STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 22 May 2014

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 22 May 2014[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 21 May 2014

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 21 May 2014
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Dow Jones 16,533.06 +158.75 (0.97%)
S&P 500 1,888.03 +15.20 (0.81%)
Nasdaq 4,131.54 +35.00 (0.00%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.53% -0.01 (-0.39%)
30 Year 3.41% -0.01 (-0.29%) [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.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.








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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. Oh Gawd. Timmeh on The Daily Show shilling his book.

Would someone please throw Timmeh down the well?

[AnneD]

28. Why contaminate the well water.....

I know some remote canyons and mesas in NM where we can have a more environmentally friendly 'accident'. The buzzards will clean up the crime scene and they keep your secrets for the price of a meal. It is a circle of life thing.

[Demeter]

31. I vote for the Green Solution

Save the Buzzards!

[Fuddnik]

2. Why American Conservatives Are Suddenly Freaking Out About Guillotines

They damn well should be! Long past due for the severance packages!
------------------------------------------------------------


Why American Conservatives Are Suddenly Freaking Out About Guillotines
Are they afraid the people’s patience is not endless?

By Lynn Stuart Parramore


May 21, 2014 |

http://www.alternet.org/economy/why-american-conservatives-are-suddenly-freaking-out-about-guillotines





On the June cover of the conservative magazine American Spectator, a vision arises from the collective unconscious of the rich. Angry citizens look on as a monocled fatcat is led to a blood-soaked guillotine, calling up the memory of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, when tens of thousands were executed, many by what came to be known as the "National Razor." The caption reads, “The New Class Warfare: Thomas Piketty’s intellectual cover for confiscation.” One member of the mob can be seen holding up a bloody copy of the French economist's recent book, Capital in the 21st Century.

Confiscation, of course, can only mean one thing. Off with their heads! In reality, the most "revolutionary" thing Professor Piketty calls for in his best-sellling tome is a wealth tax, but our rich are very sensitive.

In his article, however, James Pierson warns that a revolution is afoot, and that the 99 percent is going to try to punish the rich. The ungrateful horde is angry, he says, when they really should be celebrating their marvelous good fortune and thanking their betters:

“From one point of view, the contemporary era has been a 'gilded age' of regression and reaction due to rising inequality and increasing concentrations of wealth. But from another it can be seen as a 'golden age' of capitalism marked by fabulous innovations, globalizing markets, the absence of major wars, rising living standards, low inflation and interest rates, and a thirty-year bull market in stocks, bonds, and real estate.”

Yes, things do indeed look very different to the haves and the have-nots. But some of the haves are willing to say what’s actually going down — and it's a war of their own making. Warren Buffett made this very clear in his declaration: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Warren is quite correct: It is the rich who have made war against the 99 percent, not the other way around. They have dumped the tax burden onto the rest of us. They have shredded our social safety net and attacked our retirements. In their insatiable greed, they refuse even to consider raising the minimum wage for people who toil all day and can’t earn enough to feed their children. And they do everything in their power to block as many people from the polls as possible who might protest these conditions, while crushing the unions and any other countervailing forces that could fight to improve them.

(snip)

[Demeter]

11. It's Denial and its tributary stream, Delusion

We still outnumber them 99 to 1. they SHOULD start repenting and giving up the hoard.

The 1% game plan is to let Global Warming "thin the herd" you should pardon the expression.

They don't really understand that the herd is perfectly capable of taking care of itself and its enemy, given sufficient motivation.

And they don't believe that the earth can support its population--they want to drop 99% off the cliffs. Hence the constant drumbeat for War, War, War.

[Hotler]

24. "They don't really understand that the herd is perfectly capable of taking care of itself..."

That is what Timmeh didn't understand when he bailed out the banks cause he and others felt that if we let the banks fail the result would be worse than what we ended up with. If they had let the banks fail we little people would survive. As Fuddnik mentioned above Timmeh was on the Daily Show last night try to redeem himself. I'm going to go to the website and try and watch the whole interview without my stomach turning.

[DemReadingDU]

26. The link, if interested

Here are the links...

22 minutes
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/4s2il1/may-21--2014---timothy-geithner

Extended interview, 43 minutes
Jon Stewart is really good at questioning Geithner about the bailout money extorted from the taxpayers, to the advantage of the banksters, compared to the disadvantages to us taxpayers.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/extended-interviews/z9b8f1/timothy-geithner-extended-interview

[Hotler]

35. Thank you. n/t

[xchrom]

3. ‘Incarceration if you’re poor, payment if you’re rich’: Reports warn of debtors’ prisons

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/21/incarceration-if-youre-poor-payment-if-youre-rich-reports-warn-of-debtors-prisons/



An NPR investigation into how judges assess fees and fines to defendants has revealed that many who enter the courtroom essentially end up in “debtor’s prisons.”

Strictly speaking, the Supreme Court outlawed debtor’s prisons with the 1983 Bearden v. Georgia decision, which held that a judge can only impose a jail sentence for failure to pay if he or she believes the defendant is able, but unwilling to pay.

“To do otherwise would deprive the probationer of his conditional freedom simply because, through no fault of his own, he cannot pay,” the Court decided. “Such a deprivation would be contrary to the fundamental fairness required by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

According to the NPR investigation, judges are increasingly unable to determine whether defendants are unable or merely unwilling to pay their fees and fines. NPR reports that some judges demand defendants relinquish their cell phone service or quit smoking in order to pay their debt.

[AnneD]

29. I have been listening....

to some of those stories and they are absolutely heart wrenching. They add penalties on top of fees. The poor can't even get a job or pass a credit check to get the job once they are trapped in the legal cesspool. One poor recovering drug addict finally got a job after serving her time. It would take her an additional 10-15 years to pay the court costs penalties and fees. She said she was more afraid of going back to jail than a relapse. You could hear her almost cry during the interview. We have no more humanity in this country.

[xchrom]

4. Mortgage Companies Break The Law And Their Own Promises To Homeowners

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/21/3440289/foreclosure-survey-california/

Mortgage companies in California continue to routinely violate foreclosure laws and go back on promises they made in legal settlements, according to housing counselors and advocates, despite new federal rules designed to stamp out lingering problems in the mortgage servicing industry.

Homeowner advocates “continue to report frustration with poor servicer responsiveness” in response to a survey by the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC). Mortgage servicers fail to provide a consistent contact person for caseworkers and homeowners, lose documents, ignore the timelines they are supposed to follow for responding to inquiries, and fail to process paperwork properly when a homeowner’s loan gets transferred from one company to another.

The survey is meant to capture the impact of new rules for mortgage servicers from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), but most respondents say it’s too soon to tell how the new requirements are working. The CRC report says its respondents have seen a “moderate improvement in servicer practices,” but the counselors quoted in the report emphasize that new rules can only do so much without authorities following through with strict oversight of how the industry is responding. “Servicers have not changed their practices and will not unless there is auditing and enforcement,” one respondent to the CRC survey wrote.

The report also features nearly a dozen separate homeowner horror stories. Gemma and Cornelio Jaochico of Castro Valley followed every instruction they got from Wells Fargo in hopes of winning a loan modification after Gemma lost her job and their mortgage became untenable. The bank told the Jaochicos it would postpone the sale of their home while reviewing the modification request, but then sold the house out from under them and filed an eviction notice. The bank refused to revisit the modification application and even rejected the couple’s attempt to repay the full overdue amount after scraping funds together from family members. The Jaochicos ultimately lost their home in February of this year. Other foreclosure victims like Josefina Duenas held onto their homes, but only after years of stonewalling and paperwork deceptions drew homeowner advocates to file official complaints against the servicers.

[Demeter]

12. All part of the business strategy

[xchrom]

5. Thai Military Chief Stages Coup After Imposing Martial Law

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/thai-military-chief-announces-coup-after-imposing-martial-law.html


Thailand’s army chief took control of the country in a military coup, after detaining leaders of rival political groups at a meeting meant to find a solution to the nation’s six-month political crisis.

Two days after declaring martial law, Army Chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha announced on national television alongside senior military officials that he was seizing control in order to restore peace.

“To restore peace back to the country in a short time and to reform the country’s politics, economy and society, the Thai military, army, navy, air force and police have seized power from May 22 onward,” Prayuth said. “All people should remain calm and live their lives as normal. All government officials continue to work in line with their regulations and what they have done before.”

Thai military and political leaders met again this afternoon to discuss possible resolutions to the nation’s governance crisis. Prayuth previously said his declaration of martial law was not a coup.

[xchrom]

6. Euro-Area Services Surge Aids Revival as Manufacturing Cools

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/euro-area-services-surge-helps-recovery-as-factories-cool.html


The euro region maintained its uneven recovery this month as Germany helped drive a surge in services activity that offset a slowdown in manufacturing across the bloc.

Markit Economics said its Purchasing Managers Index of services activity in the region rose to the highest in almost three years, even as a factory gauge declined. A composite PMI was at 53.9, little changed from 54 in April and in line with the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg survey. Markit said the region’s economic growth may accelerate to 0.5 percent this quarter, the fastest since early 2011.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will probably add stimulus to the 18-nation currency bloc next month as he tries to keep the revival on track. While the PMI surveys point to growth continuing, the upbeat assessment is largely due to Germany, the euro area’s biggest economy, as countries such as France and Italy struggle.

“We have to be a bit careful in drawing too-strong conclusions from this survey about the pace of the eurozone recovery,” said Martin van Vliet, senior economist at ING Groep NV in Amsterdam. “With inflation low and a sustained eurozone recovery not yet assured, further ECB easing in June looks all but certain.”

[xchrom]

7. Asian Stocks Rise Most in Three Months on Fed, China PMI

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/asian-stocks-rise-first-time-in-five-days-on-fed-minutes.html

Asian stocks rose, with the regional benchmark index set for the biggest gain in three months, after minutes showed Federal Reserve policy makers see a muted risk of inflation from continued U.S. stimulus and a Chinese manufacturing gauge topped estimates.

Alumina Ltd. climbed 7.1 percent in Sydney to pace an advance among materials companies, which led gains on the regional benchmark index. China Gas Holdings Ltd. jumped 6 percent in Hong Kong after Russia reached a $400 billion supply accord with China. Sanrio Co. slumped the most since 1995 in Tokyo on earnings concern after yesterday’s strategy briefing from the maker of Hello Kitty toys.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced 1.2 percent to 140.39 as of 4:31 p.m. in Hong Kong, poised for the biggest jump since Feb. 21. Four stocks rose for each that declined. The measure fell 1.3 percent over the past four days amid concern about China’s growth outlook. Shares extended gains today after a preliminary gauge of mainland manufacturing in May rose to five-month high, suggesting the economy is stabilizing as the government moves to counter a slowdown.

“We’re certainly not back on what you’d call a brilliant footing with the economy, but we are seeing a change for the better,” Evan Lucas, a Melbourne-based market strategist at IG Markets Ltd., said by phone. “It’s a positive sign.”

[xchrom]

8. Finra Fines Cost JPMorgan 3 Minutes of Profit

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/finra-fines-cost-jpmorgan-3-minutes-of-profit.html

The world’s biggest bond dealers, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Morgan Stanley, failed to properly report trades to the industry’s price-tracking system more than 11,000 times. JPMorgan’s penalty: About three minutes of its annual profit.

Fines levied in settlements disclosed last month by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority amounted to a fraction of what the two New York-based firms generated from trading debt during the two-year reviews. JPMorgan’s $95,000 penalty was the biggest imposed by Finra as it cited at least three other dealers in the past five months for similar types of violations.

Regulators are seeking to uphold the integrity of the bond-price reporting system known as Trace, the biggest window into a market that’s grown about 78 percent since 2008 as investors poured money into debt securities. Holding back information on trades can give Wall Street dealers an advantage over customers seeking a fair price, undermining Finra’s stated goal of equal access for all participants to real-time data.

“If non-reporting is systemic, then that’s concerning because the broader market looks to this data as the golden source,” said Kevin McPartland, head of market-structure research at consulting firm Greenwich Associates. “It’s the best we’ve got when people try to understand who is doing what in the bond market.”

[xchrom]

9. BofA Scrapping Market-Making Unit Amid Trading Scrutiny

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-21/bofa-said-to-end-market-making-unit-amid-trading-scrutiny.html

Bank of America Corp. is dismantling an electronic market-making unit created last year to serve the lender’s Merrill Lynch wealth-management division, said two people with knowledge of the decision.

Increased regulatory scrutiny of U.S. equity markets and managers’ concerns for the potential perception of a conflict of interest killed the project, said the people. The desk advanced to a testing phase before being abandoned in recent weeks and two executives hired to run it, Jonathan Wang and Steven Sadoff, were told to seek new jobs within the firm, the people said, requesting anonymity because the matter is private.

Businesses such as the shuttered Bank of America unit usually execute equity orders internally, rather than sending them to the public stock market. Critics including Kor Group LLC’s Dave Lauer say the practice may cause harm by keeping some supply and demand private, distorting prices. Bank of America’s decision coincides with a renewed examination by regulators of whether trading in the $22 trillion U.S. stock market is fair.

For Bank of America, “this is either not a profitable business anymore or they don’t want to deal with the regulatory scrutiny that’s coming,” said Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading LLC in Chatham, New Jersey. “It definitely tells you they’re concerned and maybe they’re hearing things we haven’t.”

[xchrom]

10. Blackstone Hunts for Apartments in Latest Rental Foray

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/blackstone-hunts-for-apartments-in-latest-rental-foray.html

Blackstone Group LP (BX), the biggest U.S. landlord of single-family houses, is carving out a new company to own apartment real estate, betting demand will outpace supply for at least three more years.

Blackstone is hunting for acquisitions to expand LivCor, a Chicago-based company formed last year from the purchase of stakes in 71 apartment properties valued at $2.4 billion. The firm is concentrating on suburban areas where there’s not as much new construction, including in the Southeast and in Texas, where more than half of the roughly 26,000 units it acquired are located, said Nadeem Meghji, who is overseeing the business.

“There is still a shortage of overall housing supply in the U.S.,” Meghji, a managing director at New York-based Blackstone, said in a telephone interview.

A stampede by investors into U.S. rental housing as the homebuying market collapsed in 2006 is still going strong in cities including San Francisco, Seattle and Houston, boosting rents and driving construction of apartments in and near downtowns. For Blackstone -- which has bought about 45,000 houses in the past three years to lead the burgeoning industry for single-family rentals -- LivCor represents its first major foray into the multifamily market.

[xchrom]

13. Europe: 1, Google: 0: EU Court Ruling a Victory for Privacy

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/court-imposes-right-to-be-forgotten-on-google-search-results-a-970419.html

Mario Gianni knows just what it means when Google doesn't forget. In the past, when he typed the name of the campground he owns, Los Alfaques, into the search engine he was confronted with images of disfigured bodies. Some 36 years ago, a tanker truck exploded at the campground along the Spanish coast, killing 217 people.

"That's not only bad for business -- it's inhuman," says Gianni, who himself lost a relative in the tragedy. It has taken him and his family years of painstaking work to reestablish the campground business.

Three years ago, Gianni sued Google's Spanish subsidiary, demanding that the company at least remove the most horrendous images from its search results. His aim wasn't to try to erase historical facts from the Internet -- he just didn't want the images to show up as the first thing you got when you typed in the name of the campground. Google refused to even discuss the issue.

A judge at a court in Tarragona rejected Gianni's case, saying he would have to sue the company in California, where its headquarters are located. "That would have been far too expensive," the campground owner says. Like so many others before him, he gave up his legal battle against the Internet giant. In the meantime, the shocking images no longer show up in the search results, much to his relief.

[xchrom]

14. A Distinct Lack of Excitement: Battle for Brussels Less Than Tense

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/commission-presidency-contenders-campaign-amid-indifference-a-970263.html

Against the somewhat incongruous throbbing bass of Survivor's "Burning Heart," an elderly man with gray hair and a black pinstripe suit is making his way through a throng of cheering Christian Democrat delegates, many of whom are holding up banners reading "Juncker for President."

Jean-Claude Juncker, the center-right European People's Party (EPP) main candidate in the election for the European Parliament, climbs up to the stage. He looks tired. It's mid-May, he's in the town of Rotenburg an der Fulda in Germany and into the 37th day of his campaign. Volker Bouffier, the local state governor of Hesse, wishes him luck. "I'd rather have a beer," whispers Juncker. "A beer for Jean-Claude!" calls Bouffier.

"I feel like Obama," says Juncker during his speech. The US president also has to travel across an entire continent when he's on the campaign trail, he remarks, "only he has Air Force One and I just have a bus."

A few days earlier, on the road somewhere near Bremen, another bus carrying his rival Martin Schulz from the Party of European Socialists (PES) pulls in to an autobahn service station. His stomach rumbling, Schulz disembarks and spies the neon sign of a fast food restaurant. His hunger turns to indignation. "Burger King?!" he exclaims. "Can't you find me something decent?"

[xchrom]

15. Boomers Cash In as Bull Market Aids Exodus From Workforce

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-21/boomers-cash-in-as-bull-market-aids-exodus-from-workforce.html

Dee Dix hesitated before she decided to retire in 2012.

“I thought, do we have enough money? How much do we need?” the 66-year-old former insurance analyst said from her home in Fort Myers, Florida. “I was a little bit leery.”

Clinching the decision was profit earned on stock investments during a five-year bull market that has restored $14 trillion to U.S. equity values. Dix is among millions of baby boomers whose retirement has helped push the participation rate of working Americans to lows not seen since the 1970s.

Some people leave the labor pool and retire after giving up on the job search. Others, like Dix, pay for it with the proceeds of rallying stocks. Joblessness (USURTOT) and labor participation levels reaching pre-recession lows are stoking debate among Federal Reserve policy makers and politicians about what’s behind the swings in data underlying the most important economic barometer, employment.

[xchrom]

16. London FX Investigator-in-Chief Says Nothing Surprises

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-21/london-fx-investigator-in-chief-says-nothing-surprises.html

“Manage your guilt.”

That’s Tracey McDermott’s strategy for not beating up on herself about missing dinner at home with her kids or skipping exercise, which the director of enforcement and financial crime at the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority has plenty of opportunity to do these days.

The daughter of a road paver and a primary school teacher, McDermott also spends a lot of time thinking about other people’s guilt. She has to decide whether traders who exchanged messages in chat rooms with names such as “The Bandits’ Club” and “The Mafia” were colluding to manipulate benchmarks in the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency market.

“I’m not sure whether you’re ever surprised any more by anything,” said McDermott, 45, sitting in a room at the FCA’s London headquarters in Canary Wharf normally used for interviewing witnesses in investigations. “I was surprised. I’m no longer surprised.”

McDermott, who took over as enforcement chief in 2011, led the FCA’s investigation into the rigging of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, resulting in the agency’s largest fine ever, a 160 million-pound ($269 million) penalty meted out to Zurich-based UBS AG. Now she’s playing a similar role in the burgeoning probe of foreign-exchange traders.

[xchrom]

17. Bubble States Have Underemployment Rates Haunting Yellen

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/bubble-states-have-underemployment-rates-haunting-yellen.html

Cliff Powell lost his job as a mechanical engineer in 2008 as Florida’s construction industry slumped. He hasn’t landed a lasting permanent position since.

“You think about giving up, but you can’t,” said Powell, 57, who’s held four jobs and more than two dozen, mostly part-time, temporary contracts. “If you say ‘I give up,’ then that’s it, you’re over.”

Residents of the U.S. states that suffered the steepest home price declines and record foreclosures face labor markets that remain impaired five years after the most severe recession since the 1930s ended.

Underemployment, including those in part-time jobs who want full-time work, remained highest in 2013 in Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida, with those states also seeing some of the steepest increases since 2007, an analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows. Oregon also has one of the highest rates.

[xchrom]

18. EU Skeptic Election Surge Set to Rattle Leaders at Home

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-21/eu-skeptic-election-surge-set-to-rattle-leaders-at-home.html

The European Parliament’s get-out-the-vote effort for this week’s election proclaims: “This time it’s different.”

The balloting, which runs from today through Sunday, will probably be different for the wrong reasons. Galvanized by the debt crisis and the European Union’s 10.5 percent unemployment rate, protest parties are set to surge in Greece, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, the U.K. and elsewhere -- making it harder to steer the 28-nation bloc.

While dangers to the euro have retreated, better economic data has been slow to trickle through, fueling grievances about budget cuts, joblessness and immigration. The anti-establishment vote will deal a further blow to the German-style fiscal austerity that marked the crisis response and make national leaders warier of concessions at EU level.

Fringe parties will “use the EU stage as a platform to create noise, attract attention and create more tension and pressure for governments back home,” said Mujtaba Rahman, a former EU official who is now director of European analysis at the Eurasia Group in London. “There’s no appetite right now for further European integration.”

[xchrom]

19. New Faces Behind Fed Dots Seen Roiling Markets as Forecasts Move

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-22/new-faces-behind-fed-dots-seen-roiling-markets-as-forecasts-move.html

Turnover among Federal Reserve policy makers gives investors more reason to heed Chair Janet Yellen’s advice: don’t pay too much attention to officials’ interest-rate forecasts.

Two central bankers will leave the Fed this month, and three are poised to join before the June 17-18 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, when the next set of quarterly forecasts will be released. As a result, median projections for growth, unemployment and the benchmark interest rate could shift for reasons that have little do with the economic outlook.

Changes in the committee’s membership “may lead to a significant amount of uncertainty in markets as far as what the Fed’s going to do,” said David M. Jones, president of Denver-based economic consulting firm DMJ Advisors LLC and a former Fed economist who has written four books on the central bank. “It could lead to much greater financial instability than otherwise would be the case.”

Projections released March 19 showed policy makers saw the benchmark rate rising faster than they previously anticipated, prompting a jump in two-year Treasury yields. At a press conference the same day, Yellen played down the projections and sought to assure investors that rates are likely to remain low for a long time.

[xchrom]

20. Here's Why Thailand's Military Coup Isn't Rocking The Markets

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-thailands-coup-isnt-rocking-the-markets-2014-5

There's at least two reasons why today's news isn't rocking markets. One, the country had already been in chaos. Months of anti-government protests had already left 28 people dead and saw the ouster of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

Two, military coups happen frequently in Thailand. "The Thai military has staged 18 successful or attempted coups since 1932," noted BI's Michael Kelley.

Earlier this week, a couple of analysts addressed the Thai army's declaration of martial law. Here's some of what was said.

Derek Bloomfield, Deutsche Bank: "Silver lining aspects of military intervention ... We attribute this to: 1) immediate uncertainty regarding politics is suddenly diminished (even as medium-to-longer term uncertainties remain the same or even heightened), and 2) military deployment quells risk of large-scale protest groups from either or both rival camps from assembling and causing widespread damage."

Krystal Tan, Capital Economics: "The optimistic view is that the army’s goal is to use martial law as a way to force the opposing political factions to reach a compromise agreement that can lead to the creation of a functioning government with popular support. The caretaker government is calling for elections to be held on 3rd August, after the Election Commission recently said that political unrest has disrupted preparations for a July vote."

Poramet Tongbua, Bualuang Securities: "We believe the market will react positively to the announcement, anticipating that it will presage some sort of resolution of the prevailing political gridlock and government dysfunctionality. But SET upside could be limited in the short-term; it will depend on what happens next."



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-thailands-coup-isnt-rocking-the-markets-2014-5#ixzz32RdCmWWV

[xchrom]

21. Europe Continues To Be Defined By Two Contrasting Economic Stories

http://www.businessinsider.com/markit-flash-eurozone-pmi-may-2014-2014-5

A handful of the major economies around the world have released their Flash (that is, preliminary) PMI reports, which are reliable indicators of GDP growth.
Markit economist Chris Williamson was able to sum up the Eurozone story with one sentence: "Of greatest concern is France, living up to its moniker of 'sick man of Europe' by sliding back into contraction as Germany continues to enjoy robust growth and the rest of the region experiences its best expansion since mid-2007."

The Eurozone's recovery continues to be a very uneven one with Germany driving most of the gains as the rest of the region struggles.

Germany reported that its composite output index rested comfortably a 56.1 in May, which was a bit higher than the 56.0 expected by economists. Germany's services index jumped to a 35-month high of 56.4. Markit economist Oliver Koldseike noted that the pace of job creation was at its highest level since late-2011.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/markit-flash-eurozone-pmi-may-2014-2014-5#ixzz32ReDo6Cx

[xchrom]

22. That time Lyndon Johnson made a killer case against unbridled growth

http://grist.org/politics/that-time-lyndon-johnson-made-a-killer-case-against-unbridled-growth/

?w=470&h=265&crop=1

President Lyndon Johnson could have been a character in a Greek tragedy. His accomplishments were immense. He twisted enough arms to win the Civil Rights Act, despite recalcitrant fellow Southern Democrats and the knowledge that he was sacrificing the South as a source of Democratic votes for at least a generation. He outlined and won passage of the War on Poverty, perhaps the most significant social justice legislation in our history. He signed into law bills establishing national wilderness areas and parks and other environmental protections.

But Johnson’s hubris, the pride that precedes a fall in Greek morality plays, led him to escalate rather than resolve a war in Vietnam passed on to him by his predecessor John Kennedy. The war served Johnson badly; he used the deception of unproven North Vietnamese attacks on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin to persuade Congress to give him unprecedented war-making powers. In time, his escalated war would cost 57,000 American lives and 2 million Vietnamese.

In time also, war protestors who were willing to go “Part of the way with LBJ,” when he ran against Barry Goldwater, were asking, “How many kids did you kill today?” The war’s unpopularity brought Sens. Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy into the 1968 primaries against him. On March 31, looking wan and defeated, Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. Five years later, he was dead at 64, either despised or forgotten, a sad and lonely man.

His daughter, Luci Baines Johnson, believes it unfair to judge her father by the war alone; it was never what he wanted, she argues. What he did want, and wanted to be remembered for, was what he called “The Great Society,” a vision of an America not more powerful or richer than others, but transformed to value things other than wealth and power. He laid out his vision in a remarkable speech delivered 50 years ago on May 22, 1964 to graduates at the University of Michigan.

[Demeter]

30. He's never been cleared of connection with the JFK asassination, either

[xchrom]

23. Euro zone business stays strong, China mending

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/uk-global-economy-idUKKBN0E217520140522


(Reuters) - Private business activity in the euro zone grew at just under its fastest pace in three years this month, while contraction in China's vast manufacturing sector slowed to its weakest pace this year, surveys showed on Thursday.

But in Europe, only drastic price cuts helped stop a further slide, after a sharp slowdown in factory growth took the shine off an unexpected pickup in the service industry. The slowdown kept alive worries about dangerously low inflation.

"Overall, the data is a bit of a relief after disappointing first quarter figures," said Christian Schulz, senior economist at Berenberg Bank.

"In China, the authorities are doing something and the economy is responding. (But) the European Central Bank is worried because it looks like inflation will stay low for a long period of time."

[DemReadingDU]

25. Hackers raid eBay in historic breach, access 145 million records

5/22/14 Hackers raid eBay in historic breach, access 145 million records

EBay Inc said that hackers raided its network three months ago, accessing some 145 million user records in what is poised to go down as one of the biggest data breaches in history, based on the number of accounts compromised.

It advised customers to change their passwords immediately, saying they were among the pieces of data stolen by cyber criminals who carried out the attack between late February and early March.

EBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller told Reuters late on Wednesday that those passwords were encrypted and that the company had no reason to believe the hackers had broken the code that scrambled them.

"There is no evidence of impact on any eBay customers," Miller said. "We don't know that they decrypted the passwords because it would not be easy to do."

She said the hackers gained access to 145 million records of which they copied "a large part". Those records contained passwords as well as email addresses, birth dates, mailing addresses and other personal information, but not financial data such as credit card numbers.

more...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hackers-raid-ebay-historic-breach-025624664.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

27. Big jump in initial unemployment claims

Last week there had been a decrease of about the same number.

ETA News Release: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (05/22/2014)

Source: Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending May 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 326,000, an increase of 28,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 297,000 to 298,000. The 4-week moving average was 322,500, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 323,250 to 323,500.

There were no special factors impacting this week's initial claims.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.0 percent for the week ending May 10, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 10 was 2,653,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for insured unemployment since December 1, 2007 when it was 2,639,000. The previous week's level was revised down by 1,000 from 2,667,000 to 2,666,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,689,000, a decrease of 5,250 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since December 15, 2007 when it was 2,670,500. The previous week's average was revised down by 250 from 2,694,500 to 2,694,250.

[Demeter]

32. Today's Funnies---Nostalgia Edition

CONSIDER YOURSELVES PATTED ON THE HEAD, ALL.




OR EVEN SHUT ONE DOWN FOR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY....





THAT WOULD EXPLAIN IT.

[Fuddnik]

33. My wife's niece.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/05/patricia_waiwood_single-handed.html#incart_river

[DemReadingDU]

34. Wow, what an amazing young woman!