism, and failure to do more to stop Obama’s amnesty. I’m a little surprised Pelosi didn’t deliver a few Democrats to help Boehner, though. The obvious alternative if the deal fails apart is a clean short-term spending bill that’ll fund the government for a few months, until the new GOP majority takes over the Senate. Then Republicans can write their own bill and will only need deal with Obama. The current compromise is as good as Pelosi’s going to get. Oh well...

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/12/11/breaking-key-test-vote-on-cromnibus-passes-by-two-votes-after-a-last-second-switch/


THEN THE ACTUAL CROMNIBUS BILL ITSELF CAME UP:

Breaking Down the ‘Cromnibus’ Vote (Updated)


http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/cromnibus-57-democrats-voted-yes/?dcz=

Updated 1:18 p.m., Friday, Dec. 12: The House passed the cromnibus Thursday night 219-206, with 162 Republicans and 57 Democrats voting for the bill, and 67 Republicans and 139 Democrats voting against. While the vote was close, the breakdown split along familiar lines. But there were some interesting trends and deviations in the vote...



...Faced with uncertainty over Congress meeting its deadline to approve a bill, the House's leadership scheduled a vote on both the long-term spending bill and a stopgap continuing resolution. It passed a two-day resolution in order to give the Senate time to consider the spending bill...Around midday, no Democrat voted in favor. But after the final vote was called shortly after 9 p.m. ET, more than 30 Democrats voted for the spending bill. In contrast, more than twice as many Republicans voted against it in the final tally than had earlier in the day...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/11/370132039/house-poised-to-vote-on-controversial-cromnibus-spending-bill


The president, the panic, and the cromnibus--How the spending deal got done.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/barack-obama-cromnibus-113543.html

At about 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) came bounding off the floor with news he had been waiting for all week: President Barack Obama, a minor player thus far in the government funding debate, would finally weigh in against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and say he supports the so-called cromnibus spending bill.

Aides to Hoyer, along with those of other cromnibus backers like House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), had been telling the White House all week that if Obama wanted to remove the threat of another government shutdown in the first quarter of 2015, he would have to speak up.

Now the president not only was willing to speak up, but was throwing his whole administration into a last-ditch effort to avoid another short-term spending fix, which would expose the administration and Congress to another round of budget brinksmanship in a few months. But he still needed a lot of help from Boehner...But the most surprisingly effective whip effort came from the White House. Democrats who hadn’t heard from the Obama administration in years found their cell phones buzzing. Cabinet secretaries – including Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan – were urging lawmakers to help keep their agencies open. Jeffery Zients, Obama’s National Economic Council director, whipped Democrats, too.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough came to Capitol Hill to lobby the largely hostile House Democratic Caucus, and he called several Democratic lawmakers, asking for their support. It didn’t end there. The White House legislative affairs staff followed up the flurry of phone calls with personalized emails, laying out why Democrats should support the bill: Obamacare would continue to be implemented; the legislation provided “funding to support the Administration’s signature ‘Now is the Time’ gun safety initiative;” and the bill would allow the Obama administration to “care for unaccompanied children.” MORE

AND OF COURSE, THERE WAS JAMIE THE FRIENDLY BANKSTER....

Jamie Dimon Lobbies for the Cromnibus Bill -- TWICE

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/11/1351203/-Jamie-Dimon-Lobbies-for-the-Cromnibus-Bill-TWICE

Once in composing the language for the Wall Street Rider that would make Tax-payers responsible for any "future" Derivatives Bailouts:

[...] the bill would reverse Dodd-Frank requirements that banks "push out" some of derivatives trading into separate entities not backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporations. Ever since being enacted, banks have been pushing to reverse the change. Now, the rules would go back to the way they used to be.


And TWICE, by actually "lobbying" Congressional Dems -- actually calling them -- to twist their arms to vote for this Un-debated rollback of Dodd-Frank rules ... very far from the light of day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/11/the-item-that-is-blowing-up-the-budget-deal/

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
3. Republicans Dealt A Quiet Blow To O-Care In The CRomnibus
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:33 PM
Dec 2014

IT'S ONLY A FLESH WOUND....

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-cromnibus-risk-corridors



The government funding bill colloquially called the CRomnibus that the House passed on Thursday night included a GOP-proposed change to an Obamacare program long loathed by Republicans.

A House aide confirmed to TPM that Republican staffers requested the change to the so-called risk corridor program, which is designed to keep premiums stable by making payments to insurers if they lose more money than expected in the law's first few years.

Some health policy wonks picked up on the language, but it received negligible attention compared to the campaign finance and Dodd-Frank provisions that nearly derailed the spending bill in the House on Thursday night.

The way the risk corridor program works: Insurers estimate in advance how their insurance pools will look and if in the end they're significantly better than estimated, they pay money into the program; if they're significantly worse than estimated, they are paid money by the program.

The CRomnibus, which funds most of the government through the next year, prohibits the Health and Human Services Department from transferring funds from other sources to fund the program. The practical impact, one policy expert told TPM, is that HHS can therefore only use money brought into the program to make payouts, effectively making it revenue neutral.

"As far as anyone can tell, that's what's going on," Timothy Jost, a health law professor at Washington and Lee University who is supportive of the law, told TPM. In theory, if the program doesn't bring in enough money to make its payouts, that could mean insurers will have to -- at the very least -- wait a year before getting their money. In turn, that could have a negative impact on 2016 premiums if insurers have to take a loss in the meantime...

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
4. How Wall St. got its way
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:35 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/wall-street-spending-bill-congress-113525.html

Wall Street’s success in using the year-end spending bill to weaken a provision of the 2010 financial reform law shows how it plans to wield its clout in the months ahead — slowly and methodically, piece by piece, leveraging the legislative process.

But the sudden uprising by liberals led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also showed that Wall Street’s toxic reputation will continue to dog its efforts in Congress.

Liberal Democrats almost sank the budget deal because it included a provision to roll back a section of the Dodd-Frank law that big banks have been plotting to get rid of for years.

“Who does Congress work for?” Warren (D-Mass.) said during a floor speech this week. “Does it work for the millionaires, the billionaires, the giant companies with their armies of lobbyists and lawyers? Or does it work for all of us.”

THAT'S A TRICK QUESTION, RIGHT, SENATOR?
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
5. Why Citi May Soon Regret Its Big Victory on Capitol Hill
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:37 PM
Dec 2014

THEY'LL BE GONE, YOU'LL BE GONE...REGRETS UNLIKELY

http://www.americanbanker.com/news/law-regulation/why-citi-may-soon-regret-its-big-victory-on-capitol-hill-1071636-1.html?utm_campaign=abla%20daily%20briefing-dec%2012%202014&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&ET=americanbanker%3Ae3481010%3A652887a%3A&st=email

On its face, the House vote late Thursday to approve a spending bill that included an unrelated provision written by Citigroup was a big legislative victory for the bank and its fellow Wall Street behemoths.

Yet it's also a victory that may soon come to haunt the largest institutions.

What they won was the repeal of a Dodd-Frank Act provision that requires them to push out a portion of their derivatives business into subsidiaries. Big banks fought against its inclusion in the 2010 financial reform law and have been steadily fighting to repeal it ever since. The spending bill is expected to pass the Senate in the coming days.

But in finally getting what they wanted, big banks also thrust themselves back into the limelight in the worst possible way, simultaneously reminding the public of their role in causing the financial crisis and in their continuing influence over the various levers of the U.S government. In one fell swoop, they undid whatever recovery to their battered reputation they'd made in the past four years and once again cast themselves as the prototypical supervillain in a comic book movie.

Observers said the fight was a public relations nightmare for Citigroup and the big banks...

AS IF THAT MATTERED....

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
6. MORE NUANCE
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:39 PM
Dec 2014

Many analysts agreed that repealing the swaps provision, which was Section 716 of Dodd-Frank, is likely to only help banks on the margins, since they are allowed to continue engaging in the activity through affiliates. But by fighting so hard, some saw signs of darker motivations.

"Wall Street's determined lobbying on Section 716 provides compelling evidence that Wall Street's business model depends on the ability of large financial conglomerates to keep exploiting the cheap funding provided by their 'too big to fail' subsidies," said Arthur Wilmarth, a professor of law at George Washington University. "Shame on Congress if it allows megabanks to continue to pursue the same business strategy that brought us the financial crisis."

Making matters potentially worse, news reports quickly surfaced that Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase's CEO, also personally lobbied lawmakers on the bill. That helped rebut arguments by some that the provision wasn't a big deal to the big banks and that they weren't lobbying heavily for it.

It also allowed Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Maxine Waters, who led the fight against the spending bill, to publicly call out both Citigroup and Dimon.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
7. GO, LIZZIE, GO!
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:41 PM
Dec 2014

Ironically, Warren - big banks' long-time nemesis -- may be the biggest winner from the fracas. When the Massachusetts Democrat this week began lobbying Democrats to kill the spending bill because of the swaps provision, the conventional wisdom was that she had no chance of succeeding.

But with the help of Waters, Warren came close. They turned the House vote into a day-long drama and forced President Obama himself to whip for the spending bill despite opposing the repeal of the swaps provision.

Though Warren is unlikely to succeed, it was an impressive display of force, one that gives her even more influence in the Democratic party. In short, big banks inadvertently helped burnish Warren's reputation while at the same time damaging their own.

"On net, Wall St lost this week," said Brian Gardner, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, in a tweet.

Lizzie Warren took an axe,
And gave Obama forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave J. Dimon forty-one.

--Demeter
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
9. Elizabeth Warren Escalates Fight over Treasury Nominee Antonio Weiss, Goes to War with Wall St Dems
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:51 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-escalates-fight-treasury-nominee-antonio-weiss-goes-war-wall-street-wing-democratic-party.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29



YVES SMITH: Earlier this week, we wrote about how the New York Times’ Dealbook, the creature of Wall Street sycophant Andrew Ross Sorkin, had launched a fierce campaign against Elizabeth Warren’s latest move, her opposition to the Obama administration’s nomination of Lazard’s Antonio Weiss, a mergers and acquisitions banker. Warren’s grounds for objecting to Weiss were straightforward: his experience was no fit for the requirements of his proposed Treasury role. On top of that, he had been involved in and therefore profited from acquisitions called inversions that Treasury opposes because they reduce the taxes paid by the acquirer, which uses the acquired company to move its headquarters to a lower-tax jurisdiction.

Dealbook published three Warren-bashing columns in as many weeks; the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal ran editorials making similar arguments, suggesting that all were picking up on the same talking points out of Treasury. One tell: the Times had to issue a correction on one of its pieces because it relied on a Treasury document that exaggerated Weiss’ accomplishments. Warren upped the ante in a speech on Tuesday, making Weiss, who is now head of investment banking at Lazard, a symbol of what is wrong with the relationship between the government and Big Finance: that of far too much coziness between the large, influential players and financial regulators. And in sharpening and further documenting her critique, she has put the Robert Rubin wing of the Democratic party in her crosshairs.

It is hard to exaggerate Rubin’s role in shaping Democratic party economic and financial regulatory policy. Rubin was a former Goldman co-chairman before becoming Treasury secretary and was later a board member and vice-chariman of Citigroup. All Democratic party Treasury secretaries after his time in office were proteges of his. A boatload of former Goldman and Citigroup employees that have rotated through major government posts are also members of what a regulatory expert calls the Rubino gang. Rubin’s support was also critical to Obama’s rise. Rubin has exercised intellectual influence over the Democratic party through the Hamilton Project, which has sponsored a raft of good for banks, bad for the middle class policies such as unfettered free trade, a strong dollar, financial services deregulation, and balanced budgets.

Make no mistake about how forceful Warren’s critique was and how it took aim at Rubin operatives. We’ve embedded it at the end of the post and encourage you to read it in full...

GO READ AND SAVOR!

Crewleader

(17,005 posts)
16. +1 and bravo lady
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 09:39 PM
Dec 2014

Last edited Sat Dec 13, 2014, 10:52 AM - Edit history (2)

Lizzie Warren took an axe,
And gave Obama forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave J. Dimon forty-one.

--Demeter

well done Demeter

And this weekend's edition too!

Today's Cartoons...

It’s A Wonderful Life For Banks



GAS PRICES





DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
8. Cromnibus definition
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 07:42 PM
Dec 2014

Washington Speak: What Is the 'Cromnibus'?

It's the love child of a "continuing resolution" (CR) and "omnibus" spending bill, two inside-the-Beltway terms for measures Congress has approved to keep the government funded. And with Capitol Hill again scrambling to find a way to fund the government before leaving town for the rest of the year, the cromnibus is the country's best hope of avoiding a shutdown.

more...
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/washington-speak-what-cromnibus-n264651


and I thought Cromnibus was 'crony business'!
lol

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
18. The Ominous ‘Cromnibus,’ A Budget Bill That Should Have Died
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 11:13 PM
Dec 2014
http://ourfuture.org/20141212/the-ominous-cromnibus-a-budget-bill-that-should-have-died?utm_source=progressive_breakfast&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pbreak

With all of the justifiable anger directed at what’s in the 2015 spending bill – the omnibus continuing resolution or “cromnibus” – that the House struggled to pass late Thursday, there is also a major story to be told about what’s not in the bill. It’s a story of missed opportunities that is as significant as the Wall Street giveaways, the kowtowing to fossil fuel interests and gratuitous swipes at conservative boogeymen that were written into this monstrosity.

Most conspicuous is the absence of any real effort to address the plight of millions of people who remain untouched by the so-called economic “recovery” of the past few years. They are represented by the 51 percent of respondents in a New York Times poll this week who rated the condition of the national economy as either “fairly bad” or “very bad.” In that same poll, only 30 percent saw the economy as getting better. No wonder: The Bureau of Labor Statistics this week reported that 54 metropolitan areas around the country had unemployment rates in excess of 7 percent in October, even as the national unemployment rate was 5.8 percent. Meanwhile, those in the bottom 90 percent who are working have seen no real wage gains since 2000, as all of the gains and then some from economic growth over the past decade have accrued to the top 10 percent – and most disproportionately to the top 1 percent. (The Economic Policy Institute on Thursday calculated what it called the “inequality tax” on the middle class, the average income a middle-class household lost by not reaping its share of the gains of economic growth since 1979. In 2011, that “tax” for an average middle-income family was $11,630.) Given the acute need for jobs and rising incomes, what passes for “bolstering job creation” in a summary of the budget bill released by the House Appropriations Committee is scandalous. Incredibly, a provision that allows banks to engage in high-risk derivatives trading under the shield of federal insurance is listed as a measure to “bolster job creation.” So are several measures that roll back environmental protections or prevent policies that would combat climate change.

Meanwhile, “the bill has no major new investments in infrastructure, despite the need and the potential for job creation. For instance, the bill provides no funding for a proposed high-speed rail project,” said Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project, which analyzes federal spending and taxation. The explicit ban on high-speed rail funding is symbolic of Republican myopia on the economy. There is clear demand for high-speed rail in several high-density population corridors around the country, and the upgrading of our rail networks would create tens of thousands of jobs and revive whole industries in steel, rail cars and engine parts when coupled with a Made-In-America mandate. But on that kind of investment in the future, this is the Budget of No.

Another job-creating industry that would create millions of new jobs and lead the American economy toward a more sustainable future is in alternative energy. But the 2015 budget makes a point of cutting by 16 percent President Obama’s budget request for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, while appropriating 20 percent more than the president requested on research and development of fossil fuels. That’s right: The budget would spend your tax dollars supporting already massively profitable oil, gas and coal companies perfectly capable of funding their own research, while starving the research and development needed to make the energy sources we need for the future to stave off climate change more viable. In the Housing and Urban Development budget, Republicans made a point of noting that “no funding is included for any new, unauthorized ‘sustainable,’ ‘livable, or ‘green’ community development programs,” the quotes dripping with condescension. MORE

SO LITTLE TIME, SO LITTLE PROGRESS...
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
10. Michael Hudson: U.S. New Cold War Policy Has Backfired
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 08:22 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/michael-hudson-u-s-new-cold-war-policy-backfired.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29


Yves here. Michael Hudson looks at the way what he calls “the New Cold War” is creating alliances among countries that the US has as designated enemies, when the classic foreign policy playbook is to do everything you can to keep your opponents isolated.

One thing that is striking about the US decision to escalate against Russia is that it’s not at all clear what the trigger was. And that raises the possibility that these hostilities were instigated out peeve, or what one might more politely call imperial reflex, reflecting the belief that Russia needed to be punished for its various sins, such as supporting Iran, outmaneuvering the US in Syria, and harboring Snowden. And the assumption appears to have been that Russia could be taken down a notch or two on the geopolitical stage at no cost to the US. Hudson explains that the reverse is proving to be the case...


THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE: PEEVISH FOREIGN POLICY, FROM A PEEVISH PRESIDENT. THE OBAMA COOL WAS JUST A FIGMENT OF HIS IMAGINATION.

Michael Hudson: The world’s geopolitics, major trade patterns and military alliances have changed radically in the past month. Russia has re-oriented its gas and oil trade, and also its trade in military technology, away from Europe toward Eurasia.

The result is the opposite of America’s hope for the past half-century of dividing and conquering Eurasia: setting Russia against China, isolating Iran, and preventing India, the Near East and other Asian countries from joining together to create an alternative to the U.S. dollar area. American sanctions and New Cold War policy has driven these Asian countries together in association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternative to NATO, and in the BRICS moves to avoid dealing with the dollar area, the IMF and World Bank austerity programs.

Regarding Europe, America’s insistence that it join the New Cold War by imposing sanctions on Russia and blocking Russian gas and oil exports has aggravated the Eurozone’s economic austerity, making it even more of a Dead Zone. This week a group of Germany’s leading politicians, diplomats and cultural celebrities wrote an open letter to Angela Merkel protesting her pro-U.S. anti-Russian policy. By overplaying its hand, the United States is in danger of driving Europe out of the U.S. economic orbit.

Turkey already is moving out of the U.S.-European orbit, by turning to Russia for its energy needs. Iran also has moved into an alliance with Russia. Instead of the Obama administration’s neocons dividing and conquering as they had planned, they are isolating America from Europe and Asia. Yet there has been almost no recognition of this in the U.S. press, despite its front-page discussion throughout Europe and Asia. Instead of breaking up the BRICS, the dollar area is coming undone.

This week, President Putin is going to India to negotiate a gas and arms deal. Last week he was in Turkey diverting what was to be the South Stream pipeline away from southern Europe to Turkey. And Turkey is becoming an associate of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization integrating the BRICS in a defensive alliance against the United States, now that it is obvious that it has no chance of joining the EU.

A few months earlier, Russia announced the largest oil and gas trade and pipeline investment ever, with China – along with a transfer of missile defense technology...

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
11. Please Sign Urgent Occupy the SEC Petition Against Derivatives Deregulation
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 08:42 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/please-sign-urgent-occupy-sec-petition-derivatives-deregulation.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Dear Friends,

This bulletin contains an update on what Occupy the SEC (occupythesec.org) has been up to lately, and what you can do to get involved.

Congress is on the verge of deregulating derivatives TODAY – Sign our petition to stop them.

Congress has historically used the end of the year as an opportunity to pass controversial legislation with little publicity, often using amendments to unrelated bills. This year is no different.

TODAY (December 10, 2014) our legislators are on the verge of approving two key provisions that would significantly roll back crucial parts of the Dodd-Frank Act’s derivatives (swaps) restrictions. Those provisions are Section 630 of the Senate Amendment to H.R. 83 (Omnibus Bill) and Title III of the House’s current version of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2014 (TRIA).

These provisions are nothing more than an attempt by Wall Street lobbyists and their friends in Congress to eviscerate important derivatives reforms implemented by the Dodd-Frank Act.

We need YOU to contact your legislators as soon as possible and tell them that you OPPOSE these sneaky deregulatory moves. If passed, these provisions would pave the way for further gutting of Dodd-Frank, which in turn would surely jeopardize our nation’s economy, line the pockets of wealthy financiers, and damage the fiscal health of every day Americans.

Please sign our petition now by clicking on the following link, which will allow you to send automatic emails to your Congressional Representative and Senators.

http://www.petition2congress.com/17017/petition-against-11th-hour-dilution-dodd-frank/

NOT SURE IF IT WILL HELP, BUT IF THE SENATE VERSION DIDN'T CARRY IT, AND PREVAILED...
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
12. HORRIBLE PUNS--AND HORRIBLY TIMELY (LOTS OF CURRENT EVENT TIE-IN)
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 09:00 PM
Dec 2014

1. King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after
years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star
of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient
world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan.

Croesus said, "I'll give you 100,000 dinars for it.”

"But I paid a million dinars for it," the King protested.

"Don't you know who I am? I am the king!”

Croesus replied, “King, Shming. When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are.”

2. Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. Unfortunately, all the Swiss League records were destroyed in a fire, ...and so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.

3. A man rushed into a busy doctor's surgery and shouted, "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!" The doctor calmly responded,"Now, settle down. You'll just have to be a little patient."

I LOVE THE OBAMACARE INNUENDO THERE!

4. An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."

5. A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his name missing from the town register. His wife insisted on complaining to the local civic official, who apologized profusely saying, "I must have taken Leif off my census."


6. A skeptical anthropologist was cataloguing South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal elder who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the elder looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas."

STOP! YOU'RE TORTURING ME! THANKS TO MY SIS, (IF THANKS ARE NEEDED OR EVEN JUSTIFIABLE).

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
13. Richest Russian Buys Watson’s Nobel Medal, Plans to Return It
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 09:05 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-09/richest-russian-buys-watson-s-nobel-medal-plans-to-return-it.html

Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s richest man, bought the Nobel Prize medal of American biologist James Watson at a Christie’s auction and plans to return it. Usmanov paid $4.1 million for the medal, awarded to Watson in 1962 for his work on discovering the structure of DNA, the billionaire’s USM Holdings said in a statement today.

“In my opinion, a situation in which an outstanding scientist sells a medal recognizing his achievements is unacceptable,” Usmanov said in the statement. “Dr. Watson’s work contributed to cancer research, the illness from which my father died. It is important for me that the money that I spent on this medal will go to supporting scientific research, and the medal will stay with the person who deserved it.”


The auction was held at Christie’s in New York on Dec. 4. The medal had been given a pre-auction estimate $2.5 million to $3.5 million, the auction house said. Watson plans to give the proceeds to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the University of Chicago, and Clare College, Cambridge.

The gifts mean “I can continue to do my part in keeping the academic world an environment where great ideas and decency prevail,” Watson said in a statement last week. “I also intend to direct funds to the Long Island Land Trust and other local charities I have long supported.”


Watson, 86, who was awarded the prize together with Francis Crick, has been ostracized by many in the scientific community since he made comments linking race and intelligence in a 2007 newspaper interview.

Usmanov, whose fortune is estimated at $14.4 billion by Bloomberg Billionaire Index, holds stakes in companies including Metalloinvest Holding Co, Russia’s largest iron ore producer, and mobile phone operator OAO MegaFon. (MFON) He has also invested in technology companies, including Facebook Inc. (FB) and Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
15. More Than A Quarter Of The World's Countries Helped The CIA Run Its Torture Program
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 09:20 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/09/cia-torture-countries_n_6297832.html?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067

...According to several U.S. officials involved with the negotiations, the intelligence community has long been concerned that the Senate document would enable readers to identify the many countries that aided the CIA's controversial torture program between 2002 and roughly 2006. These countries made the CIA program possible in two ways: by enabling rendition, which involved transferring U.S. detainees abroad without due legal process, and by providing facilities far beyond the reach of U.S. law where those detainees were subjected to torture.

The officials all told The Huffington Post in recent weeks that they were nervous the names of those countries might be included in the declassified summary of the Senate report.

The names of the countries ultimately did not appear in the summary. This represents a last-minute victory for the White House and the CIA, since Senate staff was pushing to redact as little as possible from its document.

The various sites in foreign countries are now only identified in the report by a color code, with each detention facility corresponding to a color, such as "Detention Site Black."...But immediately after the document was released, journalists began to crack the code by cross-referencing details in the Senate study with previous reports about the CIA's activities in different countries.



Countries with secret CIA prisons

The Washington Post decoded the report to reveal countries that were home to secret CIA-controlled prisons.

Afghanistan (4 sites)
Poland
Lithuania
Romania
Thailand

Note: According to a 2013 report by the Open Society Justice Initiative, U.S. facilities in Bosnia-Herzegovina were used to "process" detainees, but it is unclear whether the U.S. agency running that operation was the CIA or the Department of Defense.

Countries with proxy CIA prisons

A number of other foreign partners (including two governments that the U.S. has since disavowed, those of Libya and Syria) permitted the CIA to conduct enhanced interrogation in their own facilities, through what are called proxy CIA prisons. Here's a list, drawn from reports by the ACLU and the Open Society Justice Initiative:

Egypt
Syria
Libya
Pakistan
Jordan
Morocco
Gambia
Somalia
Uzbekistan
Ethiopia
Djibouti

Countries that enabled renditions

This list features countries that proved amenable to at least some CIA measures that were only questionably legal. It is a curious mix of prominent Western nations and nations with which the U.S. has long has difficulties. The governments' assistance ranged from passing along information about suspects, including those countries' own citizens, to serving as a transit point for flights to countries where enhanced interrogation was taking place.

Afghanistan
Austria
Australia
Albania
Algeria
Azerbaijan
Belgium
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Canada
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Egypt
Ethiopia
Finland
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong
Iceland
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Italy
Jordan
Kenya
Libya
Lithuania
Macedonia
Malawi
Malaysia
Mauritania
Morocco
Pakistan
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Syria
Thailand
Turkey
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
United Kingdom
Uzbekistan
Yemen
Zimbabwe


NOTE HOW MANY OF THESE COUNTRIES HAVE BEEN ACCUSED BY THE USA OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
34. Hypocrites
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:30 AM
Dec 2014

no wonder the world doesn't like us

The other day, the radio had a segment that we now have sanctions against Venezuela...
because of human rights abuses of protesters


http://www.npr.org/2014/12/12/370264879/congress-issues-new-sanctions-against-venezuelan-leaders-on-the-ropes





 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
17. The four business gangs that run the US December 31, 2012 Ross Gittins AUSTRALIA!
Fri Dec 12, 2014, 11:01 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-four-business-gangs-that-run-the-us-20121230-2c1e2.html#ixzz2Gtyb8KI0

IF YOU'VE ever suspected politics is increasingly being run in the interests of big business, I have news: Jeffrey Sachs, a highly respected economist from Columbia University, agrees with you - at least in respect of the United States. In his book, The Price of Civilisation, he says the US economy is caught in a feedback loop. ''Corporate wealth translates into political power through campaign financing, corporate lobbying and the revolving door of jobs between government and industry; and political power translates into further wealth through tax cuts, deregulation and sweetheart contracts between government and industry. Wealth begets power, and power begets wealth,'' he says. Sachs says four key sectors of US business exemplify this feedback loop and the takeover of political power in America by the ''corporatocracy''.


  • First is the well-known military-industrial complex. ''As President Eisenhower famously warned in his farewell address in January 1961, the linkage of the military and private industry created a political power so pervasive that America has been condemned to militarisation, useless wars and fiscal waste on a scale of many tens of trillions of dollars since then,'' he says.

  • Second is the Wall Street-Washington complex, which has steered the financial system towards control by a few politically powerful Wall Street firms, notably Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and a handful of other financial firms. These days, almost every US Treasury secretary - Republican or Democrat - comes from Wall Street and goes back there when his term ends. The close ties between Wall Street and Washington ''paved the way for the 2008 financial crisis and the mega-bailouts that followed, through reckless deregulation followed by an almost complete lack of oversight by government''.

  • Third is the Big Oil-transport-military complex, which has put the US on the trajectory of heavy oil-imports dependence and a deepening military trap in the Middle East, he says.

    ''Since the days of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust a century ago, Big Oil has loomed large in American politics and foreign policy. Big Oil teamed up with the automobile industry to steer America away from mass transit and towards gas-guzzling vehicles driving on a nationally financed highway system.''


    Big Oil has consistently and successfully fought the intrusion of competition from non-oil energy sources, including nuclear, wind and solar power. It has been at the side of the Pentagon in making sure that America defends the sea-lanes to the Persian Gulf, in effect ensuring a $US100 billion-plus annual subsidy for a fuel that is otherwise dangerous for national security, Sachs says.

    ''And Big Oil has played a notorious role in the fight to keep climate change off the US agenda. Exxon-Mobil, Koch Industries and others in the sector have underwritten a generation of anti-scientific propaganda to confuse the American people.''


  • Fourth is the healthcare industry
  • , America's largest industry, absorbing no less than 17 per cent of US gross domestic product.

    ''The key to understanding this sector is to note that the government partners with industry to reimburse costs with little systematic oversight and control,'' Sachs says. ''Pharmaceutical firms set sky-high prices protected by patent rights; Medicare for the aged and Medicaid for the poor and private insurers reimburse doctors and hospitals on a cost-plus basis; and the American Medical Association restricts the supply of new doctors through the control of placements at medical schools.

    ''The result of this pseudo-market system is sky-high costs, large profits for the private healthcare sector, and no political will to reform.''


    Now do you see why the industry put so much effort into persuading America's punters that Obamacare was rank socialism? They didn't succeed in blocking it, but the compromised program doesn't do enough to stop the US being the last rich country in the world without universal healthcare. It's worth noting that, despite its front-running cost, America's healthcare system doesn't leave Americans with particularly good health ---


Sachs says the main thing to remember about the corporatocracy is that it looks after its own.

''There is absolutely no economic crisis in corporate America.

''Consider the pulse of the corporate sector as opposed to the pulse of the employees working in it: corporate profits in 2010 were at an all-time high, chief executive salaries in 2010 rebounded strongly from the financial crisis, Wall Street compensation in 2010 was at an all-time high, several Wall Street firms paid civil penalties for financial abuses, but no senior banker faced any criminal charges, and there were no adverse regulatory measures that would lead to a loss of profits in finance, health care, military supplies and energy,'' he says.

The 30-year achievement of the corporatocracy has been the creation of America's rich and super-rich classes, he says. And we can now see their tools of trade.

''It began with globalisation, which pushed up capital income while pushing down wages. These changes were magnified by the tax cuts at the top, which left more take-home pay and the ability to accumulate greater wealth through higher net-of-tax returns to saving.''


Chief executives then helped themselves to their own slice of the corporate sector ownership through outlandish awards of stock options by friendly and often handpicked compensation committees, while the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way. It's not all that hard to do when both political parties are standing in line to do your bidding, Sachs concludes...
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
20. Sanctioned Russian banks begin testing national payment system next week
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 12:09 AM
Dec 2014
http://rt.com/business/212423-russia-payment-system-test/

Russia’s Rossiya and SMP banks, which fell under Western sanctions, are among the eight lenders that will start testing the country’s new national payment system on December 15.

"The pilot project involves SMP Bank and Rossiya Bank, those for which the story is very critical and important. These are quite large banks,” the head of the Russian National payment system (NPS) Vladimir Komlev said in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV.


The move comes as a part of Russia’s ambitious initiative to move away from the Western dominance of its financial markets. Last month the Russian Central Bank said it would have its own international inter-bank payment system, an alternative to the global SWIFT network, up and running by May 2015.

Gazprombank, Rosbank, Alfa Bank and Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development are among eight other banks to join the pilot project. They were selected based on the size of business, location and technology platform, Komlev said. Another bank involved in NPS testing is Russia’s second largest VTB. Recently its management has been vocal about the need to make Russia’s financial system more self-sufficient and ditch the US Dollar, Vedomosti reports.

The bank will soon connect to the NPS to test the system and be ready for any potential difficulties with payments in the future. Komlev said the new system’s principle of operating will remain the same. The use of the existing formats will be more convenient for banks; they won’t have to reconfigure their software. The latest version of the NPS technology is being tested by the Russian Openway Solutions company.

"The modules themselves are something unique, independent, only partly related to the Openway. Now all this belongs to us: our code, the knowledge of how the system is built, and its logic. We are able to develop it and provide support," said Komlev.


NPS was established in 2014 after a number of Russian banks were hit by US and EU sanctions. In March international payment systems Visa and MasterCard stopped servicing cards issued by the banks following the introduction of the sanctions.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
37. You're so clever! I wouldn't have thought of that one!
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 11:48 AM
Dec 2014

I had been wondering what if anything would tie in to this...

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
24. Here's How Cyber-Warfare Started And Where It's Going
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:25 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/future-of-cyber-warfare-2014-12

When America dropped its two atom bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, over Japan in August 1945, it launched the world into a devastating new era of warfare.

Nearly 70 years later, humanity is still trying to contain the fallout. But in its zeal to check nuclear proliferation, America--along with Israel--opened up yet another theatre of war: cyberspace.

In 2007 a computer worm called Stuxnet was detected for the first time by virus-scanning software, although signs of it may have existed unnoticed before that.

At least three more versions followed, seeking to wreak havoc upon Iran's uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz. Stuxnet made itself busy. It turned valves on and off and meddled with the centrifuges, wasting uranium and damaging equipment. It succeeded in slowing Iran's uranium enrichment, and by extension its purported nuclear-weapons programmes, making Stuxnet the first documented case of cyber-warfare intended to cause physical damage.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/future-of-cyber-warfare-2014-12#ixzz3LmBh0wIK

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
25. The FBI Is Warning US Businesses About A New Sophisticated Iranian Hacking Operation
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:43 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-iran-hackers-may-target-us-energy-defense-firms-fbi-warns-2014-12

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned U.S. businesses to be on the alert for a sophisticated Iranian hacking operation whose targets include defense contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, according to a confidential agency document.

The operation is the same as one flagged last week by cyber security firm Cylance Inc as targeting critical infrastructure organizations worldwide, cyber security experts said. Cylance has said it uncovered more than 50 victims from what it dubbed Operation Cleaver, in 16 countries, including the United States.

The FBI's confidential "Flash" report, seen by Reuters on Friday, provides technical details about malicious software and techniques used in the attacks, along with advice on thwarting the hackers.

It asked businesses to contact the FBI if they believed they were victims of the campaign.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-iran-hackers-may-target-us-energy-defense-firms-fbi-warns-2014-12#ixzz3LmG34pMk

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
26. A New Bonus Plan Could Mean All-Time High Pay For UBS Brokers
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:45 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ubs-brokers-pay-could-reach-all-time-high-under-tweaked-bonus-plan-2014-12

NEW YORK (Reuters) - UBS AG's Wealth Management America on Thursday made it easier for brokers to earn a key bonus in 2015 under its revised compensation package, which could boost top advisers' overall pay to an all-time high.

Advisers who bring in $1 million in assets from one new client, or $10 million in net new assets, are eligible for the bonus. In 2015 the benchmark was $5 million in net new assets.

A broker who has worked for UBS for more than 10 years, meets all the new sales goals, and generates $3.5 million or more in revenue could take home as much as 62 percent of that amount, up from 60.15 percent in 2014.

"It's the most we've ever created for advisers to earn," said Jason Chandler, head of UBS's Wealth Management Advisor Group for the eastern United States.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ubs-brokers-pay-could-reach-all-time-high-under-tweaked-bonus-plan-2014-12#ixzz3LmGWirq1

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
27. Congress Passes $577 Billion Bill To Expand The Fight Against ISIS
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:52 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-congress-authorizes-577-billion-in-us-defense-spending--2014-12

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress approved an annual defense policy bill on Friday that authorizes American training for Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting Islamic State rebels and sets overall defense spending at $577 billion, including $64 billion for wars abroad.

The Senate passed the legislation and sent it to President Barack Obama to sign into law. The House of Representatives last week endorsed the measure, which sets defense policy and authorizes spending levels for the 2015 fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, but does not actually appropriate funding.

The bill approves a Pentagon base budget of $496 billion, in line with Obama's request, plus nearly $64 billion for conflicts abroad including the war in Afghanistan. It also authorizes $17.9 billion for Energy Department nuclear weapons work.

The measure formally endorses the Pentagon's plan to vet, train and equip a moderate Syrian opposition military force to fight Islamic State rebels, defend the Syrian people and promote conditions for a negotiated end to Syria's civil war.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-congress-authorizes-577-billion-in-us-defense-spending--2014-12#ixzz3LmILrVD0

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
28. A One-Chart Summary Of The Global Economy In 2014
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:56 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-the-global-economy-in-2014-2014-12

A few months ago, something interesting happened: The US economy really found its legs as Europe stumbled.

This divergence story really gained momentum globally as the US economy continued to pick up and China slowed, Japan faltered, and Europe continued its slide.

"In contrast to the accelerating growth we saw in the United States, internationally, Japan’s consumption-tax hike caused its economy to fall into a recession; while a combination of restrictive fiscal and monetary policy accompanying weak export growth caused the European economy to stall," noted Charles Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders, Brad Sorenson, and Jeff Kleintop.

One economic measure that captures this story well is the purchasing managers index (PMI). Derived from surveys, this index signals growth when it's above 50 and contraction when it's below 50.

"After starting the year with a wide range, the widely-watched measure of economic activity known as the Purchasing Managers Indexes (PMIs) for the world’s biggest economies generally converged to just above 50 as the year matured; with the United States a notable exception, rising steadily throughout the year," the Schwab analysts wrote.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-the-global-economy-in-2014-2014-12#ixzz3LmJLEMdE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
39. Don't believe it
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 11:53 AM
Dec 2014

Just because the beatings stopped for a moment doesn't mean that the morale has improved. It just means some people are able to get up on their knees and crawl a bit....

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
29. Argentina Is Calling Its Nemesis Hedge Fund Manager's Bluff
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:58 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-is-calling-paul-singers-bluff-2014-12

Since Argentina defaulted on its debt to a group of bondholders this summer, a doomsday scenario has remained in play — the fact that holders of defaulted bonds could call for an acceleration of their payments.

In other words, they call in all their money at once.

It's been months since then though, and that hasn't happened. No one's called anything in. And now Argentina is crowing about it a little.

Back in October some government officials thought that "Argentina should pay the holdouts according to a U.S. judgement and settle at whatever price, because they feared the acceleration of payments, but that hasn't happened," said Argentine Cabinet Head Jorge Capitanich in a speech Friday.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-is-calling-paul-singers-bluff-2014-12#ixzz3LmJtr1qP

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
30. OIL PLUNGES AGAIN, REACHES RECESSION-LEVEL DEPTHS
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:13 AM
Dec 2014
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OIL_PRICES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-12-16-36-17

NEW YORK (AP) -- Another forecast of weak global demand, another nosedive for oil.

A 6-month rout in the price of oil accelerated this week, culminating in a 4 percent drop Friday - its third such drop in 5 days - to its lowest level since May of 2009, when the U.S. was still in recession. Friday's trigger was a lowered expectation for oil consumption from the International Energy Agency.

The benchmark U.S. oil price closed down $2.14 to close at $57.81 a barrel in New York. It is now 46 percent below its late-June high for the year of $107.26. Brent crude, the international standard used to price oil purchased by many U.S. refineries, fell 77 cents to close at $61.85.

In its monthly oil report, the IEA said global oil demand in 2015 will grow by 900,000 barrels a day - 230,000 less than previously forecast - to 93.3 million barrels a day.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
31. WEALTH GAP WIDENS BETWEEN WHITES AND MINORITIES
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:19 AM
Dec 2014
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WEALTH_GAP_RACE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-12-16-09-50

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The economic recovery has not been equal among the races, according to a Pew Research Center study released Friday.

The study found that the wealth gap between white households and minorities has widened in recent years.

The wealth of white households was 13 times greater than that of black households in 2013, versus eight times the wealth in 2010. And the wealth of white households was more than 10 times that of Hispanic households, up from nine times the wealth in 2010.

Pew researchers - analyzing data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances- found that the gap between whites and blacks has reached its highest point since 1989. The wealth ratio for whites-to-Hispanics is at a level not seen since 2001.

Net worth is a measure of the difference between the household's assets and their liabilities. The typical household had a net worth of $81,400 in 2013, according to the Fed's survey.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
32. FITCH DOWNGRADES FRANCE'S RATING A NOTCH TO 'AA'
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:21 AM
Dec 2014
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FITCH_RATINGS_FRANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-12-18-16-59

Fitch Ratings has lowered France's ratings on concerns about the country's budget.

France's government warned in September that its deficit for the year may actually go up, rather than down - as previously promised. The European Union has rules on the size of deficits and debts that members must meet in an effort to avoid another financial crisis.

Fitch warned in October of a possible downgrade, citing France's repeated inability to stick to its own targets, much less those imposed by the EU.

The rating agency said Friday that the country's planning has hurt its credibility and its ability to absorb potential financial shocks.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
33. Oil Seen Dropping to $55 Next Week as Price Rout Deepens
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:25 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-12/oil-seen-dropping-to-55-next-week-as-price-rout-deepens.html

Benchmark U.S. oil prices are poised to test $55 a barrel after a six-month rout pushed crude to the lowest in five years.

West Texas Intermediate crude ended below $58 today for the first time since May 2009 after the International Energy Agency cut its global demand forecast for the fourth time in five months. Prices are down 46 percent from this year’s highest close of $107.26 on June 20.

“By taking out $58, oil is moving towards the next target $55,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group in Chicago. “It’s such an emotional selloff, and the even numbers are going to be the magic numbers.”

WTI for January delivery dropped $2.14, or 3.6 percent, to $57.81 a barrel today on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent slid $1.83 to $61.85 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, the lowest since July 2009.

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
35. Well, here's your European future for you, Ukraine. Hope you enjoy it!
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 09:20 AM
Dec 2014

Journalist Olga Shelkova analyzes how the new Cabinet of Ministers’ program to reduce social spending will affect the daily lives of the Ukrainian citizens

Within 10 months of the Maidan protests, the Ukrainian people have experienced a lot of hardships from the civil war to a decline in living standards, the devaluation of hryvnia, wage cuts, rising unemployment, and skyrocketing retail prices and utilities bills. Apparently, this is just the beginning of difficulties and troubles for the Ukrainians because they will now have to live under open control of the Ukrainian government’s policies by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF mission will work in Kiev from December 9 to December 18. According to IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine Jerome Vacher, the mission "will begin policy discussions with the Ukrainian authorities in the context of the Fund-supported economic reform program."

The Cabinet took time to prepare for this meeting.

Having appointed foreign nationals to its government, Kiev outdid even Georgia and the [post-Soviet] Baltic countries that are known for their status of voluntary Western colonies. Whereas in these countries members of higher public authorities include only representatives of the titular, as they say there, nation, though with foreign citizenship, there’s only one Ukrainian – a widely publicized "successful businesswoman," Natalie Jaresko, the Finance Minister of Ukraine – in the Kiev government formed with foreign nationals. ( Not exactly true. Possibly mis-translated? There are three foreigners with ministerial positions. Natalie Jaresko is one of those three. The rest are Ukrainians).

The official reason for inviting foreign ministers is the need to combat corruption and conduct reforms which will supposedly bring Ukraine closer to European standards. The nature of these reforms can be clearly seen from proposed budget cuts submitted to the Cabinet by Natalie Jaresko.

Falling exactly in line with the warnings issued by opponents to the Euromaidan, the European integration will be conducted at the expense of regular citizens of Ukraine. First of all, the Ukrainians are in for the abolition of the constitutional provisions on free education and healthcare, as well as the reduction of the period of compulsory school education from 11 to 9 years. The finance minister is citing the European experience, where compulsory education ends when students reach 15-16 years of age. Good thing they haven’t gone the Georgian way, where secondary education ends when children turn 12.

Regulations prohibiting the reduction of the number of medical and educational institutions are being cancelled, as are the provisions for mandatory budget financing of healthcare and education in the amount that is no less than 10 percent of national revenue. Food in hospitals and schools will become a paid service, as well as classes in children's and youth sports schools.

Students of higher educational institutions, just like schoolchildren and teaching staff, will lose their stipends and their entitlement to free use of transport services. To make things worse, teachers’ workload will increase. Stipends will no longer be adjusted for inflation and will from now on be paid only to people with disabilities and students from low-income families. Teachers will lose additional payments for their academic degrees and titles.

The Chernobyl residents are in for many surprises as well. The government plans to cancel the zone of increased radiation monitoring. The people who were affected by the Chernobyl disaster will lose their entitlement to special medical treatment, increased Category 4 stipends, compensations and benefits, monthly allowances to families with children, extra payments for work in contaminated areas and compensations for lost property.Payments to deportees for completing individual housing construction, increasing seniority for pension-payment purposes, entitlements to subsidized medicine supplies and compensations for housing and other property lost to deportation have been canceled. This concerns, primarily, Crimean Tatars, who left Crimea in order to stay in Ukraine. Proper reward for showing patriotism, to be sure.

Public organizations will no longer be supported, and cash rewards to athletes have been halved.

Retired people will be hit hard. The retirement age will be increased by 10 years for women and five years for men. The length of service that makes employees eligible for receiving retirement pensions will increase by seven years. With ongoing decline in output, sliding economy and ensuing rise in unemployment, getting such length of service may be a difficult task. To ensure "social justice," average wages for calculating pensions will be frozen at the 2014 level.

Further allowances to complement retirement pensions will now be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers, and the pensions will not be adjusted until "the economy of Ukraine is stabilized."

There’s more.

From now on, pensions will be recalculated using the percentage of the contributions made to the Pension Fund rather than actual wages, which will significantly reduce the amount of pensions, because due to inflation, there’s a huge difference in pension contributions in the 1990s and the 2010s.

The fact that the existing amounts of pensions will remain unchanged even for those who are already receiving pensions is not warranted.

In its quest for ways to minimize the length of service and reduce the amount of pensions, the Ukrainian government is studying the "advanced" experience of the Baltic states.

A delegation from the Ministry of Social Policy and the Pension Fund visited Lithuania, where the parties discussed the possibility of revising social security pensions to the recipients who receive pensions for their years of work in Lithuania and Ukraine.

The issue is about a new principle of counting the years of work in the Soviet Union, according to which each state should calculate the pension and pay it only for the actual work in that particular country. In Lithuania, when calculating pensions, they first consider the service after 1990, whereas the work during the Soviet period is covered at a much lower rate, because then the people were "working for the occupier country." Given the rhetoric coming from Kiev, a similar approach can be adopted by Kiev as well. The pensioners will lose their entitlements to free use of transportation, reduced utilities bills, reduced prices for solid fuel, gas and telecommunications services. The targeted financial assistance in these cases will be provided only to 6 million low-income pensioners. The state pilot project for controlling prices for the hypertension treatment medicines will be suspended. Of course, this will affect pensioners more than anyone else, depriving them of access to inexpensive essential medicines.

However, being sick and giving birth to children is not a good idea in the new "Europeanized" Ukraine, either. Payouts for sick leaves will be reduced from 60-100 percent of the average wage down to 45-80 percent. As she proceeds to cut payments for temporary disability, the minister with an American passport cites European experience whereby employees in France and Italy receive 50 percent of their respective salaries during the first 20 days of their sick leave, and 70 percent subsequently, whereas Slovakians receive only 25 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

Plans are in place to reduce the insurance fund covering accidents and occupational diseases. From now on, payments to employees with work-related injuries or members of their families will not exceed 100 minimum wages and compensation for moral damage is waived altogether.

IMF requirements deprive the majority of single mothers of their entitlements to child support. Payments for child birth will be provided only under means-tested programs. Parents will have to forget about state funding for children’s summer camps, free children's and youth schools and New Year gifts. Recreational institutions and health resorts will no longer be funded from the budget.

However, there’s even more to it. Every Ukrainian will pay taxes under a new taxation system, the introduction of which is part of the requirements included in the Association Agreement with the EU. Now, the customers will pay 30 percent of the purchase price of expensive goods, if they can’t prove the origin of their income. Under the new law, which takes effect on January 1, 2015, buying goods worth more than 10 minimum wages, i.e., 12,810 hryvnia, (about $800 at the current exchange rate) will be done only by bank transfers with a passport and an identification code. Tax authorities will be entitled to charge the amount of tax of their own accord, and will also have the right to seize the property of physical persons and to use tax police for the paper-based verification of income and spending of the Ukrainians.

Thus, the income tax rate for unconfirmed income will by far exceed the amount of tax paid on confirmed income. Currency transfers by people working abroad and remitting money to their families will be hit hard by the discriminatory tax rate. In addition to opening wide the door to abuse and corruption, the negative effect of such "European" measures will also apply to sales of cars, real estate, household appliances and other expensive items. In turn, it will lead to a fall in business revenue and result in shrinking tax base.The fact that consequences of the coup and signing an Association Agreement with the EU will be exactly like the ones we are seeing now was known long before Mustafa Nayyem called on the Ukrainian people to take to Maidan. However, deceived by sweet-voiced propaganda, the Ukrainians failed to heed the many warnings. The collapse of the economic and social spheres, as well as isolated protest rallies, are there for everyone to see.

So far, these rallies have been of isolated nature.

To cure a disease, one has to understand its causes. This one was caused by thoughtless destruction of the national economy in favor of the provisions of a colonial association agreement, with no prospect of ever joining the EU, as was repeatedly stated by EU representatives.

The future fight by the people whom anti-human reforms performed by foreign henchmen has made destitute, must finally focus not on consequences but causes.

Complete story at - http://en.ukraina.ru/analytics/20141210/1011445635.html

Site gives permission to republish in full as long as you link to the original.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
40. OMG!
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 11:57 AM
Dec 2014

Is your family still planning on staying? There will be blood in the streets in a year...what can they possibly be thinking???!!!

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
59. Simple truth? The USA wants a war...
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 03:04 PM
Dec 2014

I've heard various explanations, but that's the one that makes the most sense.

The west has always had a complex about Russia, at least since the time of Napoleon. Can't let Russia get too strong. They are not like us. They are alien to everything the west stands for. So the thinking goes...

1. Provoke a major land war in Europe.
2. Sweet, sweet, capital flees from Europe (and elsewhere) and finds a home in the USA. Remember WW2? Sort of like that. Of course, millions of refugees flee Europe too, but who cares about them?
3. A new American Century begins!

This depends on a number of things going right though. Ukraine as a nation rallies around the new government. Because Russia. The EU must stick together and fight for the USA. (Doubtful). Russia (and China) cannot make any effective counterstrikes against US targets. Capital actually decides to flee to the USA, instead of, lets say, South America or SE Asia. Nuclear war (which would be likely) doesn't tip earth's climate over the edge. You know, small things like that.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
61. That only makes sense if you are insane--it's Dr. Strangelove, all over again
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:09 PM
Dec 2014

I would add: what capital in Europe? Germany wants their gold back...

Nobody in their right mind would send capital to USA, now that Glass-Steagal is dust. That was the only reason people would trust USA with their money in WWII...the bankers were on tight leashes. People knew they would get their money back, with interest. Now, with all this chicanery, all bets are off.

There won't be any New American Century because we have nothing (nothing!) to offer the world that it can't get better and cheaper and with less hassle and NSA snooping somewhere else.

I have to wonder which Evil Genius it was that decided to Collect Everything....I could see Dick Cheney just killing for the fun of it, but collecting blackmail material is too subtle for him. Hoover was long dead before this got out of hand...Nixon was disgraced.

Looks like Poppy is the only Mastermind left to blame. Of course, by now the thing has taken on a life of its own. It will take some serious enforcing to make it go away.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
65. Ukraine’s frozen war brings dramatic changes to world economy By Anatole Kaletsky
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:36 PM
Dec 2014
http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2014/12/12/ukraines-frozen-war-brings-dramatic-changes-to-world-economy/

The “day of silence” observed this week by the Ukrainian army and its pro-Russian rebel opponents was an event of enormous economic importance for global economics as well as geopolitics.

The cease-fire’s success confirmed that the truce in Ukraine, agreed to on Sept. 5, is mostly holding, despite some local fighting and Western pundits’ virtually unanimous predictions that the war would quickly resume. The durability of September’s truce suggests that relations between Kiev and Moscow are gradually reverting toward an uneasy form of peaceful coexistence.

If so, then last summer’s civil war in Ukraine will probably evolve into a broadly stable “frozen conflict,” similar to the stalemates that have prevailed for years, even decades, in Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Cyprus and Israel, to name just the frozen conflicts closest to Europe.

Though nobody can be fully satisfied with this outcome, Ukraine, Russia and Europe should all heave sighs of relief. So should anyone concerned about the outlook of the global economy...

MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
66. U.S. Congress readies new sanctions on Russia By Timothy Gardner
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:40 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/us-usa-russia-congress-sanctions-idUSKBN0JQ27920141212

U.S. lawmakers were expected on Friday to approve new sanctions on Russian weapons companies and investors in the country's high-tech oil projects, putting more U.S. pressure on President Vladimir Putin for interference in eastern Ukraine. Late on Thursday, the Senate and House of Representatives unanimously passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act. A House panel made a small change and sent the bill back to the Senate for a last vote expected as soon as late Friday.

President Barack Obama has said he opposes further sanctions on Russia unless Europe is on board.

The bill, which will be sent to Obama to sign, requires him to apply sanctions on Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport and other defense companies Congress says contribute to instability in Ukraine, Georgia and Syria. It requires Obama to penalize global companies that make large investments in crude oil drilling projects in deep waters and the Arctic. The penalties go beyond U.S. and EU sanctions imposed in September on the world's largest oil companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc.

The legislation would also provide $350 million in military assistance to Ukraine from 2015 to 2017, and other aid for energy to the country, which has been threatened by cutoffs in natural gas supply from Russia.

Republicans, who control the House and will have a majority in the Senate from January, have criticized Obama's reaction to Russian interference in Ukraine as inadequate...


AS I SAID, YOU'D HAVE TO BE INSANE. GOP=INSANE

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
36. Meet And Greet Natalie Jaresko, US Government Employee, Ukraine Finance Minister | Dances With Bears
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 09:46 AM
Dec 2014

By John Helmer, Moscow

The new finance minister of Ukraine, Natalie Jaresko, may have replaced her US citizenship with Ukrainian at the start of this week, but her employer continued to be the US Government, long after she claims she left the State Department. US court and other records reveal that Jaresko has been the co-owner of a management company and Ukrainian investment funds registered in the state of Delaware, dependent for her salary and for investment funds on a $150 million grant from the US Agency for International Development. The US records reveal that according to Jaresko’s former husband, she is culpable in financial misconduct.

Jaresko was appointed on Monday, and approved by a vote of the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday evening. A presidential tweet and an announcement from the office of President Petro Poroshenko say a decree has been signed granting Jaresko Ukrainian citizenship to qualify her to take office. The legality of the decree was challenged today by the head of Poroshenko’s bloc in parliament, Yury Lutsenko.

For the record of Jaresko’s predecessor at the Finance Ministry in Kiev, Alexander Shlapak, click.

On Tuesday at the State Department, spokesman Marie Harf was asked: “apparently a U.S. national has been appointed finance minister. Has Washington something to do with this appointment?” Harf replied: “No, this is a choice for the Ukrainian people and their elect [sic] representatives. This is their decision. Certainly, I don’t think we had anything to do with it at all… the Ukrainian people and their representatives are able to pick whoever they want to be part of their government. That’s the beauty of how this process works.”

Jaresko was born into the Ukrainian émigré community of Chicago, taking her name from her father John Jaresko. Her brother, also named John, has been active in Ukrainian movements and received a medal in 2010 from then President Victor Yushchenko. At the time, sister Natalie was an appointee of Yushchenko’s Foreign Investors Advisory Council and the Advisory Board of the Ukrainian Center for Promotion of Foreign Investment. Yushchenko had given her the St. Olga medal in 2003.

Complete story at - http://johnhelmer.net/?p=12317

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
41. Well, that explains why she willingly gave up her US citizenship, doesn't it?
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 12:02 PM
Dec 2014

If in fact she did....

You know, in olden times, such forms of warfare weren't even possible against target nations...

But they are certainly a violation of every social contract ever known to any people. Except slaves.


I am really alarmed at the quality of the women Obama puts in place in the State Dept. and elsewhere. What a bunch of barracudas! Where did he find such bitches? (Chicago, evidently).

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
42. A song for the season
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 12:11 PM
Dec 2014

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti written before 1872 in response to a request from the magazine Scribner's Monthly for a Christmas poem. It was published posthumously in Rossetti's Poetic Works in 1904.

The poem became a Christmas carol after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst.

Harold Darke's anthem setting of 1911 is more complex and was named the best Christmas carol in a poll of some of the world's leading choirmasters and choral experts in 2008.

GUSTAVE HOLST'S VERSION



HAROLD DARKE'S VERSION



 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
44. thank you, antigop! That was .... unique
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 12:39 PM
Dec 2014

extraordinary....unbelievable....why is she wearing a dress like that for a nine-year-old?


I'm getting to be so anachronistic in my old age...

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
47. The dancing was excellent
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 12:46 PM
Dec 2014

I saw the original film...truly had the gritty feel of 1940-1950 Midwest urban life.

This....is nothing like it.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
46. After spending most of Friday wrapped in blankets trying to raise a sweat
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 12:44 PM
Dec 2014

to kill off the germs, and sleeping, mostly, I am feeling a bit better. The Kid is still coughing, though. And the barometric pressure changes are hurting the sinuses...

I toy with the notion of going out in the cold, damp raw air to sing my lungs out at Messiah this afternoon...and wonder if I am getting more cowardly than ever.

I just really don't want a major illness right now (or ever). And people have been really sick with the flu and whatnot (all around me...it's impossible to avoid them because they won't stay home!)

Sigh.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
48. Head of Gazprom: The Role of Ukraine as a Gas Transporter Will Go Down to Zero
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 12:58 PM
Dec 2014
http://fortruss.blogspot.mx/2014/12/head-of-gazprom-role-of-ukraine-as-gas.html


"Nord Stream" and a Turkey pipeline will make the transit of gas through Ukraine meaningless, announced the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller in an interview to the TV program "Vesti on Saturday with Sergey Brilev": "Yes, in fact, the role of Ukraine as a transit country is reduced to zero," - said Miller. "The decision to stop the "South Stream" is a beginning of the end of our business model, when we focused on the delivery to a final consumer in the European market."

At the same time, he noted that Russia will supply Ukraine with all its gas needs for domestic consumption. "In fact, we will provide the amount that Ukraine needs for its domestic consumption. Deliveries to Europe will be made by alternative routes,"- said Miller.

At the same time, he stressed that the cancellation of "South Stream" is not associated with the requirements of the Eurocommission's third energy package. "The decision to shut down "South Stream" was adopted in the framework of the visit of our President to Turkey, but on this very day the pipelaying ship went out in the Black Sea in order to carry out work on laying the pipeline. But how can we proceed with this work, when Bulgaria did not even give permission to build in the territorial waters, in the special economic zone, and have not issued a construction permit to build on land... This issue has nothing to do with the third energy package," - explained Miller. In particular, explained the head of the company, the requirements of the European Commission have no relation to this situation, because "the construction permit is issued by the government of Bulgaria."According to Miller, frank blocking of "South Stream" is a deliberate policy of the European Union.

"As for the decision to stop the project... it is dictated by the fact that to implement the project in the atmosphere of delays and outright blocking, in principle, is impossible. And of course, it's a deliberate policy of the European Union. On April 17 of this year the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the prohibition of South Stream," - said Miller.


The head of Gazprom said that there is no guarantee that in the event of resurrecting the "South Stream" the situation with delays and blocking on part of the European Union will not be repeated.

"Actually, if you talk about the time, about the efforts that we invested (on "South Stream&quot - it's years. Of course, in addition to the time spent and money invested ... we have acquired certain knowledge and experience... Now we can say that we know the European bureaucracy very well ... Who can guarantee that this will not happen again in a month, two, six months?" - said Miller.


In turn, Brilev asked, if European countries will have to purchase gas on the border of Turkey and Greece. "Yes, without a doubt, that is correct," - replied the head of Gazprom. According to Miller, the infrastructure of Gazprom worth about 4 billion euros, built in Russia for "South Stream," will be used for the Turkey gas pipeline project. "We invested around 4 billion euros in transport infrastructure on the territory of Russia on the development of the southern corridor for gas supplies to Krasnodar region, for delivery to the compressor station "Russian", and all of these investments will be needed for the offshore project for the pipeline to Turkey. So "everything stays in the house," " - said Miller.

Recall, on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the country cannot under the present circumstances continue implementation of "South Stream". This decision, as later stated by the Minister of Energy Alexander Novak, was adopted by Putin personally.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
49. Ukraine says Russia has resumed gas flow
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 01:07 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/141208/ukraine-says-russia-will-resume-gas-flows-december-11

A cold snap is draining Ukraine's winter natural gas reserves, which have fallen by more than 20 percent, Ukraine's gas transport operator Ukrtransgaz said.

Update:

Russia resumed gas flows to Ukraine on Tuesday after halting them six months ago in a dispute over prices and unpaid debts, Ukraine's gas transport monopoly said.

"Ukraine has started receiving Russian gas. The volume of imports is around 43.5 million cubic meters per day," Ukrtransgaz spokesman Maxim Belyavsky said. Supplies will flow via the northern Belarussian pipeline of Mozyr and the eastern Sudzha route, he added.

The ex-Soviet republic consumes about 200 million cubic meters on average per day during the winter. Without Russian gas and short of coal because separatist violence has disrupted domestic coal mining, Ukraine has been forced to introduce widespread power cuts.

Ukraine's gas transport monopoly Ukrtransgaz said on Monday Russia would resume supplies of natural gas on Dec. 11 after a six-month gap due to a dispute over prices and unpaid debts. The energy ministry had expected flows from Russia to resume on Monday. Hard frosts have boosted consumption to record volumes in recent weeks.

"Russian gas will start flowing to Ukraine on December 11," Ukrtransgaz spokesman Maxim Belyavsky told Reuters. Ukraine transferred $378 million to Russia's Gazprom on Friday to buy one billion cubic meter (bcm) of Russian gas in December. A Gazprom spokesman said the Russian giant monopoly had received the money from Ukraine and was ready to start pumping gas.

A cold snap is draining Ukraine's winter natural gas reserves, which have fallen by more than 20 percent since the heating season began in October to 13.3 bcm, Ukrtransgaz said on Monday. Energy Minister Voldymyr Demchyshyn said Ukraine was consuming more than 200 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas per day, 55 million of which came from limited domestic production, 120 million from reserves and the rest from so-called "reverse flow" supplies from neighboring European Union countries.

On Monday the energy ministry said it had granted state energy company Ukrinterenergo permission to import electricity from Russia to help address power shortages. Turning to Russia for electricity supplies is a blow for Kyiv, whose relations with the Kremlin are at an all-time low following Russia's annexation of Crimea and fighting in the east.

State power firm Ukrenergo said on Monday it had imposed further restrictions on electricity consumption to heavy industry and households to balance supply and demand. Ukraine estimates it is short of slightly more than 10 percent of the electricity it needs.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
50. Russia must face 'consequences' for violating Ukraine's sovereignty, says Merkel
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 01:09 PM
Dec 2014

HAS THE ENTIRE WORLD TAKEN LEAVE OF ITS SENSES?

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/12/08/Russia-must-face-consequences-for-violating-Ukraines-sovereignty-says-Merkel/6031418065124/?spt=sec&or=tn


Russia's actions toward neighboring Ukraine cannot go unpunished, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview published Sunday by the Welt am Sonntag weekly.

"I'm sure that the united European reaction to Russia's actions is the right one. The fact that Russia violated guarantees of Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty legally secured by Budapest Memorandum 1994 cannot be left without consequences," she is quoted as saying.

Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum -- signed by Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and the U.K. -- Ukraine is assured of protection from threats or use of force against its territorial integrity or political independence in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons.

Germany, she underlined, continues to exercise diplomatic means to restore peace in Ukraine.

Merkel observed that "Russia is creating problems for all three of these countries," she said, pointing to Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, "three countries in our eastern neighborhood that have taken sovereign decisions to sign an association agreement with the E.U."

If Russia's aggression were to extend to the Baltic states and violence to break out, Merkel noted that NATO would provide military support.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
51. Oil slump leads Wall Street to worst week in 2-1/2 years
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 01:17 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/us-markets-stocks-idUSKBN0JP1DA20141212?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Friday, leaving the benchmark S&P 500 with its worst weekly performance since May 2012, as investors pulled back from the markets in response to oil's free-fall and more weak data out of China.

Oil's declines have underscored concerns about global demand, and with the S&P 500 having hit a record high only last week, investors were loath to fight the downward pressure on stocks, which accelerated in the final minutes of trading. The S&P dropped 3.5 percent on the week after seven straight weeks of gains.

The S&P energy sector .SPNY was down 2.2 percent on the day. It is down 16.5 percent this year, the worst performing of 10 S&P sectors. Dow components Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N) both hit 52-week lows as U.S. crude oil fell below $58 a barrel, hitting five-year lows, on expectations of reduced worldwide energy demand.

"Certainly as midday came the market did not stabilize at all, so sellers knew that," said Kenny Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O’Neil Securities in New York. "Energy is at the top of the list in terms of the names getting crushed."

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 315.51 points, or 1.79 percent, to 17,280.83
the S&P 500 .SPX lost 33 points, or 1.62 percent, to 2,002.33
and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 54.57 points, or 1.16 percent, to 4,653.60


Disappointing data that suggested China's economy softened in November pushed the materials sector .SPLRCM down 2.9 percent, making it the worst-performing S&P sector on the day. The drop in oil and weakness in China overshadowed strong U.S. consumer sentiment, which hit an eight-year high. Some investors hope declining gas prices will boost consumer spending enough to offset the energy sector's woes.

However, there is concern that rising volatility in the energy market will migrate to equities as investors worry about slack demand worldwide. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, rose 5 percent to 21.08 on Friday as investors paid up to hedge against losses.

Polcari, however, noted that the S&P 500's declines came to within a whisper of the 50-day moving average at 2,000, where he expects to see buyers emerge next week...

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,468 to 647, for a 3.81-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,949 issues fell and 790 advanced for a 2.47-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.

The broad S&P 500 index posted 15 new 52-week highs and 35 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 52 new highs and 160 new lows.

About 7.6 billion shares were traded on U.S. exchanges on Friday, compared to the 6.9 billion daily average so far this month, according to BATS Global Markets data.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
52. Why U.S. Women Are Leaving Jobs Behind
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 01:27 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/upshot/us-employment-women-not-working.html?abt=0002&abg=0

...As recently as 1990, the United States had one of the top employment rates in the world for women, but it has now fallen behind many European countries. After climbing for six decades, the percentage of women in the American work force peaked in 1999, at 74 percent for women between 25 and 54. It has fallen since, to 69 percent today.

In many other countries, however, the percentage of working women has continued to climb. Switzerland, Australia, Germany and France now outrank the United States in prime-age women’s labor force participation, as do Canada and Japan.

While the downturn and the weak economy of recent years have eliminated many of the jobs women held, a lack of family-friendly policies also appears to have contributed to the lower rate. In a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of nonworking adults aged 25 to 54 in the United States, conducted last month, 61 percent of women said family responsibilities were a reason they weren’t working, compared with 37 percent of men. Of women who identify as homemakers and have not looked for a job in the last year, nearly three-quarters said they would consider going back if a job offered flexible hours or allowed them to work from home.

The poll also showed a stark difference between the experiences of nonworking women and men. Although the numbers of both have risen in the last 15 years, many more women appear to be in a better position to re-enter the work force. Women are much more likely to have left their last job voluntarily and less likely to say they suffer from health problems that keep them from working. But the experience of not working is also considerably more positive for women than men, the poll shows, which means that women are often not desperate to return to work. Women are more likely to say that not working has improved their romantic relationships, while men are more likely to say those relationships have suffered. Women who aren’t working spend more time exercising than they once did. Men spend less. Still, many women also seem interested in working again — under the right conditions. And near the top of the list of those requirements is the flexibility to avoid upending their family life. Many fewer women than men said they would be willing to take a job with trade-offs that might significantly affect their lives: moving to a different city, commuting more than an hour each way, or working nontraditional hours. Notably, women with children at home account for many of the differences. Women without children often have attitudes about unemployment that are more similar to men’s, the poll shows. For many women with children, it seems, the decision about work involves weighing a particularly complex set of benefits and drawbacks. And often the challenge is insurmountable in part because there is a dearth of programs and policies in the United States to support women in their prime career and childbearing years...

MUCH MORE...HOW MANY TIMES DO THEY HAVE TO FIND OUT THIS INFORMATION, BEFORE POLICY CHANGES TO RESPOND TO IT?
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
54. G.O.P. Angst Over 2016 Led to Provision on Funding
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 01:40 PM
Dec 2014

OH, THE POOR DARLINGS! DOES THAT MEAN THEIR STABLE OF GAZILLIONAIRES HAS BOLTED?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/us/politics/gop-angst-over-2016-convention-led-to-funding-provision.html

The secret negotiations that led to one of the most significant expansions of campaign contributions in recent years began with what Republican leaders regarded as an urgent problem: How would they pay for their presidential nominating convention in Cleveland in two years?

The talks ended with a bipartisan agreement between Senate Democrats, led by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and House Republicans, led by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, that would allow wealthy donors to begin giving more than $1 million every election cycle to each party’s national committees...

THAT SNAKE, HARRY REID!

WHY, IS THE GOP INCAPABLE OF TIGHTENING THEIR BELTS AND PULLING THEMSELVES UP BY THEIR BOOTSTRAPS, AS THEY INSIST THE POOREST AMONG US DO?

...It continued to draw fierce attacks as lawmakers prepared to vote on a final spending bill, even as Democratic leaders privately defended the addition as a necessary compromise to forestall more aggressive efforts by Republicans next year to whittle away at other campaign funding restrictions....

STUPID STUPID STUPID HARRY REID...ALWAYS PAYING DANEGELD, AND WONDERING WHY NOBODY IS HAPPY...DOESN'T HE UNDERSTAND THE FIRST THING ABOUT NEGOTIATING?

...After successfully pushing legislation in March to abolish public financing for party conventions, some Republicans had become worried about how they would pay for their 2016 convention, scheduled to be held in Cleveland, in Mr. Boehner’s home state, Ohio. Some feared that the party would have to scale back the convention, losing clout and prestige to the big-money outside groups that are playing bigger roles in campaigns...

SO, BUYER'S REMORSE? OR RATHER, LEGISLATORS' REMORSE...HAVING SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT, THEY DECIDE TO DO IT ASS-BACKWARDS.

TURNS OUT, THE DEMOCRATS HAD A LITTLE MONEY PROBLEM, TOO. AND THESE ARE THE MEN WE LET RUN THE COUNTRY'S FINANCES?

READ IT AND WEEP. THIS ISN'T SAUSAGE-MAKING, IT'S HASH.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
57. Paul Krugman Warns That Severe Austerity Measures are Pushing Countries to the Brink of Fascism
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 02:05 PM
Dec 2014

Last edited Sat Dec 13, 2014, 02:37 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.alternet.org/economy/paul-krugman-warns-severe-austerity-measures-are-pushing-countries-brink-fascism?akid=12573.227380.gd0z9P&rd=1&src=newsletter1028600&t=3

The problem with ideologues is that they do not learn from their mistakes, not even after they repeat them and things go wrong again. Paul Krugman returns to one of his favorite subjects in his Friday column: the mismanagement of Greece's fiscal crisis, which erupted five years ago and has ongoing terrible side effects that are damaging the whole world. "But I’m not talking about the side effects you may have in mind — spillovers from Greece’s Great Depression-level slump, or financial contagion to other debtors," Krugman writes. "No, the truly disastrous effect of the Greek crisis was the way it distorted economic policy, as supposedly serious people around the world rushed to learn the wrong lessons."

Greece is again in crisis and Krugman is wondering if (hoping that )the world will learn the right lesson this time.

The first time, the conversation became all about cutting government spending and obsessing over deficits. That this worsened unemployment and blocked any chance for growth was simply denied by fiscal austerity hucksters like British prime minister David Cameron and U.S. budget hawk Paul Ryan. We're all going to be Greece, they hysterically warned. Minus the sunshine. Krugman:

In reality, Britain and the United States, which borrow in their own currencies, were and are nothing like Greece. If you thought otherwise in 2010, by now year after year of incredibly low interest rates and low inflation should have convinced you. And the experience of Greece and other European countries that were forced into harsh austerity measures should also have convinced you that slashing spending in a depressed economy is a really bad idea if you can avoid it. This is true even in the supposed success stories — Ireland, for example, is finally growing again, but it still has almost 11 percent unemployment, and twice that rate among young people.


Meanwhile, austerity measures in Greece, cutting public employment, cutting social programs, and raising taxes have hardly cured its woes. A quarter of Greek workers are unemployed. Lots and lots of suffering have not, Krugman points out, yielded much reward. This has lead to some fairly interesting, and worrisome in some cases, political developments. Krugman again:

The remarkable thing, given all that, has been the willingness of the Greek public to take it, to accept the claims of the political establishment that the pain is necessary and will eventually lead to recovery. And the news that has roiled Europe these past few days is that the Greeks may have reached their limit. The details are complex, but basically the current government is trying a fairly desperate political maneuver to put off a general election. And, if it fails, the likely winner in that election is Syriza, a party of the left that has demanded a renegotiation of the austerity program, which could lead to a confrontation with Germany and exit from the euro.

The important point here is that it’s not just the Greeks who are mad as Hellas (their own name for their country) and aren’t going to take it anymore. Look at France, where Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-immigrant National Front, outpolls mainstream candidates of both right and left. Look at Italy, where about half of voters support radical parties like the Northern League and the Five-Star Movement. Look at Britain, where both anti-immigrant politicians and Scottish separatists are threatening the political order.

It would be a terrible thing if any of these groups — with the exception, surprisingly, of Syriza, which seems relatively benign — were to come to power. But there’s a reason they’re on the rise. This is what happens when an elite claims the right to rule based on its supposed expertise, its understanding of what must be done — then demonstrates both that it does not, in fact, know what it is doing, and that it is too ideologically rigid to learn from its mistakes.
 

magical thyme

(14,881 posts)
58. I disagree with the last paragraph
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 02:49 PM
Dec 2014

The elite knows exactly what it is doing. They are pillaging Greece, which is too good for its own people. The sooner the Greek people die off, except enough to service the elite, the better.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
63. They know what they think they are doing--but blowback!
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:12 PM
Dec 2014

there will be such a comeuppance as will make 1789-1799 look like a picnic at Versailles...and no Little Dictator will come to save them, either.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
60. New Harley Davidson electric motorcycle prototype
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 06:11 PM
Dec 2014

With yours truly on board.

Took it for a test ride on the test pad, but by the time they called me to take it for a test ride, I had left. Oh well.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
64. This Week in Religion: Kentucky Govt Finally Cuts Off Subsidies to Noah's Ark Museum
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:26 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.alternet.org/week-religion-kentucky-govt-finally-cuts-subsidies-noahs-ark-museum?akid=12574.227380.HBFfRs&rd=1&src=newsletter1028613&t=8




This has not been the best of weeks for Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, a Creationist apologist ministry which operates the Creation Museum. It seems Ham’s recent undertaking, building a Noah’s Ark theme park, is not quite going his way.

After being granted an $18 million tax incentive by the state of Kentucky’s tourism board, and just days after unveiling a billboard with the slogan “Thank God you cannot sink this ship,” the state has rescinded the tax incentive. Kentucky has found that the project violates state and federal employment laws.

“State tourism tax incentives cannot be used to fund religious indoctrination or otherwise be used to advance religion,” Tourism Secretary Bob Stewart wrote in the letter to the park. “The use of state incentives in this way violates the separation of church and state provisions of the Constitution and is therefore impermissible.”


Even Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, who has fully supported the project, could not defend the organization.

“While the leaders of the Ark Encounter had previously agreed not to discriminate in hiring based on religion, they now refuse to make that commitment and it has become apparent that they do intend to use religious beliefs as a litmus test for hiring decisions,” Beshear said.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
67. Uruguay Takes on London Bankers, Marlboro Mad Men and the TPP
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:47 PM
Dec 2014
http://truth-out.org/news/item/27932-uruguay-takes-on-london-bankers-marlboro-mad-men-and-the-tpp

What the hell is happening in tiny Uruguay? South America's second smallest country, with a population of just 3.4 million, has generated international headlines out of proportion to its size over the past year by becoming the first nation to legalize marijuana in December 2013, by welcoming Syrian refugees into the country in October 2014 and by accepting the first six US prisoners resettled to South America from the Guantánamo Bay prison on December 6, 2014...

For the past 10 years, Uruguayans have been conducting a left-leaning experiment in economic and social democracy, turning themselves into a Latin American version of Switzerland in the process. Under the leadership of the left-leaning Broad Front party, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that Uruguay has enjoyed annual economic growth of 5.6 percent since 2004, compared to 1.2 percent annual growth over the last five years in Switzerland. The Swiss have decriminalized marijuana and gay marriage. Uruguay has legalized both. Prostitution is legal in both countries, and each provides universal health care. According to the Happy Planet Index, Uruguay has the same low per capita environmental footprint as Switzerland, with a similarly widespread sense of well-being among its people in spite of significantly lower per capita GDP.

Yet unlike Switzerland, with its highly developed financial services sector and, until recently, safe haven tax policies for global capital, Uruguay has become a prime target for the wrath of multinational corporations and the London bankers who fund them. In November 2014, Uruguayan voters voiced approval for their government's policies of social tolerance and public spending on early childhood education, affordable universal health care and social safety net programs by re-electing former president Tabaré Vasquez from the ruling Broad Front party. With support from allied green and radical left parties, Vasquez won a landslide victory against a neoliberal opponent who ran on a platform of slashing public sector spending and opening the nation's economy to foreign investors. Instead, Vasquez's return to the presidency in 2015 will extend the Uruguayan social democratic experiment another five years to 2020. London's neoliberal, supply-side bankers are not amused...The leftist economic experiment taking place at the opposite end of the globe in tiny Uruguay is more than the bankers in London can tolerate, never mind that Uruguay, with minimal military expenses, has annual deficits nearly 600 percent lower than the UK as a percent of GDP. From the bankers' perspective, Uruguay is setting a bad example by taking care of their people instead of catering to global financial speculators.

If the Capital Economics report is decoded, it functions as a virtual thesaurus for the language of financial tyranny, bullying and terror used by the new regime of global capital headquartered in London and New York.

Decoding the Language of Neoliberal Bankers

Capital Economics wants to ensure that Uruguay adopts polices that ease "labor market rigidities." While the preciosity of this formulation is not without entertainment value, in plain language, it means union busting in order to lower wages.

Capital Economics also insists that "supply-side reforms" are essential for Uruguay's survival. Here is a typical list of such reforms.

Cutting government spending, taxes and policies to cut government borrowing
Passing laws to control trade union powers
Reducing red tape to cut the costs of doing business
Implementing measures to improve the flexibility of the labor market, or reforming employment laws
Enforcing policies to boost competition such as deregulation
Privatization of state assets
Opening up an economy to overseas trade and investment
Opening up an economy to inward labor migration

In sum, the London financial establishment is telling pesky leftist Uruguay that it needs to crush its unions by encouraging an influx of low-wage, immigrant workers to reduce labor costs, slash social spending and privatize as much of the public sector as possible.

It is important to note that 55 percent of Uruguay's government bond debt is held by foreign investors, many of them British. The anti-labor austerity program being recommended by Capital Economics would be disastrous for Uruguay's domestic programs and quality of life, but it would provide a profiteering opportunity for speculative bankers in London by temporarily increasing the value of Uruguayan bonds. This is what is really meant by "a boost in medium-term growth."




In this moment, we are all Uruguayans. Their little-heralded stand against the emerging model of transnational governance by multinational corporations and global banks is everyone's battle. A Uruguayan victory at the ICSID tribunal has the potential to set a welcome precedent in favor of local governance versus the kind of transnational order envisioned in agreements such as the TTIP and TPP, yet it is a battle that is being fought on enemy territory. The fact that a sovereign nation trying to protect the health of its people is being forced to defend itself in expensive litigation against the profiteering of a multinational corporation in front of a supranational World Bank tribunal is already far down the wrong path.

MUCH MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
68. Citigroup Will Be Broken Up By Simon Johnson
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:12 PM
Dec 2014

FROM YOUR LIPS TO GOD'S EARS! BETTER YET--DISSOLVED, SMASHED, AND ITS REAL ESTATE SALTED--OR TURNED INTO AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR THE LEAST-RESOUCEFUL

http://baselinescenario.com/2014/12/12/citigroup-will-be-broken-up/

Citigroup is a very large bank that has amassed a huge amount of political power. Its current and former executives consistently push laws and regulations in the direction of allowing Citi and other megabanks to take on more risk, particularly in the form of complex highly leveraged bets. Taking these risks allows the executives and traders to get a lot of upside compensation in the form of bonuses when things go well – while the downside losses, when they materialize, become the taxpayer’s problem.

Citigroup is also, collectively, stupid on a grand scale. The supposedly smart people at the helm of Citi in the mid-2000s ran them hard aground – and to the edge of bankruptcy. A series of unprecedented massive government bailouts was required in 2000-09 – and still the collateral damage to the economy has proved enormous. Give enough clever people the wrong incentives and they will destroy anything.

Now the supposedly brilliant people who run Citigroup have, in the space of a single working week, made a series of serious political blunders with long-lasting implications. Their greed has manifestly proved Elizabeth Warren exactly right about the excessive clout of Wall Street, their arrogance has greatly strengthened a growing left-center-right coalition concerned about the power of the megabanks, and their public exercise of raw power has helped this coalition understand what it needs focus on doing – break up Citigroup. In a blistering speech on Tuesday, December 9th, Senator Warren emphasized how much power large Wall Street banks have in Washington. The pushback from those banks’ supporters was, not surprisingly, to deny any special rights and privileges.

On Wednesday, a provision — drafted by Citigroup — to repeal part of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms (Section 716) was added by House Republicans to their spending bill. On Thursday, Citigroup led the charge to persuade enough Democrats to vote for that bill. The repeal of Section 716 stayed in the spending bill only because Wall Street brought so much pressure and influence to bear. Everything that transpired on Wednesday and Thursday exactly fit the pattern that Senator Warren had described on Tuesday. Those seeking to disparage Senate Warren now attempt to paint her as some sort of extremist – the tea party of the left. But such a description is completely at odds with the reality of this week.

In arguing against the repeal of Section 716, Senator Warren was supporting arguments put forward by Thomas Hoenig (a Republican appointee at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), Sheila Bair (Republican and former chair of the FDIC), and Senator David Vitter (R., Louisiana). On Friday, the Systemic Risk Council – chaired by Sheila Bair – put out a statement against the repeal of Section 716. (I am a member of the SRC; the council includes people from the left, center, and right of the political spectrum.)

These are not left vs. right issues. And the key divide is certainly not the liberal left against anyone else. This is a broad coalition of people who care about financial stability — and who are fighting against a mighty lobby.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate on Friday evening, Senator Warren articulated the core of the problem and what needs to be done. (All the quotes that follow are from the text circulated by her press office.)

“Mr. President, in recent years, many Wall Street institutions have exerted extraordinary influence in Washington’s corridors of power, but Citigroup has risen above the others. Its grip over economic policymaking in the executive branch is unprecedented. Consider a few examples:

Three of the last four Treasury Secretaries under Democratic presidents have had close Citigroup ties. The fourth was offered the CEO position at Citigroup, but turned it down.

The Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve system is a Citigroup alum.

The Undersecretary for International Affairs at Treasury is a Citigroup alum.

The U.S. Trade Representative and the person nominated to be his deputy – who is currently an assistant secretary at Treasury – are Citigroup alums.

A recent chairman of the National Economic Council at the White House was a Citigroup alum.

Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management and Budget went to Citigroup immediately after leaving the White House.

Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management of Budget and Management is also a Citi alum — but I’m double counting here because now he’s the Secretary of the Treasury.

That’s a lot of powerful people, all from one bank. But they aren’t Citigroup’s only source of power. Over the years, the company has spent millions of dollars on lobbying Congress and funding the political campaigns of its friends in the House and the Senate.”

And on the big banks’ complaints about Dodd-Frank, she said this,

“There’s a lot of talk lately about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect. There’s a lot of talk coming from Citigroup about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect.

So let me say this to anyone who is listening at Citi: I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect.

It should have broken you into pieces.” (Emphasis in the original)

We are going back to the original Republican principles and courage at work the last time this country took on – and won against – concentrated corporate power.

“A century ago, Teddy Roosevelt was America’s trustbuster. He went after the giant trusts and monopolies in this country, and a lot of people talk about how those trusts deserved to be broken up because they had too much economic power. But Teddy Roosevelt said we should break them up because they had too much political power. Teddy Roosevelt said break them up because all that concentrated power threatened the very foundations of our democratic system.”

“And now we’re watching as Congress passes yet another provision that was written by lobbyists for the biggest recipient of bailout money in the history of the country. And it’s attached to a bill that needs to pass or else the entire federal government will grind to a halt.”

“Think about this kind of power. A financial institution has become so big and so powerful that it can hold the entire country hostage. That alone is a reason enough for us break them up. Enough is enough.”





 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
69. Citigroup to Move Headquarters to U.S. Capitol Building By Andy Borowitz ALTERNATE REALITY
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:30 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/citigroup-move-headquarters-u-s-capitol-building?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28139%29&CNDID=26139401&spMailingID=7359972&spUserID=MzkxMjA1MjAwODQS1&spJobID=581706463&spReportId=NTgxNzA2NDYzS0

The banking giant Citigroup announced on Friday that it would move its headquarters from New York to the U.S. Capitol Building, in Washington, D.C., in early 2015. Tracy Klugian, a spokesperson for Citi, said that the company had leased thirty thousand square feet of prime real estate on the floor of the House of Representatives and would be interviewing “world-class architects” to redesign the space to suit its needs. According to sources, Citi successfully outbid other firms, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, for the right to move its headquarters to the House floor. The Citi spokesperson acknowledged that the extensive makeover of the House is expected to cost “in the millions,” but added, “It’s always expensive to open a new branch.”

Explaining the rationale behind the move, Klugian told reporters, “Instead of constantly flying out from New York to give members of Congress their marching orders, Citigroup executives can be right on the floor with them, handing them legislation and telling them how to vote. This is going to result in tremendous cost savings going forward.”

Klugian said that Citi’s chairman, Michael E. O’Neill, will not occupy a corner office on the House floor, preferring instead an “open plan” that will allow him to mingle freely with members of Congress.

“He doesn’t want to come off like he’s their boss,” the spokesperson said. “Basically, he wants to send the message, ‘We’re all on the same team. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get stuff done.’ ”
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
70. ADVENT--1st season of the Xtian church year, leading up to Xmas and including the 4 preceding Sunday
Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:38 PM
Dec 2014


THIS WOULD BE AN ANGLICAN SERVICE, OF COURSE

Advent is a season observed in many Western Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. The term is an anglicized version of the Latin word adventus, meaning "coming".

Latin adventus is the translation of the Greek word parousia, commonly used to refer to the Second Coming of Christ. For Christians, the season of Advent anticipates the coming of Christ from two different perspectives. The season offers the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, and to be alert for his Second Coming.

Advent is the beginning of the Western liturgical year and commences on Advent Sunday. At least in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Moravian, Presbyterian and Methodist calendars, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before December 25, which is the Sunday between November 27 and December 3 inclusive. Christians of these denominations observe the season through practices such as keeping an Advent calendar, lighting an Advent wreath, praying an Advent daily devotional, among other ways of preparing for Christmastide, such as setting up Christmas decorations.

The Nativity Fast is a period of abstinence and penance practiced by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches, in preparation for the Nativity of Christ, (December 25). Like the Western Advent, the Nativity fast prepares Eastern Christians for the celebration of Christmas. However, it differs in two significant respects: The Eastern fast runs for 40 days instead of four (Roman rite) or six weeks (Ambrosian rite) and thematically focuses on proclamation and glorification of the Incarnation of God, whereas the Western Advent focuses on the two comings (or advents) of Jesus Christ: his birth and his Second Coming or Parousia.

The fast is observed from November 15 to December 24, inclusively. These dates apply to those Orthodox Churches which use the Revised Julian calendar, which currently matches the Gregorian calendar. For those Eastern Orthodox Churches which still follow the Julian calendar (Churches of Russia, Georgia, Serbia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Mount Athos and Jerusalem), the Winter Lent does not begin until November 28 (Gregorian) which coincides with November 15 on the Julian calendar. The Ancient Church of the East fasts dawn til dusk from the 1st December until the 25th of December on the Gregorian calendar.

Sometimes the fast is called Philip's Fast (or the Philippian Fast), as it traditionally begins on the day following the Feast of St. Philip the Apostle (November 14). Some churches, such as the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, have abbreviated the fast to start on December 10, following the Feast of the Conception by Saint Anne of the Most Holy Theotokos.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
71. Japan's Hyper-Easy Abenomics Economics Experiment Just Got A Fresh Mandate
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 08:04 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-shinzo-abes-ldp-party-wins-election-2014-12

TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition won a massive victory in Sunday's election, media exit polls showed, in a vote the Japanese leader has dubbed a referendum on his reflationary recipe for reviving the world's third-biggest economy.

Exit polls showed the coalition would win a two-thirds majority in the 475-seat lower house, but Abe's Liberal Democratic Party fell short of such a "super-majority" on its own.

Abe, 60, called the election two years early in order to obtain a fresh mandate for his "Abenomics" strategy of hyper-easy monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and structural reforms after his decision to put off an unpopular sales tax rise next year for fear it would derail a recovery already in doubt.

Abe could use the big win - which appears to have come on the back of rock-bottom turnout - to push ahead with painful economic reforms, analysts say, but might instead turn more attention to his conservative agenda that includes revising Japan's pacifist constitution to ease limits on the military.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-shinzo-abes-ldp-party-wins-election-2014-12#ixzz3LsBpgA00
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
75. Japan is cooked goose
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 08:20 AM
Dec 2014

I think more and more that the country is run by their yakuza, or at best the yakkuza are the Imperial Storm Troopers.

And I wonder if the banksters aren't their owners. Japanese banksters? US? Brit? or just generic, globe-hopping, always on the run?

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
72. OPEC Official Says The Oil Price Drop Goes Beyond Market Fundamentals
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 08:09 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-opecs-badri-says-oil-price-drop-beyond-market-fundamentals-2014-12

DUBAI (Reuters) - The secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on Sunday the price of oil had fallen further than market fundamentals would have dictated.

Speaking at an event in Dubai, Abdullah al-Badri added that the November meeting which ruled out a cut in production by members of the group was not aimed at anyone specific.

"The fundamentals should not lead to this dramatic reduction (in price). Some people say this decision was directed at the United States and shale oil. All of this is incorrect. Some also say it was directed at Iran. And Russia. This also is incorrect."

Crude oil markets are at five-year lows.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-opecs-badri-says-oil-price-drop-beyond-market-fundamentals-2014-12#ixzz3LsDAqTgz

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
73. A New Storm Is Headed For California On Monday
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 08:13 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-california-cleans-up-after-massive-rains-new-storm-forecast-for-monday-2014-12

(Reuters) - Another storm system is forecast to hit California early on Monday, the National Weather Service said, days after heavy rains in the drought-stricken state caused mudslides and flash floods that damaged dozens of homes and left roads impassable.

Friday's storm had spawned a small tornado in Southern California -- a rare occurrence there -- that touched down in South Los Angeles, tearing the roof off one structure and damaging at least five others, meteorologists and local officials said.

The state was to get a break from the wild weather on Sunday but a new storm system was approaching from the Pacific Ocean, the National Weather Service said.

One person was found dead on Friday in a rain-swollen flood-control channel in Orange County, officials said. It was the third known storm-related fatality on the West Coast since a band of Pacific storms hit the area earlier in the week.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-california-cleans-up-after-massive-rains-new-storm-forecast-for-monday-2014-12#ixzz3LsE99wbD

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
74. Big Companies Can’t Stop Cooking Their Books
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 08:16 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-big-companies-cant-stop-cooking-their-books-2014-12

No endorsement carries more weight than an investment by Warren Buffett. He became the world's second-richest man by buying safe, reliable businesses and holding them for ever. So when his company increased its stake in Tesco to 5% in 2012, it sent a strong message that the giant British grocer would rebound from its disastrous attempt to compete in America.

But it turned out that even the Oracle of Omaha can fall victim to dodgy accounting. On September 22nd Tesco announced that its profit guidance for the first half of 2014 was £250m ($408m) too high, because it had overstated the rebate income it would receive from suppliers. Britain's Serious Fraud Office has begun a criminal investigation into the errors. The company's fortunes have worsened since then: on December 9th it cut its profit forecast by 30%, partly because its new boss said it would stop "artificially" improving results by reducing service near the end of a quarter. Mr Buffett, whose firm has lost $750m on Tesco, now calls the trade a "huge mistake".

No sooner did the news break than the spotlight fell on PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the "Big Four" global accounting networks (the others are Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY) and KPMG). Tesco had paid the firm £10.4m to sign off on its 2013 financial statements. PwC mentioned the suspect rebates as an area of heightened scrutiny, but still gave a clean audit.

PwC's failure to detect the problem is hardly an isolated case. If accounting scandals no longer dominate headlines as they did when Enron and WorldCom imploded in 2001-02, that is not because they have vanished but because they have become routine. On December 4th a Spanish court reported that Bankia had mis-stated its finances when it went public in 2011, ten months before it was nationalised. In 2012 Hewlett-Packard wrote off 80% of its $10.3 billion purchase of Autonomy, a software company, after accusing the firm of counting forecast subscriptions as current sales (Autonomy pleads innocence). The previous year Olympus, a Japanese optical-device maker, revealed it had hidden billions of dollars in losses. In each case, Big Four auditors had given their blessing.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-big-companies-cant-stop-cooking-their-books-2014-12#ixzz3LsEqWeiB

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
77. China PBOC Economist Says 2015 GDP Growth to Slow to 7.1 Percent
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 08:35 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-14/china-pboc-economist-says-2015-gdp-growth-to-slow-to-7-1-percent.html


China is likely to see economic expansion next year decelerate to 7.1 percent as a slowdown in real estate investment continues.

While growth may slow, the outlook for employment and inflation remains stable, and labor-market conditions won’t be a major concern, Ma Jun, chief economist of the People’s Bank of China’s research center, wrote in a working paper dated Dec. 12. The growth projection compares with the monetary authority’s forecast for 7.4 percent expansion this year, the slowest pace since 1990.

“The downward pressure caused by the slowdown in real estate investment” will drag on any gains to growth from an acceleration in exports, Ma wrote.

The world’s second-largest economy showed further signs of weakness last month with factory shutdowns exacerbating sluggish demand. Bloomberg’s gross domestic product tracker came in at 6.78 percent year-on-year in November, down from 6.91 percent in October and the fourth month below 7 percent, according to a preliminary reading.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
78. Wholesale Prices in U.S. Fall More Than Forecast on Energy
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 08:39 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-12/wholesale-prices-in-u-s-fall-more-than-forecast-as-energy-drops.html

Wholesale prices in the U.S. fell more than forecast in November, led by the biggest drop in energy costs in more than a year, signaling inflation pressures remain weak even as the world’s largest economy is expanding.

The 0.2 percent decrease in the producer-price index followed a 0.2 percent advance in the prior month, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.1 percent decline. Costs were up 1.4 percent over the past 12 months, the smallest year-to-year gain since February.

Oil at a five-year low and slowing overseas markets will subdue prices in the production chain that feed into the cost of living. Persistently weak inflation has allowed Federal Reserve policy makers, who are scheduled to meet next week, room to keep interest rates near zero after ending monthly asset purchases in October as the economy strengthens.

“Pipeline inflation pressures are weakening,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, who correctly projected the drop in costs. “The weakness isn’t too surprising given the sharp drop in energy prices, and the stronger dollar is exerting downward pressure. We are going to see PPI stay low.”
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
79. Bail-In and the Financial Stability Board: The Global Bankers' Coup By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 01:23 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27983-bail-in-and-the-financial-stability-board-the-global-bankers-coup

On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20's new "bail-in" rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.

The new bail-in rules were discussed in my last post here: http://ellenbrown.com/2014/12/01/new-rules-cyprus-style-bail-ins-to-hit-deposits-and-pensions/ . They are edicts of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an unelected body of central bankers and finance ministers headquartered in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Where did the FSB get these sweeping powers, and is its mandate legally enforceable?

Those questions were addressed in an article I wrote in June 2009, two months after the FSB was formed, titled "Big Brother in Basel: BIS Financial Stability Board Undermines National Sovereignty." It linked the strange boot shape of the BIS to a line from Orwell's 1984: "a boot stamping on a human face—forever." The concerns raised there seem to be materializing, so I'm republishing the bulk of that article here. We need to be paying attention, lest the bail-in juggernaut steamroll over us unchallenged....

MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
80. That's all, Folks!
Sun Dec 14, 2014, 06:10 PM
Dec 2014


My Get-Up-and-Go got up and went, this weekend. It must be flu. Or exhaustion, catching up with me.
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