Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Economy
Related: About this forumSTOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 4 July 2012 -- Have at it, girls 'n' boys!
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
11 replies, 2184 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (13)
ReplyReply to this post
11 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 4 July 2012 -- Have at it, girls 'n' boys! (Original Post)
Tansy_Gold
Jul 2012
OP
kickysnana
(3,908 posts)1. Happy Birthday America.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)2. Happy Higgs Day!
A massive technical achievement!
tclambert
(11,085 posts)9. For the low, low price of 125 GeV you can have one of your very own!
Myself, I'm trying to shed excess Higgs bosons through diet and exercise.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)3. ...
Hotler
(11,396 posts)4. Peace everybody.
Virtual group hug.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)5. How about some fireworks??? (Courtesy of Mother Nature last night)
From the beach at Disney's Polynesian Resort (where we watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks last night)
We may be getting similar skyworks tonight.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)7. The Kid and I went to a $1 movie--Big Miracle
Based on a true story (Reagan era) of 2 California whales trapped in early ice off Point Barrow, Alaska.
I had no recollection of this event, so I went to look:
Operation Breakthrough From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Breakthrough was an international effort to free three gray whales from pack ice in the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow in the U.S. state of Alaska in 1988. The whales' plight generated media attention that led to the collaboration of multiple governments and organizations in an effort to free them. It is unknown if the operation was ultimately a success...
On October 7, 1988, Inuit hunter Roy Ahmaogak discovered three gray whales trapped in pack ice in the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow in the U.S. state of Alaska.[1] The hunter used a chainsaw to attempt cutting a path in the ice leading to open water. Fellow villagers helped the hunter by using water pumps to keep ice from reforming overnight.[2] Word spread through the Inuit community about the whales, and biologists from North Slope Borough, Alaska visited the site and realized the danger.[1] A skycrane was proposed to create holes in the ice using a 5-ton hammer.[3]
The first news story about the trapped whales was in Anchorage, Alaska a week later. Rescuers tried to borrow a barge from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to break the ice and clear a path, but the barge was locked in. The whales' plight gained more attention from the media as journalists called North Slope Borough and flew to the site.[1] The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent a team of whale biologists, and the United States Department of State requested the help of two icebreakers from the Soviet Union,[2] the Vladimir Arseniev and the Admiral Makarov.[4]
While the whales remained in their initial area, they were given Inuit names Putu, Siku, and Kanik and English names Bonnet, Crossbeak, and Bone, respectively. The youngest whale (Bone), nine months old, died on October 21. On October 28,[2] the Admiral Makarov broke apart a ridge of Arctic ice that was 400 yards wide and 30 feet high. The Vladimir Arseniev cleared the icy rubble to create a large enough path for the remaining two whales to escape. After the path was cut observers could find no sign of the whales and the operation was declared a success. The remaining whales were reportedly in very poor health at the time of the rescue and because radio tags were never attached it is unknown if the animals survived[5].
The rescue effort cost US$1 million (US$1.97 million in today's terms) and was criticized by some scientists.
So, it was three weeks in a very difficult point in my own life...and probably never hit the Nashua, NH newspaper, since neither hockey nor soccer nor NH nor fundie wacko GOP politicians were involved--and by then I avoided anything mentioning Reagan, Poppy, or the elections. I hadn't started delivering the newspapers, yet, and never watched the TV. NPR must not have done much on it...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)8. NPR had a story about the movie---
they had at least one clip from an NPR report, in the story, so I guess it got some coverage...
but it was a really, really bad time for me...and I don't want to remember those days any more.
wilsonbooks
(972 posts)10. I was hoping for a bit more fireworks from this
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/libor-banking-scandal-deepens-barclays-releases-damning-email-implicates-british-government-20120704
This Libor-manipulation story grows crazier with each passing minute. We have officially disappeared now down the rabbit-hole of the international financial oligarchy.Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond is testifying before parliament in London today, and that's sure to bring some shocking moments. But there's already been one huge stunner. In advance of that testimony, Barclays released an email from October 29, 2008, written by Diamond to then-Chairman John Varley and COO Jerry del Messier (who also stepped down yesterday). The email from the CEO to the other two senior Barclays execs purports to detail the content of the conversation Diamond had with Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker that same day.
In the email, Diamond essentially tells the other two execs that he has been given permission by Tucker encouraged, actually to rig Libor rates downward. Whats even worse is that Diamonds email suggests that Tucker was only following orders, i.e. that Tucker had received phone calls from "a number of senior figures within Whitehall" that is, the British government expressing concern about Barclays' high Libor rates. Tucker in this version of events was acting as a middleman for the British government, telling Diamond to fake his borrowing rates in order to preserve the appearance of financial stability, for the good of Queen and country as it were.
Again: Libor, the London Interbank Exchange Rate, is the rate at which banks borrow from each other. A huge percentage of the worlds variable-rate investments are pegged to Libor. When Libor rates are high, it suggests that the banks confidence in each other is low, and high Libor rates are generally an indicator of shaky financial health among the banks. If the banks manipulated Libor, they did it to make themselves look healthier, but this had the consequence of affecting hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of financial products worldwide.During the crash of 2008, governments understandably would have been concerned about high Libor rates high rates and a lack of confidence in banks threatened economic stability but the notion that governments would have encouraged banks to fake those rates would have been beyond unthinkable even a decade ago.
Back to the email. Diamonds version of the conversation with Tucker, if true, is mind-blowing. To paraphrase, Diamond said that Tucker started off by asking Diamond why other banks were reporting such low borrowing rates relative to Barclays.
Diamond apparently deadpanned that his banks problem was that it was reporting the real numbers, while all the other banks were lying. "I asked [Tucker] if he could relay the reality, that not all banks were providing quotes at the levels that represented real transaction," Diamond wrote.
This Libor-manipulation story grows crazier with each passing minute. We have officially disappeared now down the rabbit-hole of the international financial oligarchy.Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond is testifying before parliament in London today, and that's sure to bring some shocking moments. But there's already been one huge stunner. In advance of that testimony, Barclays released an email from October 29, 2008, written by Diamond to then-Chairman John Varley and COO Jerry del Messier (who also stepped down yesterday). The email from the CEO to the other two senior Barclays execs purports to detail the content of the conversation Diamond had with Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker that same day.
In the email, Diamond essentially tells the other two execs that he has been given permission by Tucker encouraged, actually to rig Libor rates downward. Whats even worse is that Diamonds email suggests that Tucker was only following orders, i.e. that Tucker had received phone calls from "a number of senior figures within Whitehall" that is, the British government expressing concern about Barclays' high Libor rates. Tucker in this version of events was acting as a middleman for the British government, telling Diamond to fake his borrowing rates in order to preserve the appearance of financial stability, for the good of Queen and country as it were.
Again: Libor, the London Interbank Exchange Rate, is the rate at which banks borrow from each other. A huge percentage of the worlds variable-rate investments are pegged to Libor. When Libor rates are high, it suggests that the banks confidence in each other is low, and high Libor rates are generally an indicator of shaky financial health among the banks. If the banks manipulated Libor, they did it to make themselves look healthier, but this had the consequence of affecting hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of financial products worldwide.During the crash of 2008, governments understandably would have been concerned about high Libor rates high rates and a lack of confidence in banks threatened economic stability but the notion that governments would have encouraged banks to fake those rates would have been beyond unthinkable even a decade ago.
Back to the email. Diamonds version of the conversation with Tucker, if true, is mind-blowing. To paraphrase, Diamond said that Tucker started off by asking Diamond why other banks were reporting such low borrowing rates relative to Barclays.
Diamond apparently deadpanned that his banks problem was that it was reporting the real numbers, while all the other banks were lying. "I asked [Tucker] if he could relay the reality, that not all banks were providing quotes at the levels that represented real transaction," Diamond wrote.
Po_d Mainiac
(4,183 posts)11. kick