STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, September 14, 2011

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, September 14, 2011

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON September 13, 2011

Dow 11,105.85 +44.73 (+0.40%)
Nasdaq 2,532.15 +37.06 (+1.46%)
S&P 500 1,172.87 +10.60 (+0.90%)
10-Yr Bond... 2.02 +0.03 (+1.30%)
30-Year Bond 3.36 +0.04 (+1.05%)

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Market Conditions During Trading Hours

Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold

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Handy Links - Market Data and News:Economic Calendar    Marketwatch Data    Bloomberg Economic News    Yahoo! Finance    Google Finance    Bank Tracker    
Credit Union Tracker    Daily Job Cuts

Handy Links - Economic Blogs:
The Big Picture    Financial Sense    Calculated Risk    Naked Capitalism    Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong      Bonddad    Atrios    goldmansachs666    The Stand-Up Economist

Handy Links - Government Issues:
LegitGov    Open Government    Earmark Database    USA spending.gov

Handy Links - Videos:
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class    Charlie Rose talks with Roubini    Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
    William Black: This Economic Disaster    Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn

Bush Administration Officials Convicted = 2
Names: David Safavian, James Fondren
Dishonorable Mention: former House majority leader, Tom DeLay

Bush Administration Officials Charged = 1
Name(s): Richard Lopez Razo

Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 = 12

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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

[Pale Blue Dot]

1. Today's Reports

Sep 14 07:00 MBA Mortgage Index 09/10 NA NA -4.9%
Sep 14 08:30 PPI Aug -0.1% 0.0% 0.2%
Sep 14 08:30 Core PPI Aug 0.2% 0.2% 0.4%
Sep 14 08:30 Retail Sales Aug -0.5% 0.2% 0.5%
Sep 14 08:30 Retail Sales ex-auto Aug -0.2% 0.3% 0.5%
Sep 14 10:00 Business Inventories Jul 0.4% 0.5% 0.3%
Sep 14 10:30 Crude Inventories 09/10 NA NA -3.963M

Read more: http://www.briefing.com/investor/calendars/economic/2011/09/12-16/#ixzz1XvJJt6LO

[Demeter]

44. Results for most

Yesterday's Treasury Budget Aug (WHAT TIMMY'S BEEN UP TO)

Actual Briefing.com Forecast Briefing.com Consensus Prior Revised From

-$134.2B -$132.0B -$132.0B -$129.4B -$90.5B



TODAY'S REPORTS

Topic For Actual Forecast Consensus Prior Revised From


MBA Mortgage Index 09/10 +6.3% NA NA -4.9%

PPI Aug 0.0% -0.1% 0.0% 0.2%

Core PPI Aug 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.4%

Retail Sales Aug 0.0% -0.5% 0.2% 0.3% 0.5%

Sales ex-auto Aug 0.1% -0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.5%


Read more: http://www.briefing.com/investor/calendars/economic/2011/09/12-16/#ixzz1XvleRB6Z

[rfranklin]

2. U.S. futures point lower; retail sales, PPI ahead

U.S. futures point lower; retail sales, PPI ahead
Focus remains on European debt crisis; Dell expands buyback
By Simon Kennedy, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — U.S. stock-market futures dropped Wednesday as Europe’s debt crisis remained at the center of attention, with data on U.S. retail sales and inflation ahead.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (CBE:DJ1Z) dropped 36 points to 10,985 after the Dow rose nearly 45 points on Tuesday to post its second straight day of gains.

Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures (GLC:SP1Z) fell 3 points to 1,162.20 and Nasdaq 100 futures (GLC:ND1Z) were down 3.5 points at 2,211.50.

Stock futures had earlier dropped sharply after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded French banks Societe Generale SA (EPA:FR:GLE) and Credit Agricole SA (EPA:FR:ACA) and said it was continuing to review BNP Paribas SA (EPA:FR:BNP) .
-more-
http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=465EAFB4-DEA9-11E0-A65A-00212803FAD6

[Pale Blue Dot]

3. Oil falls to below $90 amid mixed US supply report

SINGAPORE – Oil prices fell to below $90 a barrel Wednesday in Asia after a U.S. crude supply report showed mixed signs about consumer demand.

Benchmark oil for October delivery was down 54 cents to $89.67 at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude added $2.02 to settle at $90.21 on Tuesday.

In London, Brent crude for October delivery was down 40 cents at $111.49 on the ICE Futures exchange.

The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude inventories fell 5.1 million barrels last week while analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had predicted a drop of 2.9 million barrels. The large drop was likely due to disruptions of crude operations caused by Tropical Storm Lee, analysts said.

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

[Demeter]

4. Clawbacks Without Claws

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/clawbacks-without-claws-in-a-sarbanes-oxley-tool.html?_r=1&ref=business

AFTER the grand frauds at Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia, Congress set out to hold executives accountable if their companies cook the books. Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission was encouraged to hit executives where it hurts — in the wallet — if they certified financial results that turned out to be, in a word, bogus. SarbOx was supposed to keep managers honest. They would have to hand back incentive pay like bonuses, even if they didn’t fudge the accounts themselves.

That, anyway, was the idea. The record suggests a bark decidedly worse than its bite. The S.E.C. brought its first case under Section 304 of SarbOx in 2007. Since then, it has filed cases demanding that only 31 executives at only 20 companies return some pay. In 2007 and 2008, most of the cases involved shenanigans with stock options and produced some big recoveries. In the wake of the financial crisis, the dollars recouped have amounted to an asterisk. Since the beginning of 2009, the S.E.C. has pursued 18 executives at 10 companies. So far, it has recovered a total of $12.2 million from nine former executives at five. The other cases are pending. “It seems like a dormant enforcement tool,” Jack T. Ciesielski, president of R. G. Associates and editor of The Analyst’s Accounting Observer, says of the SarbOx provision. “It was supposed to be a deterrent, but it’s only really a deterrent if they use it.” How assiduously the S.E.C. enforces this aspect of Sarbanes-Oxley is important. Only the S.E.C. can bring cases under Section 304. Companies can’t. Nor, it appears, can shareholders. In 2009, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that there was no private cause of action for violations of Section 304. Half the companies pursued by the S.E.C. during the past three years have been small and relatively obscure...In all cases when executives have returned money, they have neither admitted nor denied allegations. The S.E.C. typically recovers more money from executives at bigger companies. But top executives are rarely compelled to return all their incentive pay...


But perhaps the most troubling clawback case brought by the S.E.C. involved New Century Financial, now defunct, which was one of the most aggressive mortgage lenders during the home loan mania. Michael J. Missal, a partner at the law firm K&L Gates in Washington, and the bankruptcy examiner hired to investigate New Century, uncovered seven types of accounting irregularities that, he said, fattened pay for the company’s top executives in 2005 and 2006. During those years, he found, Brad A. Morrice, the company’s former chief executive, collected at least $2.9 million in incentive pay. The S.E.C. accused New Century of a much narrower group of accounting irregularities. It recovered only $542,000 from Mr. Morrice. Asked about this last week, Mr. Missal said: “I found many serious violations in the investigation and laid them out as clearly as possible with all the supporting information.”

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

Still, the record on the clawbacks issue is enough to make you wonder whether the S.E.C. is doing all it can on this front. “The trick is to create deterrents and accountability in the system,” says Harvey Goldschmid, a former S.E.C. commissioner who is a professor at Columbia Law School. “You don’t do it if you’re soft on individuals.”

[Demeter]

5. Recent college graduates face long-lasting economic damage

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/07/1014256/-Recent-college-graduates-face-long-lasting-economic-damage?via=blog_1



WORDS AT LINK

[Demeter]

6. POVERTY IN AMERICA: LIVING WAGE CALCULATOR

INTERACTIVE CHART AT LINK

http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/

[Demeter]

7. ONION HORRORSCOPES FOR THE PRESIDENT AND ARIES

Leo

This is a time of great uncertainty for you, but that doesn't mean the odds of drawing to an inside straight will improve at all.

HOW AMAZINGLY APPROPRIATE!

Aries

The gods do indeed enjoy playing games with our lives—tempting us with power and driving us mad with hubris—but you they just enjoy seeing hit in the balls.

YES, OF COURSE, BECAUSE TODAY IS THE KID'S GUARDIANSHIP HEARING, AND JUST BECAUSE WE'VE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES DOESN'T MEAN THEY CAN'T SCREW IT UP YET AGAIN....

I'VE BEEN A BALL OF NERVES FOR OVER A DAY, NOW. THIS IS THE BIG ONE. TODAY'S PERSONAL DRAGON.

[xchrom]

9. good vibes coming to you.

it must be stressful -- i can only imagine.

[Demeter]

10. Thanks. I need all the help I can get

It COULD be just a formality...but it hasn't been. And the rules keep changing, too.

[DemReadingDU]

37. Our thoughts are with you

Hoping the hearing goes well for you

[Demeter]

40. I'll report back tonight.

[Demeter]

79. Well, the court did it again.

Again they have changed the rules. Again, they refuse to tell anyone what the rules are, and how to follow them. They don't even say, consult an attorney, until you get in front of the judge. So we have to return in a month for another hearing, after "due diligence" in attempting to contact the father who has not made an appearance since 2003, when he was arrested and jailed for refusing to support the children. Not a letter, not a phone call, not an address...nothing. Wouldn't that be sufficient, you ask? After all, it was for the last 10 years....

Why should someone have to pay an attorney to secure protection for a child abandoned by its father?

[DemReadingDU]

80. That is just unbelievable

Sorry to hear of this latest development.
Why should justice take so much time and money. It is sooooo frustrating.
Grrr

[Demeter]

82. this isn't even justice

this is just paperwork, and signing up for a burden.

[Demeter]

47. In other news: Frost Warning Tonight

It was 47F when I started today, and tomorrow is supposed to be freezing!

[AnneD]

66. we are still in a drought.....

We had one day of rain in July, one in some areas of Houston in August, and nothing this month. Large chunks of the once lush and verdant Memorial park are dead, you have to ask for water in diners, and water restrictions are still enforced. The weather is now into the mid to high nineties but as my bro sarcastically commented.."that just means the water doesn't evaporate as fast."

[tclambert]

71. But my tomatoes!

[AnneD]

73. All we have here are...

sun dried tomatoes on the vine. If there is an up side, that would be it.

[Hotler]

65. Positive energy coming your way Demeter and

my gift to the gods today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctbMh1WxLrU
Edit to add that nut shots are funny as long as it is not your nuts.:evilgrin:

[Demeter]

8. Supercomittee ignores Obama's jobs plan

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2011/09/13/supercommittee/index.html

In its first meeting since President Obama urged the deficit supercommittee to incorporate his $447 billion jobs plan into its plans, Democrats and Republicans on the panel today achieved a rare degree of bipartisan consensus. They almost totally ignored it.

I heard Obama's jobs plan mentioned exactly once, by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who undermined the proposal by linking it to the bipartisan, Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan, which says little about job creation. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., did mention Obama's speech ("We were on our feet when the president talked about entitlement reform,") but not jobs. As Congressional Budget Office chief Doug Elmendorf went on to sketch the stark choices facing the committee, the president jobs agenda was forgotten.

Elmendorf's testimony defined the Washington consensus that has marginalized the president's policy options. Most the discussion focused on just how much Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would have to be cut. While the hearing was supposed to cover "drivers of debt," the foreign wars that account for about a third of the debt also went largely unmentioned. The printed version of Elmendorf's testimony made no effort to separate out defense spending for the purposes of analysis. War expenditures, in his presentation, are included (along with a lots of other things) under the bloodless category known as "non-interest spending."

The Democrats preferred to focus on Bill Clinton more than Obama, noting several times the contrast between Clinton's last year in office when the CBO projected a future $5.6 trillion surplus and the present. Van Hollen did get Elmendorf to acknowledge that letting the Bush tax cuts expire would make the committee's job about $4 trillion easier while not mentioning that Obama signed an extension preventing them from expiring...

ALL TOGETHER NOW, WE WILL CHANT THE HOTLER: I HAVE NO HOPE, I SEE NO FUTURE

[Hotler]

72. It's so fucked up. eom.

[AnneD]

74. That was the whole point of the Super Comittee....

power without responsibility. Totally usurping the voters right to representation. We have been disenfranchised by a bunch of bureaucratic dick less weenies hiding behind a comittee.

[xchrom]

11. good morning -- every one -- i totally missed this thread yesterday.

i looked for it -- but didn't even see it:eyes:


ah well -- the very best to all:donut:

[Demeter]

14. It's still there

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4992748&mesg_id=4992748

It was a slow news day

[xchrom]

23. very strange news day yesterday.

i was fascinated by the attack in kabul.

our presence there has not really impeded their ability to strike where they want.

just fascinating.

[Demeter]

12. Well, I Guess I'll Just Take My Business To Another Soulless Multinational Corporation

http://www.theonion.com/articles/well-i-guess-ill-just-take-my-business-to-another,21357/

The nerve of you people. Treating a longtime patron with so little respect, like I'm just another walking dollar sign. If that's what passes for customer service around here, you sadly leave me with no choice but to have the exact same experience at another giant soulless multinational corporation somewhere else.

Maybe one that knows how to rob its customers of a fraction less dignity.

Every single time I'm in here—without fail—it's been the same god-awful experience. But this! This is a new low for you guys. I don't even know why I still bother coming here when I could happily take my business to one of the faceless global entities around the corner and be equally insulted and dehumanized there. My insignificant contribution to the bottom line could easily be theirs for the taking!

What do you think about that, you crooks? I don't have to bend over and take this from you. I can bend over and take this from one of your sprawling, heavily franchised rivals. Do you think you're my only source for generic, mass-produced merchandise? You're not the only vertically integrated international conglomerate with retail locations on five continents in this town, you know. Maybe you weren't aware, but there are three or four morally bereft megacorporations hawking the same stuff within 10 minutes' drive, and quite frankly, I'd be glad to engage in an emotionless transaction with any of them. Okay, sure, I'll concede that it was your competitive, high-volume discounts that got me in here in the first place. But that's not the point. The point is that I'm an individual— an individual who has free will in choosing which uncaring global monolith to spend her money at.

Face it, you're a disgrace, and I'm going to tell everyone I know not to shop here and these actions will affect your multibillion dollar company in no way whatsoever.

So there!



...So I hope you're all really proud of yourselves. Because you just lost an instantly replaceable customer for good.

[xchrom]

13. Bigger Economic Role for Washington

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/politics/jobs-bill-could-help-economic-growth-some-forecasters-say.html?_r=1&ref=business

WASHINGTON — Just weeks ago, economists and financial analysts were dismissing Washington as largely irrelevant to the economy’s course in coming months, if only because it chose to be. They are not dismissing it anymore.

The possibility of major parts of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill becoming law, and of further steps next week by the Federal Reserve, have forecasters saying that the decisions Washington makes in the weeks ahead could have a substantial effect on economic growth and unemployment. At a minimum, the stimulus could be insurance against the headwinds blowing from Europe’s debt crisis and the impact of the recent government spending cuts in this country.

The jobs package of tax cuts and spending initiatives could add 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month over the next year, according to estimates from several of the country’s best-known forecasting firms; the potential Fed actions could add 15,000 more jobs a month over two years.

While those estimates are difficult to verify, the nation’s economy since April has added an average of only about 40,000 jobs a month, raising concerns about a double-dip recession.

[Demeter]

15. News Corp hacking pressure grows

The US group has to contend with more legal and political challenges on three continents as thousands more documents on the scandal emerge

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/CTBPCC/08CJ8P/9MEOW/HYKG5T/302DGG/N9/t?a1=2011&a2=9&a3=14

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, INDEED

CRIMINAL MASTERMINDS IS MORE LIKE IT

[Demeter]

16. JPMorgan trading revenue to fall 30%

Jes Staley, JPMorgan’s head of investment banking, said the ‘volatile’ market, particularly in August, had depressed revenues from trading

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/CTBPCC/08CJ8P/9MEOW/HYKG5T/C4KFZV/N9/t?a1=2011&a2=9&a3=14

[Demeter]

17. Cairn falls as Arctic well fails to find oil

FTSE 100 explorer prepares to plug and abandon well off Greenland after failing to find oil or gas

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/CTBPCC/08CJ8P/9MEOW/HYKG5T/L9RBYI/N9/t?a1=2011&a2=9&a3=14

[xchrom]

18. The Merrill Lynch and Lehman Deals, 3 Years Later

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/the-merrill-lynch-and-lehman-deals-3-years-later/

This is a tale of two deals.

Three years ago today, Bank of America leapt into the maelstrom and bought Merrill Lynch for about $50 billion. Early the next morning, Lehman Brothers announced its bankruptcy filing. Lehman soon sold its investment banking and capital markets operations to Barclays for $250 million.

One of these deals has been a success. The other is questionable. The difference shows not only how a chief executive’s hubris can destroy a company, but how three years later, the failure of the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and the banks themselves to shrink significantly the banks’ mortgage liabilities still threatens our economy.

Of the two deals, the hands-down winner is the Lehman Brothers acquisition. Barclays paid anything but retail for Lehman, and in the process acquired a powerful franchise in the United States. Barclays is now the seventh-largest American investment bank measured by revenue, according to Dealogic. The former Lehman bankers are competing strongly in some crucial areas. In advising on mergers and acquisitions in the United States, Barclays was fifth in the first half of the year, according to Dealogic. Barclays was also the largest adviser on debt offerings in the world and third-largest in the United States.

[Demeter]

19. Merkel bids to quash Greece default talk

German chancellor warns members of her government to stop speculating about a Greek default, saying the future of the euro is at stake

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/M2ZOXX/EXI6X3/1O51V/ORS2C5/JESTK9/KI/t?a1=2011&a2=9&a3=14

LOTS OF LUCK WITH THAT, ANGELA. I THINK EVERYONE ELSE IS READY TO THROW IN THE TOWEL ON GREECE AND THE EURO

[Demeter]

20. Greek woes prey on French banking

Senior French officials insisted their banks were capitalised enough to withstand a Greek bankruptcy and that no new capital injection was needed

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/M2ZOXX/EXI6X3/1O51V/ORS2C5/YB651K/KI/t?a1=2011&a2=9&a3=14

[Demeter]

22. Italy hunts for more options in bid to cut debt

With a €54bn austerity package set for parliamentary approval, investors are looking to a possible firesale of public assets to boost state coffers further

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/M2ZOXX/EXI6X3/1O51V/ORS2C5/MSFGIH/KI/t?a1=2011&a2=9&a3=14

[xchrom]

21. asia: 341 firms went bust due to disasters

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20110914a5.html

A total of 341 firms have gone under due to the effects of the March earthquake and tsunami, according to credit research agency Teikoku Databank.

As of Sunday, the six-month anniversary of the disaster, debts left behind from the failed businesses totaled about ¥612.3 billion and the businesses had a combined 6,376 employees, the agency said Monday.

The number of bankruptcies with debts of ¥10 million or more represents a rate about 2.8 times faster than the 123 failures in the six months following the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.

A Teikoku Databank official said the disaster-related failures have included many apparel stores and restaurants, where customers were reluctant to spend money.

[xchrom]

39. Survey: US sees Asia as more important than Europe

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_EUROPE_POLL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-14-07-02-54

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans increasingly view Asia, not Europe, as the region where the most important U.S. national interests lie, a poll found.

But respondents in nine of 12 European Union countries surveyed were more likely to say that the United States remains more important than Asia. The exceptions were France, Spain and Sweden.

The annual survey released Wednesday was conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a nonpartisan policy institution that promotes trans-Atlantic cooperation, and the Compagnia di San Paolo, a research center in Turin, Italy. The Swedish Foreign Ministry was among its sponsors.

The findings on U.S. attitudes toward Asia and Europe mark a transformation from a similar poll conducted by the same groups in 2004. In this year's survey, just over half of Americans saw Asia as more important for American interests than Europe. In the earlier survey, a strong majority of U.S. respondents chose Europe.

[xchrom]

41. Nikkei skids 1.1 pct to 2-1/2 yr closing low

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/14/markets-japan-stocks-idUKL3E7KE1JM20110914

TOKYO, Sept 14 (Reuters) - The Nikkei average skidded more
than 1 percent on Wednesday to a fresh 2-1/2 year closing low,
as persistent worries about the European debt crisis raised
fears of more losses ahead and prompted investors to take
profits on the previous session's gains.

U.S. stock futures fell as investors awaited a conference
call planned between French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister George
Papandreou later on Wednesday. That suggested investors were
positioning for no substantive progress on the debt situation to
emerge from the call.

S&P 500 e-mini futures <0#ES:> were last down 1.3 percent at
1,156.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao failed to allay concerns about
the euro zone when he said on Wednesday that China remains
willing to invest in Europe but wants rich economies to show
they are serious about tackling debt.

[xchrom]

56. China's decline - a US challenge

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/MI15Cb01.html

An implicit social contract underlies the Chinese people's relationship with its government. The people accept the autocratic Communist Party of China (CPC) regime with its corruption and minimal public participation, and the CPC regime delivers a continuous and rapid improvement in the economic standard of living. That social contract is now at risk, as China is on an unsustainable path that will result in economic stagnation or decline in the coming decades.

There are several culprits behind China's impending decline, with ecological limits topping the list. In When a Billion Chinese Jump, for instance, Jonathan Watts catalogues the current and impending ecological disasters: destructive coal mining in dry western provinces, over-utilization of fisheries, water shortages


and industrial water pollution, irreversible predation of ancient forests and delicate grasslands - all exacerbated by the crippling effects of global climate change.

Then there's the absence of good governance - reliable property rights, honest bureaucracy, and even-handed judicial oversight - which is not just socially undesirable, but arguably a critical barrier to continued economic progress. Reporting on recent studies that correlate economic progress with good governance, Mark Whitehouse declares in The Wall Street Journal that "China is making great progress in lifting its people from the ranks of the world's poorest. But if the experience of other countries is any indicator, it will need a revolution to achieve rich-nation status."

A third stress on the Chinese system is the unsustainability of the government's macroeconomic choices. The imbalances in China's investment-heavy, mercantilist economic structure have inevitably created, according to Stratfor, "a race between the Chinese and the Americans or even China and the world" but rather "a race to see what will smash China first, its own internal imbalances or the US decision to take a more mercantilist approach to international trade."

[xchrom]

61. China willing to expand investments in Europe

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-willing-to-expand-investments-in-europe-2011-09-14

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China views Europe as a strategic partner and stands willing to expand its investments in the region, Premier Wen Jiabao said Wednesday, urging that Europe acknowledge China’s status as a market economy.

We have been concerned about the difficulties faced by the European economy for a long time, and we have repeated our willingness to extend a helping hand and increase our investment,” the official Xinhua News Agency cited Wen as saying in an address to the World Economic Forum in the northeastern coastal city of Dalian.

The sovereign-debt crisis that has engulfed a handful of Europe’s so-called peripheral countries must be prevented from spreading further, Wen said as he called for decisive action in preventing spillover into the global economy.

“Countries must first put their own houses in order,” Wen was cited as saying in his address on Wednesday by Bloomberg News. “Developed countries must take responsible fiscal and monetary policies. What is most important now is to prevent the further spread of the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe.”

[xchrom]

62. Asia stocks off lows as European concerns ease

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/asia-mostly-higher-as-tech-firms-gain-2011-09-13

MUMBAI (MarketWatch) — Asian stocks ended off lows on Wednesday, while Hong Kong rose, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly sought to ease fears over an imminent default for Greece.

Fears of contagion and of another hit to European growth had first pressured Asian markets after ratings agency Moody’s downgraded two French banks.

Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average /quotes/zigman/5986735 JP:NIK -1.14% lost 1.1%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index /quotes/zigman/1653884 AU:XJO -1.64% lost 1.6%. South Korea’s Kospi KR:0100 -3.52% dropped 3.5% as investors took their first chance to react to recent events following a long holiday weekend.

But Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index /quotes/zigman/2622475 HK:HSI +0.08% recovered ground to rise 0.1%, while China’s Shanghai Composite /quotes/zigman/1859015 CN:000001 +0.55% rose 0.6%.

[xchrom]

67. Ageing populations could hurt Asian growth, says ADB

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14897133

Fast aging populations in Asian countries need to be properly managed, to ensure future growth said the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

In its outlook update report, the ADB said structural reforms were needed in coming years.

The bank also cut its growth forecast for developing Asia to 7.5% in 2011, from its earlier projection of 7.8%.

It attributed the moderating growth to ongoing worries about the health of the US and European economies.

[Demeter]

24. Median Male Worker Makes Less Now Than 43 Years Ago

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/median-male-worker-makes-less-now-43-years-ago


While the fact that a record number of Americans are living in poverty should not surprise anyone at this point, what should surprise many is that according to Table P-5 of the Census report of (Lack of) Income, the median male is now worse on a gross, inflation adjusted basis, than he was in... 1968! While back then, the median income of male workers was $32,844, it has since risen declined to $32,137 as of 2010. And there is your lesson in inflation 101 (which we assume is driven by the CPI, which likely means that the actual inflation adjusted income decline is far worse than what is even reported). The only winner: women, whose median inflation adjusted income over the same period has increased by 188%. That said, it is still at 65% of what the median male makes. So injustice all around. And now, it is time to be patriotic again and buy a Pontiac Aztek.



WITH WHAT, YOU MAY ASK, AND WHY SUCH AN UGLY VEHICLE?

[Demeter]

32. Record Poverty Last Year as Household Income Dips

http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=63D94E8E-DE16-11E0-A65A-00212803FAD6

A record number of people were in poverty last year as households saw their income decrease, according to data from the Census Bureau Tuesday, demonstrating the weakness of the economy even after the official end of the recession.

The 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010 was the most for the 52 years that estimates have been published, and the number of people in poverty rose for the fourth consecutive year as the poverty rate climbed to 15.1% — the highest since 1993 — up from 14.3% in 2009.

Meanwhile, real median household income in 2010 was $49,445, down 2.3% from the prior year and below pre-recession levels...

[Demeter]

25. IMF: Austerity boosts unemployment, lowers paychecks

THE AUSTERITY MERCHANTS HAVE A CHANGE OR HEART?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/imf-austerity-boosts-unemployment-lowers-paychecks/2011/09/12/gIQAl5ebPK_blog.html

These past few years, the Republican line on job creation has been simple: Cut government spending, tame the deficit, and unemployment will fall. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the day after, but soon. “To put it simply,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R- Va.) said last spring, “less government spending means more private-sector jobs.” But that’s not exactly a rigorous study. So here’s a rigorous study.

In a new paper for the International Monetary Fund, Laurence Ball, Daniel Leigh and Prakash Loungani look at 173 episodes of fiscal austerity over the past 30 years—with the average deficit cut amounting to 1 percent of GDP. Their verdict? Austerity “lowers incomes in the short term, with wage-earners taking more of a hit than others; it also raises unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment.”

More specifically, an austerity program that curbs the deficit by 1 percent of GDP reduces real incomes by about 0.6 percent and raises unemployment by almost 0.5 percentage points. What’s more, the IMF notes, the losses are twice as big when the central bank can’t cut rates (a good description of the present.) Typically, income and employment don’t fully recover even five years after the austerity program is put in place.

There’s also a class dimension here: A deficit cut of that size tends to cause real wage income, where lower-income folks get their money, to shrink by 0.9 percent, whereas rents and profits, which higher-income folks depend on, decline by just 0.3 percent. And, as the chart on the right shows, profits tend to bounce back faster than wages....


MORE AT LINK. A MUST-READ

[Demeter]

26. 'EU splitting amid financial crisis' MAX KEISER VIDEO

http://presstv.com/detail/198970.html

[Demeter]

30. Robert Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies About The Economy Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uf-ZXLABE&feature=player_embedded

[Demeter]

49. YAHOO'S DAILY TICKER VIDEO

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/america-middle-class-shrinks-p-g-adopts-hourglass-145429009.html

[xchrom]

27. europe: Osborne told to stop the spin and open up official statistics to all

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/osborne-told-to-stop-the-spin-and-open-up-official-statistics-to-all-2354367.html

The Chancellor has been accused of undermining public trust in government statistics by refusing to change rules that allow ministers and their advisers to see key economic data a day before its general release.

In a strongly worded letter to George Osborne, Sir Michael Scholar, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, said the practice was out of step with other countries, increased voters' fears that official figures were subject to spin and opened the door to leaks – accidental and intentional.

"The Statistics Authority believes that the current arrangements for pre-release access are highly damaging to public trust in official statistics," he told Mr Osborne.

[xchrom]

29. Jobless total rising fast

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jobless-total-rising-fast-2354481.html

Chancellor George Osborne was accused of "choking off" the recovery today as an increase in private sector jobs was overshadowed by the sharpest fall in public sector employment since records began.

Public sector employment fell by 111,000 in the three months to the end of June to reach 6.04 million, while the private sector added 41,000 to 23.13 million, the Office for National Statistics said.

A surge in jobless youths saw the country's unemployment rate jump by 80,000 to 2.51 million between May and July, the biggest increase in nearly two years. The number of unemployed 18 to 24-year-olds surged 77,000 to 769,000.

The dismal figures come as the Chancellor rolls out £81 billion-worth of spending cuts, including hundreds of thousands of job losses, amid warnings that unemployment could hit 2.7 million next year.

[xchrom]

31. Nick Clegg fast-tracks public projects to avert double dip

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nick-clegg-fasttracks-public-projects-to-avert-double-dip-2354365.html

Nick Clegg will today announce plans to press ahead with 40 major building projects in an effort to create thousands of jobs and breathe new life into Britain's anaemic economy.

The Deputy Prime Minister's move comes amid increasing Cabinet worries that the sluggish recovery from the downturn could continue for years – or even turn into a double-dip recession.

Critics will seize on the initiative, which carries echoes of President Barack Obama's plan to modernise the infrastructure of the United States, as evidence that ministers are planning an economic "plan A+" in the face of gloomy growth figures.

The Government counters that it is giving fresh impetus to previously announced schemes that are as important for Britain's economic health as cutting the deficit.

[xchrom]

33. Italy to give final approval to austerity plan

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_FINANCIAL_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-14-08-18-22

ROME (AP) -- Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has won a confidence vote to push forward its austerity package, which is set to receive final parliamentary approval later in the day.

The government had called the confidence vote in the lower house of parliament in order to stifle debate and speed up approval of the package, seen as key to fend off a financial crisis.

The lower house will hold a final vote on the package Wednesday evening. The Senate has already passed the measures, which aim to reduce the country's deficit by more than euro54 billion ($70 billion) over three years.

Berlusconi's conservatives hold a majority in parliament. However, if a government loses a confidence vote, it must resign.

[Demeter]

50. China Must Avoid Lending to ‘Troubled’ Euro-Area Nations, Yu Yongding Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/china-must-avoid-loans-to-troubled-nations-yongding.html

China shouldn’t buy bonds issued by individual euro-area countries because their leaders and the European Central Bank are in disarray, said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China’s central bank.

“China has to wait until it can see a clearer road map by euro countries for solving sovereign-debt problems,” Yu, who is based in Beijing, said in e-mailed comments today. The nation is not a lender of last resort for “troubled countries,” he added.

[Demeter]

51. Geithner Takes Tougher Tone on Europe to Fight Debt Crisis Roiling Markets

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/geithner-takes-tougher-tone-on-europe-to-fight-debt-crisis-roiling-markets.html

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner will urge European governments to step up their crisis- fighting efforts amid Obama administration concerns that the region’s woes may hurt the U.S. economy.

Geithner will press European Union finance ministers when he meets with them this week, a euro-area official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because preparations for the meeting, which takes place in Wroclaw, Poland, on Sept. 16 and 17, are confidential. It will be the first time Geithner has attended a session of Europe’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council, known as Ecofin.

“The U.S. has always been discretely preoccupied and discretely present, and now it’s starting to be intensely preoccupied and intensely present,” said Nicolas Veron, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based economics research group.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today indicated limits to what his nation will do to counter the European crisis. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China, he said that countries must “put their own houses in order.” He added that China’s own stable growth is among its contributions to the world economy....

[xchrom]

58. Lisbon told to find more savings to meet deficit goal

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Lisbon/told/to/find/more/savings/to/meet/deficit/goal/elpepueng/20110913elpeng_9/Ten

The International Monetary Fund and the European Union estimate the Portuguese government will have to find further savings of around one billion euros in order to meet its deficit-reduction target for next year.

The additional austerity measures are required to offset an estimated budget overshoot for this year.

"Further measures, mostly on the expenditure side, will be taken to fill the gap arising from the shortfalls in 2011, and which could be about 0.6 percent of GDP ," according to an update of the memorandum of understanding signed by the government, the IMF and the EU in May under the country's 78-billion-euro bailout plan.

On top of the belt-tightening measures put in place by the previous Socialist administration, the government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, which took power in June, has introduced further measures, including bringing forward a planned increase in the value-added rate applied to electricity consumption and new tax surcharges for high-income individuals and companies earning over 1.5 million euros.

[xchrom]

69. London-based Nepali migrant takes eBay by storm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14902975

A Nepalese man who moved to London as a teenager has been confirmed as Britain's biggest seller on the online auction website eBay.

Sudip Gautam, now known as Dario Lopez, came to England in November 2002 with his mother to join his father.

He set up a mobile phone accessory company which now has a staff of 13 and an annual turnover of more than £3m.

Mr Lopez has opened his first shop in London and aims long term to set up a chain of stores across the world.

[Demeter]

28. America is Collapsing: Mr. President, We Need a 10-Year Plan By Lawrence Summers (NO, REALLY)

I BEGIN TO WONDER IF GEITHNER, THE LITTLE RAT, FORCED ALL HIS COMPETITION OUT...IN WHICH CASE, HE AND OBAMA GET ALL THE CREDIT FOR OUR PRESENT ECONOMIC DEPRESSION...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29121.htm

Shovel-ready projects won’t cut it, says Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary...We need not a one-year but a 10-year commitment to rebuilding the country. President Obama’s jobs speech focused where it needed to—but it is only a start. America is underperforming. Millions are out of work, and tens of millions have depressed incomes. Obama was clear about what everyone, from storekeepers to economists, from corporate CEOs to unemployed workers, knows: until there is more demand for their products, firms will not hire more workers.

The president was right to focus on the most obvious idea for creating demand and putting people back to work at a moment like this: rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure. If a moment when the government can borrow for 10 years at less than 2 percent, when unemployment among construction workers is well into double digits, and when the price of building materials is depressed is not the moment for infrastructure investment, it is hard to imagine when that time will come. Moreover, much of the cost of infrastructure investment is illusory if those hired would otherwise be collecting unemployment insurance.

There will always be debate among experts about the returns to public investment in infrastructure. Some cite studies suggesting that road-maintenance projects delayed even two years can become six times as expensive later. They argue that the construction of highways, airports, and seaports has made a major contribution to American growth and claim outsize returns. Others are more skeptical, noting that the political process itself often makes for poor investment decisions. But it is hard to believe that a country with an air-traffic-control system still based on vacuum tubes, with tens of thousands of schools where paint is peeling off classroom walls, where bridges regularly collapse, and where traffic congestion costs more than $100 billion a year cannot find plenty of investments that have a return that dwarfs the 2 percent cost of borrowing.

The president’s proposals to create an infrastructure bank, to spend quickly on surface transportation, and to renovate schools are a very good start. But America must demand more. For years we will have an economy with plenty of slack, low borrowing costs, and high unemployment. The specter of a double dip will hover over us if government does not do its part in pushing the economy forward—not just this year, but for years to come. Now is the time not just to do shovel-ready projects, but to envision the backbone we want the American economy to have in 2020 and launch the multiyear plan we need to get there.

***************************************************************

Mr. Summers, born on Nov. 30, 1954, was treasury secretary from 1999 until the end of the Clinton administration

[Demeter]

34. Trial aims to hose down warming climate

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b6e288ec-de17-11e0-a115-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=crm/email/2011914/nbe/ScienceEnvironment/product#axzz1XvYv3dT3

A team of scientists and engineers will in October pump water through a high-pressure hose suspended from a helium balloon 1km above a disused airfield in Norfolk in an unlikely bid to develop a technological solution to combating climate change.

The test at Sculthorpe will be Britain’s first experiment in the controversial field of geoengineering – counteracting global warming by deliberately cooling the climate.

...“The project itself is not carrying out geoengineering, just investigating the feasibility of doing so,” said Matt Watson of Bristol University, Spice leader.

Even so, the experiment was condemned as a “climate technofix” by ETC, an environmental group opposed on principle to geoengineering, on the grounds that it distracts from the drive to cut carbon emissions and its effects are unpredictable.

[Demeter]

38. Is It Weird Enough Yet? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

FRIEDMAN ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE IN THIS ARTICLE....I HOPE HE'S FEELING WELL

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/opinion/friedman-is-it-weird-enough-yet.html

[Fuddnik]

46. Damn! Friedman is drinking, and his ghosts are haunting him.

[xchrom]

35. Wholesale prices flat, as inflation pressures ease

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WHOLESALE_PRICES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-14-08-35-06

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Companies paid the same amount for wholesale goods last month as a drop in energy prices offset higher food costs.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core wholesale prices edged up 0.1 percent, the smallest increase in three months. The figures indicate that inflation pressures are easing.

The Labor Department says the Producer Price Index, which measures price changes before they reach the consumer, was unchanged in August, after a 0.2 percent rise in July.

In the past 12 months, the index has increased 6.5 percent, mostly due to higher gas and food costs. That's the smallest 12-month rise since March, though much bigger than the annual changes late last year.

[xchrom]

36. US gov't prepares to release BP oil spill report

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GULF_OIL_SPILL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-14-07-41-53

A key federal report into what caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history was being readied for release as early as Wednesday amid revelations that BP made critical mistakes on the well and failed to tell its partners and the U.S. government when it realized it.

An investigation team of the U.S. Coast Guard and the agency that regulates offshore drilling held hearings over the course of a year following the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon tragedy. The Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement investigation has been among the most exhaustive.

Other investigations have faulted misreadings of key data, the failure of the blowout preventer to stop the flow of oil to the sea, and other shortcomings by executives, engineers and rig crew members.

Meanwhile, interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press show a BP scientist identified a previously unreported deposit of flammable gas that could have played a role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but the oil giant failed to divulge the finding to government investigators for as long as a year.

[DemReadingDU]

42. People taking money out of European banks

9/14/11 Deposit Flight From European Banks Means Collateral Risk Piling Up at ECB

European banks are losing deposits as savers and money funds spooked by the region’s debt crisis search for havens, a trend that could worsen economic and financial conditions. Retail and institutional deposits at Greek banks fell 19 percent in the past year and almost 40 percent at Irish lenders in 18 months. Meanwhile, European Union financial firms are lending less to one another and U.S. money-market funds have reduced their investments in German, French and Spanish banks.
.
.
Deposits by financial institutions in Greek banks, which make up 21 percent of the total, have fallen by one-third since the beginning of 2010, while those by non-financial firms and residents dropped 9 percent, according to Bank of Greece data.

In Germany, deposits by financial institutions, which account for one-third the total, declined 12 percent over the same period and 24 percent since the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., ECB figures show. In France, where the erosion started last year, the same type of deposits, which make up half the total, are down 6 percent since June 2010. They have fallen 14 percent since May 2010 at Spanish banks, where they account for one-fifth of the total.

Deposits include money kept in banks by individuals and companies. Most of the short-term funding supplied by financial institutions and money funds is counted as deposits by the ECB and other central banks in Europe.

While retail deposits at Italian banks have fallen only 1 percent in the past year, the outflow of money from financial institutions has exceeded $100 billion, a 13 percent decline, according to Bank of Italy and ECB data.

more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-13/deposit-flight-from-european-banks-means-collateral-risk-piling-up-at-ecb.html

[xchrom]

43. CBO to Super-Committee: Increase the Deficit!

http://www.thenation.com/blog/163350/cbo-super-committee-increase-deficit

The head of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office testified before the super-committee on deficit reduction on Tuesday, and while he outlined the basic math behind the nation’s long-term debt problem, he had a surprising message: don’t be afraid to make the deficit bigger over the next couple years, while the nation battles recession.

Douglas Elmendorf, the CBO director, said that given the massive Bush tax cuts, which severely throttled the federal government’s revenue stream, and given the large number of baby-boomers who will be on Medicare—combined with skyrocketing health costs—something has to give.

“Citizens will either have to pay more for their government, accept less in government services and benefits, or both,” he said.

But Elmendorf was also frank about the depths and danger of the current recession—and how it’s creating a much bigger deficit. He noted that the largest contributor to the government’s current red ink is a $5 trillion output gap, and that the costs of that gap are “borne unevenly, falling disproportionately on people who lose their jobs, who are displaced from their homes, or who own businesses that fail.”

[Demeter]

45. BUT...Spend the Money on People, At HOME

No more corporate welfare, and no more war.

[Demeter]

48. The Death of the Confidence Fairy PAUL KRUGMAN

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/the-death-of-the-confidence-fairy/



In the first half of last year a strange delusion swept much of the policy elite on both sides of the Atlantic — the belief that cutting spending in the face of high unemployment would actually create jobs. I went after this stuff early and hard (I suspect that the confidence fairy will be one of my lasting contributions to economic discourse); still, it’s good to have a steadily mounting weight of evidence about just how wrong that view was.

The latest entry is a comprehensive review of past episodes of austerity by economists at the IMF, from which the figure above is taken. Yes, contractionary policy is contractionary. And as the authors point out, it’s probably even more contractionary than usual under current conditions:

The reduction in incomes from fiscal consolidations is even larger if central banks do not or cannot blunt some of the pain through a monetary policy stimulus. The fall in interest rates associated with monetary stimulus supports investment and consumption, and the concomitant depreciation of the currency boosts net exports. Ireland in 1987 and Finland and Italy in 1992 are examples of countries that undertook fiscal consolidations, but where large depreciations of the currency helped provide a boost to net exports.

Unfortunately, these pain relievers are not easy to come by in today’s environment. In many economies, central banks can provide only a limited monetary stimulus because policy interest rates are already near zero (see “Unconventional Behavior” in this issue of F&D). Moreover, if many countries carry out fiscal austerity at the same time, the reduction in incomes in each country is likely to be greater, since not all countries can reduce the value of their currency and increase net exports at the same time.

Simulations of the IMF’s large-scale models suggest that the reduction in incomes may be more than twice as large as that shown in Chart 2 when central banks cannot cut interest rates and when many countries are carrying out consolidations at the same time. These simulations thus suggest that fiscal consolidation is now likely to be more contractionary (that is, to reduce short-run income more) than was the case in past episodes.

Unfortunately, austerity programs are now the rule everywhere; even if the new Obama plan became law, which it won’t, it would only slow the pace of fiscal consolidation in America, and there’s nothing like it even on the table elsewhere.

Economic policy: we’re doing it wrong.

[Demeter]

52. Greece Should ‘Default Big,’ Says Man Who Managed Argentina’s 2001 Crisis

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-13/greece-should-default-big-to-address-debt-woes-argentina-s-blejer-says.html

Mario Blejer, who managed Argentina’s central bank in the aftermath of the world’s biggest sovereign default, said Greece should halt payments on its debt to stop a deterioration of the economy that threatens the European Union. “This debt is unpayable,” Blejer, who was also an adviser to Bank of England Governor Mervyn King from 2003 to 2008, said in an interview in Buenos Aires. “Greece should default, and default big. A small default is worse than a big default and also worse than no default.”...Rescue programs backed by the IMF and European Central Bank are “recession-creating” efforts that will leave Greece saddled with more debt relative to the size of its economy in coming years and stifle growth, Blejer said. A Greek default would push Portugal to do the same and would put Ireland “under tremendous pressure to at least symbolically default” on some of its debt, he added. “It’s totally ridiculous what is going on,” Blejer, 63, said. “If you assume that these countries do everything that is in the program, they do all these adjustments and privatizations, at the end of 2012 debt-to-GDP will be bigger than this year.”

The statements by Blejer, who ran Argentina’s central bank in the months after its default on $95 billion in debt, put him at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said the risks of contagion from a Greek default are too big and that an “uncontrolled insolvency” would further agitate turbulent global markets...

**********************************************

World Bank and International Monetary Fund officials will meet in Washington Sept. 23-25 as European Union officials work to keep the currency union from unraveling and the Greek crisis worsens. Europe is facing “a full-blown banking crisis” said Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., in an interview yesterday.

[Demeter]

53. Yves Smith Rips BofA a New One, Slaps NYT in Face While She's At It

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/new-york-times-runs-pr-for-bank-headcount-cutting-profiteers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Long and scathing.

[xchrom]

54. Chart of the Day: Why Aren't More Mid-Market Companies Hiring?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/chart-of-the-day-why-arent-more-mid-market-companies-hiring/244960/

Last week, my colleague Derek Thompson listed 8 possible reasons why companies aren't hiring. But to know which of these reasons are most important, you would have to actually ask companies. The National Federation of Independent Businesses does that each month. It asks small businesses about their biggest problem and has been consistently finding that poor sales are their most significant obstacle to growth. Second and third are taxes and regulation. But what if you were to expand the size of companies a bit to mid-market firms?

Deloitte conducted a survey of these firms earlier this year as part of a report titled "Mid-market perspectives: 2011 report on America's economic engine" (.pdf). The mid-market segment consists of firms with annual revenues between $50 million and $1 billion. The segment is responsible for employing tens of millions of people, largely in the U.S. -- 53% have no workforce outside the country and just 18% of theses companies have more than 25% of their employees based abroad.

Here are the result for biggest obstacles to growth for mid-market companies, according to the 527 Deloitte surveyed:

[Demeter]

55. Massive New Radiation Releases Possible from Fukushima … Esp. If Melted Core Materials Hit Water

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/guest-post-massive-new-radiation-releases-possible-from-fukushima-especially-if-melted-core-materials-hit-water.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

By Washington’s Blog

[Demeter]

57. Poverty Rate Highest Since 1993; Median Income Reveals Lost Decade and a Half

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/poverty-rate-highest-since-1993-median-income-reveals-lost-decade-and-a-half.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29


....What is distressing is the lack of any sense of noblesse oblige. Those at the top of the food chain for the most part seem to have no concern about the damage income inequality does to broader society, and to them (we’ve discussed how unequal societies produce worse outcomes in health and happiness even for those at their apex). Unfortunately, the lesson of history is that little pigs get fed and big pigs get slaughtered,. These big pigs may have to learn their lesson the hard way.

[xchrom]

59. Data says it all about economy: flat, flat, flat

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/data-says-it-all-about-economy-flat-flat-flat-2011-09-14

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — So it’s official: In August there was no jobs growth, no sales growth and no price growth.

hat’s what today’s reports from the Commerce Department on retail sales and the Labor Department on producer prices say, combined with an earlier report on nonfarm payrolls. Read more economic reports.

That flat performance is pretty appropriate description about the economy: one that might not be in a recession but isn’t going anywhere fast and is very vulnerable to contraction.

Corporate America is signaling the same over the last two days. The good news is they are deploying their record stash of cash — but not to hire or build factories.

[xchrom]

64. US retail sales stagnate in August

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14919089

US retail sales failed to increase in August compared with the previous month, adding to evidence of an economic slowdown.

The zero growth rate was worse than expected, and the rate for July was also revised down by the US Commerce Department, from 0.5% to 0.3%.

A fall in car sales weighed down on the headline figure. Excluding cars, sales rose by just 0.1% in the month.

Compared with a year earlier, August sales were 7.2% higher.

[xchrom]

60. Gold trades lower but holds $1,800 level

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-trades-lower-but-holds-1800-level-2011-09-14?dist=markets

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures edged lower Wednesday, holding to losses after data showed flat U.S. retail sales in August.

Gold for December delivery /quotes/zigman/661658 GC1Z -0.36% declined $3.40, or 0.2%, to $1,827.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold rose 0.9% the previous session, as an early-week dip of nearly 2.5% enticed bargain hunters back to the market.

Market participants are likely reluctant, however, “to enter large bets in gold before Thursday’s numbers on both sides of the Atlantic,” and, more importantly, ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day meeting next week, analysts at VTB Capital said in a note to clients Wednesday.

The metal has “decent” support at $1,800 but the market could “stall here for now,” they added. On the upside, price resistance hovers around $1,910 an ounce, the analysts said.

[xchrom]

63. Aerial View of Frank Gehry's Hong Kong Project

http://www.marketwatch.com/video/asset/aerial-view-of-frank-gehrys-hong-kong-project-2011-09-14/C913F2C0-24D4-4E98-B406-C66ECCF1E261#!C913F2C0-24D4-4E98-B406-C66ECCF1E261

Frank Gehry's first residential project in Asia is underway, a 12-story apartment building in Hong Kong located on the Peak, one of the city's most expensive neighborhoods. The WSJ's Andrew LaVallee surveys the site from a helicopter.

[xchrom]

68. south asia: Indian inflation rises to yearly high of 9.78%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14914916

Inflation in India rose to 9.78% in August, its highest level in a year, officials say.

The increase was mainly due to the rising cost of food, fuel and manufactured goods across the country.

Inflation is a major headache for the Indian government and the central bank has raised interest rates 11 times in 18 months to try to keep a lid on it.

Despite this, a senior government adviser has said he thinks inflation will stay between 9-10% this year.

[xchrom]

70. Sensex closes 283 points up

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Sensex-closes-283-points-up/articleshow/9980990.cms

MUMBAI: A benchmark index for Indian equities markets on Wednesday closed 283 points higher, while broader markets rose led by robust buying in IT, telcom and metal stocks leading.

The 30-scrip sensitive index ( Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 16,552.71 points, closed at 16,751.07 points, up 283.83 points or 1.72% from its previous close at 16,467.44 points.

It slipped to 16,387.38 points in the morning.

The 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange too ended higher at 5,026 points, up 1.72%.

[Festivito]

75. Debt: 09/12/2011 14,688,259,374,281.24 (DOWN 23,477,824,196.64) (Mon, DOWN a little.)

(UNDER the new 2011 debt limit of 14.694-trillion dollars by 394.259-billion dollars. Good day.)
Sue's internet still here.
(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 10,067,694,973,854.20 + 4,620,564,400,427.00
DOWN 33,661,156.40 + DOWN 23,444,163,040.24

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 313-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.20 THAT'S 1B$, and $3,196.14 makes 1T$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.59, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ 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 another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 312,876,992 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 10/04/2010 04:37 -> 310,403,677
Currently, each of these Americans owe $46,945.8.
A family of three owes $140,837.39. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 21 reports in the last 30 to 31 days.
The average for the last 21 reports is 4,812,690,659.93.
The average for the last 30 days would be 3,368,883,461.95.
The average for the last 31 days would be 3,260,209,801.89.
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$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 251 reports in 365 days of FY2010 averaging 6.58B$ per report, 4.53B$/day.
There were 235 reports in 347 days of FY2011 averaging 4.79B$ per report, 3.25B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 496 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 15.4 and 17.2T$.
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)
09/12/2011 14,688,259,374,281.24 BHO (UP 4,061,382,325,368.12 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,651,794,027,380.00 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
FY2011 +1,126,636,343,389.50 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof11 +1,185,078,574,458.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
08/22/2011 -000,213,053,000.99 --- Mon
08/23/2011 +000,814,357,949.50 ------------********
08/24/2011 +000,495,517,849.57 ------------********
08/25/2011 +015,444,082,130.78 ------------**********
08/26/2011 +001,003,663,200.19 ------------*********
08/29/2011 -000,073,220,970.90 ---- Mon
08/30/2011 +000,152,580,275.78 ------------********
08/31/2011 +034,126,581,560.14 ------------**********
09/01/2011 +034,131,323,630.30 ------------**********
09/02/2011 +000,182,220,803.10 ------------********
09/06/2011 -000,290,117,782.20 --- Tue
09/07/2011 +015,583,261,687.60 ------------**********
09/08/2011 -006,211,008,386.30 --
09/09/2011 +000,079,600,651.10 ------------*******
09/12/2011 -000,033,661,156.40 ---- Mon

95,192,128,441.27 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(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=4992748&mesg_id=4992803

[Festivito]

83. Debt: 09/13/2011 14,717,868,058,346.24 (UP 29,608,684,064.99) (Tue, DOWN a little.)

(UNDER the new 2011 debt limit of 14.694-trillion dollars by 423.868-billion dollars. Good day.)
Corbin sleeps, Hunter eats and gives it up to Maggie.
(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 10,067,653,336,814.70 + 4,650,214,721,531.49
DOWN 41,637,039.50 + UP 29,650,321,104.49

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 313-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.20 THAT'S 1B$, and $3,196.07 makes 1T$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.59, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ 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 another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 312,884,192 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 10/04/2010 04:37 -> 310,403,677
Currently, each of these Americans owe $47,039.35.
A family of three owes $141,118.04. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 to 32 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 5,939,781,269.25.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,355,839,597.45.
The average for the last 32 days would be 4,083,599,622.61.
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$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 251 reports in 365 days of FY2010 averaging 6.58B$ per report, 4.53B$/day.
There were 236 reports in 348 days of FY2011 averaging 4.90B$ per report, 3.32B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 495 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 15.4 and 17.3T$.
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)
09/13/2011 14,717,868,058,346.24 BHO (UP 4,090,991,009,433.11 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,651,794,027,380.00 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
FY2011 +1,156,245,027,454.50 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof11 +1,212,728,261,554.29 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
08/23/2011 +000,814,357,949.50 ------------********
08/24/2011 +000,495,517,849.57 ------------********
08/25/2011 +015,444,082,130.78 ------------**********
08/26/2011 +001,003,663,200.19 ------------*********
08/29/2011 -000,073,220,970.90 ---- Mon
08/30/2011 +000,152,580,275.78 ------------********
08/31/2011 +034,126,581,560.14 ------------**********
09/01/2011 +034,131,323,630.30 ------------**********
09/02/2011 +000,182,220,803.10 ------------********
09/06/2011 -000,290,117,782.20 --- Tue
09/07/2011 +015,583,261,687.60 ------------**********
09/08/2011 -006,211,008,386.30 --
09/09/2011 +000,079,600,651.10 ------------*******
09/12/2011 -000,033,661,156.40 ---- Mon
09/13/2011 -000,041,637,039.50 ----

95,363,544,402.76 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(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=4993954&mesg_id=4994430

[Demeter]

76. Britain to sue ECB over threat to City

Britain is to sue the European Central Bank for setting rules that allegedly handicap the City of London and force one of the world’s largest clearing houses to decamp operations to the euro area.

The legal action is unprecedented and underlines the depth of ministerial concern over the ECB policy, which comes as the UK engages in a high-stakes turf war with France and Germany over Europe’s market infrastructure.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/4RNQTT/C4D8KM/MJTKN/YBTE5F/ZGODUL/1G/t?a1=2011&a2=9&a3=14

[Demeter]

77. It's a Miracle!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXm1P77MSpQ

Think what the market would do if there was anything real and good going on....

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

78. ...the skies above are blue again...

[DemReadingDU]

81. Happy days are here again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqsT4xnKZPg