STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday July 10

[ozymandius]

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday July 10, 2009

Bush Administration Officials Under Indictment = 2
Financial Sector Officials In Prison = 3

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON July 9, 2009

Dow... 8,183.17 +4.76 (+0.06%)
Nasdaq... 1,752.55 +5.38 (+0.31%)
S&P 500... 882.68 +3.12 (+0.35%)
Gold future... 916.20 +6.90 (+0.76%)
10-Yr Bond... 3.41 +0.10 (+3.02%)
30-Year Bond 4.31 +0.11 (+2.67%)

---

U.S. FUTURES & MARKETS INDICATORS
NASDAQ FUTURES..............................................S&P FUTURES

Market Conditions During Trading Hours

GOLD, EURO, YEN, Loonie and Silver

---

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---

This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.

Read more: du

[ozymandius]

1. You can now 'unrecommend' this thread.

Could negative numbers be possible?

[Tace]

3. From What I Understand, It Only Shows "

In other words, it keeps track of recommends below zero, but only shows <0, if the figure is negative.

Oh, Good morning : )

[ozymandius]

6. Good morning.

:donut: :donut: :donut:

That's really strange. So you can unrecommend a thread when you have not recommended it? In other words: you can take other people's votes away for any reason? Strange, indeed.

[Demeter]

8. Good Morning, All! Is It Friday Already?

As I understand it, Unrecommending is a way of showing how much you wish it hadn't been posted and you hadn't wasted time reading it. Sort of an anti-advertisement for the post.

Too bad it can't be used on days of the week.

I have no idea what theme to implement to ornament the Weekend Economists tonight. Any suggestions? I really liked the Gilligan's Island theme last week, because it gave me a mental vacation every time I thought about it. (It's a sign that one needs to get out more, or get some real time for recreation. Or something!)

This weekend is the Celtic Festival, during which I get to ogle men's knees, thrill to the bagpipes and drop of heat prostration from the reels and jigs. And then there are the fiddlers and the penny whistles and the fish and chips and the neat vendors and tossing the caber and...anyway, I won't be around much Saturday. So step in and post the latest outrages to WE (the Mystery edition) tonight and throughout the weekend, in the Editorial forum of this amazing DU site.

[ozymandius]

12. How about Dracula in honor of Goldman Sachs?

Celtic festivals have dried up around Atlanta. I know some vendors of years past who have stopped participating because of incompetent organizers and lackluster crowds. We still have the Stone Mountain Scottish Highland Games every October. That is well organized and faithfully attended. But the decline among others was precipitous. It's another series of cultural events that died under Bush.

[DemReadingDU]

13. Something for summer?

Well, the Beach Boys were in town the other night, Yeh, Remember them! They still draw fans of all ages, from us boomers to the pre-teens. There are the surfin songs, the car songs, etc., etc. Or whatever theme sounds good, is ok. Actually, we're going to be out of town for brother's 50 birthday, it's a surprise!

[UpInArms]

15. the Mystery Edition?

How about the game of Clue

it was the butler in the library with a knife?

:hi:

[ozymandius]

16. That's a good one!

For me, it was always the clown in the broom closet with a squeegee.

[Demeter]

19. Such Excellent Suggestions! Let's Do Them All!

But only one at a time....

Because it's summer and I think we need it, let's do Beach Boys! With their heavy repertoire of car songs, that ties in nicely with GM and Chrysler and their travails.

I think we need to let GS scandals mature a little, and then REALLY stick in the knife and twist. Say next week, maybe....

Mystery is what we face every day on this thread...is there a particular favorite? Agatha Christie, or Dorothy Sayers, or Evanovich, or ?

[Tansy_Gold]

24. Fun, Fun, Fun!

Silly confession time --

When I was a teen-ager back in the 60s, I used to compose my New Year's Eve diary entry with song titles. The Beach Boys sort of cornered the market on exuberance then, leaving most of the angst for other artists. With a current focus on California, a Beach Boys (can we include Jan & Dean?) week-end maks perfect sense.


Tansy Gold, in my room

[DemReadingDU]

46. WooHoo!

For a little history
Beach Boys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_Boys


edit to include Jan and Dean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_and_Dean

[AnneD]

66. Maybe we could have a Musical weekend......

here are a few we could play with...How to Succeed is the best of course.


Grease

Danny: Well you know, these girls are only good for one thing.
Sonny: Yeah, what are you suppose to do with them the rest of the 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day?
Putzie: Is that all it takes 15 minutes?


Principal McGee: We have pictures of you so-called mooners. And just because the pictures aren't of your faces doesn't mean we can't identify you. At this very moment those pictures are on their way to Washington where the FBI has experts in this type of identification. If you turn yourselves in now, you may escape a Federal charge.

If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter. Principal McGee.

Vince: It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's what you do with your dancin' shoes.


Wicked

"Where I'm from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true... we call it history."


GLINDA: Well,I'm a public figure now! People expect me to--

ELPHABA: Lie?

GLINDA: (fiercely) Be encouraging! And what exactly have you been doing? Besides riding on around on that filthy thing!

ELPHABA: Well, we can't all come and go by bubble. Whose invention was that, the Wizard's? Of course, even if it wasn't, I'm sure he'd still take credit for it.

GLINDA: Yes, well, a lot of us are taking things that don't belong to us, aren't we?


How to succeed in Business with out even trying

Mr. Twimble: Last month I became a quarter-of-a-century man.
J. Pierpont Finch: Oh, that's beautiful, a quarter-of-a-century.
Mr. Twimble: Quarter-of-a-century.
J. Pierpont Finch: How long have you been in the mail room?
Mr. Twimble: Twenty-five years. It's not easy to get this medal. It takes a combination of skill, diplomacy, and bold caution.

J. B. Biggley: I realize that I'm the president of this company, the man that's responsible for everything that goes on here. So, I want to state, right now, that anything that happened is not my fault.


A Funny Thing Happened On The way to the Forum

Lycus: If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times; do not fan the girls when they're wet! But you'll never learn, you'll be a eunuch all your life.

Domina: That breeder woman, has she been thrown a mate yet?
Hysterium: Alas, she refuses just any slave. She demands to choose.
Senex: Choose? She'll breed and like it, like everyone. Well, almost everyone.

Senex: A word of advice: never fall in love during a total eclipse.

Erronius: My daughter, a eunuch?

[Demeter]

69. I LOVE A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

The last great Vaudeville reunion. sigh. It goes on the list.

Beach Boys are musical, sorta. So that's the program for this weekend. Hope you like it.

[AnneD]

78. One of my fav memories....

Mom and I watched it late one night (it came on late due to content). I was 14 then and Mom and I laughed till we had tears in our eyes. I was so happy to get it on DVD recently. Got a set of musicals and bought it mainly for A funny thing. Also bought the complete 3 stooges. My Indian Hubby LOVES it. It must be a guy thing. I like the later works but the real corker....Lucille Ball stared in a short in the 30's but she was blonde. Can't miss her voice though. I can get quotes for that too.

[rucky]

27. This thread? Nevah!

Every morning like clockwork. I'd just as soon go without my coffee.

Thanks, Ozy!

[Hugin]

59. Naw, Ozy...

It's all good. ;)

[Demeter]

80. Wow, Ozy! 26 Recs!

You're pulling them in off the street now.

[ozymandius]

2. Market Observation

Unemployment Claims
How Bad are the "Real" Numbers?
BY MIKE SHEDLOCK

As noted in Continuing Claims Soar by 159,000 to New Record the record continuing claims number is dramatically understated by over 2.5 million. Charts of what is really happening are shown below, but first let's recap the data as reported by the Department of Labor.

....

-see chart-

Emergency Unemployment Compensation

The continuing claims number that mainstream media focuses on is 6,883,000 as boxed in red above. However, that number ignores extended benefits from the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program.

Those on extended benefits are not counted in the continuing claims numbers.

....

Furthermore, the jobs picture is even worse than it looks. The US consumer was nowhere near as leveraged to real estate in 1980 as now. Also note that boomers are heading into retirement now, undercapitalized and looking for jobs, in effect competing against their kids and grandkids for jobs.

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

[Hawkowl]

73. Holy crap Batman!

I had no idea that "continuing claims" didn't mean the continuation of all unemployment claims.

[ozymandius]

4. Today's Reports

08:30 Export Prices ex-ag. Jun
Briefing.com NA
Consensus NA
Prior 0.3%

08:30 Import Prices ex-oil Jun
Briefing.com NA
Consensus NA
Prior 0.2%

08:30 Trade Balance May
Briefing.com -$31.0B
Consensus -$30.0B
Prior -$29.2B

09:55 Mich Sentiment-Prel Jul
Briefing.com 70.0
Consensus 70.0
Prior 70.8

http://www.briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

[UpInArms]

53. June import prices up 3.2% vs 2.5% expected - May trade gap lowest since Nov. 1999

U.S. June import prices up 3.2% vs 2.5% expected
8:30am Today

U.S. import prices down 17.4% in past year
8:30am Today

U.S. May trade gap narrows 9.8% to $25.96 bln
8:30am Today

June import prices rise, petroleum shoots higher
8:30am Today - By Ruth Mantell

U.S. May trade gap below consensus of $29.4 bln
8:30am Today

U.S. April deficit rev $28.8 bln vs $29.2 prev
8:30am Today

U.S. May trade gap lowest since Nov. 1999
8:30am Today

[UpInArms]

70. US consumers' mood sours in early July -survey - UMich @ 64.6

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN1051183120090710

NEW YORK, July 10 (Reuters) - U.S. consumer sentiment wilted in early July to the weakest since March, when confidence in the financial sector and economy were at a low ebb, the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers showed on Friday.

Consumers' rising concerns about a protracted economic downturn, job security and erosion of wealth were the main factors depressing sentiment, the survey said.

Its preliminary index of confidence for July fell to a reading of 64.6 from the final reading for June of 70.8.

July's preliminary reading was well below economists' median forecast for 70.5 and the first fall in the index since February.

"It underlines the ongoing gloom facing the U.S. consumer and further delays prospects for a near-term recovery. That will weigh heavily on risk sentiment," said Brian Dolan, senior currency strategist with Forex.com in Bedminster, New Jersey.

After the report, stocks lost ground and the dollar extended losses against the yen, while Treasury bond prices added to gains, retesting the session highs on a safe-haven bid.

The survey's index of consumer expectations fell to 60.9 from June's final reading of 69.2.

...more...

[truthisfreedom]

5. You guys must be talking about this

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

[ozymandius]

7. You bet.

We routinely compare the U3 and U6 unemployment stats. U3 is the measure you hear reported on the four second news channels. U6 is a more complete picture that shows the variants in unemployment and under-employment.

[Birthmark]

35. Even the U-6 doesn't give the whole picture.

It counts "discouraged workers" but the way that is calculated is such that someone can be dumped out of that category and into "Not in Labor Force" pretty quickly. I think Williams' estimate on SGS is probably pretty close to reality. 20+% seems about right.

[ozymandius]

43. Agreed.

U6 is a complex aggregate figure. If this stat were posted as a screen crawl on CNN then they would need a second screen crawl just explain what it means.

The last figure I saw on U6 was around 18%. So a 20%+/- average is pretty accurate.

[ozymandius]

9. My new computer is supposed to arrive on Monday.

The UPS mule train departed Colorado on Wednesday. It really cannot get here soon enough.

Firefox has updated to version 3.5 and this has hobbled my browsing experience. I also run Advanced SystemCare to keep the RAM clean and free processor space. That works okay. But the whole computing experience, even simple word processing (which I am way behind in getting some things done), feels like driving a Ford Pinto with only three cylinders firing.

I realize that some of my anxiety is due to the eager anticipation for the arrival of the new Mac. But damn - this system, even if I had not ordered the new box, is just painful.

[UpInArms]

39. I do hope your new computer

is everything you want and resolves your internet and computing difficulties.

I do believe the world would be a much worse place without your input.

:yourock:

:grouphug:

[ozymandius]

45. Thank you, my dear.

Some days are worse than others. Wednesday was horrible with no graphics for awhile - then remnants of drop menus lingered on the screen after the reboot. Today is just annoying. The words do not appear on the screen as quickly as I type them. Even updating the SMW code sheet was problematic.

And right back atcha! :yourock:

[Demeter]

58. Second That!

Besides, who would have the nerve. or time to do what you do? (Heads for exit real fast).

[hamerfan]

77. Congrats on the Apple, Ozy!

You will really like the difference! Here are some tutorials if you're interested:

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

http://www.apple.com/business/theater/?sr=hotnews

http://www.oscot.com/mac-os-x/demystifying-mac-os-x-in-less-than-60-minutes.html

And a very helpful group of people:

http://www.macrumors.com/

Two suggestions. Get AppleCare. Get a good external drive for Time Machine.
hamerfan
PS... The new OS, Snow Leopard, comes out this September. For current Leopard users, the upgrade is $29US.

[ozymandius]

85. Thanks a whole bunch, hamerfan!

These are extremely useful sites. My new box will use the Leopard Mac OS X 10.5. So the inexpensive upgrade will be nice.

An additional USB external HD is a must, I agree.

I have been using Firefox on the PC. I have run across many sites that have registered opinions sullying the introduction of Firefox to the Mac OS. So I will be just fine with Safari. Do you have any opinions about which browsers perform better under the Mac OS X?

[hamerfan]

87. Safari 4 browser

It's fast, it isn't a resource hog, it passes the Acid3 browser test, and a new feature added to it called Top Sites is very nice. Some people use Firefox, some Opera, for me it's Safari.
As for the external drive, I'd recommend firewire over USB. While USB has fast specs, the data transfer rate is not sustained but rather pulsed/oscillated. Firewire rates are sustained for a faster data transfer in real life.
hamerfan
PS... Link to Acid3:

http://acid3.acidtests.org/

One more link. A MacRumors.com forum member has put some very helpful and well done video tutorials on YouTube, here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=r.j.s+on+the+mac&search_type=&aq=f

PPS... The waiting is the hardest part! :-)

[Festivito]

10. Debt: 07/08/2009 11,515,064,224,509.82 (DOWN 8,778,829,180.13) (Up a little, FICA down.)

(Small change.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 7,170,616,284,217.07 + 4,344,447,940,292.75
UP 621,025,720.38 + DOWN 9,399,854,900.51

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 307-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.26 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.78, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 12 seconds we net gain a another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 306,825,542 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 05/25/2009 01:14 -> 306,504,012
Currently, each of these Americans owe $37,529.68.
A family of three owes $112,589.04. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 23 reports in the last 30 days.
The average for the last 23 reports is 5,426,526,729.68.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,160,337,159.42.

There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 116 reports in 169 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging -0.23B$ per report, -0.08B$/day so far.
There were 191 reports in 281 days of FY2009 averaging 7.80B$ per report, 5.30B$/day.

PROJECTION:
There are 1,292 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 13.3 and 18.4T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
07/08/2009 11,515,064,224,509.82 BHO (UP 888,187,175,596.74 so far since Obama took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 1,490,339,327,597.40 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
06/18/2009 -005,859,665,194.24 --
06/19/2009 -000,316,361,675.40 ---
06/22/2009 +000,024,707,752.58 ------------******* Mon
06/23/2009 +000,354,103,704.29 ------------********
06/24/2009 -034,732,231,983.69 -
06/25/2009 -002,856,149,844.34 --
06/26/2009 +000,335,751,413.22 ------------********
06/29/2009 +000,126,971,012.08 ------------******** Mon
06/30/2009 +084,349,097,965.60 ------------**********
07/01/2009 -009,218,801,329.89 --
07/02/2009 -025,885,550,566.82 -
07/03/2009 -000,017,140,719.16 ----
07/06/2009 +029,989,200,037.82 ------------********** Mon
07/07/2009 +000,215,166,015.48 ------------********
07/08/2009 +000,621,025,720.38 ------------********

37,130,122,307.91 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $1,850,432,421,250.75 in last 293 days.
That's 1,850B$ in 293 days.
More than any year ever, including last year, and it's 182% of that highest year ever only in 293 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 293 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3960499&mesg_id=3962283

[Festivito]

75. Debt: 07/09/2009 11,526,304,058,825.54 (UP 11,239,834,315.72) (Up 10B$.)

(This would be a normal raise in debt.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 7,181,012,709,229.66 + 4,345,291,349,595.88
UP 10,396,425,012.59 + UP 843,409,303.13

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 307-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.26 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.78, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 12 seconds we net gain a another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 306,832,742 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 05/25/2009 01:14 -> 306,504,012
Currently, each of these Americans owe $37,565.43.
A family of three owes $112,696.29. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 23 reports in the last 30 days.
The average for the last 23 reports is 5,862,817,538.98.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,494,826,779.89.

There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 117 reports in 170 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging -0.21B$ per report, -0.06B$/day so far.
There were 192 reports in 282 days of FY2009 averaging 7.82B$ per report, 5.32B$/day.

PROJECTION:
There are 1,291 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 13.3 and 18.4T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
07/09/2009 11,526,304,058,825.54 BHO (UP 899,427,009,912.46 so far since Obama took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 1,501,579,161,913.10 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
06/19/2009 -000,316,361,675.40 ---
06/22/2009 +000,024,707,752.58 ------------******* Mon
06/23/2009 +000,354,103,704.29 ------------********
06/24/2009 -034,732,231,983.69 -
06/25/2009 -002,856,149,844.34 --
06/26/2009 +000,335,751,413.22 ------------********
06/29/2009 +000,126,971,012.08 ------------******** Mon
06/30/2009 +084,349,097,965.60 ------------**********
07/01/2009 -009,218,801,329.89 --
07/02/2009 -025,885,550,566.82 -
07/03/2009 -000,017,140,719.16 ----
07/06/2009 +029,989,200,037.82 ------------********** Mon
07/07/2009 +000,215,166,015.48 ------------********
07/08/2009 +000,621,025,720.38 ------------********
07/09/2009 +010,396,425,012.59 ------------**********

53,386,212,514.74 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $1,861,672,255,566.47 in last 294 days.
That's 1,862B$ in 294 days.
More than any year ever, including last year, and it's 183% of that highest year ever only in 294 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 294 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3962519&mesg_id=3962536

[Demeter]

11. The Global Saving Glut: Rest in Peace? Mirage? Bete noir?

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/06/the_global_savi.html



...I still wonder whether there ever was a global saving glut. In part, the question hinges on one's view of what the nature of the glut. Was it world saving was higher then they it had been before. That patently was not true (and will be even less true as government deficits rise). Was it that saving relative to investment in East Asia and oil exporting countries was higher in the early 2000's than in the past? That view is more defensible. Yet, it's important to recall that current account balances are endogenous variables, determined by the interaction of saving and investment in different economies, so one can't say without further analysis whether the US current account deficit was driven by excess supply of saving from East Asia, or excess demand for saving from the United States. And we for sure know that there was plenty of pull from the US (tax-cut induced public sector 9SEE ORIGINAL LINK TO LINK TO HIS WOKISH PAPER ON THIS TOPIC)

The strongest evidence in favor of the global saving glut explanation, so construed, is that interest rates seemed unnaturally low at roughly the same time the US current account deficit was large. Well, what's the evidence for that assertion?



Figure 1: Current account to GDP ratio (blue); 10 year constant maturity real interest rates, calculated by using Survey of Professional Forecasters 10 year expected inflation rates (red); and 10 year constant maturity real interest rates from TIPS yields (green). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BEA, 2009Q1 GDP preliminary release, St. Louis Fed, Survey of Professional Forecasters, and NBER.

The correlation between real interest rates and the US current account deficit has always been something I viewed as more asserted than obvious in the actual data, and that point becomes apparent in this picture. Even if one saw the correlation for a few years in the mid-2000's, for certain the alleged correlation has disappeared for now. The US current account has begun a headlong drive toward balance, even as long term rates remain at levels comparable to those in 2004 (if one uses TIPS). The real interest rate is even lower, if one uses expectations data to convert nominal to real rates.

I think this debate is not purely academic. As Jeff Frankel points out in his speech, the question has not been completely resolved as to why the US ran such large current account deficits since 2001. On one side are those who focus on the "push" of saving from East Asia combined with the lure of incredibly sophisticated and sound US financial markets, leading to excess risk taking and leverage in the US, which in turn induced an unsustainable boom and bust episode <2>. As I discussed in this post from January, this is essentially the view propounded by the previous Administration in the last Economic Report of the President (Chapter 2).

However, I think it at least equally plausible -- especially after the revelations of the frenzy to abdicate regulatory responsibility and loosening capital requirements in the previous Administration (and the resulting attendant criminal behavior) -- that "pulled in" saving from the rest of the world. So my view is that the "saving glut" was more of a typical Kindleberger type of mania, combined with the Akerlof-RoemerRomer (not Romer Paul, not David) type of "looting" behavior.

Whether we will have a recurrence of the US current account imbalance depends in part upon whether you hold the "push" view or the "pull" view. It also depends on whether, if you hew to the latter view, the Obama Administration and Congress can come to an agreement on a regulatory framework which quells the risk-taking and "looting" behavior we have seen over the previous eight years.

So the answer to the question I posed in the title: (1) the saving glut as an idea should indeed be put to rest; in fact (2) the saving glut was mostly a mirage, and the US current account deficit really was much more a function of a typical capital inflow boom driven by an unsustainable fiscal policy (as in Frieden (2006) and Chinn (2005)) and deregulatory disarmament than those much lauded "sophisticated" American securities markets; and (3) The saving glut did not "cause" the current economic and financial crisis; that is largely a result of our own policy errors on macro and regulatory policy of our own making.

[ozymandius]

14. Oil below $60 as traders eye company results

VIENNA – Oil prices slid below $60 a barrel Friday as investors braced for company earnings reports next week that will provide clues on the strength of crude demand.

While global appetite for crude over the next few months remains unclear, expectations are that it will increase by next year, with the International Energy agency predicting a 1.7 percent rebound in demand by next year.

Benchmark crude for August delivery was down 69 cents at $59.72 a barrel by midday European electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Thursday, the contract rose 27 cents to settle at $60.41.

....

The IEA left its forecast for 2009 oil demand unchanged, and still expects it to drop 2.9 percent.

....

In other Nymex trading, gasoline and heating oil for August delivery fell by more than a cent to $1.65 and $1.52 a gallon. Natural gas for August delivery was steady at $3.40 per 1,000 cubic feet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

[UpInArms]

54. August crude down $1.58 to $58.83 a barrel

August crude down $1.58 to $58.83 a barrel
8:25am Today

[Demeter]

17. On the coming neo-feudalism

http://animalspiritspage.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-coming-neo-feudalism.html

It does seem as if the vast majority of people in the United State of America are going to become like medieval serfs, living at what feels in the post-gilded-age new realities like subsistence, watching a small slice of society from a distance as they jet in and out of the country, monopolize the ski resorts, continue to live in big houses with two or three thousand square per person, and so on.

The Baby Boom doesn’t have enough money to retire (quaint notion) and will be working till they drop, which will actually extend their lives. The Gen X’ers will continue to live on scraps. The Millennials are idealistically waiting their turn to be heroes while trying to find a way to support themselves in a workforce that is top-heavy with whining Boomers and cagey Gen X’ers. Most of us will work for large or small corporations at a wage that is enough to support a modest lifestyle, but holidays will be spent close to home. We will worry that we may be next to join the ranks of the unemployed, many of whom and whose stories we know—stories of lost jobs, houses, children’s sense of security in forced moves to strange communities. The health consequences of the current crisis are no doubt predictable. In a PBS special on other countries’ health programs, a German was asked if unemployed people lose their health benefits there. Of course not, he said. They are under great stress and risk to their health. They need health benefits more than anyone.

For a developed nation, America is a barbaric place.

Demand will not recover. The Stimulus, piling upon preexisting terrifying trillions in deficits courtesy of Bush, will not work. Spending will be cut to satisfy our external creditors. The sheer weight of the debt will slow the economy. The narrow U3 unemployment rate will rise into the double digits and stay there through the president’s term. The “real” under- and unemployment rate U6 will hit twenty percent, and stay in the high teens.

The poor and disenfranchised may even take to the streets at some point. Americans are pretty timid now, worried that they’ll be called terrorists and disappear in the night or be put on the no-fly list. Habeas corpus is gone. Last September Hank Paulson said we may need martial law. The government has been preparing for it. There are empty prison camps standing ready, according to reliable reports. (Many were built by Halliburton, allegedly.) The Katrina experience showed us what to expect: mercenaries will disarm the public; impose martial law; tell you to stay in your house or get shot. FEMA’s National Level Exercise scheduled for late July is supposedly a counter-terrorism drill, but I would bet it involves practicing how to impose martial law. Some believe the true purpose of the exercise itself will be to disarm the public. Lots of luck with that. That might provoke the first shots of a revolution. But perhaps that is the intent, to show force and discourage any further dissent. Like Iran now. Like China twenty years ago.

Will President Obama be able to prevent this? I don’t think so. His government has thrown trillions at financial institutions, but we don’t even have workfare or income support for the long-term unemployed, and not everyone is even covered by unemployment insurance. There are 25 million people in the U6 category today. What happens when there are 50 million? Will the government help them, or try to lock them all up? We have a higher percentage of our population behind bars than any other developed country. Will the fortunate just sit in their houses and hope that the Xe guys (formerly Blackwater—great name for a mercenary outfit) will protect them and their property from roving gangs?

Americans have lost confidence in their government and themselves. Their elected representatives do not listen to them. The President is an agent of the status quo. He has enabled the largest wealth transfer to a privileged elite in American history during the financial crisis, at the expense of the American taxpayer for years to come. Does any American believe the new financial regulations will break the grip of the rich upon the resources of the nation? Will we all come together all can-do, gung-ho style and pitch in together and the income distribution suddenly become more equal as it did in World War II and pull ourselves out of this?

It ain’t happening.

These problems, of course, are replicated in many other countries, including our ostensible long-term rival and enemy, China. Which is why the next ten years are a breeding ground for fascism around the world, and for the seeds of war. We went into Iraq to build military bases to protect “our” oil, if push comes to shove. But our military policies are backward-looking to the last war, as John Robb and others point out. We will look pretty stupid when someone pulls off what Robb calls a systempunkt right here at home while we’re blowing billions in Afghanistan. We don’t require our kids to get educated well. Obama is backing off a single-payer health insurance plan, the one preferred by the American people and the one that makes the most sense from an insurance point of view. The American social contract is broken.

People say Europe will be a museum in a decade, a lot of pretty castles and tourist attractions and mamoni hanging around at cafes. America might be like a ski resort, with some beautiful neighborhoods in the cities and trailer parks outside where the workers and retired people live. The Chinese will buy up real estate and companies and immigrate in large numbers, as they did to Vancouver from Hong Kong, having bought enough members of Congress to get their way. They won the financial war, fair and square. They might even teach us how to make state capitalism work, as the Japanese taught us how to make quality automobiles.

Or we could try democracy, for a change.

[4dsc]

88. Its amzing what conservative economic policies have done to this country..

Its been downhill since the Reagan years for the middle class.

[ozymandius]

18. New General Motors expected to exit Chapter 11

DETROIT – After a night spent signing mounds of paperwork authorizing the transfer of cash, real estate, technology and other property, GM attorneys are expected to officially usher the new General Motors out of bankruptcy protection on Friday and onto a path toward a hopefully profitable future.

Once the world's largest and most powerful automaker, the troubled company is expected to emerge cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans. Spurred on by the Obama administration's support, the process took just 40 days, even slightly quicker than crosstown rival Chrysler Group LLC's 42-day timeframe.

On Thursday, a bankruptcy court order allowing GM to sell most of its assets to a new company went into effect. The new GM, 61 percent owned by the U.S. government, will face a brutally competitive global automotive market in the middle of the worst sales slump in a quarter-century.

At a 9 a.m. press conference Friday, CEO Fritz Henderson will announce that GM will cut another 4,000 white-collar jobs, including 450 top executives. The company still employs 88,000 people in the U.S. and 235,000 worldwide.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090710/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gm_bankruptcy

[UpInArms]

20. dollar watch

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=i

Last trade 80.398 Change +0.463 (+0.60%)

U.S. Dollar Remains Range Bound Against the Majors

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/market_alerts/fundamental_alert/U_S__Dollar_Remains_Range_Bound_1247204854817.html

The market had high hopes of a break-out in the range on the dollar that has held for the last month, but was sorely disappointed with the dollar rally rejected Wednesday and the dollar ending the week in Asia, firmly within the recent 1.3800-1.4200 range in EUR-USD and in familiar ranges against the AUD, NZD and GBP. The USD-JPY however is still suffering from the renewed risk aversion, with the currency pair consolidating around 93.00 in Asia with a range of 92.77-98.18 seen during Friday's session. EUR-USD was heavy, edging down from 1.4013 to 1.3964 but still firmly ensconced in the middle of the recent trading range. NYMEX crude remained weak, holding near $60 and down slightly on the session with fears over global demand underpinned by reports that Japanese cargo shippers are taking large price cuts in Pan-Pacific cargo deals and with the Baltic Dry Index continuing to fall. The shipping cuts weighed on shipping stocks in Japan, limiting any rise in the Nikkei with Asian stocks mixed on the day. Treasury yields edged marginally lower from NY levels as JGB yields for two-year bonds dropped to fresh 3 1/2 year lows.

...more...

Risk Appetite, Carry Performance Suffers as Fundamentals Outpace Investment Flows

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/trading_reports/dynamic_carry_trade_basket/Risk_Appetite__Carry_Performance_Suffers_1247184946376.html

• Risk Appetite, Carry Performance Suffers as Fundamentals Outpace Investment Flows
• Will the G8 Meeting Leave Its Mark on the Markets?
• IMF Reports Modest Upgrades to Growth Forecasts, But Recession Is Still Pervasive

How much capital was sidelined during the worst of the financial crisis back in October and November? This is perhaps one of the most important yet overlooked questions in the market. The rebound in markets and sentiment that began back in early March was no doubt founded through optimism; but this confidence extends only as far as drawing risk-tolerant investors out of risk-free assets like treasuries into the regular investment space. For the markets to truly enter the next bullish phase, the outlook for growth and returns has to compensate for the prevailing level of risk. And, considering officials’ growth and earnings projections, the future does not look very bullish. Taking stock of the progress of market to this week, we can see the congestion that developed in June after three months of steady advance has started to progress into declines. This was clearly visible in the traditional markets with the S&P 500 down nearly 8 percent from its June highs after having cleared popular support at 8,200. Good will ran thin for commodities as well. Crude seemingly ran too high in its surprisingly consistent advance from February; and subsequently, the price for one of the world’s most precious resources dropped 19 percent in the past seven days. For currencies, the turn has been more measured on an individual pairs’ basis. However, looking at the carry trade as a barometer, we have seen a clear break of trend over these past few weeks. Options activity and yield forecasts have supported this move; but it is important to note that volatility is not deeming this a panic move.

In determining whether the risk appetite and the broader markets are going to rise over the next week, month or any time frame; you need to define those factors that are most pressing to the balance of risk and reward. After plunging to a six-year low following the credit crisis late last year (and holding at these lows through the first quarter of this year) we have seen the need to discount another financial seizure or extend the depth of the global recession ease. However, should we be on the same track as the best of the 2006/2007 rally when the world’s advanced economies are still mired in recession and budget deficits are creating unprecedented complications for the future? In a word, no. We may be seeing some sense of equilibrium where the market at large believes the worst of the financial and economic troubles have past but that positive growth and attractive returns are not yet within site. The IMF updated its benchmarks on global growth. A modest downward revision to this year’s forecast (from a 1.3 percent contraction predicted in April to a 1.4 percent slump this time around) was offset by the positive adjustment to the 2010 figures (from 1.9 percent to 2.5 percent expansion). At the same time, those forecasts for the world’s leading economies (the US, Euro Zone and Japan) were far more reserved, suggesting an ‘L’-shaped recovery. And, these forecasts will in turn determine the market’s pace. Credit is not finding its way from banks to consumers; and yet stimulus unwinding is already being discussed at the G8. The next hurdle is 2Q earnings next week.



...more...

[Demeter]

21. Is China Trying to Use Asset Inflation to Stimulate Consumption?

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/06/is-china-trying-to-use-asset-inflation.html

Michael Pettis put up a long and useful post on the options open to China given a decline in US consumption and therefore its trade deficit, both of which he deems to be inevitable.(SEE LINK IN ORIGINAL POST)

Pettis argues that all things being equal, growth in China would probably be lower than most assume, 5%-6%. Note that while that sound awfully good compared to the US, China needs a growth rate of 8% to absorb new workers, so anything below 8% would seem like a recession. Here is a key section:

Since the balance of payments must balance, if US GDP growth exceeds US consumption growth, China’s consumption growth must exceed China’s GDP growth, and Chinese savings must decline. Chinese savings can decline because consumption rises, or they can decline because GDP declines, but they must decline.

That implies that Chinese GDP growth, rather than be constrained on the bottom by consumption growth (i.e. GDP must grow faster than consumption), will now be constrained on the top by consumption growth. China’s growth in GDP, in other words, will be less than its growth in consumption unless there is a surge in investment. There has, of course, been a fiscally induced surge in investment, but with rising debt and collapsing corporate profitability, I think this can at best continue for a year or two, and probably much less.

So what does that mean for future Chinese growth? When China was growing at 11-13% a year, Chinese consumption was growing by 9% a year. The rapid reversal in the earlier decline in US savings might cause Chinese GDP growth to grow by at least 1-2% below consumption. So if we assume that Chinese consumption continues growing at 9%, this initially suggests GDP growth rates of 7-8%.

But hold on. If GDP growth rates of 11-13% translate into 9% consumption growth rates, is it reasonable to assume that GDP growth rates of 7-8% will still result in 9% growth rates in consumption? I doubt it. My guess is that the growth in Chinese consumption will also slow. This suggests that while the US is adjusting, China’s annual growth rate must be significantly below 7-8%, perhaps 5-6%, or even lower. The key is the rate of Chinese and US fiscal expansion, in the former case to permit the rise in Chinese savings rates not to constrain domestic growth, and in the latter case to slow down the contraction of the US trade deficit.



Pettis, however, thinks China will attempt to stoke rising asset prices to make consumers feel wealthier and therefore spend at higher rates than they might otherwise:

But this is just a guess, and the example of Japan after the 1987 crash and the subsequent reversal in US dis-savings suggests that while a credit bubble can keep the game going in China for a few years longer, ultimately the surprise may be on the downside. On that subject let me note something that an unnamed official confessed about the impact of the US crisis on his country’s economy:

We intended first to boost the stock and property markets. Supported by this safety net – rising markets – export-oriented industries were supposed to reshape themselves so they could adapt to a domestic-led economy. This step was supposed to bring about an enormous growth of assets over every economic sector. The wealth effect would in turn touch off personal consumption and residential investment, followed by an increase in investment in plant and equipment. In the end, loosened monetary policy would boost real economic growth.


It sounds plausible and like it might work. Except that it didn’t. The unnamed official was not an anonymous friend of mine at the PBoC. According to Tomohiko Taniguchi, in Japan’s Banks and the “Bubble economy” of the Late 1980s, the speaker was an official at the Bank of Japan and he made the comments in 1988, during a period when Japan was routinely referred to as a “creditor superpower” (and a country, by the way, with enormous foreign currency reserves, and whose currency would within one or two decades, everyone knew, become the world’s reserve currency).

After the 1987 Crash in the US, many expected the Japanese markets also to crash. But they didn’t. After faltering briefly, the Ministry of Finance ordered the Big Four brokerages to support the market, and support it they did. Within a few months the Nikkei was testing new highs, leading a Ministry of Finance official to boast that manipulating the stock market was easier than controlling foreign exchange. Check Edward Chancellor’s Devil Take the Hindmost for an illuminating take on the Japanese bubble economy of the 1980s.

The comparisons with China are, and of course are meant to be, a little worrying. This is not to say that China must repeat Japan’s spectacular 1990 crash and subsequent lost decade (or two). It is simply to point out that none of what we are seeing in China is particularly new and far from being a source of great strength, the intense manipulation of monetary and fiscal policies and the financial markets can actually make the necessary adjustment for China much more difficult. Just as Japan failed to come to terms with the sudden collapse of the US trade deficit and tried to export and monetize its way out, China may be doing something very similar.


This theory seems plausible. However, it is important to note that China also is well aware of what happened to Japan post the Louvre accord (1985) which forced down the value of the yen (it fell over 50% against the dollar). China appears to be trying to keep its surplus from falling as rapidly as Japan's did (Pettis notes that it is in fact still rising, which means China is gaining at the expense of other exporters, but it is also due to a fall in imports, which muddies the picture). That of course risks protectionist backlash.

Despite knowing the outcome of Japan's successful but hugely costly effort to stoke consumption, China may believe it can devise a version 2.0 of their approach that has a happier ending. Stay tuned.

[Demeter]

22. Chinese Stats Official Says Economic Growth Last Year Was Slower Than Many Thought

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2009/06/23/chinese-stats-official-says-economic-growth-was-slower-than-many-thought-last-year/?mod=rss_WSJBlog

As confidence in the prospects for China’s economy this year has become more widespread, a new picture of its recent performance has also emerged – one that could finally make it easier to compare China’s economy to those of other big countries.

In an unusual essay (in Chinese here), Guo Tongxin, an official at the National Bureau of Statistics, gives estimates for recent changes in China’s gross domestic product that follow the international convention of quarter-on-quarter comparisons. That’s a technical-but-important departure from China’s usual practice of describing year-on-year growth – and the figures paint a very different view of China’s economy over the last year or so than the headline numbers China has previously announced. (The article, published Tuesday, carries a disclaimer saying it represents Guo’s personal views, not those of the bureau.)

China’s traditional method compares GDP – and most other indicators – to the same period in the previous year. The U.S. and most other developed economies report GDP’s changes relative to the previous quarter, which gives a clearer picture of the most recent trend. But with the onset of the financial crisis, China’s statistics bureau has been working to improve the transparency and quality of its data. Among other changes, it has promised to start regularly publishing quarterly GDP growth rates in 2010. Many private-sector economists already try to make such estimates, but complain they lack sufficient information to do so accurately.

The new estimates from Guo, which only cover 2008 and early 2009, may be a surprise for skeptics who suspect that China’s statistics officials are only capable of reporting nice-sounding numbers. These figures actually show the slowdown in the fourth quarter of last year was even sharper than most outside economists had believed.

Economists surveyed by the Journal in February had, on average, estimated that fourth-quarter GDP expanded at an annualized rate of 2.1%. Guo cited what he called a preliminary estimate that fourth quarter GDP grew 0.1% from the previous quarter, equivalent to an annualized rate of just 0.4%.

The headline year-on-year growth rate announced at the time, by comparison, was 6.8% — a gap that clearly shows how quarterly and annual growth rates can give very different pictures of economic turning points.

In a recent article, noted China economist Albert Keidel said the preference for year-on-year comparisons “illustrates the choice made by China’s statistical authorities to use measures that are relatively stable and change only gradually.” The year-on-year comparisons are not necessarily less accurate – the U.S. and other nations also report them – but their use does mean Chinese authorities “give up measures that present a more timely picture of what happened to the economy in the immediately preceding quarter or month,” Keidel wrote. That preference has come to seem much less desirable given the rapid changes in the economy over the past year, and has led to pressure on the statistics bureau to improve.

For the first quarter of 2009, when outside economists generally agreed with the bureau’s assessment that growth had picked up significantly, the difference isn’t so great. Guo’s preliminary estimate of a 1.5% quarterly expansion, equivalent to 6.1% annualized rate, is within the 5% to 7% range that most private economists came up with at the time. Guo also said growth for the second quarter is likely to accelerate further to above 2.0%, equivalent to an annualized increase of more than 8%.

Still, it’s notable that the bureau only disclosed the low estimate for fourth-quarter growth several months after the fact, when the government is more confident the economy is recovering. It’s not alone — the World Bank and several investment-bank economists have recently raised their forecast for China’s growth this year, citing the bigger-than-expected effect of the government’s stimulus programs. But it’s hard to escape the feeling that the statistics bureau is still sensitive to the political implications the numbers it publishes.

–Andrew Batson

[ozymandius]

23. Damn Fool of a Treasury Secretary: 'Geithner says derivatives blindsided the gov't'

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is telling lawmakers the U.S. economy stumbled last year in part because the power and risks of an explosive derivatives market blindsided the government.

In congressional testimony prepared for delivery Friday, Geithner said the ease with which derivatives were bought and sold in an era of easy credit encouraged financial institutions and investors to take on too much risk.

At the same time, government regulators weren't given the proper tools to mitigate those risks and protect the American consumer, he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090710/ap_on_go_co/us_financial_overhaul

---

Fucking Liar! If my employee said something so completely untrue - he would be fired before he started his next sentence. This idiot of a Geithner does not even know that it was the chief regulator, himself, who requested that derivatives remain unregulated and requested that the rules be changed to allow banks to leverage 40 to 1. Why is he still allowed to shill for the Federal Reserve? And why the hell is he allowed a public forum to practice his ulterior motive of seeing his pal, Lawrence Summers - the incompetent boob, elevated to Fed chief?

Obama needs to get rid of him.

[Demeter]

26. Second That! Geithner's First in Line for a FRSP

After purging the previous administration, of course. Or should we do current ones first? I'm more afraid of our past villains than present ones....because they could make a come back, especially if a power vacuum results...

[Tansy_Gold]

33. Is this a "special" enough occasion?

Ugh.





People have been publicly warning of the derivatives bomb at least since Enron imploded. AT LEAST. I'm no economist. I never paid attention to this shit before Enron. The only thing I remember about the stock market in the news was during the '87 crash and a friend who "lost" a bunch of money in that was whining about it and I told her yeah, but you lost money you didn't really have so what's the big deal? She told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I sort of believed her.

But for Geithner to say this is simply unconscionable, but no one will make him face that fact. And he won't make Obama face it either.


Shit.




Tansy Gold

[AnneD]

79. Refresh my peri menopausal memory

as to the abbreviation.

[Demeter]

81. "I Told You So!"

What are friends for? Extended memories!

[Tansy_Gold]

83. LOL

I

Told

You

So

[AnneD]

89. Thanks guys......

It should stick now. The memory randomly short circuits so I never can tell what sticks and what doesn't.

[Demeter]

34. SEC, CFTC to Police OTC Derivatives

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/07/10/business/business-us-financial-derivatives.html?_r=1

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is set to propose on Friday giving securities and futures regulators authority to police the over-the-counter derivatives market, according to a document obtained by Reuters.

"Our plan will help prevent market manipulation, fraud and other abuses by providing full information to regulators about activity in the OTC derivative markets," Geithner says in the testimony to be delivered to Congress.

The $450 trillion privately-traded global derivatives market includes credit default swaps, the financial instrument which nearly toppled insurer American International Group.

Later on Friday, Geithner is due to testify before two key Congressional committees on the government's plan to regulate derivatives.

According to the document, major dealers such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs would be subject to "substantial supervision and regulations," including conservative capital requirements and strong business conduct standards.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees securities, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which supervises futures markets, would have authority to impose recordkeeping and reporting requirements on the derivatives.

CLEAR AUTHORITY

The SEC and the CFTC would also have clear authority for civil enforcement and regulation of fraud, market manipulation and other abuses, the document said. JUST WHAT WE NEED, MORE REGULATED FRAUD!

The Obama administration has already proposed sweeping reforms for the country's financial regulation, including broad proposals to regulate derivatives.

Its plan is geared toward removing counterparty risks by requiring greater use of central counterparties and imposing stricter capital standards on participants.

The administration is also trying to encourage greater use of standardized contracts to help push the instruments onto a central clearing house and exchanges.

That has stoked concern among financial institutions who say certain contracts are customized to their clients and not meant to be cleared or traded on an exchange.

In the testimony, Geithner provided more detail on what will be deemed a standardized contract.

The administration will propose a broad definition that will be capable of evolving with the markets and will be designed to be difficult to evade, he said.

Other characteristics include high volume of transactions in the contract and a presumption that a derivative accepted for clearing by any central counterparty is standardized.

In the United States, four large banks control over 90 percent of the derivatives market: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

[UpInArms]

52. CTFC means Consumers Totally Fleeced Constantly

http://open.salon.com/blog/pspeete/2008/08/21/ctfc_means_consumers_totally_fleeced_constantly

So why do so many of us have to scrape up pennies to buy gas, pay through the nose for groceries, and hope that we end the month with enough money to eat and drive to and from work? Why are truckers losing their rigs to the repo man and having to skip food and rooms on long hauls? Its because the Commodity Futures Trading Commission(CTFC), supposed regulators of traders on the NYMEX, allowed speculators to control over 80% of all oil futures traded by a select group of speculators who have taken us to the cleaners constantly. These traders are thieves who have robbed you and me blind during the whole Bush Administration. They have done absolutely nothing about it for seven years. Foreign firms like Switzerland's VITOL, literally bilking us out of billions with the blessing of regulators. Read David Cho's article in the Washington Post and believe me, It will piss you off!
"Using swap dealers as middlemen, investment funds have poured into the commodity markets, raising their holdings to $260 billion this year from $13 billion in 2003. During that same period, the price of crude oil rose unabated every year."
So when we heard about Cheney's energy meetings that he insisted be kept private, it was so that they could plot the fleecing of us without any oversight.

These crooks in suits have immunity from prosecution. They and Enron did the double whammy on us. Oh sure now that they have stolen a trillion dollars from American consumers they will get a slap on the wrist down the road. And if you think the oversight was due to an honest mistake, think again. Four Democratic Senators saw through the last commission report released to influence a Senate vote on the issue. You and I, we are still screwed! Just rename the CTFC the Consumers Totally Fleeced Constantly for a little truth in government. Oh yeah,

I wanted to use another word for Fleeced, you can guess what it is, a four letter word for intercourse! But if I did, the F.C.C. would want to fine me. Phil Gramm, who, with his wife Wendy Gramm made all this possible with their commodities deregulation, he'd just call me a f'......n whiner. Wake up, America, its not that we don't need to drill, but we have to stop getting drilled by the oil speculators who artificially drove the price through the roof. McCain had to know what was happening, he's the experienced one,right? Phil Gramm was his economic brain, right?,When are Americans going to get Mad as Hell? I know I am!

[Demeter]

55. U.S. Considers Curbs on Speculative Trading of Oil (PERHAPS THE MESSAGE WENT THROUGH?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/business/08cftc.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Reacting to the violent swings in oil prices in recent months, federal regulators announced on Tuesday that they were considering new restrictions on “speculative” traders in markets for oil, natural gas and other energy products.

The move is a big departure from the hands-off approach to market regulation of the last two decades. It also highlights a broader shift toward tougher government oversight under President Obama.

Since Mr. Obama took office, the Justice Department has stepped up antitrust enforcement activities, abandoning many legal doctrines adopted by the Bush administration.

The Obama administration is also proposing an overhaul of financial regulation that would include tougher capital requirements for big banks, tighter regulation of hedge funds and a new consumer protection agency with broad power to regulate credit cards, mortgages and other consumer lending.

In the case of oil and gas trading, regulators made it clear that they were willing to move, without waiting for Congress to act on Mr. Obama’s overhaul, invoking their existing powers. WHAT A DIFFERENCE AN ELECTION MAKES! NOW THAT'S CHANGE THAT'S OVERDUE!

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it would consider imposing volume limits on trading of energy futures by purely financial investors and that it already has adopted tougher information requirements aimed at identifying the role of hedge funds and traders who swap contracts outside of regulated exchanges like the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“My firm belief is that we must aggressively use all existing authorities to ensure market integrity,” said Gary Gensler, chairman of the commission, in a statement. He said regulators would also examine whether to impose federal “speculative limits” on futures contracts for energy products.

Much of Mr. Gensler’s announcement was focused on precise issues well within his agency’s authority, suggesting that he was serious about seeking changes. But his proposals could encounter fierce opposition from big banks and Wall Street firms, which are each big traders in the commodity markets and manage big investment funds focused on commodities. Oil prices hit a record high of $145 a barrel last summer, then plunged to $33 a barrel last December and have since bounced back to more than $60.

Much of the wild swings over the last year were caused by chaos in the global financial system, as banks and much of Wall Street came perilously close to collapse last September and the global economy fell into the most severe recession in decades.

But a growing number of critics have blamed those who are betting on the direction of energy prices for some of the extreme volatility.

“It is the regulatory authority’s business to make sure the markets work,” said Edward L. Morse, head of research at LCM Commodities, a brokerage in New York. “If there’s a lesson of that last few years, it’s that the markets haven’t been functioning as well as they should have been.”

Analysts said regulators face huge challenges in distinguishing normal volatility, which is always high during a chaotic economic period, from speculative swings propelled by investors seeking purely financial gains who end up distorting energy prices.

Mr. Gensler appears focused on two basic goals. The first is to limit the volume of trading by purely financial investors, the “speculators,” as opposed to businesses like airlines or oil companies that consume or produce oil and want to minimize their exposure to big changes in price. But according to data compiled by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, other noncommercial traders accounted for almost one-fifth of the activity in several major oil and gas products for June.

The government already imposes speculative limits on agricultural commodities like corn and wheat. But for energy products, the limits are left to exchanges like the New York Mercantile Exchange. Mr. Gensler said the limits that have been set in the past have never been aimed at reducing speculative excesses, and financial traders often receive exemptions.

The government’s second goal is to shed more light on who the players really are.

The commission also announced that it will pull back part of the veil on the oil and gas markets, publishing much more detailed information about the aggregate activity of hedge funds and tapping into new information about traders who swap energy contracts outside of traditional exchanges.

Mr. Gensler’s proposals are likely to be opposed by the banks and Wall Street firms that arrange swap contracts in the commodity markets and operate funds that invest in commodities.

Mr. Gensler is in some ways a surprising person to lead the charge for tougher regulation. A former investment banker and a high-ranking Treasury official during the Clinton administration, he was among those who defeated efforts in the late 1990s to regulate financial derivatives, an effort led by one of Mr. Gensler’s predecessors at the futures trading commission, Brooksley E. Born.

Several important Senate Democrats opposed Mr. Gensler because they suspected he was too friendly to industry. Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, voted against Mr. Gensler’s nomination and said on Tuesday that he wanted to see the chairman follow through with actual rules.

“I welcome the announcement,” Mr. Dorgan said in a written statement. “but it is only concrete action that will prove the C.F.T.C. is finally an effective cop on the beat.”

The commission is an independent agency that regulates the trading of futures contracts for commodities including wheat, corn, oil, precious metals and currencies. For years it has followed a deregulatory path that rarely interfered the growing markets under its jurisdiction.

A future is a contract to buy or to sell a particular volume of a commodity by a particular date. Futures contracts were created to help farmers shield themselves from price volatility for their crops, and speculators absorb that risk by buying contracts that allow them to bet on price swings. Futures are now used to trade a wide variety commodities, including oil, gas, precious metals, Treasury bonds and foreign currencies.

[MattSh]

63. Oil: Speculation or something else?

Being the continual skeptic of anything the MSM has to say, I'm always on the lookout for an alternate explanation. While I do think that out of control speculation had much to do with the rise of oil prices last year, it just didn't seem to adequately describe what is going on in the market this year. Here (IMHO) is a much better explanation to this years rise in oil prices.

Sorry, I can't link to it, since it's from a subscription only publication.

1. The plummeting value of the dollar. - Since the dollar's high on March 9, the CAD/USD exchange rate has gone from 1.3 to 1.09. So while prices in Canadian dollars has gone up 22%, the price has gone up 46% in USD. So half the increase in the price of oil is because of the plummeting value of USD's. And that's important because oil is denominated in USD. Can't blame the speculators for that. Blame the plummeting dollar on policies of the Fed.

2. The general rise in US equities. The price of oil tends to move with the market, not against it. And the market is up 34%. Why? Not because speculators are moving both the oil market and equities in general. Again, policies of the Fed are behind the rise in the overall market, along with a change in FASB accounting rules, under pressure from Congress.

This publication believes that 85% of the rise in the price of oil this year can be explained by these two factors.

While I agree speculation needs reasonable controls, just like anything else in the market, there seems to be a quality in the "speculation is the problem" reporting of Congress saying "look over there, don't look over here". Look at speculators, because if you look in our direction, you might just see that Congress and Fed policies are the problem.

[ozymandius]

36. Global Banking Economist Warned of Coming Crisis

William White predicted the approaching financial crisis years before 2007's subprime meltdown. But central bankers preferred to listen to his great rival Alan Greenspan instead, with devastating consequences for the global economy.

.....

White is wearing his pinstriped suits again. He has just returned from California, where he gave a talk at a large mutual fund company. Then he packed his bags again and jetted to London, where he consulted with the Treasury. After that, he returned to Switzerland to speak at the University of Basel, and then went on to Frankfurt to present a paper at the Center for Financial Studies. From there, White traveled to Paris to attend a meeting at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Finally, he flew back across the Atlantic to Canada. White is clearly in demand, including in North America.

....

Listening to him, that is, and not to his rival of many years, the once-powerful former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan. Greenspan, who was reverentially known as "The Maestro," was celebrated as the greatest central banker of all time -- until the US real estate bubble burst and the crash began.

Before then, no one in the world of central banks would have dared to openly criticize Greenspan's successful policy of cheap money. No one except White, that is.

....

White and his team of experts observed the real estate bubble developing in the United States. They criticized the increasingly impenetrable securitization business, vehemently pointed out the perils of risky loans and provided evidence of the lack of credibility of the rating agencies. In their view, the reason for the lack of restraint in the financial markets was that there was simply too much cheap money available on the market. To give all this money somewhere to go, investment bankers invented new financial products that were increasingly sophisticated, imaginative -- and hazardous.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,635051,00.html

[Po_d Mainiac]

44. Is there anyone on that committee capable of carving

Turbo Tim a new orifice? 5 years ago all one had to do was look at the so-called jump in GDP and then subtract private and government borrowing. The net sum was a big fat zero.

That's an over simplistic analysis, but that was all I needed to see where everything was headed.

Just for chits and giggles, add a natural disaster on the scale of "The Big One" that will happen along one of the major California faults.

[UpInArms]

47. Greenscum advocated for no regulations on derivatives

Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan
Government regulation and derivative contracts
At the Financial Markets Conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Coral Gables, Florida
February 21, 1997

Institutional participants in the off-exchange derivative markets also have demonstrated their ability to protect themselves from losses from fraud and counterparty insolvencies. Participants in those markets have insisted that dealers have financial strength sufficient to warrant a credit rating of A or higher. When such dealers have engaged in deceptive practices, their victims have been able to obtain restitution by going to court or simply threatening to do so. The threat of legal damages provides dealers with incentives to avoid misconduct. A far more powerful incentive, however, is the fear of loss of the dealer's good reputation, without which it cannot compete effectively, regardless of its financial strength or financial engineering capabilities. Institutional participants in the off-exchange markets also have demonstrated their ability to manage credit risks quite effectively through careful evaluation of counterparties, the setting of internal credit limits, and the judicious use of netting agreements and collateral. Actual losses to institutional counterparties in the United States from dealer defaults have been negligible.

Thus, there appears to be no need for government regulation of off-exchange derivative transactions between institutional counterparties. In particular, the CEA, which was designed for markets with completely different characteristics, seems an inappropriate framework for regulating such transactions. Because many retail investors may lack the ability to evaluate their counterparties effectively, some government regulation of off-exchange transactions with such counterparties may be appropriate to protect them against unrecoverable losses from fraud or dealer insolvencies. But, even for those transactions, it is not obvious that the CEA provides the best regulatory framework. In particular, it seems to me that the marketing of off-exchange derivatives to retail customers by banks and broker-dealers is more appropriately regulated by the banking regulatory agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission respectively. There is no evidence that the existing regulatory frameworks applicable to these institutions are not adequate to protect retail counterparties to off-exchange derivative contracts. Some may argue that CEA-style regulation of all entities marketing derivatives to retail counterparties is necessary to achieve a level playing field for competitors. However, a level playing field does not require identical regulation of all competitors. Nor would identical regulation of one product line of multiproduct firms by itself achieve a truly level playing field.

The government regulatory framework for exchange-trading may also need to be re-examined. As we have seen, the key provisions of the CEA were put in place in the 1920s and 1930s to regulate the trading of grain futures by the general public, including retail investors. Since then, U.S. futures exchanges have undergone profound changes. Financial futures, not agricultural futures, now account for the great bulk of activity on the exchanges. For many of the actively traded financial contracts, participation by retail investors is negligible. Finally, in recent years trading volumes for most financial futures have been declining or growing very slowly, while the volume of off-exchange financial derivatives transactions has continued to grow very rapidly. As I noted earlier, such migration of activity from regulated to unregulated markets presumably reflects "in part" the value added of specially crafted, risk-unbundling contracts. But almost surely as well many market participants perceive the costs of government regulation of exchanges to exceed the benefits.

[ozymandius]

49. The last fifteen words could have been penned by Ayn Rand.

many market participants perceive the costs of government regulation of exchanges to exceed the benefits

Government is costly and inefficient, he says. We will enjoy more prosperity if government steps out of the way and let the wisdom of the banks take care of everything.

Jeebus, I hate him.

[Dr.Phool]

61. Blindsided my ass.

I remember back in the mid-'90s, when I was in Cleveland, the Cuyahoga County Treasurer was run out of town on a rail, because of a big loss of public funds, from investing in some stuff called "derivatives". I'd never heard of them before that.

And that was about 15 years ago.

And Timmeh was with Goldman AND the Fed, and they were blindsided?

Yeah, right. Hey, Timmeh. Wanna invest in a nice bridge?

[Demeter]

25. New banks: No better than old banks by: Felix Salmon

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/06/22/new-banks-no-better-than-old-banks/



When the TARP was being unrolled last fall, a simple question was often asked: rather than pouring good money after bad into banks which clearly had inadequate risk controls, why not just use that cash to start up fresh new banks unencumbered by toxic assets?

Well, for one thing, the banks needed to be saved, to protect the economy from the systemic consequences of them failing. But more to the point, no one had any particular reason to believe that fresh new banks would be any better at banking than the old ones were. And Daniel Massey has a great example: Herald National Bank, which opened up last fall with an impressive $62 million of initial capital.

In its first full quarter of operation, its return on average assets was negative. Which might be predictable, for a startup. But it wasn’t just negative, it was -27%. Which is insane. Oh, and despite the fact that the bank has only been operating for a few months, it has already started laying people off, including nine managing directors.

And that’s not all:

The loss of Executive Chairman Daniel Healy, an industry veteran who is believed to have attracted many of the bank’s initial investors, may loom even larger than the one on the balance sheet. Mr. Healy had been the chief financial officer at North Fork Bancorp. for 14 years before it was sold to Capital One Financial Corp. He resigned his post at Herald on May 19, leaving for “personal reasons,” according to a regulatory filing.

Mr. Healy did not return several calls seeking comment.

In general, scrapping failed old firms and replacing them with something new is something which is often very attractive in theory, but which can be highly problematic in practice. During the airline rescue after 9/11, for instance, there was a strong case made that the lumbering old legacy airlines should be allowed to fail: small nimble upstarts would surely take their place and be much more successful. But the history of, say, JetBlue since then has hardly been particularly glorious.

The fact is that most startups fail. As a result, placing one’s hope in startups to replace large and established institutions is generally foolish. They can help drive change at the margins, but it’s rare indeed for the mammals to overthrow the dinosaurs entirely, and it’s a bad idea to enshrine such an overthrow as part of public policy.

[Demeter]

28. JPMorgan on “Exit Strategies”

http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=6531

June 23rd, 2009 1:38 am | by John Jansen |

This is an excerpt from a very long piece by JPMorgan economists which discussed management of the Federal Reserve balance sheet and various exit strategies from the array of unconventional policies which the Fed currently employs.

When will the Fed hike rates?

The FOMC has stated an intention to keep rates low “for an
extended period.” Now that the economy has moved from
free-fall to controlled descent, the question of what an “extended
period” means is becoming more interesting. Over
the last 15 years, the dominant paradigm for understanding
monetary policy has been interest rate rules and, in particular,
the Taylor rule. In its simplest form, the Taylor rule says
that the fed funds rate is set in response to deviations of inflation
from a target inflation rate and of output from its
full-employment, or potential, level. (Alternative variants
include the lagged funds rate or forecasts of future output
and inflation). The popularity of the Taylor rule stems from
two factors: first, the empirical success of the Taylor rule in
fitting the actual behavior of monetary policy has meant that
the rule is often used to describe and predict the path for the
funds rate, and second, in more theoretical derivations of
the optimal policy rule that central banks should use, Taylor-
like rules are usually prescribed as the ones central
bankers should follow.

If one takes this latter proposition seriously, and believes
the FOMC does as well, then the prospect of a hike in the
funds rate anytime before 2011 looks exceedingly unlikely.
The main reason for this is that even under fairly optimistic
assumptions about the outlook for growth over the next 18
months, the output gap should remain negative and large in
absolute value. The J.P.Morgan forecast sees negative output
gaps persisting until 2013. Because inflation is also expected
to persist at a rate below the Fed’s 2% target, the prediction
of a standard Taylor rule would predict the that the
funds rate would not turn positive for at least another two
years, even with core inflation hovering near 1.5%. If instead,
core inflation were to turn flat, Taylor-rule predicted policy
rates could stay at zero for three years or even longer.

[ozymandius]

29. The Goldman Sachs Tax (Ritholtz fascinated with this subject)

From The Big Picture

Yesterday, we looked at whether GS was front-running, well, everyone, via a sniffer program that saw all trades on the NYSE prior to their execution. Theoretically, this would allow GS to buy (or sell) stocks, selling (or covering) them back to the now compromised trader towards the end of their purchase (sale). Or, they could take a position, assuming there was more flow behind the initial order. Or, they could arbitrage a few fractional cents each trade.

The idea is fascinating. If the allegations are true — and I have no idea if they are — there are all sorts of fascinating repercussions.

Consider whether any of these are realistic, or even possible:

• The Goldman Sachs vig — a tax really — accompanies any trade large enough to catch their software’s attention: Meet the algo parameters, pay a GS tax;

• Why hasn’t the NYSE caught this? Is this another nail in the coffin of SRO (self-regulating organizations) ?

• Alternatively, if they saw it, why haven’t they done anything about it? Its not like the NYSE is run by Goldman alums (oh, wait . . . )

• What corporate or regulator can challenge GS? Congress? SEC? Federal Reserve? How powerful is Goldman? Is anyone, aside from Matt Taibbi, willing to take them on ?

• Perhaps Goldman Sachs is less smart as a group than previously believed — their returns are a function not of genius, but of cheating.

Now for a does of reality.

How might this work?....

Ritholtz goes on to describe how a cheater program could operate.

[Demeter]

31. If One Had Access, It Would Be a Piece of Cake

But if it were publicly revealed, the downside would be catastrophic.

(Oh, let it be true--and let those golden sacks be torn to shreds forever).

[Hawkowl]

74. No doubt it true

I have absolutely no doubt that GS has been cheating. I believe that the whole "our program was stolen and now criminals may destabilize the markets!" is a red herring akin to a hit-man killing someone and then planting the gun on a patsy.

The question I have is who is going to prosecute these malicious bastards? Obama? Holder? Some congressional committee? Obama's choice of economic officials reeks of....I can't even say it. I think a House Congressional special committee would be our best bet. Representatives seem to be the most responsive to our outrage. I don't think the public is outraged enough, but with the climbing unemployment and the coming market crash (IMHO ala 1932), I think Obama is going to get his crowd with pitchforks.

[Demeter]

82. I Bet Elizabeth Warren Could Punch Their Tickets Without Even Breaking a Sweat

and she would probably do it for free, even.

[ozymandius]

42. Denninger on what it means: **FLASH** Goldman Code Theft BOMBSHELL?

Something really ugly popped up on Daily Kos yesterday late in the afternoon.....

God help Goldman if this is true and the government goes after them. This would constitute massive unlawful activity. Indeed, the allegation is that Goldman alone was given this access!

God help our capital markets if this is true and is ignored by our government and regulatory agencies, or generates nothing more than a "handslap." Nobody in their right mind would ever trade on our markets again if this occurred and does not result in severe criminal and civil penalties.

What would this mean, if it was all to prove up?

It would mean that Goldman was able to "see" transaction order flow - bid, offer, and execute messages - before they were committed in the transaction stream. Such a "SNIFF" would be COMPLETELY UNDETECTABLE by the sender or recipient of the message.

The implication of this would be that they would be able to front-run any transaction where the data was visible to them, thereby effectively "stealing pennies" from each transaction they were able to front-run.

This may be nothing more than a crazy conspiracy theory put out by someone at Daily Kos. But consider the following:

The last few days the the market has traded "organically." I and many other market participants have noted that prior to the week before July 4th the market had been acting "very odd" - normal correlations between interest rate, foreign exchange the the stock markets had been on "tilt" for the previous couple of months, with the amount of "tiltage" increasing dramatically in the last three or four weeks. In fact, many of my usual indicators that I use for daytrading had become completely useless. Suddenly, just before the July 4the weekend, everything started correlating normally again. I have no explanation for this "light-switch" change but it aligned almost exactly with the day the NYSE had "computer problems" and extended trading by 15 minutes. Was there a configuration change made to their networking infrastructure, one asks?

....

The charge made on the pages of Daily Kos is incredibly serious. If this happened it is a case of literal robbery of every market participant for the entire duration of the time that the code in question was executing on the network, with losses to market participants potentially running into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1192-FLASH-Goldman-Code-Theft-BOMBSHELL.html

[ozymandius]

56. "Incredibly Shrinking Liquidity" as Goldman Flushed Quant Trading (from Dailykos)

From the diary referenced in the post above.

"If ya ain't cheatin', ya ain't tryin'."

Apparently, Goldman Sachs has been booted out from doing computerized quant trades at the New York Stock Exchange.

-- GS had been making $100,000,000 a day with computerized trades.

-- This diary outlines one spectacular and illegal way to succeed at that business.

Indeed, GS was "cornering the market" for machine trading as cited from Zero Hedge by bobswern at dkos.

New York City's finance sector dropped 25,600 jobs in April. May be that GS charlie-hoteled every last one of them.

....

GS has special access inside the system from its status assisting the Working Group on Financial Markets (colloquially the Plunge Protection Team) created by Presidential Order two decades ago. GC also acts as Special Liquidity Provider for NYSE.

With 60% dominance of NYSE program trading, what's good for Goldman defines what shows as overall market performance.

Control of to network and server access codes is unclear. A number of shops run their network and job control operations with UNIX shell scripts. Bloomberg and Merrill are typical. Problem with shell scripts is that they get run with superuser credentials -- soon as you have 1000 scripts, everybody gets access to the passwords.

---

This reads like a how-to manual. It correlates policy, policing, tech and greed. This is worth your full attention.

[Hugin]

60. To this heap I will add the tidbit that Goldman's rating was upped yesterday.

:eyes:

I'll look for a link in awhile.

[Demeter]

30. Only 14 Percent of Executives Rate CEOs' Reputation As Positive, According To New Survey By Weber Sh

http://www.webershandwick.com/Default.aspx/AboutUs/PressReleases/2009/Only14PercentofExecutivesRateCEOsReputationAsPositiveAccordingToNewSurveyByWeberShandwick


Monday, June 15, 2009 NEW YORK – June 15, 2009 – The majority of executives in America’s biggest companies – 66% – believe that the reputation of CEOs today is largely negative, according to a survey conducted by leading global public relations firm Weber Shandwick with KRC Research. Only 14% give CEOs a positive rating and the remaining 20% are non-committal. Despite CEOs’ low approval rating, approximately one out of two executives (49%) report being interested in becoming CEO one day, virtually unchanged from earlier aspirations. Even those executives who rate CEOs’ reputation poorly are surprisingly upbeat about one day accepting a CEO position (48%). A total of 151 U.S. executives at Fortune 1000 firms, nearly two-thirds of which have global operations, were surveyed by telephone from late April through late May 2009.



“The good news is that the next generation of executives is still eager to lead our largest companies. The unsettling news is that the public reputation of CEOs needs to be restored and trust in the chief executive office has to be rebuilt,” said Micho Spring, head of Weber Shandwick’s U.S. corporate practice. “CEOs can play a pivotal role in getting U.S. business back on track and headed in the right direction.”

What Can CEOs Do to Rebuild Trust and Confidence?
How can CEOs win back their good names? Executives overwhelmingly believe that the road to CEO redemption requires publicly taking responsibility when their firms are in crisis (90%) and tying CEO compensation to performance (83%). Other critically important steps include holding more face-to-face meetings with employees (68%), publicly speaking up for themselves and their companies (54%), being more transparent (52%), and issuing regular CEO updates about their business outlook (52%).

Among executives, the least effective way for CEOs to rebuild trust is by using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with stakeholders (12%). As previous Weber Shandwick research has shown (www.online-reputations.com), executives are just beginning to make good use of and feel comfortable with the opportunities provided by social media.



“Clearly, the best remedy for restoring CEO credibility is accountability,” said Leslie Gaines-Ross, Weber Shandwick’s chief reputation strategist. “Given the past 12 to 18 months of economic turmoil, it is no surprise that CEO reputations have taken a beating. Now is the time to show the next generation of leadership that leadership credibility can be rebuilt and that CEOs have listened attentively to public criticism. Communications, solutions and transparency should be high on all CEOs’ agendas.”

Reputation Recovery in 2013
Executives estimate that it will take an average of 3½ years for the collective reputation of CEOs to fully recover. Recovery would therefore take place sometime in 2013, according to those surveyed.

The Road to Reputation Recovery
Looking ahead, CEOs are at a crossroads and should now begin rebuilding their collective reputation. A 14% “approval rating” has to be a stinging blow. Weber Shandwick offers the following advice to not only speed the reputation-rebuilding process but also to act as a guide for leadership in good times and bad.

* CEOs must be the first line of defense. As executives overwhelmingly recommend, CEOs should take responsibility when their companies are in crisis.
* CEOs should communicate in heavy doses – people are hungriest for information when times are tough. Executives cite basic communications, internal and external, as the best means to repairing CEOs’ reputation: increasing the number of meetings with employees, speaking up for themselves and their companies if they are unfairly criticized, pledging greater transparency and regularly updating their outlook on business. Sometimes it’s not the crisis but how leadership responds or does not that harms reputation.
* CEOs must set the right example. Since companies have to a build a robust talent pipeline to get the best talent into the chief executive seat, CEOs must not only set examples as ethical and credible leaders but expose rising stars to the challenges they can expect to face every day. CEOs can build their reputations by doing the “right thing” in the first place and not waiting for a crisis to make that happen.li>

High Marks Given to Own CEO’s Reputation
Interestingly, there is a considerable gap in how respondents perceive the CEO of their own company and CEOs overall. While only 14% rate the reputation of CEOs in general as positive, a hefty 9 in 10 (86%) rate the reputation of their own CEO as strong. Apparently executives acknowledge that the reputation of CEOs collectively has been tarnished by the highly publicized mis-steps of a few CEOs, but approve of and appreciate their own CEO’s efforts during these demanding times.



According to one respondent, “I would like to see more CEOs like the one I operate under who is much focused on ethics and integrity and treating our employees with respect. He does a great job and is a great example. If we had more like him, they would have a better reputation in the public eye.”

Why Be CEO?
The top reason given for wanting to be CEO is the desire to lead and impact a company’s or industry’s future. Other reasons include dealing with business challenges and driving company growth. Some also responded that they are cut out for the job and believe the position offers career advancement and personal reward, be it compensation or personal gratification. As one executive said, “I enjoy leadership and business challenges. I like achieving great results and leading people.”

The major reasons given for not wanting to be CEO are excessive pressure and public scrutiny. Others said they are satisfied with their current position or do not want to sacrifice their current work-life balance. As one executive said, “I just think that the pressure and public opinion that's put on a CEO is tremendous right now. I'm not sure it's worth the compensation for the pressure, at this point.”

About KRC Research
KRC Research is a full-service market research firm that specializes in the kind of research needed for effective communications—communications that reach, engage and persuade. A unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG), KRC Research offers the quality and custom service of a small firm along with the reach of a global organization. For over 30 years, we have worked on behalf of corporations, governments, not-for-profits and the communications firms that represent them. Staffed with market research professionals from the worlds of political campaigns, consumer marketing, journalism and academia, we are flexible, practical, creative, knowledgeable and fast, combining sophisticated research tools with real-world communications experience. To learn more, please visit http://www.krcresearch.com/.

About Weber Shandwick
Weber Shandwick is a leading global public relations agency with offices in 77 markets around the world. The firm’s reputation is built on its deep commitment to client service, creativity, collaboration and harnessing the power of Advocates — engaging stakeholders in new and creative ways to build brands and reputation. Weber Shandwick provides strategy and execution across practices such as consumer marketing, healthcare, technology, public affairs, corporate/financial and crisis management. Its specialized services include digital/social media, advocacy advertising, market research, and corporate responsibility. Weber Shandwick was named Global Agency of the Year by The Holmes Report and Large PR Firm of the Year by PR News in 2008. The firm also won the United Nations Grand Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Relations an unprecedented three times. Weber Shandwick is part of the Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). For more information, visit http://www.webershandwick.com/.

[DemReadingDU]

32. Denninger: Follow-Up To Dennis Kneale and CNBC

7//9/09 Karl Denninger: So this evening Dennis Kneale asked me to appear on CNBC for a few minutes to discuss the "blogosphere", wanting to talk about the bloggers themselves, rather than my case for the economy.

2 videos...
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1200-Follow-Up-To-Dennis-Kneale-And-CNBC.html


edit: add link for yesterday's videos
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3960499&mesg_id=3960625

[UpInArms]

37. Want to blow chunks? Cheney "selected" Bernanke

from this WSJ article:

In fact, the president had settled on Mr. Bernanke, 51, by late last week, though the actual nomination was not to be announced until later this month or early November. In the meantime, Mr. Bernanke was to begin a series of pre-nomination meetings on Wall Street yesterday to chat with financial leaders. But the meetings were postponed and the announcement of his selection was speeded up -- at the urging of Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee -- to assure confirmation by Christmas.

From the time the White House began searching months ago for a replacement for Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Bernanke was the favorite. But there were other serious candidates, including two current Fed members recommended by Mr. Greenspan himself and three economists who had advised President Bush in the past. The selection process was run by Dick Cheney.

and what brought me to this?

Fed steps up fight for independence
Vice chairman Kohn warns of potential for unintended harmful fallout

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-steps-up-fight-to-protect-independent-status?link=kiosk

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Donald Kohn, the No. 2 official at the Federal Reserve, urged Congress on Thursday to respect the U.S. central bank's independence to conduct monetary policy.

In testimony on Capitol Hill, Kohn argued that greater oversight would hurt the economy by injecting politics into the process and unsettling financial markets.

"The insulation from short-term political pressures -- within a framework of legislated objectives and accountability and transparency -- that the Congress has established for the Federal Reserve has come to be widely emulated around the world," the Fed vice chairman said.

...more...

and so I went looking and found this:

Greenspan, Iraq, Oil. How’s that again?

In the second-to-last paragraph of a story on page A3 Monday, The Wall Street Journal says Alan Greenspan was “himself a behind-the-scenes advocate of overthrowing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.”

He says he felt “getting Saddam out of there was very important,” not because of weapons of mass destruction, but because he was convinced the Iraqi dictator wanted to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which a sizable portion of the world’s oil passes. That would enable him to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

The Fed chairman advocated going to war to protect the Strait of Hormuz?

Message to Audit Readers: No, you are not crazy. This is new information. The story, under the headline “Greenspan’s Dismay Extends Both Ways, wildly underplays the point.

He said he conveyed that view to both Mr. Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, another friend from the Ford administration, but doubts that played a part in the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq.

On the other hand, it probably didn’t slow things down much, either.

The Journal’s story is based on one of a number of interviews Greenspan gave to major media outlets to promote his new book, The Age of Turbulence. The questions stem from the book’s startling phrase, first reported by The Washington Post on Saturday, that “the Iraq War is largely about oil.”

...more...

What in the world is the FED chairman doing advocating war?

[Demeter]

40. Carrying Water for Cheney and the NeoCons, Of Course

and maybe a little bit for Israeli Zionists, too.

Good digging! You have a future in investigative blogging (and a well developed, sorely needed case of paranoia. Welcome to the club!)

[ozymandius]

48. Time to ask the question: What do we KNOW?

This involvement from the Fed chief in the run-up to war can be documented.

Bernanke was selected by Cheney. The weight of this decision seemed to fall more to the area of foreign policy decisions rather than exercising good monetary policy.

When was the charter and intent of the Federal Reserve violated?

[UpInArms]

50. Ewwww! Can you hold my hair for me? Check this out

http://www.cfr.org/publication/14280/charm_of_the_chairman.html

By the start of the 1970s, Greenspan had already advised the Nixon campaign and was an economic policy player; yet his narrative skips over the collapse of the gold standard, the unraveling of interest-rate regulation and the birth of derivatives trading — events that shattered the stabilizing anchors of the post-war monetary system and set the stage for the challenges that Greenspan later would face. Instead, the reader is treated to conventional character sketches of Nixon (he was smart but paranoid) and Ford (a monument to decency). There is an account of Greenspan’s efforts to broker a Reagan-Ford ticket in 1980, which may have been exciting at the time but is now merely a curiosity.

Greenspan got to know Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld during the Ford years, a connection that colors his relationship with George W. Bush in more ways than recent news accounts have noted. Greenspan has hit the front pages by criticizing the Bush team’s budget-busting tax cuts, even though he himself endorsed them at the time; his mistake was to believe that he could give his old friends a green light without fear that they would overdo the tax cuts irresponsibly. But he should not have been surprised by what ensued. In 1972, Rumsfeld and Cheney were in charge of administering Nixon’s price controls, a program that Greenspan rightly describes as a populist abomination. Why Greenspan assumed that Cheney had lost his populist streak three decades on is something of a mystery.

The fact that Greenspan befriended Cheney and Rumsfeld despite their association with a crazy policy speaks volumes about his priorities. It’s hard to imagine the nerdy young Bernanke befriending political officials, let alone economically misguided ones. But Greenspan’s willingness to put relationships ahead of policy details was to serve him well. In 1980, when Reagan’s campaign advisers were desperate to educate their candidate on the economy, they called in Greenspan to brief him, knowing of his magic way with Big People. Greenspan spent the five-hour session laughing appreciatively at Reagan’s jokes. He never insisted that the conversation get serious, and the two got along famously.

If Greenspan’s networking skills helped to land him the Fed job, they also colored the way that he performed in it. Volcker had made a point of keeping his distance from the executive branch, fearing that friendliness would cause the markets to doubt his toughness on inflation. Greenspan’s approach was the opposite. Whereas Volcker refused to visit Reagan at the White House, and refused to have Reagan visit the Federal Reserve, Greenspan loved access. He flew down to Little Rock to meet Bill Clinton during the transition. He spent hours talking to incoming Vice President Cheney in the Cheney family kitchen. Even after that relationship had soured, Greenspan visited the Bush White House weekly.

[ozymandius]

51. How pathetic.

For all his knowledge, he has no wisdom. He's a hero-worshiping whore. Really, the worst kind of sycophant.

[Demeter]

57. We May Be Seeing The Beginnng of the End of The Biggest Crime Spree in US History

and I for one think it's long overdue. This could take down three generations of crooks, and inhibit two more...

oh please, let it be true! Let it be cleansing. Put an end to the GOP, their lackeys and puppetmasters, and the Looters in High Places!

[bread_and_roses]

67. from your lips to the goddess ears...and of Peanut Butter and Viagra

I don't believe in the goddess of course, but religious metaphors are a convenient short-hand for that which is fervently desired.

Did anyone else notice that the PB in Ozy's cartoon is in the big cans that government surplus PB used to come in when I was a child? Strikes me as a subtle poke, for those who recognize it. (You'd have to be around my age to remember, I think, and also have been of the economic strata that availed itself of "free food.")

I neither invest nor ever plan to, and don't, nor am interested in understanding the technicals - I read these threads for the good, intelligent witty commentary and to garner which way the wind blows. But as a totally ignorant and uninformed SMW and WE reader, as I watched and read the last few days the thought that kept occuring to me was "they are struggling to get/keep it up." I have to wonder if they are running out of viagra?

The other thought is grimmer...."this is the way the world ends...not with a bang but a whimper."

[Demeter]

68. The World Is Ending for The Rich People, This Time

or at least, they are losing their status. This is good for everybody.

[bread_and_roses]

72. Hell, yes

I probably should have clarified: "the world" I was speaking of was the artificially constructed and maintained "world" of the exploitive Free Marketeer Vampire Super-Rich, and it can't end soon enough for me. And if it ends with a whimper, all the better - maybe that will put an end to the worshipful "Masters of the Universe" cult status of these parasites.

I have other fears for the real world and real economy out here in everybody else land, but they were not the subject of that post.

[Demeter]

38. I've Got My Summer Improvement Goal!

[Demeter]

41. Citigroup shakes up top management

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090709/bs_nm/us_citigroup_4

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc (C.N) on Thursday announced its biggest management shake-up since the financial crisis began, replacing its chief financial officer and installing a new banking chief as it prepares to give the government a 34 percent equity stake.

The revolving door that Citigroup's upper management has become spun again amid intense pressure on Chief Executive Vikram Pandit to improve performance, add consumer banking experience in the senior ranks, and shed toxic or unwanted assets at the third-largest U.S. bank by assets.

"It has been a long time coming," said Christopher Whalen, a managing director at Institutional Risk Analytics in Torrance, California, referring to the management shuffle. "The government controls the bank."

Edward "Ned" Kelly, who became CFO in March and is a former CEO of Maryland's Mercantile Bankshares Corp, was promoted to vice chairman focused on strategy and merger activity.

The new CFO is John Gerspach, the bank's controller and chief accounting officer. Gerspach is the fifth CFO in five years.

Eugene McQuade was named chief executive of Citigroup's Citibank unit. He was previously vice chairman of Merrill Lynch & Co, chief operating officer of mortgage financier Freddie Mac (FRE.P) and president of Bank of America Corp (BAC.N).

McQuade succeeds William Rhodes, a senior vice chairman who will reduce his day-to-day responsibilities to focus on international operations, his specialty. Citigroup is based in New York but operates in more than 100 countries.

Separately, Gary Crittenden, chairman of Citi Holdings, which includes businesses that Citigroup wants to sell or wind down, will leave the bank and move to Utah to focus on family and business interests. He preceded Kelly as CFO.

None of the executives was available for comment.

UNCLE SAM'S FINGERPRINTS

Several analysts called the management changes encouraging, though it is unclear what they signify about Pandit's job status and the government's role in running the bank.

Citigroup has lost $36 billion over six quarters and received a series of federal bailouts. Regulators knew of the management changes in advance, according to a person familiar with the matter who lacked authority to speak publicly.

"They've weathered the maelstrom so far" because of the government help, said Malcolm Polley, chief investment officer of Stewart Capital Partners LP. "Uncle Sam is going to put their fingerprints all over this thing."

Citigroup has taken $45 billion of federal bailout money and is widely considered the least healthy major U.S. bank.

The changes "further help in positioning our company for the future," Pandit said in an internal memo. He said the bank is making "consistent and substantial progress" in shrinking Citi Holdings and bolstering Citicorp, which includes retail and investment banking and other units the bank wants to keep.

Citigroup announced the changes less than a month after Ajay Banga, head of Asia-Pacific region operations and one of its top consumer bankers, decamped for MasterCard Inc (MA.N).

"In Citigroup's 2006 annual report there was a picture of its 43 most senior executives," Barclays Capital analyst Jason Goldberg wrote on Thursday. "Only 17 remain."

Citigroup shares were up 3 cents to $2.65 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

SURVIVAL PROSPECTS

The bank expects to report second-quarter results on July 17, and soon after complete a stock swap that converts much of the government's investment into the 34 percent stake.

Analysts on average expect Citigroup to lose money over the rest of 2009, according to Reuters Estimates.

Michael Mullaney, who helps invest $9 billion at Fiduciary Trust Corp in Boston, said the management shake-up "enhances Pandit's ability to survive, especially if McQuade's experience at Freddie Mac results in more political clout."

He added, "McQuade is also a traditional consumer banking executive, which will help Citigroup focus on core businesses and get away from the shopping mall approach Citigroup had."

Jeff Harte, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP in Chicago, called Kelly's move unsurprising, saying "Ned would be more interested in strategic decisions and (the) overall running of Citigroup, as opposed to being a number-cruncher."

That label perhaps better fits Crittenden, who has also been CFO at American Express Co (AXP.N). Keith Davis, an analyst at Farr, Miller & Washington in Washington, D.C., said Crittenden might be a candidate to run a western U.S. bank.

Pandit became Citigroup CEO in December 2007. While many people at the bank blame predecessor Charles Prince for many of Citigroup's problems, Pandit has been faulted for addressing them too slowly, and for lacking consumer banking experience.

"I am still waiting for them to find someone for the CEO slot who has actually run a bank," Whalen said.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay, Steve Eder, Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Chuck Mikolajczak, Ellis Mnyandu, Sweta Singh, Jonathan Stempel and Lilla Zuill; editing by John Wallace)

[Hugin]

62. The only good to come out of these 'shake-ups' is that they put to rest the 'talent myth'.

Having changed CFO three times in the last few months... Talent is not part of the equation.

Anywhere.

[Demeter]

65. Finacial Times Has Some of the Dirt on This

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a94df368-6c8d-11de-a6e6-00144feabdc0.html

...The move by Mr Kelly, one of Mr Pandit’s closest allies, to a new role overseeing strategy and mergers and acquisitions, is a victory for Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, one of Citi’s regulators.


Ms Bair has told Citi repeatedly to add commercial banking expertise to its senior ranks, led by Mr Pandit and Mr Kelly, two investment bankers.

In the next few weeks, the FDIC will have to decide whether to put Citi on its list of “problem banks” – a move that would severely affect the company’s ability to operate.

A person familiar with the FDIC’s thinking said the removal of Mr Kelly, who will be replaced by John Gerspach, a Citi veteran, was not “something the FDIC ordered”. The agency heard of the move late on Wednesday, the person added.

Mr Gerspach, Citi’s chief accounting officer, will be the bank’s fifth finance chief in five years....

[Demeter]

64. AIG in talks with MetLife over Alico

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/11e3efa0-6bfc-11de-9320-00144feabdc0.html

By Francesco Guerrera and Julie MacIntosh in New York

Published: July 8 2009 22:03 | Last updated: July 8 2009 23:00

AIG has rekindled talks with MetLife, its US rival, over the sale of American Life Insurance Company, one of the jewels in its crown, in a move that could help the stricken insurer raise more than $15bn to repay the $80bn it currently owes US taxpayers.

The talks over Alico, which has operations in more than 50 countries outside the US, are preliminary and could founder as they did earlier this year when the two sides disagreed on price, people close to the situation said.

After AIG received its fourth bail-out from the government in March, it halted talks for all or parts of Alico with potential bidders, including France’s Axa, Prudential of the UK and China Investment Corp, the state investment fund, and MetLife.

AIG is in the process of spinning off the unit into a separate entity partly owned by the Federal Reserve, in preparation for a listing. AIG has said it is open to offers for Alico, whose largest operations are in Japan.

Prudential, Axa and CIC are currently not interested, according to people close to the situation. In recent weeks MetLife and AIG have been talking again amid hopes that an improvement in credit markets might help the two sides bridge the price gap, bankers said.

Before talks broke off in March, MetLife was believed to have tabled an offer of about $11bn for Alico, with AIG expecting roughly $20bn.

People close to the situation said that although AIG would still like to get more than $15bn for Alico it was interested in exploring a sale, partly because it was coming under increasing pressure from the government to speed up disposals.

A divestment would enable the authorities, which own 80 per cent of AIG, to recoup their funds more quickly than through an initial public offering in 2010.

MetLife might be interested in buying only some of Alico’s sprawling operations, although AIG is believed to prefer a sale of the whole business. It is unclear whether MetLife would use shares as part-payment in any bid for Alico.

AIG – whose shares have fallen sharply this week amid analysts’ downgrades and a legal setback – and MetLife declined to comment on the talks.

Alico’s attractions are its vast geographical scope and exposure to the huge growth potential of emerging economies.

[mullard12ax7]

71. K & unRec! +150!

I'm the Henny Youngman of the financial crisis: take my bank, please! Seriously though, what's the point of discussing corrupt numbers and ideologies that are all proven failures? It's a joke and no, I'm no better than anyone else because I recognize it, I'm just pointing out how obvious the criminality of our culture is.

[Tansy_Gold]

76. What's the point? Well, for starters, this stuff affects all our daily

lives. Except those of us who have managed to get totally off the grid for ourselves and don't give a flyin' fuck about anyone else.

As I keep tellin' the Insignificant Other, we humans are social creatures. We tend not to be self-sufficient, at least not in our no-longer-feral state. If we're going to inhabit this society, we might as well understand it. Or at least try to.




TG

[mullard12ax7]

84. Agreed, I've got an entire portfolio I only watch now

Sometime in the next few years there may be a chance that some of the newer, forward-thinking companies may do well if the U.S. reigns in our culture of criminals that prey on them all. At the moment it's 100% corrupt as noted earlier in the Geithner thread wherein he stated that the gov't was blind-sided by all the speculation and didn't have the tools to deal with it. That's an outright lie told by a corrupt tool who also happens to be very high up in the U.S. gov't.

The U.S. government purposely prevented the tools from being available via a broad conspiracy to commit fraud that still exists and has been rewarded with 100s of billions of dollars. Until that changes, there's no point is discussing the details of lies that were created as a fraud in the first place unless a person or group is doing it to collect evidence of the crimes.

[Hotler]

86. Roger that! n/t