STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 1 October 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday, 1 October 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 28 September 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 28 September 2012
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Dow Jones 13,437.13 -48.84 (-0.36%)
S&P 500 1,440.67 -6.48 (-0.45%)
Nasdaq 3,116.23 -20.37 (-0.65%)



[font color=red]10 Year 1.63% +0.03 (1.88%)
30 Year 2.82% +0.04 (1.44%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent




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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Ghost Dog]

1. And Now Comes A HUGE Week For The Economy And The Election

... Get lot and lots of rest today.

This first week of October is going to be HUGE from both an economic standpoint.

First, here’s an abbreviated version of what’s coming up. These bullets are courtesy of Dave Lutz at Stifel, Nicolaus:

- Chinese Markets closed for Golden Week
- Central Bank Decisions from Aussie, BOE, ECB and BOJ
- Big Ben speaks, and the Minutes from the September meeting
- Global PMI Data – China, EU, UK, USA
- September Auto Sales and Retailer Same Store Sales
- US and EU Employment reports
- A Big Spanish Bond Auction
- Value Investing Conference – Major HF speakers
- European Banking Authority – final report on capital plans
- The First debate between Gov. Romney and President Obama

Now, here’s the full schedule:

MONDAY: It’s global PMI day. So starting late Sunday night in the US, we’ll be getting critical manufacturing reports from Asia, and then Europe, and then of course the US, concluding with the US at 10:00 AM ET. Also at 10:00 AM ET we get Construction Spending for October. There’s also going to be a monetary policy speech by Bernanke, a speech by the head of the SF Fed. At the Value Investing Congress, Bill Ackman, Whitney Tilson, and other swill present picks.


/More... http://investmentwatchblog.com/a-frightening-pattern-indicate-that-we-are-heading-to-a-massive-economic-catastrophe-unlike-anything-ever-seen-and-countdown-clock-is-quickly-approaching-zero/#8Yl0J2G0pT0x8HsJ.99

[DemReadingDU]

2. Got my popcorn!

[Demeter]

3. Got my armor!

[Fuddnik]

5. Got my vodka!

Will get more tomorrow!

It's like preparations for hurricane season.

[Demeter]

39. Touch of frost this morning

Temperature at 38F at 8 am...

The colors are beautiful on the trees this year. Drought does that. It's STILL not raining, and I am very worried about that.

[Fuddnik]

41. We got down to about 76 last night.

[TeamPooka]

6. a link from Marc "Chicken Little" Faber? Please.... nt

[Po_d Mainiac]

7. Who wood listen to someone that says shit like this?

"Basically we have one thing for sure, is that today the wealth inequality and the income inequality between say the 1 percent wealthiest people and the 99 percent that are less wealthy is far larger than it was 20 or 30 years ago."

"And very clearly money printing historically has always benefited a few at the expense of the many. - excerpt from a recent interview on asset bubbles"
Marc Faber

[TeamPooka]

9. followed by the words "buy gold".

[Ghost Dog]

11. As opposed to "buy stocks" you mean?

Last edited Mon Oct 1, 2012, 05:22 AM - Edit history (1)

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One day eventually that will be right...

... After last month's outsized gain of 7.7 percent, slightly lower metal prices shouldn't come as too big of a surprise in October, but there is good news in both charts about November. So, regardless of what happens over the near-term, history suggests that precious metals will end the year higher, perhaps spectacularly higher, given the right conditions.

Central banks continue to buy the yellow metal. Last week, the International Monetary Fund reported that Turkey added 45 tonnes to its reserves in July, Russia added almost 19 tonnes, South Korea increased its tiny gold reserves by almost one-third with an addition of 16 tonnes, and Paraguay went from, basically, zero to over 8 tonnes.

Recall that the world's central banks went from net gold sellers to net buyers in 2009, and this trend accelerated as the European sovereign debt crisis got underway and the U.S. continued to borrow and print money with abandon. At just past the mid-way point, emerging market central banks have added more than 250 tonnes to their gold reserves in 2012, and expectations are that last year's multi-decade high of almost 450 tonnes will be exceeded. This important new source of demand is not likely to go away anytime soon given the propensity of Western central banks (along with China and Japan) to print money so freely.

Retail investment also firmed up as the summer drew to a close, with worldwide gold-backed ETF holdings rising to a record 2,500+ tonnes, most of this owned by the popular SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) that is now worth an astonishing $75+ billion. Though there were outflows of 120 tonnes on Friday, late-summer additions of more than 350 tonnes to the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) and a rising silver price combined to push this ETF's holdings to over $11 billion.

Investment banks have become more bullish on gold and silver in recent weeks, with Barclays Capital raising its fourth quarter gold forecast to $1,810 an ounce, Deutsche Bank putting the price at $2,200 next year, Citibank saying it could go as high as $2,500 in six months, Bank of America laying out its case for a $3,000 gold price just last week, and Sharps Pixley Chief Ross Norman saying the price could go as high as $4,000 based on an expanding Fed balance sheet...

/... http://seekingalpha.com/article/896391-should-precious-metals-investors-fear-october

[Po_d Mainiac]

13. Past 5 years performance

Silver up 265%
Gold up 264%
S&P 500 up/down 0%
Dow 30 up 6%
R2K up 0.1%
US 10yr Note up 26%
US 30yr Bond up 37%
U$D down 3%
EUR down 4%

[AnneD]

54. I have been very happy...

with my PM's. I sleep a lot easier ar night.

[Po_d Mainiac]

57. I assume u ain't referencing cramps?

[AnneD]

62. The only muscles that need to be stretched.....

is the one around bankers necks.

[Demeter]

4. I survived Sunday!

I fell asleep in choir practice, but it was so good to sing again....and didn't crash the car on the way home, either. Didn't even get lost in the next town over.....

Unfortunately, have to do it again and survive Monday....

[Po_d Mainiac]

8. Whale Watching

The JP Morgan (JPM) trading blunder could result in a $100 billion loss, a contagion of its massive portfolio, and even the wipeout of its entire asset base. Even worse, these extremely risky and potentially-illegal actions on behalf of the CIO office and the "London Whale" could be the unexpected "shock" that breaks the market, derails the Fed's huge monetary stimulus, and sends us back into a global recession.

snip

This event is JP Morgan's huge trading mistake. The massive losses that were racked up starting in April and May 2012 are by no means over. What has been represented by JP Morgan as a trading mistake and "hedging" strategy with an initial estimated loss of $2 billion, was really a leveraged and speculative bet that could soon infect JP Morgan's entire portfolio and result in losses of $100 billion.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/893711-jpmorgan-loss-could-be-next-shock-event?source=email_rt_article_title&ifp=0

Just hype, or will we get to see the Senate Finance Committee wear kneepads for JD's next appearance? Again.

[Demeter]

18. And here I thought they were so good at cleaning up

or at least, sweeping it under the carpet so the Feds would have to foot the bill.

I'm ready for the fall of the House of Usher.....I mean, Morgan. And Halloween approaches....

[Po_d Mainiac]

60. If the story is correct

Then the JPMorgue is on the hook for a few years distant. Kinda like a large piece of unexploded ordinance, sitting right in plain sight in the heart of lower Manhattan

If that's the case, finding optimists (Suckers) willing to buy into those positions at the same time GDP's for most major economies are being revived downward ain't gonna be an easy sell.

And I agree, if the CIO starts getting margin calls 24/7, it will be joy watching the price of JPM shares fall to and though the teenage stage on their way towards' newborn. $0.00

[Ghost Dog]

10. Surveys point to slower growth in Asia

Asia's manufacturers are continuing to struggle in the face of tepid demand from the United States and Europe, according to business surveys and data releases today that underlined the fragility of the global economy. More data later is expected to confirm that the euro zone is mired in recession while the prospects of a firmer U.S. recovery remain delicately balanced. Equity and commodity markets slipped in Asia, where China's official manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) showed factory activity contracted for a second straight month in September and a survey of Japan's big manufacturers showed sentiment worsening over the past three months. Adding to signs that the region's vast factory sector is flagging in the face of strong global headwinds, Taiwan's PMI fell to its lowest in 10 months and South Korea reported a small year-on-year decline in exports. "I don't see troubles stabilising as yet. It will take a while longer until global demand shows signs of stabilisation," said Saktiandi Supaat, foreign exchange research head at Maybank in Singapore.

The China survey, the most closely watched by investors, underscored expectations that the motor of the global economy in recent years almost certainly endured a seventh straight quarter of slowing growth. Overall, September's manufacturing PMI rose to 49.8 in September from 49.2 in August, which had been the lowest reading since November 2011. A PMI reading above 50 indicates expansion and below 50 contraction...

... The global currents dragging on China are also being felt in its next largest rival Japan, where the quarterly Bank of Japan "tankan" survey of business sentiment underscored the central bank's view that growth in the export reliant economy will stall in the remainder of the financial year to March 2013. The headline sentiment index for big manufacturers fell by 2 points to minus 3 in September, compared with three months earlier, showing the mood worsened in the last quarter after two previous quarters of improvement. "The details of the tankan show that indexes for demand are weakening both domestically and overseas, reflecting the slowdown in the global economy and its impact on Japan," said Hiroaki Muto, senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management in Tokyo.

The heaviest drag on the global economy has been from Europe, where a festering three-year debt crisis is pulling the euro zone back into recession and weakening demand for Asian goods from one of the world's biggest economic blocs. South Korea, home to export powerhouses such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor Co, reported an annual 5.1 percent fall in exports to the European Union in September, while shipments to the United States fell 0.4 percent. Overall exports from South Korea, the first major exporter to release monthly trade data, fell 1.8 percent year-on-year. They have fallen in seven of nine months this year. Indonesia reported that exports fell in August from a year earlier for the fifth straight month.

A factory PMI survey from Taiwan, another of East Asia's export-focused tiger economies, showed a slump in new export orders, with the pace of contraction the sharpest since November 2011. PMI data was better from India, where growing orders and output helped manufacturing activity expand at a steady pace in September, although an increase in inventories could hurt growth in the future. The HSBC manufacturing purchasing managers' index, which gauges business activity at India's factories, came in at 52.8 for September, unchanged from August's nine-month low but still in expansionary territory. "Economic activity in the manufacturing sector held steady, supported by faster output growth and rising export orders," said Leif Eskesen, an HSBC economist. "However, a rise in inventories may dampen output growth in coming months."...

/... http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2989251;s=rollingnews.htm

[Ghost Dog]

14. UK manufacturing downturn deepens again in September - Markit/CIPS

(Reuters) - Activity in the British manufacturing sector shrank more than expected in September as export orders fell and costs soared, a survey showed on Monday, raising the risk that the economy will falter after rebounding in the past few months.

The CIPS/Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector fell to 48.4 from an upwardly revised 49.6 in August, dipping further below the 50 mark which separates growth from contraction.

The latest signs of renewed weakness in manufacturing will support the view that the recovery is fragile and that the Bank of England will extend its quantitative easing asset purchases once the current round is completed in November.

Manufacturers cut production for the third month in a row, with all major sectors seeing a contraction, survey compiler Markit said.

"Overseas sales continue to be hit by the ongoing deterioration in global economic growth, with the euro zone - the UK's largest export market - at the epicentre of the weakness," said Markit chief economist Chris Williamson.

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/uk-manufacturing-idUKBRE89009C20121001

[Ghost Dog]

17. Euro zone September factory data flags "new recession" - PMI

Last edited Mon Oct 1, 2012, 07:01 AM - Edit history (1)

(Reuters) - Euro zone manufacturing put in its worst performance in the three months to September since the depths of the Great Recession, with factories hit by falling demand despite cutting prices, a business survey showed on Monday -- pointing to a new recession.

Factories helped lift the 17-nation bloc out of its last recession but the survey suggests a downturn that began in smaller periphery countries has taken root in core members Germany and France.

"Despite seeing some easing in the rate of decline last month, manufacturers across the euro area suffered the worst quarter for three years in the three months to September," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at data collator Markit.

"The sector will act as a severe drag on economic growth. It therefore seems inevitable that the region will have fallen back into a new recession in the third quarter."

Markit's Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 46.1 in September from 45.1 in August and above the preliminary reading of 46.0. But that was its 14th month below the 50 mark that divides growth from contraction...

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/uk-euro-zone-idUKBRE89008920121001

(Reuters) - France's manufacturing sector deteriorated sharply in September, shrinking at its fastest in three and a half years, a survey showed on Monday, as the euro zone debt crisis and escalating unemployment dragged the economy further towards contraction.

The final Markit/CDAF purchasing managers index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector slumped to 42.7 in September from 46.0 in August, hitting its lowest since April 2009.

It was the seventh straight month that the index has remained below the 50 mark separating growth from contraction.

And September saw a marked acceleration in the trend, with the output index falling from 39.4 to 45.3, its biggest monthly drop since February 2009, when the country was mired in its worst recession since the Second World War.

The new orders index slumped to 39.6 from 45.7, its biggest fall since March 2003.

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/uk-french-manufacturing-idUKBRE89008T20121001

(Reuters) - German manufacturing shrank for a seventh straight month in September as Europe's largest economy felt the impact of the region's debt crisis, a survey showed on Monday, though there were signs the decline may be bottoming out.

Markit's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for Germany, released on Monday, rose to 47.4 in September, its highest since March but still below the 50 line that divides growth from contraction. In August the index stood at 44.7.

The improvement in the headline figure was largely due to slower falls in production and new work as well as a stabilisation in staffing levels, Markit said.

The final reading for September came in slightly above the flash estimate of 47.3 and though it remained weak compared with early 2011, when levels above 60 were reached, the survey pointed to the relative resilience of the German economy.

"Germany saw the biggest one-month manufacturing PMI gain of the 'big four' euro area nations during September, and in doing so replaced France atop this performance table," said Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit. "This is an encouraging sign that the bottom has been reached for the German PMI survey, with the headline index boosted by slower falls in both output and new order inflows."

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/uk-poll-german-idUKBRE89008320121001

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[Ghost Dog]

19. Another domino falls as Hollande pushes France into depression

... "To save the dogma of single currency, they are imposing absurd hyper-austerity on France," said Marine Le Pen from the National Front, France’s unlikely apostle of Keynesian doctrine.

France now joins Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, and parts of Eastern Europe in synchronized tightening, with the Netherlands and Belgium cutting too, all dragging each other down in a 1930s slide into the political swamp.

Mr Hollande has not been entirely passive. He threw his weight behind the Latin revolt earlier this summer, forcing German Chancellor Angela Merkel to sanction mass bond purchases by the European Central Bank. This would not have been possible in the Merkozy era, when Nicholas Sarkozy sacrificed all else on the altar of the Franco-German unity. But he has not followed through and there were in any case two quid pro quos to this deal with Germany. One was that Spain and Italy must submit to Troika Hell before the ECB buys a single bond. The second was that France must submit to fiscal Hell.

Mr Hollande has his own motives for bowing to austerity demands. He learned the lesson as an aide to François Mitterrand that you cannot deviate too far from Germany if you share a currency peg. There will be no repetition of 1983, the epic U-turn or `tournant de la rigueur’...

... A French-led growth bloc can strike back by inflicting an intolerable level of inflation on Germany. It can if necessary cause the North Europeans to walk out of EMU altogether -- the optimal solution for the North and South respectively.

For that, Mr Hollande must be willing to abandon the Franco-German condominium, the central tenet of French foreign policy for almost sixty years. The cautious, plodding Enarque from the Limousin is not the type for fireworks, but give him time.

/... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9577674/Another-domino-falls-as-Hollande-pushes-France-into-depression.html

[Ghost Dog]

16. Forex Preview: Eurozone Political Cliff Forces ECB Hand

The U.S. fiscal cliff is a major media talking point, but the eurozone political cliff is the much more pressing threat as elected governments risk a rapid loss of control. With intense pressure to help fill the political vacuum, the ECB is likely to cut interest rates this week and trigger a renewed flood of defensive funds into the Swiss franc and yen. Any euro rally on a Spanish bailout request would reverse very quickly as October political and economic storms intensify.

The eurozone remains in a binary outlook as it will either survive intact in a weakened form or exist as a smaller currency union based around Germany. The denouement is coming ever closer, illustrated by the fantasy budgets presented by Spain and France last week. The Madrid government in particular is increasingly isolated and distanced from domestic realities, a sure sign that a political end-game is approaching fast with levers of power increasingly ineffective. Developments in Catalonia and within Greece will need to be watched very closely as the scent of rebellion becomes ever stronger.

There must be a growing sense of panic within the ECB with increasing fears that it has been left hanging out to dry. Backsliding by Germany on conditions for the ESM and banking union, allied with severe political stresses within Spain, are threatening to derail the ECB strategy. For now, the bank has no choice but to continue to whatever it can to salvage the euro and keep policy extremely loose.

A key fact for the bank to consider is that the economic environment is continuing to deteriorate. Confidence levels may have been improved initially by the ECB plans, but the PMI indices remain at three-year lows with the latest money-supply and lending data also disappointing. The latest austerity budgets in Spain and France can hardly have improved the overall mood, and the economy is set to contract sharply for the third quarter. In this environment, the ECB is set to cut benchmark interest rates again. The negative euro impact is likely to be intensified by the risk of growing splits within the Governing Council, especially after the higher than expected inflation reading last week...

/... http://seekingalpha.com/article/896431-weekly-forex-preview-eurozone-political-cliff-forces-ecb-hand

[Ghost Dog]

25. Spanish Bonds Gain Third Day on Bank Optimism; German Bunds Fall

Spanish government bonds rose for a third day after stress tests of the country’s banking system showed a smaller deficit than earlier estimated, spurring optimism the region’s debt crisis is being contained.

Spain’s securities pared last week’s declines after Moody’s Investors Service said the recapitalization of the nation’s banks was positive for its credit rating. Italy’s 10-year yields dropped to the lowest in a week after an industry report showed manufacturing output shrank at a slower pace in September. German bonds declined as demand for safer assets waned. The European Central Bank meets to review monetary policy this week.

“There is a sense of relief after developments last week brought some clarity about Spain,” said Marchel Alexandrovich, a senior European economist at Jefferies International Ltd. in London. “That may reduce demand for safe assets in the run-up to the ECB meeting later this week during which the central bank is likely to reiterate the message that they are ready to do all they can to support the market.” ...

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-01/spanish-bonds-gain-third-day-on-bank-optimism-german-bunds-fall.html

[Ghost Dog]

12. Asset managers 'most optimistic' as profits rise for third quarter in row

Investment managers' optimism about their business prospects rose for the third consecutive quarter, despite difficult conditions for the financial services sector, according to the latest survey from the CBI/PwC.

The Financial Services Survey, which was conducted in September, found growth in the volume of business for investment managers was a little slow over the last quarter and concentrated with financial institutions. However, growth is expected to accelerate strongly during the next quarter and spread to private individuals.

Value of incomes (from trading, interest and investments) grew marginally, and is predicted to be faster over the next three months, while profitability also rose for the third quarter in a row. This was helped by falling costs, and rising fees and commissions. Although profits grew at a slower pace during the last quarter, this was considerably faster than the long-run average and a similar rise in profits is expected for the next quarter...

...The level of demand is a key factor likely to limit business expansion in the next year for the sector. This is followed by legislation & regulation, although risks from the latter have fallen back since June.

New products are expected to be the main driver of growth over the next three months, but cross sales to existing customers decreased considerably in importance....

...Investment managers' optimism comes despite a difficult backdrop for the financial services sector. ..

/... http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/news/2213251/asset-managers-most-optimistic-as-profits-rise-for-third-quarter-in-row#ixzz281tfIuJx


Financial services feels squeeze

THE financial services sector has seen its first fall in profitability for two years, according to new figures.

The number of firms seeing business volumes fall outnumbered those enjoying rises by 19 percentage points while the figure for income from fees was -15% and -29% from net interest, investment and trading.

Headcount also fell with firms reporting staff reductions outweighing those seeing rises by 22 percentage points...

/... http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/yorkshire/news/377513-financial-services-feels-squeeze.html?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=news%2Bfeed&utm_term=Financial+services+feels+squeeze#

The financial services sector has cut 9,000 jobs over the past three months as business volumes and profitability fell for the first time in more than three years according to CBI employers & PwC (FT-MORE) Financial services groups think growth in business volumes will resume in the next quarter but they also expect to cut 3,000 more jobs...

/... http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/columns/ransquawk/10760/european-opening-news-including-the-financial-services-sector-has-cut-9000-jobs-over-the-past-three-months-10760.html


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...

[Ghost Dog]

15. New City Jobs Plunge By 15%

[center][/center]

New City jobs have plunged by 15% within a month, according to a survey released after a scathing review of the Libor scandal.

Research showed 2,490 job vacancies appeared in September, down from 2,925 in August.

The City slide comes after a steady summer job market, according to data compiled by an international recruitment firm.

"The last quarter has seen two of the UK's most successful banks put in the stocks, the widening of the Libor scandal and announcements by a number of banks to continue to scale down their investment banking operations," Mark Cameron, Chief Operating Officer at Astbury Marsden, said.

"It has proved to be an unexpectedly bad summer for bankers," he said.

Astbury Marsden said the Centre of Economics and Business Research has predicted that by the end of 2012 the City will have lost 100,000 jobs since 2007 - leaving 255,000 finance jobs, the lowest since early 1996...

/... http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/new_city_jobs_plunge_by_15

[Demeter]

20. Modern Money and Public Purpose: The Historical Evolution of Money and Debt

L. Randall Wray and Michael Hudson present at the Modern Money and Public Purpose seminars. L. Randall Wray is a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Michael Hudson Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri (Kansas City), and President of the Institute for the Study of Long-term Economic Trends (ISLET).

This video is an hour and three-quarters long — Wray begins, then Hudson takes over at 43:00 — so I suggest you listen to it over your Sunday morning coffee instead of NPR. (And if you’ve been taking note of all the “tally stick” jokes in the threads lately, I’m guessing this video is where that comes from…)

VIDEO AT LINK

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/modern-money-and-public-purpose-the-historical-evolution-of-money-and-debt.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29#eGhmxW6i7PVPBYso.99

Here’s an interesting passage that I hope I’ve transcribed with reasonable accuracy from Michael Hudson’s talk. Of Sumer:

[HUDSON 52:10] The original money was a price schedule to enable pepole to pay in kind. And the barley, obviously people did not go around with barley in their pocket because it really doesn’t last very well. People didn’t use money, actually to pay. What they would do during the crop year, they would so essentially what somebody would do in a bar today: They’d run up a tab. And they would run up a tab with the ale women for money that would be due on the threshing floor at the seasonal harvesting time. And in fact almost all the barley debts, and we have the contracts from Mesopotamia were due on the threshing floor at barley time, the silver debts were due at another time, and this was the principal that lasted until about 1200BC.

Time passes, there is a dark age, and until 750BC we to Greece and Rome.

[HUDSON] That’s when civilization began to go down hill. It’s usually considered the start of Western civilization, but what people think is the start of Western Civilization was the falling apart of Near Eastern origins of civilization, of this economy that had been put together in a very well-organized economy, and all of a sudden instead of the public institutions, you had local chieftains occurring, and in Rome, very soon you had the aristocratic families overthrow the kings, and the functions that were in the public sector in the Near East all of a sudden were taken over by private families — let’s call them the Mafia, because that’s basically what the Roman oligarchy was.

And there was a complete change in policy from the Near Eastern Bronze Age to classical antiquity: When a new ruler would come to the throne in Mesopotamia, the first thing they would do, on their first full year on the throne, was to proclaim a clean slate. And that’s because a lot of the debts that were denominated in barley couldn’t be paid. …

And there was a general understanding that the debts tended to grow faster than the means to pay. … [Scribes] had two basic contrasts: The doubling time of debt. …You knew here’s this exponential curve of debt, very rapidly. [T]hey also had curves for the growth of herds, and output, and that was an S curve, just like economics textbooks today …

So the rulers, when they came in, would cancel the debts for a very good reason. … One of the Roman historians was given an explanation by the Egyptians for why the Phatroahs cancelled the debts: They said, if we don’t cancel the debts, then the debtors are going to fall into bondage to the creditors… and then nobody’s going to fight in the army and we’ll be defeated. …

What happened by the time of Rome in 133BC is that you had a Milton Friedman philosophy of free markets by the oligarchy. What they realized, in Rome, was exactly what President Nixon and Hnery Kissinger realized in Chile: You can’t have a free market for creditors if you don’t murder everyone who disagrees with you [laughter]. If you don’t kill everyone who wants to cancel the debts, if you don’t kill everyone one knows history, if you don’t kill the labor leaders, you can’t have a free market, oligarchy style. … So there was a 100 year social war in Rome, and the result was the by the time the empire got going, one quarter of the population was in debt bondage or outright slavery.

History does rhyme, doesn’t it?

[Demeter]

21. Social Security: Solidarity, Not Investment MUST READ

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/27

Recently the Associated Press (AP) published a four-part series of stories examining “the state of Social Security and its long-term health.” The AP said that “Few things affect more Americans than the future of Social Security, and yet it’s an issue mostly invisible during the current campaign.” True, it’s not talked about much, but perhaps more important is the fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the program that is revealed when people do talk about it. This misunderstanding was revealed in the very first installment of the AP series, which appeared on August 5th. The headline on this kick-off piece read, “Social Security Not Deal it Once Was for Workers.” Asked the AP, “How can you get a better return on your Social Security taxes?” A large and growing number of people share the misunderstanding revealed in that headline: They think that Social Security is a program of Individual Investment. It’s not, and was never meant to be. Instead, it is a program of Social Insurance. Understanding the difference between these two types of systems is the key to having even a glimmer of understanding about what is at stake in this huge public debate.

Here’s how insurance works: With insurance, one only gets something back if one loses something. I hope I never collect anything on my home insurance, for example, since that would mean my house has burned down, or some other horrible thing has happened. Still, I pay my home insurance premium every year and I don’t think I am wasting my money. Why not? Because I know that, if and when I do lose something, I have insurance. If I never “get back what I paid in,” that’s a good thing. And, if I lose something, and DO get back some of what I paid in, what I get back is related to what I lost, not to what I paid in. And that, too, is a good thing. That’s the nature of insurance. That is not the nature of investment.

Insurance, in principle, is based on what we know, as opposed to what we don’t know. What we know are aggregate numbers, or social statistics. We know, for example, roughly how many houses are going to burn down in a given year. What we don’t know is which ones they will be. So, we insure the group. Everyone who wants to be in the insured group agrees to pay a premium that amounts to their proportionate share of the costs of replacing all of the homes that will burn down this year, not knowing whether or not one of them will be their own. Insurance, then, even in it’s most commercial form, is a social program.

When we become part of an insurance “pool,” what we get in exchange for our premiums is two things: we get to express solidarity with our neighbors and fellow insurees by paying our share of the social costs of property replacement, and we get the security of knowing that, should we have a loss, all of our neighbors will share in the costs of replacing what was lost, and none of us will have to bear the burden ourselves. That, in fact, is the essence of insurance: Everyone chips in to help out those who lose something. If it is standard insurance, we chip in by paying “premiums.” If it is Social Security, we chip in by paying taxes. The loss that Social Security is intended to insure us against is the loss of income due to old age, death, or disability. (The program is sometimes referred to as “OASDI,” for “Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.”)

The essence of the social insurance program known as Social Security is that it’s a deal between the generations, where those who are working chip in to help those who are not, knowing that the same giving will come their way when the time comes... MORE

[Demeter]

22. Expensive to Be Poor: Expenses Twice as Much as Income for Bottom 20% of US Households

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/09/27/expensive-to-be-poor-expenses-twice-as-much-as-income-for-bottom-20-of-us-households/



A new study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics out today probably won’t get as much notice as their other report showing the US gained 386,000 jobs more than expected. However, this one shows a persistent problem in America, that it’s actually expensive to be poor.

The average individual in the lowest 20% of the income ladder had take-home pay of $10,074 and average expenses of $22,011. That’s more than double, and it makes being poor nearly impossible to manage. The story for the second and third quintiles weren’t much better, with their expenses roughly commensurate to their income, meaning they live paycheck-to-paycheck and save next to nothing. But the expenses-versus-income report for the poorest Americans is almost unreal.

The Huffington Post puts some of these numbers in context:

This percentage of households includes many retirees, who are presumably living off savings.

Many of these households may be spending more than they earn through some combination of loans from family and friends, credit cards, savings, and payday loans. The government helps a bit with an income tax credit: The average bottom-fifth household’s after-tax income is $269 higher than its before-tax income. The income accounted for includes welfare and Social Security benefits.

Many are also taking on debt. In 2010, roughly one-quarter of the poorest fifth of households held a high debt burden, or had debt service payments exceeding 40 percent of their income, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

These households mainly are spending on necessities such as food, shelter, utilities, clothing and transportation. The average bottom-fifth household spent 87 percent of its after-tax income on housing alone last year.

The retiree component makes this a bit better (provided that you plan for retirement by maintaining savings and taking in little or no income in those retired years), but not by much. But the high cost of being poor is well-understood. They lack good transportation access and often pay a lot to get where they need to go. They never build equity in a home or qualify for mortgage interest deductions, so their housing costs are unnecessarily high. They experience mostly downward pressure on their wages. The feel the effects of the most volatile inflationary spikes, in food prices, more deeply than others, as it’s a more substantial part of their discretionary budget. Poor housing often means higher relative heating and cooling and utility bills. Most important, with many necessity costs fixed, they have to borrow just to survive, and this leads to high borrowing costs. The costs of being unbanked factor in here, as payday lending outfits and check cashing stores abuse their customers by bilking them with high fees. Poor credit scores mean this class of Americans are often locked out of more traditional borrowing outlets.

With the poor living with a mass of debt over their heads (and increasingly the middle class as well, with 1 in 5 households now suffering from student debt), this would be the worst possible time to cut their benefits as part of a “grand bargain” to ensure “shared sacrifice.” These people have nothing available to sacrifice.

UPDATE: See also: It's harder to work when you're poor http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/its-harder-to-work-when-youre-poor.html

The meager safety net we have for things like food doesn’t offer enough to live on, making it harder to focus and even to work.

[Demeter]

23. Obama blocks Chinese purchase of US wind farms

BECAUSE THEY ARE NEXT TO A DRONE FACILITY

NOT BECAUSE FOREIGN OWNERSHIP OF WHAT SHOULD BE A PUBLIC UTILITY IS WRONG...

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-blocks-chinese-purchase-us-wind-farms-181230948.html

[otherone]

24. Good morning!

[DemReadingDU]

27. And a good morning to you!

[Ghost Dog]

28. .

[center]
http://www.businessinsider.com/morning-markets-october-1-2012-10 [/center]

[Demeter]

29. Good morning!

At least I'm hoping so.

[Demeter]

26. Housing regulators loosen rules, but at what cost?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/us-mortgage-repurchases-idUSBRE88K18120120921

Just four years after toxic U.S. mortgages brought the global financial system to its knees and triggered the deepest recession since the Great Depression, a U.S. housing regulator may be making it easier for banks to make bad loans without suffering losses. The Federal Housing Finance Agency released a little-noticed rule last week that makes it harder for Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) - the government-owned companies that guarantee home loans made by banks - to hold lenders accountable when mortgages go bad...At issue is when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can press banks to make them whole when mortgages go bad. Under the current rules, the two U.S. government-backed companies can push banks to buy back mortgages that were fraudulent, or not properly underwritten.

Under the new regulations, starting with loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in January, if the borrower makes payments for 36 consecutive months, banks cannot be asked to buy them back due to underwriting or appraisal problems. So if the borrower did not have enough income to qualify for a loan to begin with but Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac did not notice for three years, the bank could not be pressed to buy back the loan. For new loans, the bank can still be pushed to buy back the loan for reasons such as fraud or errors in submitting data. The new rules do not apply to existing loans. The upshot of the rules is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must check more loans early in their lives to avoid problems later.

"These regulations assume we'll never get another mortgage crisis," said Joseph Mason, a professor at Louisiana State University's business school who specializes in structured finance. If there is another mortgage crisis, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could lose even more than they did this time around, he added. A former senior executive at one of the two companies also found the regulations nettlesome. "It's easier for banks to give you (Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac) bad loans with these new rules," he said.

Just how many repurchase requests result from underwriting problems is unclear. The FHFA last week said that past repurchase requests issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were triggered by "substantive underwriting and documentation deficiencies," but the agency declined to provide details. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently have about $17.5 billion of repurchase requests outstanding, which they attribute largely to loans made at the height of the housing bubble from 2005 to 2008. The two companies are still making requests for banks to buy them back, and the requests take time to resolve...

The FHFA, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, believes lending has contracted too much and has said it's trying to encourage home loans by giving banks more certainty about when they will have to buy back soured loans that they sold to the two finance companies. The regulator has told Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac explicitly to fix the process of selling back bad mortgages in a way that will encourage lending, a senior official at one of the two companies said. The official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, acknowledged the potential for shenanigans under the new rules.

SO FANNIE AND FREDDIE BECOME MONEY LAUNDERERS...PUBLICLY OWNED MONEY LAUNDERERS...

...Some experts said the new rules show that lessons of the housing crisis are already being forgotten, and could set up taxpayers for tens of billions of dollars of losses if the lending bubble re-inflates later in the credit cycle....

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[xchrom]

30. a little al green to start your week off -- Im still in love with you

&feature=share&list=AL94UKMTqg-9COFYS-NEOF3BUReBI1VW30

[xchrom]

31. More Evidence That Australia Is In Big Trouble

http://www.businessinsider.com/australia-september-pmi-2012-9

Australia's manufacturing PMI fell to 44.1 in September from 45.3 in August.
Any reading below 50 signals contraction in the industry.
"Most worryingly for the outlook, the contraction in manufacturing new orders extended into a seventh month," wrote the Australian Industry Group.
Australia's economy boomed as its huge mining industry benefited from surging growth in the emerging markets.
But with those growth economies slowing, Australia is getting slammed.
Australia is "a credit bubble built on a commodity market built on an even bigger Chinese credit bubble," wrote SocGen's Dylan Grice.

[Demeter]

32. The Real Referendum By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/opinion/krugman-the-real-referendum.html


Republicans came into this campaign believing that it would be a referendum on President Obama, and that still-high unemployment would hand them victory on a silver platter. But given the usual caveats — a month can be a long time in politics, it’s not over until the votes are actually counted, and so on — it doesn’t seem to be turning out that way...Yet there is a sense in which the election is indeed a referendum, but of a different kind. Voters are, in effect, being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy. Will they vote for politicians who want to replace Medicare with Vouchercare, who denounce Social Security as “collectivist” (as Paul Ryan once did), who dismiss those who turn to social insurance programs as people unwilling to take responsibility for their lives?

If the polls are any indication, the result of that referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to return us to the Gilded Age. But here’s the question: Will that election result be honored? I ask that question because we already know what Mr. Obama will face if re-elected: a clamor from Beltway insiders demanding that he immediately return to his failed political strategy of 2011, in which he made a Grand Bargain over the budget deficit his overriding priority. Now is the time, he’ll be told, to fix America’s entitlement problem once and for all. There will be calls — as there were at the time of the Democratic National Convention — for him to officially endorse Simpson-Bowles, the budget proposal issued by the co-chairmen of his deficit commission (although never accepted by the commission as a whole).

And Mr. Obama should just say no, for three reasons.

First, despite years of dire warnings from people like, well, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, we are not facing any kind of fiscal crisis. Indeed, U.S. borrowing costs are at historic lows, with investors actually willing to pay the government for the privilege of owning inflation-protected bonds. So reducing the budget deficit just isn’t the top priority for America at the moment; creating jobs is. For now, the administration’s political capital should be devoted to passing something like last year’s American Jobs Act and providing effective mortgage debt relief.

Second, contrary to Beltway conventional wisdom, America does not have an “entitlements problem.” Mainly, it has a health cost problem, private as well as public, which must be addressed (and which the Affordable Care Act at least starts to address). It’s true that there’s also, even aside from health care, a gap between the services we’re promising and the taxes we’re collecting — but to call that gap an “entitlements” issue is already to accept the very right-wing frame that voters appear to be in the process of rejecting.

Finally, despite the bizarre reverence it inspires in Beltway insiders — the same people, by the way, who assured us that Paul Ryan was a brave truth-teller — the fact is that Simpson-Bowles is a really bad plan, one that would undermine some key pieces of our safety net. And if a re-elected president were to endorse it, he would be betraying the trust of the voters who returned him to office.

Consider, in particular, the proposal to raise the Social Security retirement age, supposedly to reflect rising life expectancy. This is an idea Washington loves — but it’s also totally at odds with the reality of an America in which rising inequality is reflected not just in the quality of life but in its duration. For while average life expectancy has indeed risen, that increase is confined to the relatively well-off and well-educated — the very people who need Social Security least. Meanwhile, life expectancy is actually falling for a substantial part of the nation. Now, there’s no mystery about why Simpson-Bowles looks the way it does. It was put together in a political environment in which progressives, and even supporters of the safety net as we know it, were very much on the defensive — an environment in which conservatives were presumed to be in the ascendant, and in which bipartisanship was effectively defined as the effort to broker deals between the center-right and the hard right. Barring an upset, however, that environment will come to an end on Nov. 6. This election is, as I said, shaping up as a referendum on our social insurance system, and it looks as if Mr. Obama will emerge with a clear mandate for preserving and extending that system. It would be a terrible mistake, both politically and for the nation’s future, for him to let himself be talked into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.


BUT AFTER OBSERVING HIM IN ACTION THESE PAST 4 YEARS...THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT OBAMA'S INSTINCTS WILL HAVE HIM DO.

[Demeter]

33. Europe’s Austerity Madness By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/opinion/krugman-europes-austerity-madness.html?_r=2

So much for complacency. Just a few days ago, the conventional wisdom was that Europe finally had things under control. The European Central Bank, by promising to buy the bonds of troubled governments if necessary, had soothed markets. All that debtor nations had to do, the story went, was agree to more and deeper austerity — the condition for central bank loans — and all would be well. But the purveyors of conventional wisdom forgot that people were involved. Suddenly, Spain and Greece are being racked by strikes and huge demonstrations. The public in these countries is, in effect, saying that it has reached its limit: With unemployment at Great Depression levels and with erstwhile middle-class workers reduced to picking through garbage in search of food, austerity has already gone too far. And this means that there may not be a deal after all.

Much commentary suggests that the citizens of Spain and Greece are just delaying the inevitable, protesting against sacrifices that must, in fact, be made. But the truth is that the protesters are right. More austerity serves no useful purpose; the truly irrational players here are the allegedly serious politicians and officials demanding ever more pain. Consider Spain’s woes. What is the real economic problem? Basically, Spain is suffering the hangover from a huge housing bubble, which caused both an economic boom and a period of inflation that left Spanish industry uncompetitive with the rest of Europe. When the bubble burst, Spain was left with the difficult problem of regaining competitiveness, a painful process that will take years. Unless Spain leaves the euro — a step nobody wants to take — it is condemned to years of high unemployment. But this arguably inevitable suffering is being greatly magnified by harsh spending cuts; and these spending cuts are a case of inflicting pain for the sake of inflicting pain. First of all, Spain didn’t get into trouble because its government was profligate. On the contrary, on the eve of the crisis, Spain actually had a budget surplus and low debt. Large deficits emerged when the economy tanked, taking revenues with it, but, even so, Spain doesn’t appear to have all that high a debt burden.

It’s true that Spain is now having trouble borrowing to finance its deficits. That trouble is, however, mainly because of fears about the nation’s broader difficulties — not least the fear of political turmoil in the face of very high unemployment. And shaving a few points off the budget deficit won’t resolve those fears. In fact, research by the International Monetary Fund suggests that spending cuts in deeply depressed economies may actually reduce investor confidence because they accelerate the pace of economic decline. In other words, the straight economics of the situation suggests that Spain doesn’t need more austerity. It shouldn’t throw a party, and, in fact, it probably has no alternative (short of euro exit) to a protracted period of hard times. But savage cuts to essential public services, to aid to the needy, and so on actually hurt the country’s prospects for successful adjustment.

Why, then, are there demands for ever more pain?

Part of the explanation is that in Europe, as in America, far too many Very Serious People have been taken in by the cult of austerity, by the belief that budget deficits, not mass unemployment, are the clear and present danger, and that deficit reduction will somehow solve a problem brought on by private sector excess. Beyond that, a significant part of public opinion in Europe’s core — above all, in Germany — is deeply committed to a false view of the situation. Talk to German officials and they will portray the euro crisis as a morality play, a tale of countries that lived high and now face the inevitable reckoning. Never mind the fact that this isn’t at all what happened — and the equally inconvenient fact that German banks played a large role in inflating Spain’s housing bubble. Sin and its consequences is their story, and they’re sticking to it. Worse yet, this is also what many German voters believe, largely because it’s what politicians have told them. And fear of a backlash from voters who believe, wrongly, that they’re being put on the hook for the consequences of southern European irresponsibility leaves German politicians unwilling to approve essential emergency lending to Spain and other troubled nations unless the borrowers are punished first.... it’s long past time to put an end to this cruel nonsense. If Germany really wants to save the euro, it should let the European Central Bank do what’s necessary to rescue the debtor nations — and it should do so without demanding more pointless pain.

[Fuddnik]

40. And to make the stupidity worse.

CNBC was floating a lead balloon this morning, putting Erskine Bowles in the front runner spot to replace Timmeh!

[xchrom]

34. Greece Is Feeling The 'Straightjacket' More Than Ever

http://www.businessinsider.com/greece-tell-brussels-to-take-a-hike-and-let-the-troika-bail-out-the-ecb-instead-2012-9

?maxX=400

Awful as Greece’s GDP has been, it doesn’t do justice to the economic fiasco.
Take new vehicle registrations: in August, they plunged 46.7% from prior year. Only 3,886 new vehicles were sold. A collapse of 80% from August 2008 at the cusp of the crisis. For the first eight months of 2012, sales were down 42% from prior year, and 65% from 2008. People have stopped buying new cars. And not just cars.
“The situation continues to deteriorate,” wrote an acquaintance. “My normally honest friends and relatives have all begun to find ways to avoid the ever increasing taxes. The horrible bureaucracy worsens even in this small town of 5,000. It took a friend a month of running from office to office just to get a permit to repair, not construct, but repair an existing balcony. Hopeless.”
Ten years ago, he built a house in Southern Greece not far from Sparta—”with many fine workers, most of them Albanians and some excellent Greeks as well, but it took a long, long time.” The house is surrounded by citrus and olive groves. In the distance, mountains and the sea. He writes:
“I detest going to Athens because of the gridlock. Buildings built over the last twenty years have little or no dedicated parking. Why? Parking is low or no-revenue space that city planners have reserved for cronies with fakelos (envelopes with cash). Thus cars and scooters clog not only streets but sidewalks.”


Read more: http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/9/27/greece-tell-brussels-to-take-a-hike-and-let-the-troika-bail.html#ixzz283138JZy

[Fuddnik]

35. Let the stupidity begin!

Or at least continue.

Sitting here with my morning coffee, and The Weather Channel. They're very upset out in Cornville. It seems that Congress went on vacation again without a farm support bill. Ma and Pa Kettle are so upset that they'll turn around and vote in every single Republican that blocked the bill and sent them to financial ruin. At least there won't be any terror babies plotting in the wheat fields, or any of them homersekshals fornicatin' in the soybeans.

Since there ain't no crops to plant, they can spend the week-end watching the latest Dinesh D'Souza epic. And, if they're lucky, it'll be playing as a double feature at the drive in with Sarah Palin's biography.

And life goes on in "Real Amerika".

[xchrom]

36. Jobs Outlook Seen Weak as U.S. Companies See Need for Cost Cuts

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-30/jobs-outlook-seen-weak-as-u-s-companies-see-need-for-cost-cuts.html

Weakening demand is forcing new and accelerated cost reductions at companies from Bank of America Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) to Staples Inc. (SPLS) and Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ), dimming the outlook for an already struggling U.S. labor market.

Even as consumer confidence and housing show signs of recovering, sales for businesses in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.9 percent from a year earlier in July through September, the second consecutive quarterly drop and biggest decline since 2009, according to analyst forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. A 1.2 percent gain projected for October-December still is smaller than the 5.4 percent rise in this year’s first three months.

A global slowdown triggered by Europe’s debt crisis is exacerbated by the potential impact of the impending U.S. fiscal cliff of changes in taxes and government spending. All this is pushing finance chiefs back to the drawing board, with some limiting hiring and investment and others slashing more jobs than originally announced. Such belt-tightening will dominate employment prospects for the rest of the year.

“These cost controls are one of the key reasons job growth remains relatively weak,” said Charles Lieberman, chief investment officer at Advisors Capital Management LLC in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, and former head of monetary analysis at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Companies will avoid hiring until orders have strengthened and “they cannot meet demand with their existing workforce.”

[xchrom]

37. Where Have All the FOIAs Gone? A Lament for Transparency.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-30/where-have-all-the-foias-gone-a-lament-for-transparency-.html



One way to judge a president’s record is to assess the promises he made when he first took office. That’s what Bloomberg News did with President Barack Obama’s vow to create “an unprecedented level of openness in government” and “act promptly” to make information public.

By that benchmark, Americans aren’t much better off than they were four years ago.

In June, Bloomberg reporters filed Freedom of Information Act requests with 57 federal agencies. The reporters sought data in a narrow (and not particularly complicated) area: taxpayer- supported travel by Cabinet secretaries and top officials. The results were dismaying. Just eight of the agencies met the 20- day window for disclosure required by law. Of 20 Cabinet-level agencies, only the Small Business Administration responded within the legal limit.

The records of five other Cabinet-level departments -- Commerce, Labor, Treasury, the Office of Budget and Management, and the U.S. Trade Representative -- were turned over to reporters past the deadline. Fourteen either haven’t fully complied or haven’t responded at all, including the Department of Justice, whose mandate includes enforcing compliance of disclosure laws. (To see a multimedia analysis, click here.)

[Demeter]

45. Not Being Worse is Better, I Suppose

after all, it could be worse!

[xchrom]

46. ...

[AnneD]

55. it is hard to vote for someone....

because he is not as awful as the other candidate. In my book, both parties are bankrupt as far as ideas and have been bought off by those with money.

No discussion about issues like drone strikes, habeas corpus, torture, lack of prosecutions from the AG's office (you would think this was a crime free Utopia judging from Eric's docket). Instead it is all this vote for me because I am not so bad 'Cult of Personality'.

[Po_d Mainiac]

61. That solo hit a bunch of the high notes. n/t

[AnneD]

63. I guess I have ...

higher standards than most.

[xchrom]

38. U.S. Manufacturing Probably Shrank as Global Economy Cooled

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-01/manufacturing-in-u-s-probably-shrank-as-global-economy-cooled.html

Manufacturing in the U.S. probably contracted in September for a fourth straight month, showing an industry that’s hobbled by a global economic slowdown, economists said before a report today.

The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index was little changed at 49.8 last month from 49.6 in August, according to the median estimate of 68 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. A reading of 50 is the dividing line between expansion and contraction. Construction spending probably climbed in August, another report may show.

Less export demand and cutbacks in household spending are persistent headwinds for manufacturers such as Caterpillar Inc. and Worthington Industries (WOR) Inc. Production is also being restrained by companies putting off equipment purchases on concerns automatic government spending cuts and higher taxes will go into effect next year and slow the economy.

“Europe is still a big problem out there, you’re seeing weaker global growth in general,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James Financial Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida. “A lot of firms doing business in Europe are reporting weaker results, a lot more caution.”

[xchrom]

42. Historian Eric Hobsbawm dies, aged 95

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19786929



Eric Hobsbawm, one of Britain's most eminent historians, has died at the age of 95, his family have confirmed.

He died in the early hours of Monday morning at the Royal Free Hospital in London where he had been suffering from pneumonia, his daughter Julia said.

His reputation rests largely on four works, including History of the 20th Century, The Age of Extremes, which has been translated into 40 languages.

He became a lecturer at Birkbeck College London in 1947.



*** my fellow SMWers -- we live in a poorer world today.

[Ghost Dog]

56. Historian in the Marxist tradition with a global reach

... "Every historian has his or her lifetime, a private perch from which to survey the world," he said in his 1993 Creighton lecture, one of several occasions in his later years when he attempted to relate his own lifetime to his own writing. "My own perch is constructed, among other materials, of a childhood in the Vienna of the 1920s, the years of Hitler's rise in Berlin, which determined my politics and my interest in history, and the England, and especially the Cambridge, of the 1930s, which confirmed both." ...

... He could always remember the day in January 1933 when, emerging from the Halensee S-Bahn station on his way home from his school, the celebrated Prinz Heinrich Gymnasium, he saw a newspaper headline announcing Hitler's election as chancellor. Around this time he joined the Socialist Schoolboys, which he described as "de facto part of the communist movement" and sold its publication, Schulkampf (School Struggle). He kept the organisation's duplicator under his bed and, if his later facility for writing was any guide, probably wrote most of the articles too. The family remained in Berlin until 1933, when Sidney Hobsbawm was posted by his employers to England.

The gangly teenage boy who settled with his sister in Edgware in 1934 described himself later as "completely continental and German speaking". School, though, was "not a problem" because the English education system was "way behind" the German. A cousin in Balham introduced him to jazz for the first time – the "unanswerable sound", he called it. The moment of conversion, he wrote some 60 years later, was when he first heard the Duke Ellington band "at its most imperial". He spent a period in the 1950s as jazz critic of the New Statesman, and published a Penguin Special, The Jazz Scene, on the subject in 1959 under the pen-name Francis Newton (many years later it was reissued with Hobsbawm identified as the author).

Learning to speak English properly, Eric became a pupil at Marylebone grammar school and in 1936 he won a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge. It was at this time that a saying became common among his Cambridge communist friends: "Is there anything that Hobsbawm doesn't know?" He became a member of the legendary Cambridge Apostles. "All of us thought that the crisis of the 1930s was the final crisis of capitalism," he wrote 40 years later. But, he added, "it was not." ...

... That his writings continued to command such audiences at a time when his politics were in some ways so eclipsed was the kind of disjunction which exasperated rightwingers, but it was a paradox on which the subtle judgment of this least complacent of intellects feasted. In his later years, he liked to quote EM Forster that he was "always standing at a slight angle to the universe". Whether the remark says more about Hobsbawm or about the universe was something that he enjoyed disputing, confident in the knowledge that it was in some senses a lesson for them both...

/... http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/01/eric-hobsbawm?intcmp=122

[xchrom]

59. ...

[xchrom]

43. Eurozone unemployment at fresh high

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19784062

Unemployment in the eurozone hit a fresh high of 18.2 million in August, the EU statistics agency has said.

The number of people out of work rose by 34,000, but revised data for July meant the unemployment rate remained stable at a record high of 11.4%.

The highest unemployment rate was recorded in Spain, where 25.1% of the workforce is out of a job, and the lowest of 4.5% was recorded in Austria.

The unemployment rate in Germany was 5.5%, Eurostat said.

[xchrom]

44. Iran's rial hits an all-time-low against the US dollar

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19786662


The Iranian rial has fallen by 25% in one week

Iran's currency, the rial, fell almost 10% on Monday to a record low against the dollar, leaving it with a loss of 25% in one week.

The rial was trading at 32,250 against the dollar at 12:00BST on Monday.

On Sunday, it was worth about 29,720, according to the Iranian currency-tracking website Mazanex.

The fall suggests economic sanctions imposed over its disputed nuclear programme are hitting economic activity ever harder.

[Demeter]

47. Riddle Me This: Who Has More Oil?

then sit there and try to convince me that the dollar is worth anything.

[Po_d Mainiac]

58. Having crude is one thing. Being able to get it to markets is another.

One item that hasn't made the rounds is the fact that Iran's shipping fleet (Public and Private) can no longer provide proof of insurance. That little problem keeps their ships out of most major ports and territorial waterways. This is on a global scale. In udder words, the sanctions are choking off their life blood

The Korean Register of Shipping has become the latest and last remaining major classification society that has promised to stop certifying Iranian ships, specifically those of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), in response to Western sanctions and pressure from groups like the U.S.-based United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI).

<snip>

The Korean Register of Shipping is the last of the 13 members of the International Association of Classification Societies that has vowed to halt work in Iran, joining the likes of Bureau Veritas, Germanischer Lloyd, Lloyd’s Register, ClassNK, and even the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, among others.
more at link

http://gcaptain.com/least-korean-register-shipping/

[Demeter]

48. Gotta go rustle up some calories

I was so tired yesterday, I didn't eat dinner...see y'all later!

[xchrom]

49. see ya, miss demeter!

[xchrom]

50. Thousands march in Paris against 'austerity'

http://www.france24.com/en/20120930-france-paris-thousands-march-austerity-economic-crisis-eu-fiscal-treaty-hollande-protest

Chanting "resistance", demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against austerity policies and Europe’s new budget treaty, in the first major demonstration since President François Hollande took power four months ago.

Tens of thousands of people marched through the sunny streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against an EU fiscal treaty requiring governments to commit to stricter economic practices, in the latest in a string of anti-austerity rallies across Europe.

The march, which organisers say drew 80,000 people, weaved its way across the east of Paris, near the historic Place de la Bastille, with demonstrators chanting “resistance, resistance”, while hundreds of flags and protest signs bobbed above the crowd. Others sang, “Hollande, do you know where we’re going to stick your treaty?”

Noé, who declined to give his last name, said he had made the five-hour journey from the southern city of Toulon by bus in order to protest against Europe’s new budget treaty.

[xchrom]

51. Rajoy playing politics with pensions, says Socialist Party opposition

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/10/01/inenglish/1349087805_658312.html

With the government yet to send a clear message as to whether or not it plans to freeze pensions, thus cutting the purchasing power of Spain's 8.9 million pensioners, the opposition and labor unions warned on Sunday that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is waiting until after the October 21 Galician and Basque elections to announce his intentions.

"It makes you think that he isn't saying anything because they know they are not going to maintain pensioners' purchasing power," Socialist leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said during a party meeting in Asturias. "They are going to make the announcement on the 27th or 28th, as they did when they announced the cutbacks after the elections in Andalusia and Asturias."

According to the 2013 budget, which was presented to Congress last week, the social security fund, from which pensioners draw retirement benefits, does not have enough money to cover inflation adjustments next year - an additional 2.5 billion euros.

With Spain's borrowing costs rising, and public debt expected to increase due to the billions of euros Spain needs to recapitalize its banks, the hike in pensions could push the projected deficit figure this year -- 7.4 percent of GDP -- up two decimal points.

[xchrom]

52. European solution to euro crisis is 'wrong' -- stiglitz

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/1001/1224324667785.html

?ts=1349098595

GOVERNMENTS HAVE misdiagnosed what went wrong in the euro zone and are also advocating the wrong solution to the crisis, Nobel economics laureate Prof Joseph Stiglitz told the opening of the International Bar Association conference in Dublin last night.

The answer being proposed to the crisis was austerity which “has almost never worked,” he said.

“It was tried in 1929, the IMF tried it in Asia and Latin America. Each time it succeeded in turning downturns into recessions, recessions into depressions.”

He pointed out that “Europe’s debt-to-GDP ratio is less than that of the US,” and noted the US can borrow at almost negative interest rates. The fundamental problem in Europe was that the euro was a flawed currency arrangement that did not meet the conditions needed to establish a common currency. A structural change of the euro arrangement was needed. It was happening now, but too late for the economics of the situation.

[Demeter]

53. The Answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind