STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 14 May 2014

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 14 May 2014[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 13 May 2014

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 13 May 2014
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Dow Jones 16,715.44 +19.97 (0.12%)
S&P 500 1,897.45 +0.80 (0.04%)
[font color=red]Nasdaq 4,130.17 -13.00 (0.00%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.61% -0.02 (-0.76%)
30 Year 3.43% -0.02 (-0.58%)[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
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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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
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.








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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]

[Fuddnik]

1. It's about time!! I'm finally old enough to retire.

I hit the 62 mark on Wed. Never mind I retired officially at the end of 2001. I'll embark on a new career as a driver for UberX this week-end, and I can just dally around when I want to. Spent the day on the hawg, just poured myself a cocktail, and ready to jump in the pool. Life sucks!

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Just remember that some of us

Regardless of age, will NEVER be able to retire.

[Demeter]

3. If you put off collecting Social Security until you turn 70

(although since you are older, you may not need to wait quite that long) you will collect twice as much per month as you would starting now.

[Fuddnik]

17. I don't get Social Security.

I collect Railroad Retirement, which was the grandfather of Social Security, and pays about triple the benefits.

For now, I'm dancing with two dogs, The Lovely Miss Sara, and the Crazy Mr Rosco. And we're doing Springsteen!

Whoa, ho, ho Rosco, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah

[Demeter]

12. Happy Birthday, by the way!

[Ghost Dog]

39. No UK pension for me 'till I'm at least 67.

... and since I didn't contribute, either by being in education, on the dole, or employed, being in Spain and after closing my one-man freelancer company in 2000, the full complement of years, the pension will be next to nothing (unless I contribute in cash to cover the shortfall), if anything, by then.

No social security, nothing, here in Spain either.

Thanks, 1%ers.

[AnneD]

40. Only 11 more days....

until I do the deed.....Retire that is. I am 59 and just months shy of 60. If the Railroad Pension is the Grand Daddy of Social Security then Texas Teacher's Retirement System is the ugly illegitimate child. Funded better than most, the state has been trying to short change their contributions and the retirees.

I will be looking for another Nursing job that pays real money and will work for a few more years to build up my retirement in some form or fashion. The good news is that I don't have to take just any job and I don't have to kill myself working full time either. Because I had enough quarters before I went into Nursing, I can get some SS and I will wait until 70 to apply.

Believe you me, I realize everyday how lucky I am that I can retire with financial support from my years of hard work. I am glad that I will be able to pass a little something on to my daughter too.

[Demeter]

4. There's too much truth in that cartoon

[Demeter]

5. US Government's New Plan for Internet IDs Has Scary Implications

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23643-us-governments-new-plan-for-internet-ids-has-scary-implications

While internet activists are distracted with recent attacks on net neutrality, the government is quietly introducing an internet ID program in Pennsylvania and Michigan that — if eventually broadened as intended — would strip internet users of their privacy and rights. The program, named the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace,” is starting small, consolidating accounts for public programs like welfare and health services. If the program were to stop at linking government accounts, it probably wouldn’t be such a big deal. The problem, however, is that United States officials are hoping that it’s the first step in a plan to make IDs that would be used uniformly throughout the entire internet. The government is championing the program as one that promotes “convenience.” Certainly, it would be “convenient” for internet users to have a single log-in and password for every activity on the internet, but it’s far more “convenient” for the government to be able to keep tabs on everything you do, type, search for, view, and purchase with a single account to monitor.

Tech experts fret that a single ID would eliminate the rights of internet users. For example, anonymous commenting, an act protected by the Supreme Court as free speech, would disappear if web surfers were unable to comment anywhere without being logged in to their official, government-issued accounts. Furthermore, any semblance of internet privacy would be obliterated considering how easily people’s activity could be tracked. The decision to initially target people in poverty for this type of system is hardly surprising since they are less likely to take issue with privacy concerns with more pressing matters taking priority in their lives. The other notion that a single ID would somehow add to cybersecurity seems similarly ludicrous. Anytime large amounts of people’s essential information is stored in a single place, it attracts hackers. Considering the number of major credit card breaches in the past year, it’s not hard to imagine that datacenters housing passwords for all aspects of people’s lives would become prime targets for hackers looking to commit fraud.

The timing of this implementation is even more questionable. Given the public backlash against the NSA, it’s especially strange that the U.S. government is already rolling out a new invasive form of internet surveillance. However, officials insist that Americans will be protected from government intrusion, by giving control of the IDs to corporations outside of the government.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that much more comforting to know that a private tech company like Google or Comcast would have that access to all that information instead. Besides, given the obvious unholy alliance between government and corporations, what’s the difference there anyway? Precedent has shown us that judges are willing to blindly grant government agencies access to this type of information 99.9% of the time.

[Demeter]

6. Nearly 102 million working-age Americans jobless

http://rt.com/usa/156800-americans-economy-unemployed-work/

Although the US unemployment rate has declined, more and more Americans are choosing to opt out of the labor market altogether and no longer even figure in the employment data. Efforts by the Obama administration to dress up the employment picture are a bit like attempting to stuff a circus elephant into a ballerina costume. As Washington trumpets last month’s drop in the unemployment rate (6.3 percent), it has quietly moved more than 988,000 Americans into the “not participating in the labor force” column.

If you add the current number of Americans without a job (9.75 million) to the number of US citizens not in the labor force (92.02), you come up with 101.77 million working age Americans who do not have work, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Now compare that figure to April 2000, when 5.48 million Americans were unemployed and 69.27 million Americans were not participating in the labor market. The number of Americans 14 years ago without work was 74.75 million. That means that the number of working age Americans without a job has risen by 27 million since the year 2000. However Washington wishes to fudge data that is bad news for the Obama administration.

In January 2005, the month that Barack Obama was sworn in as president, the United States was struggling with its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Just 60.6 percent of all working age Americans enjoyed employment of some kind. Since just 58.9 percent of all working age Americans presently have employment, the US job picture remains in worse condition than it was when Barack Obama entered office.

Michael Snyder, who contributes to The Economic Collapse blog, suggested that the United States “just define every American that is not working as ‘not in the labor force’ and then we can have ‘0.0 percent unemployment.’”

“Then we can all have a giant party and celebrate how wonderful the US economy is.”

The unemployment data comes on the heels of another report, released last week, that 20 percent of all American families in 2013 do not have a single member that is working, according to BLS. The BLS defines a family as “a group of two or more people who live together and who are related by birth, adoption or marriage.” In 2013, of the estimated 80,445,000 families in the United States, in 20 percent – or 16,127,000— of them none of the members was employed.

[Demeter]

7. US jobs data impugns recovery, Fed tapering/Friday's figures warn US recovery may be losing momentum

WHAT RECOVERY? WHAT MOMENTUM?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/10805350/Shocking-US-jobs-data-impugns-recovery-Fed-tapering.html



The US economy has delivered two minor shocks in a week, prompting concerns that bond tapering by the Federal Reserve may be doing more damage than expected.

1. Non-Farm Payrolls data released on Friday shows that the workforce shed 806,000 jobs in April, a stunning drop that cannot plausibly be blamed on the weather. Wage growth and hours worked were both flat and the manufacturing hours per week fell.

2. This follows news earlier in the week that the economy (ground) to a halt in the first quarter. Growth plummeted to 0.1pc and is now well below the Fed’s “stall speed” indicator. Analysts blamed this on the freezing polar vortex over the winter.

Yet the jobs data confirm a disturbingly weak picture. The headline unemployment rate fell to 6.3pc but that was only because the labour “participation rate” plummeted back to a modern-era low of 62.8pc, last seen in 1978 when there were far fewer women in the workforce. The rate for males is the lowest ever recorded at 69.1pc.

The jobs market is highly volatile – and is often revised later – but the data are a warning that the US recovery may be losing momentum. Lakshman Achuthan, from the Economic Cycle Research Institute, said the trend was already weakening long before the cold weather. “We see a failure to launch. We’re decelerating, not accelerating, and that is a big concern,” he said. ...MORE

[Demeter]

8. Gerald Celente puts a date on coming collapse

[Demeter]

9. The World has Nothing to Fear From the US Losing Power

THE CITIZENS OF THE USA, ON THE OTHER HAND....KARMA WILL RUN OVER THEIR DOGMA

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/03/world-nothing-fear-us-power-china-economy-democracy

The news that China will displace the US as the world's largest economy this year is big news. For economists who follow these measurements, the tectonic shift likely occurred a few years ago. But now the World Bank is making it official, so journalists and others who opine on world affairs will have to take this into account. And if they do so, they will find that this is a very big deal indeed.

What does it mean? First, the technicalities: the comparison is made on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, which means that it takes into account the differing prices in the two countries. So, if a dollar is worth 6.3 renminbi today on the foreign exchange market, it may be that 6.3 renminbi can buy a lot more in China than one dollar can buy in the US. The PPP comparison adjusts for that; that is why China's economy is much bigger than the measure that you have most commonly seen in the media, which simply converts China's GDP to dollars at the official exchange rate. The PPP measure is a better comparison for many purposes. For example, take military spending: the money that China needs to build a fighter jet or pay military personnel is a lot less than the equivalent in dollars that the US has to pay for the same goods and services. This means that China has a bigger economy than that of the US, for purposes of military spending. And in a decade, the Chinese economy will most likely be about 60 percent bigger than the US economy.

President Obama has just returned from a trip to Asia where he was criticised for not being tougher with China. However, Americans may want to consider whether "containing" China with a "pivot" to Asia is an affordable proposition. When the US had an arms race with the Soviet Union, the Soviet economy was maybe one-quarter the size of ours. We have not experienced an arms race with a country whose economy is bigger than ours, and whose economic size advantage is growing rapidly. Are Americans prepared to give up social security or Medicare in order to maintain US military supremacy in Asia? To ask this question is to answer it.

Fortunately, such an arms race is not necessary. China is a rising power, but the government does not seem to be interested in building an empire. Unlike the US, which has hundreds of military bases throughout the globe, China doesn't have any. The Chinese government seems to be very focused on economic growth; trying to become a developed country as soon as it can. Since China has 1.3 billion people, having an economy the size of the US means that average living standards are less than one-fourth of ours. They have a long way to go to become a rich country.

Of course, just because an arms race is unnecessary or unwinnable doesn't mean it can't get started. The Washington foreign policy establishment is much accustomed to the authority, prestige, and privilege of being the overwhelmingly dominant power on the planet. And as we saw during the eastward expansion of Nato in the 1990s – now coming back to haunt us in a new cold war with Russia – there are politically powerful military contractors that can also have a voice in US foreign and military policy....

MORE SENSIBLE TALK AT LINK

[Demeter]

24. U.S. retail sales barely rise in April

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/13/usa-economy-retail-idUSL1N0NY16Q20140513

U.S. retail sales barely rose in April and a gauge of consumer spending slipped, which could temper hopes of a sharp acceleration in economic growth in the second quarter.

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday retail sales edged up 0.1 percent last month, held back by declines in receipts at furniture, electronic and appliance stores, restaurants and bars and online retailers.

Retail sales, which account for a third of consumer spending, rose by a revised 1.5 percent in March. That was the largest increase since March 2010.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast sales advancing 0.4 percent last month after a previously reported 1.2 percent surge in March...

MORE

[DemReadingDU]

46. That audio from WLW radio in Cincinnati

WLW Eddie and Tracy talk to Gerald Celente about the trends of the economy and around the world.

interesting Celente discussion...
likely 2nd quarter begin economic collapse
when interest rates go up, economy goes down
they come up with schemes to keep ponzi going
markets are rigged
price of gold is being kept down

[Ghost Dog]

52. +

You don't wanna fight a war against the Russians.

[AnneD]

41. Reguarding the 101.7 jobless...

is that in the labour force....or forced labour. If all that were available to be were minimum wage, I would call that forced labour.

[Demeter]

43. DUzy for sure!

[AnneD]

44. Just keepin it real.....

eom.

[DemReadingDU]

45. we are screwed

[Demeter]

10. Follow the Money, China-Style

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/opinion/follow-the-money-china-style.html?_r=1

Since China introduced a floating exchange rate on July 21, 2005, the Chinese yuan has consistently risen in value against the United States dollar, from a low of 8.28 yuan to the dollar in July 2005 to a high of 6.06 in January of this year. But the appreciation of the yuan has failed to convince ordinary Chinese people that their money buys more; on the contrary, they feel it’s worth less. For the last nine years, while the yuan has appreciated in relation to other currencies, it has steadily lost value at home. Many attribute this to excess printing of currency by the central bank. The excess of China’s money supply (known as “M2”) at the end of 2013 totaled 110.65 trillion yuan ($17.77 trillion), four times greater than the figure 10 years earlier, when it stood at 22.1 trillion yuan ($3.55 trillion, at today’s rate). The basic tenets of monetary policy say that for every 1 yuan rise in the value of the economy, the central bank should add 1 yuan in currency. Any supply of currency above that rate is excess. Today, the value of Chinese currency in circulation compared with gross domestic product is at a ratio close to 2:1 (in 2013, China’s G.D.P. amounted to 56.88 trillion yuan, or $9.31 trillion).

Because China’s economic growth relies chiefly on investment, it requires major injections of capital. As the government economist Wu Xiaoling put it, “In the past 30 years, we have used excessive money supply to rapidly advance our economy.” In most economies, that would lead to rampant inflation, but if we look at the rise in China’s Consumer Price Index over the last two years, it’s usually been in the range of 2 to 3 percent, and only occasionally above 3 percent. During the last decade, there have been only two occasions when prices rose sharply: in 2008, when the increase topped 8 percent, and in 2011, when it peaked at about 6 percent. Why has large-scale monetary inflation failed to trigger price inflation? From official quarters, we hear denials that China’s money supply is inflationary. Sheng Songcheng, the head of the central bank’s statistics and analysis department, said in January that the money supply was large because the savings rate and the ratio of indirect financial investment (that is, funding in the form of bank loans) were high. China has one of the highest household savings rates in the world, surging recently to 50 percent of disposable income (although it is only a minority of households driving the trend).

Economists differ as to what this all means, but one professor of literature has coined a term for it: “the economics of corrupt officialdom.” Corrupt officials, he argues, have a lot to do with the absence of price inflation. Corrupt officials generally do not spend the huge sums they acquire from kickbacks, and are loath to deposit their money in banks for fear it will be discovered. So they hide their money instead. The professor estimates that as much as 50 percent of the surplus money supply may have been taken out of circulation for this reason....The professor’s estimate that half of the money supply surplus has been salted away by corrupt officials is a calculation based more on poetic license than empirical evidence, but I have no doubt that the total of stolen cash is big enough to play a role in curbing price inflation at a time of monetary expansion. Like most Chinese, I am sure that those officials who have been brought to justice represent the tip of an iceberg of kickbacks and bribes. Of course, “the economics of corrupt officialdom” can’t stop prices from rising. That is one change ordinary Chinese have become very conscious of in recent years: Everything is getting more expensive — only the money gets cheaper.

Yu Hua is the author of “Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China.” This essay was translated by Allan H. Barr from the Chinese.



RATHER LIKE HOW THE US PRINTING PRESSES ARE DRAINED BY THE ILLEGAL DRUG TRADE AND THE PETRODOLLAR, BOTH OF WHICH KEEP THE MONEY SUPPLY FROM DOING A ZIMBABWE ON US...UNTIL THAT CHANGES, OF COURSE.

[Demeter]

11. KOCH BROS. TRY TO KILL DETROIT

http://www.wxyz.com/news/no-state-money-for-detroit-powerful-voice-says-no

VIDEO CLIP AT LINK

Americans for Prosperity with ties to the Tea Party doesn't want state money to go to Detroit in bankruptcy.

The plan in the Legislature now would be $200 million to help save the art from being sold at the Detroit Institute of Arts and help cover retiree pensions.

Scott Hagerstrom the spokesman for Americans for Prosperity says Detroit has not earned "a bailout" and continues to demonstrate poor fiscal controls.

He points to new Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan who has appointed several department heads with six-figure salaries as one example. But when asked who are the deep pockets behind his organization, Hagerstrom says they take in private donations and don't share the information.

He's not naming names, but we are including two billionaire brothers in Kansas named Koch....


YEAH, THOSE TWO JERKS THAT DUMPED THEIR PET COKE ON THE SHORES OF THE DETROIT RIVER....AND EVERY OTHER PORT ON THE GREAT LAKES.

[Demeter]

13. Banks Sued on Claims of Fixing Price of Gold

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/banks-sued-on-claims-of-fixing-price-of-gold/

Frustrated traders and offbeat activists have complained for years in whispers and in online screeds that the price of gold has been subject to collusion. On Monday MAY 5, these accusations of manipulation found a more august arena for expression: the federal courts. At a 40-minute hearing, lawyers for more than 20 plaintiffs gathered in Federal District Court in Manhattan to coordinate their linked lawsuits against the five banks that make up what is known as the London gold fix. The suits, filed by hedge funds, private citizens and public investors like the Alaska Electrical Pension Fund, contend that the banks have used their privileged positions as market makers to rig the price of gold to their benefit.

The lawsuits — the first of which was filed in March — question the integrity of the gold fix, which dates to 1919, when a handful of bankers began to meet in the wood-paneled offices of N. M. Rothschild & Sons in London. The purpose of the fix is to set a benchmark price for gold, which is subsequently used by dealers, central banks and mining firms to buy and sell the precious metal and its various derivatives. These days, the fix takes place by phone twice a day — at 10:30 a.m. London time and again at 3 p.m. — and generally lasts 10 minutes to an hour.

According to one of the suits, “The ‘great flaw’ of the gold fixing process is that the member banks trade on the information exchanged during the call to manipulate the price of gold and gold derivatives before publication of the gold fix to the wider market.” Each of the banks — Barclays, Scotiabank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Société Générale — denied, or declined to comment, on the accusations of collusion, which — at least traditionally — have been dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Nonetheless, concerns that the gold fix may be rigged have escalated of late in part because of investigations into the setting of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and suspicions about manipulation of global foreign exchange rates.

“A lot of conspiracy theories have turned out to be conspiracy fact,” said Kevin Maher, a former gold trader from New York, who filed the first suit against the banks. (The case is Maher v. Bank of Nova Scotia, 14-cv-01459.) “We now know that Libor was manipulated and that a bad odor is coming out of the Forex market. So why not gold?”

[Demeter]

14. OECD Cuts Global Growth Forecast as Emerging Markets Cool

GLOBAL COLLAPSE, HERE WE COME!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-06/oecd-cuts-global-growth-forecast-as-emerging-markets-cool.html

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cut its global growth forecast as expansions in China and other emerging markets slow.

The world economy will expand 3.4 percent this year instead of the 3.6 percent predicted in November, the Paris-based organization said in a semi-annual report today. China will grow 7.4 percent, down from a previous projection of 8.2 percent.

“Part of this deceleration is benign, reflecting cyclical slowdowns from overheated starting positions,” said OECD Chief Economist Rintaro Tamaki. “However, managing the credit slowdown and the risks that built up during the period of easy global monetary conditions could be a major challenge.”

The OECD’s second reduction in global growth forecasts in six months underlines the challenges facing policy makers even as developed countries recover from the financial crisis. The group also said events in Ukraine have heightened geopolitical uncertainty, a factor also referenced by the International Monetary Fund in its global outlook in April.

MORE ARROGANT ADVICE AT LINK

[Demeter]

15. The declining dollar: Why everyone got it wrong

THE TIMES, THEY ARE A CHANGING...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101650260

2014 was supposed to be the year of the dollar, a breakout for the currency.

It was a no-brainer—the U.S economy was outperforming developed markets like Europe and even emerging markets like China and India. The Federal Reserve was finally starting the "taper," or the scaling back of the massive, unprecedented amount of easy money that's diluted the dollar's value for the last few years. At the same time, central banks in Japan and Europe are looking to ease further.

For all of these reasons, strategists from JPMorgan Chase to Morgan Stanley to UBS predicted 2014 would kick off with a stronger dollar.

But so far, the U.S. currency has gone in the opposite direction. The dollar index—a measure of the currency against a basket of its global competitors—is trading below the critical 80 mark, the lowest level since last October. The euro has soared to a seven-week high, and the British pound is hovering at the highest point since August 2009.

And it's not just the strategists that have been wrong. Futures traders also have been trimming their losing bearish bets as the currency has weakened. Speculators have been shorting the dollar, with the value of that short position at $686 million last week, significantly lower than $1.58 billion in the prior week, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission...

MORE

[Demeter]

16. Ford announces $1.8 billion share buyback program, can reduce debt

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/07/us-ford-stocks-buyback-idUSBREA4614220140507

Ford Motor Co (F.N) announced on Wednesday a stock repurchase program of about $1.8 billion that it said will offset potential share dilution and positions the company to reduce its automotive debt by $883 million. The announcement boosted Ford stock about 0.7 percent to $15.57 per share after the New York Stock Exchange closed.

Ford at the end of the first quarter had automotive debt of about $15.7 billion and has said that it plans to reduce that debt to about $10 billion by mid-decade.

Up to 116 million shares will be repurchased. Up to 103 million shares are to offset the dilutive effect of potential conversions of the company's 4.25 percent senior convertible notes due November 15, 2016. At Wednesday's closing stock price of $15.46 per share, the 103 million shares would be worth about $1.6 billion. In addition, 12.6 million shares will be repurchased to offset the dilutive effect of share-based incentive pay for about 26,000 salaried employees for this year. Those employees include top executives. At Wednesday's closing stock price, that amounts to nearly $195 million. Bob Shanks, Ford chief financial officer, said the two actions reduce the company's diluted shares by about 3 percent.

Starting on November 20, 2014, the company can terminate the noteholders' conversion rights, and it has the right to settle conversions with shares, cash or both. Shares repurchased in this program are intended to offset the dilutive effect of any shares Ford elects to issue to settle these potential conversions.

[Demeter]

18. Russia Holds "De-Dollarization Meeting": China, Iran Willing To Drop USD From Bilateral Trade

"Well, if the west wanted Russia's response to ever escalating sanctions against the country, it is about to get it."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-13/russia-holds-de-dollarization-meeting-china-iran-willing-drop-usd-bilateral-trade

That Russia has been pushing for trade arrangements that minimize the participation (and influence) of the US dollar ever since the onset of the Ukraine crisis (and before) is no secret: this has been covered extensively on these pages before (see Gazprom Prepares "Symbolic" Bond Issue In Chinese Yuan; Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China; Russia And China About To Sign "Holy Grail" Gas Deal; 40 Central Banks Are Betting This Will Be The Next Reserve Currency; From the Petrodollar to the Gas-o-yuan and so on).

But until now much of this was in the realm of hearsay and general wishful thinking. After all, surely it is "ridiculous" that a country can seriously contemplate to exist outside the ideological and religious confines of the Petrodollar... because if one can do it, all can do it, and next thing you know the US has hyperinflation, social collapse, civil war and all those other features prominently featured in other socialist banana republics like Venezuela which alas do not have a global reserve currency to kick around.

Or so the Keynesian economists, aka tenured priests of said Petrodollar religion, would demand that the world believe. However, as much as it may trouble the statists to read, Russia is actively pushing on with plans to put the US dollar in the rearview mirror and replace it with a dollar-free system. Or, as it is called in Russia, a "de-dollarized" world.

Voice of Russia reports citing Russian press sources that the country's Ministry of Finance is ready to greenlight a plan to radically increase the role of the Russian ruble in export operations while reducing the share of dollar-denominated transactions. Governmental sources believe that the Russian banking sector is "ready to handle the increased number of ruble-denominated transactions".

According to the Prime news agency, on April 24th the government organized a special meeting dedicated to finding a solution for getting rid of the US dollar in Russian export operations. Top level experts from the energy sector, banks and governmental agencies were summoned and a number of measures were proposed as a response for American sanctions against Russia....

[Demeter]

19. Moscow to suspend American GPS sites on Russian territory from June

http://rt.com/news/158680-russia-usa-rocket-gps/

Russia is going to suspend the operation of all American GPS sites on its territory, starting from June 1, said Russia’s deputy PM, Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defense industries.

"Starting June 1, we will halt the work of those stations on Russian territory,” Rogozin said.

Rogozin pointed out that American GPS ground stations are located in Russia under an agreement that dates back to 1993 and 2001.

“Under this agreement there are 11 GPS stations on the territories of 10 Russian federal subjects,” he said.

He stressed that Moscow and Washington have until May 31 to agree on the issue of setting Russian GLONASS stations on US territory.

“We’re starting negotiations which will last for three months. We hope that by the end of summer, these talks will bring a solution that will allow our cooperation to be restored on the basis of parity and proportionality,” Rogozin said.

But if the negotiations turn out to be fruitless, operation of the 11 American GPS stations in Russia will “be permanently terminated” from September 1, he warned.

Dmitry Rogozin also said that Moscow is banning Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines, which the US has used to deliver its military satellites into orbit.

“We proceed from the fact that without guarantees that our engines are used for non-military spacecraft launches only, we won’t be able to supply them to the US,”Rogozin is cited as saying by Interfax news agency.

If such guarantees aren’t provided the Russian side will also be unable to perform routine maintenance for the engines, which have been previously delivered to the US, he added. The US relies on Russian-made RD-180 and NK-33 engines to launch military and civilian satellites into space, with NASA saying it’s unlikely to produce a fully operational rocket engine of its own before 2020....


Relations between Moscow and Washington have seriously deteriorated after the accession into Russia of the Ukrainian Republic of Crimea, which refused to recognize the new coup-imposed authority in Kiev. The US and its EU partners have introduced several waves of sanctions against Russia, which have seen assets frozen and travel bans imposed on dozens of the country’s politicians and businessman, as well as the cessation of joint projects in different areas, including space. However, Rogozin stressed that Russia will apply restrictive measures of its own only as a response to sanctions imposed by the West.

“We won’t be first to adopt sanctions, especially in the high-tech area. For us it is a matter of employment of our specialists,” he said.

[Demeter]

20. Russia to Ban US From Space Station in Sanctions Retaliation

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Putin-space-station-ban/2014/05/13/id/571127/

Russia cast doubt on the long-term future of the International Space Station, a showcase of post-Cold War cooperation, as it retaliated on Tuesday against U.S. sanctions over Ukraine.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Moscow would reject a U.S. request to prolong the orbiting station's use beyond 2020. It will also bar Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines to launch military satellites.

Moscow took the action, which also included suspending operation of GPS satellite navigation system sites on its territory from June, in response to U.S. plans to deny export licenses for high-technology items that could help the Russian military.

"We are very concerned about continuing to develop high-tech projects with such an unreliable partner as the United States, which politicizes everything," Rogozin told a news conference.

...MORE

[Demeter]

21. Gazprom introduces pre-payment system for Ukraine, sends $1.66bn bill

http://rt.com/business/158616-gazprom-ukraine-prepayment-bill/

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING

[Demeter]

22. Son of US Vice President joins Board of Directors For Ukraine Gas Company

http://www.dnd.com.pk/son-us-vice-president-joins-board-directors-burisma-holdings-ukraine/

Hunter Biden is now on Board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer.

Hunter Biden will head legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations...


Russian media is fanning this story and calling it a deal between Kiev leadership to US to please people in power in Congress. It may be mentioned that US Vice President visited Kiev on April 21-22 and commented that new leadership of Ukraine should look grave affairs and stressed the need for the new authorities to tackle corruption, adding: “The opportunity to generate a united Ukraine, getting it right is within your grasp.” The US is to provide an additional $50m for political and economic reforms in Ukraine, including $11m to help run the presidential election due on 25 May. An further $8m is being provided for non-lethal military assistance, such as bomb disposal equipment and radios. After meeting Mr Biden, interim PM Yatsenyuk accused Russia of behaving “as gangsters.

R. Hunter Biden is a counsel to Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, a national law firm based in New York, USA, which served in cases including “Bush vs. Gore”, and “U.S. vs. Microsoft”. Biden has experience in public service and foreign policy. He is a director for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, The Center for National Policy, and the Chairman’s Advisory Board for the National Democratic Institute. Having served as a Senior Vice President at MBNA bank, former U.S. President Bill Clinton appointed him an Executive Director of E-Commerce Policy Coordination under Secretary of Commerce William Daley. Mr. Biden served as Honorary Co-Chair of the 2008 Obama-Biden Inaugural Committee.

[DemReadingDU]

48. wtf

[AnneD]

47. OK, I might be biased....

I live in Houston etc,etc, but I have alway been more than pissed at the way Obama has dealt with NASA, giving a shuttle to every other city but the one that designed and utilized it etc.

All I have to say about Russia banning the US from the international space station is: How's that working for ya Barry, and don't say we didn't warn ya.

[DemReadingDU]

49. Dayton - birthplace of aviation

talk about pissed, no shuttle for us either

Russia and the U.S. - seems almost like a game of words. You sanction us, we sanction you, until one provokes the other into a serious altercation. Why? what is really going on?

[AnneD]

51. Someone want to get ...

their war on. Putin sees the US as nothing more than a paper tiger and wants to regain Russia's former glory. The US government esp Congress is full to teahadist arm chair generals that have never see a war they didn't dodge or like to send others off to fight. China is watching this hoping we are distracted enough so they can scoop up more land and materials.

I think I covered most of the current events, but I really don't watch much news these days.

[Demeter]

53. And the smallest intellects the world has ever known are destroying Europe

Minds from the US and from European nations....and banksters. can't turn over a rock without them crawling out, slithering, covered in ooze and blood and worse...

[DemReadingDU]

54. While we're distracted with Russia and U.S.

maybe the real threat is China?

[AnneD]

55. As I said...

we are so distracted by the events in Ukraine that China is scooping up resources and land, more boldly as time goes by.

[Demeter]

23. Glenn Greenwald: How the NSA Tampers With US-made Internet Routers

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald-nsa-tampers-us-internet-routers-snowden

The NSA has been covertly implanting interception tools in US servers heading overseas – even though the US government has warned against using Chinese technology for the same reasons, says Glenn Greenwald, in an extract from his new book about the Snowden affair, No Place to Hide

For years, the US government loudly warned the world that Chinese routers and other internet devices pose a "threat" because they are built with backdoor surveillance functionality that gives the Chinese government the ability to spy on anyone using them. Yet what the NSA's documents show is that Americans have been engaged in precisely the activity that the US accused the Chinese of doing.

The drumbeat of American accusations against Chinese internet device manufacturers was unrelenting. In 2012, for example, a report from the House Intelligence Committee, headed by Mike Rogers, claimed that Huawei and ZTE, the top two Chinese telecommunications equipment companies, "may be violating United States laws" and have "not followed United States legal obligations or international standards of business behaviour". The committee recommended that "the United States should view with suspicion the continued penetration of the US telecommunications market by Chinese telecommunications companies".

The Rogers committee voiced fears that the two companies were enabling Chinese state surveillance, although it acknowledged that it had obtained no actual evidence that the firms had implanted their routers and other systems with surveillance devices. Nonetheless, it cited the failure of those companies to cooperate and urged US firms to avoid purchasing their products: "Private-sector entities in the United States are strongly encouraged to consider the long-term security risks associated with doing business with either ZTE or Huawei for equipment or services. US network providers and systems developers are strongly encouraged to seek other vendors for their projects. Based on available classified and unclassified information, Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems."

The constant accusations became such a burden that Ren Zhengfei, the 69-year-old founder and CEO of Huawei, announced in November 2013 that the company was abandoning the US market. As Foreign Policy reported, Zhengfei told a French newspaper: "'If Huawei gets in the middle of US-China relations,' and causes problems, 'it's not worth it'."

But while American companies were being warned away from supposedly untrustworthy Chinese routers, foreign organisations would have been well advised to beware of American-made ones. A June 2010 report from the head of the NSA's Access and Target Development department is shockingly explicit. The NSA routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, servers and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers.

The agency then implants backdoor surveillance tools, repackages the devices with a factory seal and sends them on. The NSA thus gains access to entire networks and all their users. The document gleefully observes that some "SIGINT tradecraft … is very hands-on (literally!)".

Eventually, the implanted device connects back to the NSA. The report continues: "In one recent case, after several months a beacon implanted through supply-chain interdiction called back to the NSA covert infrastructure. This call back provided us access to further exploit the device and survey the network."

[xchrom]

25. OBAMA TO ASK CONGRESS FOR CASH FOR ROADS, BRIDGES

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-14-06-01-25

WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's roads, bridges and ports are falling apart, and the federal government is running out of money to fix them. So President Barack Obama is heading to a crumbling bridge outside New York City to try to pressure Congress into giving the nation's infrastructure an infusion of cash.

Obama was to travel Wednesday to the Tappan Zee Bridge, a major crossing point over the Hudson River that's in dire need of replacement nearly six decades after being built. In addition to calling on lawmakers to back his transportation plan, Obama will promote efforts to cut red tape and delays in permitting, the White House said.

While in New York, Obama will also headline a pair of high-dollar fundraisers benefiting Democratic candidates competing in the midterm elections. He and first lady Michelle Obama will spend the night in Manhattan before attending the dedication ceremony Thursday for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center.

Obama's New York jaunt forms the apex of a weeklong attempt by the White House to focus the nation's attention on what the administration describes as a looming crisis that, left unfixed, could stifle economic growth and torment the nation's commuters.

[Demeter]

42. Better 6 years late, than never

but it was much more important to shore up bankrupt banks than real stuff....

[xchrom]

26. REPORT HIGHLIGHTS CHILD LABOR ON US TOBACCO FARMS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TOBACCO_FARMING_CHILDREN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-14-06-13-43

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- You may have to be at least 18 to buy cigarettes in the U.S., but children as young as 7 are working long hours in fields harvesting nicotine- and pesticide-laced tobacco leaves under sometimes hazardous and sweltering conditions, according to a report released Wednesday by an international rights group.

The Human Rights Watch report details findings from interviews with more than 140 children working on farms in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where a majority of the country's tobacco is grown. The group acknowledges that most of what it documented is legal under U.S. law but aims to highlight the practice and urge both governments and tobacco companies to take further steps to protect children from the hazardous harvesting of the cash crop that has built businesses, funded cities and influenced cultures.

"The U.S. has failed America's families by not meaningfully protecting child farmworkers from dangers to their health and safety, including on tobacco farms," said Margaret Wurth, children's rights researcher and co-author of the report. "Farming is hard work anyway, but children working on tobacco farms get so sick that they throw up, get covered by pesticides and have no real protective gear."

Children interviewed by the group in 2012 and 2013 reported vomiting, nausea and headaches while working on tobacco farms. The symptoms they reported are consistent with nicotine poisoning often called Green Tobacco Sickness, which occurs when workers absorb nicotine through their skin while handling tobacco plants.

[xchrom]

27. ASIA SHARES RISE ON NEW S&P HIGH, EUROPE MEANDERS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WORLD_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-14-06-13-21

TOKYO (AP) -- Asian stock markets were boosted Wednesday after the S&P 500 rose above 1,900 for the first time, but European markets meandered ahead of a likely flat start to U.S. trading.

Germany's DAX slipped 0.1 percent to 9,746.37 and France's CAC 40 shed 0.1 percent to 4,498.55. Britain's FTSE 100 was barely changed at 6,870.63. Futures augured little movement on Wall Street, with Dow and S&P 500 futures both flat.

Though most Asian markets were lifted by the boost to sentiment from Wall Street's performance, Japan's benchmark remained in negative territory as investors locked in profits from recent gains.

The Standard & Poor's 500 topped the 1,900 mark for the first time Tuesday, driven by optimism over the economic recovery, before closing just below it, up 0.1 percent at 1,897.45.

[xchrom]

28. SALLIE MAE, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IN $60M SETTLEMENT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SALLIE_MAE_SETTLEMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-13-22-01-00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Student lender Sallie Mae has reached a $60 million settlement with the Justice Department to resolve allegations that it charged members of the military excessive interest rates on their student loans, the federal government announced Tuesday.

The deal settles a government lawsuit that asserted the student loan giant violated the rights of service members by imposing interest rates above the 6 percent permitted by federal law and by improperly seeking default judgments against them. Separately, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced a settlement of $30 million in restitution arising from allegations that the company maximized consumer late fee charges, as well as $6.6 million in civil penalties.

The lawsuit was the Justice Department's first against owners and servicers of student loans for violating rights of service members. The settlement has been filed in federal court in Delaware and is awaiting a judge's approval.

"We are sending a clear message to all lenders and servicers who would deprive our service members of the basic benefits and protections to which they are entitled: this type of conduct is more than just inappropriate; it is inexcusable," Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference. "And it will not be tolerated."

[xchrom]

29. MANILA SAYS CHINA RECLAIMING LAND IN DISPUTED SEA

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/manila-says-china-reclaiming-land-disputed-sea-0


MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines has protested China's reclamation of land in a disputed reef in the South China Sea that can be used to build an airstrip or an offshore military base in the increasingly volatile region, the country's top diplomat and other officials said Wednesday.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told The Associated Press that the Philippines lodged the protest against China last month after surveillance aircraft confirmed and took pictures of the reclamation and dredging being done by Chinese vessels at the Johnson Reef in the Spratly Islands, which Manila says violates a regional nonaggression pact.

Del Rosario said it was not clear what China would build on the reef, which Manila claims as part of its western province of Palawan, but that one possibility was an airstrip. A senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the issue, said China could also build an offshore military and resupply and refueling hub.

"We're not exactly sure what are their intentions there," Del Rosario said.

[Demeter]

30. How the Greek Banks Secured an Additional, Hidden €41 billion Bailout from European taxpayers

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/05/11/how-the-greek-banks-secured-an-additional-hidden-e41-billion-bailout-from-european-taxpayers/


IT IS NOT TO BE BELIEVED HOW SCREWED UP THIS IS

[Demeter]

31. Has America’s Use of Finance as a Foreign Policy Tool Backfired?

IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?

AMERICAN POLICY MAKERS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO USE SCISSORS AND KNIVES, LET ALONE FINANCIAL TOOLS....

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/americas-use-finance-foreign-policy-tool-backfired.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29



From the 1980s onward, one of the major aims of American foreign policy has been to make the world safer for US investment bankers. That might seem like an exaggeration until you look at the priorities of American economic policy as well as the actions of US-dominated international institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. The World Bank, though its International Finance Corporations, pushed emerging economies to set up capital markets. The posture was that more open markets were always better.

Now that we’ve had repeated tsunamis of hot money flows in and out of small economies wreak havoc with them, conventional wisdom among development economists is more along the lines of “protectionism in emerging economies is desirable so they can develop companies and/or export sectors that are capable of competing internationally, and also serve domestic markets, so that the economy isn’t too export dependent. Open capital markets produce too much volatility in interest and foreign exchange rates and thus undermine internal development.”

Similarly, the US has pressed advanced economies for more open financial markets. America’s insistence that Japan deregulate its banking system was a prime driver of its 1980s bubble (I had a bird’s eye view of how the Japanese banks went full bore into all sorts of products and markets they didn’t understand and incurred huge losses as a result).

A cynic might point out that Japan’s speculative boom and bust put a decisive end to Japan’s status as serious challenger to American economic dominance. The Chinese, the poster children of successful development, have made a close study of the Japanese experience. Among other things, the Chinese decided to maintain tight control over the banking system and have restricted international capital flows. Note these curbs have become less effective over time, perhaps due to neglect. Regional governments have helped spawn a large shadow banking system and wealthy company owners have been able to evade capital controls through over-invoicing. Nevertheless, the Chinese financial system is a long way away from being deregulated. As a result, the consensus among Western securities analysts is that China will be able to engineer a soft landing despite the scary size of its credit bubble...

MUCH MORE

[xchrom]

32. Walmart US CEO Gets A $1.5 Million Bonus For Missing Expectations While A Worker Gets $0

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/12/3436808/walmart-executive-pay/

The New York Times reports that Walmart US CEO William Simon’s contract gave him the opportunity to earn a $1.5 million bonus last year on top of $10 million in salary and stock awards if the company’s American net sales grew by 2 percent. But net sales grew only 1.8 percent last year and Simon still received his bonus. That’s because Walmart calculated an “adjusted” sales growth over 2 percent that “corrected” for a series of factors that it said were beyond Simon’s control. Similarly, the company’s proxy statement reveals that executives would still receive a cash incentive even if the company’s total operating income declined by 1.5 percent.

Simon’s “performance pay” can be compared to the pay structure for Walmart associates revealed in an internal document last year. It lays out the hourly wage bonus that associates receive based on five different levels of performance. After calculating the annualized bonus associates receive if they work 52 40-hour weeks per year, it’s clear that Walmart doesn’t use the same pay structure for its executives that it uses for its associates. An associate who is graded “below expectations” or “needs improvement” won’t get any extra pay. A “solid performer” will receive $832, “exceeds expectations” nets $1,040, and a “role model,” the highest grade, is awarded $1,248. This means an associate can get an 8 percent bonus over the minimum wage when she is a role model, and a CEO can still get an 11 percent bonus when he misses his objectives.

Simon’s pay package also undermines the logic behind trickle-down economics. Thomas Piketty’s bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century finds that one of the main drivers behind growing inequality is surging executive pay. Defenders of inequality like to argue that growing executive helps the economy by providing incentives for them to work hard and grow their companies—growth that trickles down to the rest of us.

George W Bush’s former chief economist, for example, writes that “the most natural explanation of high CEO pay is that the value of a good CEO is extraordinarily high.” The Heritage Foundation goes a step further, warning that reducing CEO pay by raising taxes would damage the economy because it “would reduce the incentives for high-earners to work and take risk, which would reduce opportunity for lower-income workers because it would result in less job creation.”

[xchrom]

33. ‘Merchants of Death’ Could Make a Lot of Money Off a War in Ukraine

http://www.thenation.com/blog/179831/merchants-death-could-make-lot-money-war-ukraine


Two of the first four Polish Air Force F-16 fighter jets, from Lockheed Martin, arrive at the Krzesiny airport in western Poland in 2006. (Reuters/Peter Andrews)

If you’re wondering why some US politicians are so hot for war in the Ukraine, think “merchants of death.” At the height of the antiwar movement, that was nasty label some of us applied to Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other major manufacturers of high-tech war-fighting equipment—planes, tanks, missiles, whatever does the job. When the drums of war are sounding in some distant land, these the weapons makers naturally smell sales opportunities.

Trouble in Ukraine has aroused the same ambitions and hawkish politicians have picked up the ball and are running with it. They are demanding that the US government send military stuff to Kiev to hold off threatening Russians (our favorite bad guys). The hawks are portraying President Obama as a wimp who’s insufficiently bellicose. But the president is so far playing a cool hand. He has been getting us out of two wars. He’s pretty sure the people don’t want another one.

In fact, neutral historians may someday conclude that it was the United States who stirred up the trouble in the Ukraine, inadvertently if not intentionally, and that US arms makers played an important supporting role. When the Cold War ended in 1991, these companies saw a promising new market opening for their stuff—the newly liberated Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. Let’s expand NATO! The manufacturers lobbied policy makers in Washington and courted governments of post-Soviet nations as potential customers.

Bill Clinton decided to do it, cheered on by the arms merchants. Why is nobody talking about that? Because It might sound unpatriotic. And the media love bang-bang, even if the cause is stupid.

[xchrom]

34. Could a Hindu Extremist Become India’s Next Prime Minister?

http://www.thenation.com/article/179821/could-indias-next-prime-minister-be-hindu-extremist



Ahmedabad—In a recent interview, Narendra Modi, the man likely to be India’s next prime minister, was asked by a news agency why he long avoided questions by journalists about his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. Despite YouTube videos showing Modi refusing to answer questions on this topic, Modi insisted, “I was not silent…. I answered every top journalist in the country from 2002 to 2007, but noticed there was no exercise to understand the truth.”

In Manoj Mitta’s new book The Fiction of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra, published by Harper Collins India, Mitta argues that if there has been no real attempt to get to the truth of Modi’s actions during the riots, it’s because of the “cavalier” approach to justice. Through extensive documentation, Mitta shows that Modi might be on trial today, as opposed to campaigning for prime minister, if only he had been asked the right questions about his role in the riots.

Mitta is a senior journalist with the Times of India who specializes in human rights reporting. His first book, When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, examined the investigation into the anti-Sikh pogrom in India’s capital of Delhi, when about 3,000 Sikhs were killed after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguard. It was co-written with H.S. Phoolka, now a senior advocate with the Supreme Court, who fought for over a decade, to little avail, to get justice for the victims of the 1984 massacre. Mitta has said that his third book will examine India’s problem of caste violence.

In his latest book, Mitta focuses his attention on Modi. The timing could not be better. India’s elections began on April 7 and conclude on May 12, with results to be announced on May 16. Modi, who has been the chief minister of Gujarat since 2001 and is running under the banner of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has a 78 percent favorability rating, according to the Pew Research Center. His key opponents are Rahul Gandhi of the left-leaning Indian National Congress Party and Arvind Kejriwal of the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man Party. Many of India’s 814 million voters view Modi as capable of rescuing India from the economic slump it has been in under the incumbent Congress party, which, with the Nehru-Gandhi family, has ruled India for most of its sixty-seven-year post-independence history. But a major cloud still hangs over Modi’s head: the 2002 Gujarat riots.

[xchrom]

35. US retail sales growth in April weaker than forecast

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27397806


US retail sales grew by just 0.1% in April, compared with growth of 1.5% the month before, latest figures from the Commerce Department show.

Consumers cut back primarily on purchases of electronics and furniture.

The slowdown surprised many analysts, who were looking for continued growth after the harsh winter hit spending.

The weak figure may cause concern, as consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of total economic activity in the US.

[xchrom]

36. Bank of England: UK economy heading 'back to normal'

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27407561


The Bank of England has upgraded its growth forecasts for next year, saying the economy "has started to head back towards normal".

Its latest inflation report predicts growth of 2.9% next year, up from its 2.7% forecast three months ago.

However, it has left its forecast for this year unchanged at 3.4%.

Governor Mark Carney also said the economy had "edged closer" to the point when interest rates would need to "gradually rise".

[AnneD]

50. Nothing to see here folks....

move along......

[xchrom]

37. Russian Dilemma: Why EU Sanctions are a Bluff

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/strong-eu-economic-sanctions-against-russia-unlikely-a-968913.html

European Union politicians don't like to be outdone when it comes to showing resolve. Last week, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that if the Russians continue acting like they have, then tough new sanctions will need to be imposed. His British colleague William Hague said that economic sanctions were being planned. German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened last Thursday that if there were problems surrounding the Ukrainian elections, "there would be further sanctions."

These strong words are the West's answer to Moscow's expansionist push. More than any other measure, it's the possible so-called third level of sanctions -- wide-ranging economic sanctions -- that are intended to make Putin back down. Because Europeans have ruled out the use of military means, these sanctions are the most powerful weapon that they have -- the diplomatic nuclear option in the battle over Ukraine's future.

But there's one problem with this weapon: It can only be used if all EU members agree. In the EU, sanctions need to be decided unanimously. This worked for levels one and two, because they were primarily symbolic acts that affected people close to Putin and imposed no real burden on the EU. But level three would be different, making it unlikely that the EU would agree on sanctions that would have a strong effect Russia. Europe's strongest weapon is actually a bluff.

Hawks vs. Doves

In her talk with Sigmar Gabriel, vice chancellor and head of the center-left Social Democrats, last Tuesday, Merkel reported that during consultations about sanctions many EU partners are most interested in talking about how to secure exceptions for their own economies. Others are trying to avoid the subject entirely.

[xchrom]

38. In the Kremlin's Grip: Fears Grow Over Bulgaria's Russian Dependence

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/fears-grow-in-europe-that-russia-will-influence-bulgaria-a-968955.html

Concerns are growing within the German government that the European Union's most impoverished member state, Bulgaria, could fall into the grips of Moscow's influence. Internal reports, including those of the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, warn that Moscow may seek to expand its relations with the country in order to use Bulgaria as a political beachhead into the EU, and then use that power to divide the block.

Bulgaria is an easy target for the Kremlin because the country is almost entirely dependent on energy imports from Russia to survive. One third of its economic output is either directly or indirectly controlled by Moscow, the German reports indicate. Bulgaria's governing coalition -- of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms party, which represents the country's Turkish minority -- is considered closely aligned with Moscow. It includes an illustrious group of former Communist Party members, intelligence service workers and Bulgarian oligarchs who do business with Russian President Vladimir Putin's minions.

One of the country's most influential business magnates is banker Tzvetan Vassilev -- whose KTB bank handles much of the money flowing from Moscow into state-controlled Bulgarian industry, particularly the energy sector.

[antigop]

56. How IBM Made it Harder to Sue Big Blue

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/encore/2014/05/12/how-ibm-made-it-harder-to-sue-big-blue/

Tech giant IBM Corp. IBM -1.55% has changed its personnel policies in ways that will make it harder for older workers to pursue age-discrimination claims if they’re laid off. And employment attorneys and human-resources experts are watching IBM’s move to see whether other big companies will follow its lead, according to a new report by Alex Barinka of Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
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The company’s new move amounts to a reinterpretation of a provision of federal age-discrimination law. When companies lay off someone who is over 40, the law allows the companies to require employees to waive the right to sue for age-bias in return for severance pay. In order to do so, the company also has to give each laid-off employee a list of the job titles and ages of all the people being let go. The point of the rule is to help fired staffers figure out whether they might have grounds for an age-bias lawsuit.

IBM’s new rules make two significant changes: The company no longer discloses that title-and-age data to laid-off employees. And while it no longer requires employees to waive their right raise an age-bias claim, it effectively forces them to make any such claims in arbitration, not in court. IBM told Barinka it was making the changes to protect employees’ privacy; the EEOC declined to comment on IBM specifically, but said that there was nothing in federal law to prevent a company from requiring age-bias claims to go to arbitration.

A few attorneys tell BusinessWeek that IBM is the only company they know of that makes mandatory arbitration part of its severance agreements. Many consumer advocates believe that consumers are at a disadvantage in private arbitration in general, since the arbitrators are often paid by the company and since proceedings are kept out of the public record. Barinka cites a Cornell University study that shows that employees in job discrimination cases won about 21% of the time in arbitration, compared with 36% of the time in cases that were litigated in federal court. Damages awarded in arbitration also tend to be lower and more predictable than those awarded by juries.

I think we will be seeing corporations doing more and more of this...