STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 26 October 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday, 26 October 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 23 October 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 23 October 2015
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Dow Jones 17,646.70 +157.54 (0.90%)
S&P 500 2,075.15 +22.64 (1.10%)
Nasdaq 5,031.86 +111.81 (2.27%)


[font color=black]10 Year 2.09% 0.00 (0.00%)
[font color=green]30 Year 2.90% -0.01 (-0.34%) [font color=black]


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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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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.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts
08/03/15 Former City (London) trader Tom Hayes found guilty of rigging global Libor interest rates. Each fo eight counts carries up to 10 yr. sentence.
08/21/15 Charles Antonucci Sr, former pres. Park Ave. Bank sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for bribery, fraud, embezzlement, and attempt to steal $11MM in TARP bailout funds, as well as $37.5MM fraud on OK insurance company. To pay $54MM in restitution and give up additional $11MM.
09/21/15 Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn apologizes for VW cheating on air quality standards with emission testing avoidance device. Stock drops 20%, fines may total $18B.
09/22/15 Stewart Parnell, CEO Peanut Corp. of America, sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling salmonella-tainted peanut butter that killed nine.





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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]

[Demeter]

1. Why every aspect of your business is about to change

http://fortune.com/2015/10/22/the-21st-century-corporation-new-business-models/

Imagine an economy without friction—a new world in which labor, information, and money move easily, cheaply, and almost instantly. Psst—it’s here. Is your company ready?

Cars bursting into flames are never a good thing. So when a Tesla Model S ran over a metal object in Kent, Wash., in October 2013 and burst into flames, owners, potential customers, investors, and company executives got worried. When the same thing happened a few weeks later in Smyrna, Tenn., federal regulators opened an investigation. We all know what happens next: a massive recall, costly repairs at dealerships nationwide, and a painful financial hit to the carmaker. Yet none of that occurred. The problem was that the Model S could lower its chassis at highway speed to be more aerodynamic, and if debris hit the car’s battery pack in just the wrong way, it could catch fire. So Tesla TSLA -1.24% beamed a software update to the affected cars, raising ground clearance at highway speed by one inch. The problem went away. Just four months after opening their investigation, the regulators closed it.

Using software and the mobile-phone network, Tesla avoided any need for a recall. It doesn’t have any dealerships; customers can configure and order a car online, and they can test-drive cars at company-owned showrooms. Tesla’s advanced electric technology is simpler than gas or diesel technology, so cars can be built with fewer employees and less capital. Combine those factors and here’s what happens: General Motors GM 1.50% creates about $1.85 of market value per dollar of physical assets, while Tesla creates about $11. GM creates $240,000 of market value per employee, while Tesla creates $2.9 million. You don’t get differences like that just by being more efficient. Tesla, though in the same business as GM, is a fundamentally different idea.

SOMEHOW, I AM NOT REASSURED...

[Demeter]

2. RushCard disruption reveals why prepaid debit cards should not exist at all

WHICH IS TRUE OF MOST "MODERN" FINANCIAL ENGINEERING PRODUCTS

http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2015/oct/25/rushcard-disruption-perils-prepaid-debit-cards?CMP=ema_565a


Thousands of customers were unable to access their money, but observers say it is the banking industry that has stopped serving those who are ‘too poor’...It’s a sad truth of American life that the poorer you are the more you pay for banking. And as thousands of Americans have discovered this month, it can also be very perilous to live outside the mainstream banking system. But there may be a solution on the horizon – one unused since the 1960s.

Thousands of holders of one of the most popular prepaid debit cards in circulation, the RushCard, founded in 2003 by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, found themselves unable to access their funds for the better part of two weeks. Blocked from buying groceries and medication, getting hold of cash they needed to pay their rent or purchase gas for their cars, they have been venting their fury at both the card and the organization on social and traditional media. There are certainly plenty of reasons for RushCard’s holders to be livid, especially given the initial vague response: the company blamed a “technology transition”, while Simmons himself simply said he was “praying” for those affected, in a since-deleted tweet.

But this isn’t a problem limited to RushCard. The Pew Charitable Trusts reported in June that about 23 million Americans use prepaid cards such as RushCard regularly, up about 50% between 2012 and 2014, with many treating them like bank accounts and having their pay checks directly deposited to the card. That backfired badly when those direct deposits went through, only for cardholders to find that their money is now in limbo, inaccessible. It’s not the first time that a prepaid debit card backed by a celebrity and marketed directly at the financially most vulnerable segment of Americans has encountered flak. Last year, Suze Orman and Bancorp Bank shut down their Approved Card project, a two-year-old venture that differed from some of the prepaid rivals in that Orman had convinced TransUnion, one of the big credit rating agencies, to look at the data collected from cardholders. Part of the card’s marketing pitch was that this might be a way for Americans with poor credit to rebuild their all-important FICO scores. Not only did that not seem to happen, but the layers of fees left many observers shaking their heads in disbelief: the $3 initial monthly fee might seem lower than rivals, but by some calculations, the minimum annual cost to use Orman’s product for a typical “unbanked” American came closer to $81.

Still, for some observers, the real problem isn’t with prepaid debit cards, but with the reason they exist at all, and the reason so many millions of Americans are flocking to them, and treating them as (costly and high-risk) alternatives to plain vanilla checking accounts at ordinary banks. “For many individuals, using one of these cards is a rational choice,” argues Mehrsa Baradaran, associate professor of law at the University of Georgia, and author of a new book, How the Other Half Banks, published by Harvard University Press. “As the banks are set up currently, the fees they charge are meant to dissuade small accounts, or accounts by people whose incomes are minimal and very uneven.” As Baradaran writes in her book’s introduction, the banking industry has stopped serving those who are “too poor to bank”, pushing them into the arms of non-bank service providers to provide the most basic services: to cash pay checks, pay bills or transfer money. In exchange, she calculates that they fork over up to 10% of their income for these services. In some cases, they don’t have an option: a bank may refuse to open an account for them. And banks have long been trying to “discourage” their smaller customers: fees on accounts where balances dip below a specified level even briefly can look extremely costly to a low-income household.

It’s the uncertainty that is particularly pernicious, says Baradaran, and that ends up propelling many former bank customers to prepaid cards. “At the bank, you have to HAVE a stable amount of money in the account to manage the costs well,” she explains. “If you can’t do that, you can’t predict how much you’ll end up paying in fees or overdraft charges, and they’ll pile up. So people opt out of the system, because with the prepaid cards, the fees are spelled out clearly, up front, and they’ll say, well, at least I know what they are, and I pay them as I incur them.” There’s also a psychological element. Even if it’s cheaper to pay one $35 overdraft fee every six months than a bunch of $3.95 reload and transaction fees, Baradaran notes that customers are more comfortable paying transaction costs than anything that they see as a penalty, or punishment. “They become angry or resentful.”

Baradaran is scheduled to testify to the Senate Banking Committee next week on her book’s big idea for fixing the whole mess on 4 November: a return to postal banking, which at its peak, just after the second world war, had four million users and $3.4bn in assets. It is, she argues, a middle way – striking a balance between the potential for abuses and the mistakes of payday lenders, check cashing shops and the prepaid card industry, on the one hand, and the apparent reluctance of the banking industry, on the other, to lose money serving the least affluent and least profitable segment of US populace...

[Demeter]

3. We should be suspicious of Silicon Valley unicorns and their exorbitant valuations

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/25/silicon-valley-unicorns-theranos-suspicion-billions-valuation-disruption?CMP=ema_565a

The idea of a unicorn – a company valued by venture capitalists at over a billion dollars – is so seductive that some whole industries use it as a benchmark without understanding its irony. The mania of Silicon Valley is so great that the venture capital firms even got tired of “only” looking for unicorn companies, so they coined the painfully stupid word “decacorn”, which means “valued as 10 unicorns”.

When your aspirations are so disconnected from reality that even unicorns don’t do it for you anymore, this is a clear sign that you’ve been drinking the Kool Aid.

The company Theranos has been the darling of Silicon Valley for years because it promises to “disrupt” healthcare testing, with disruption defined as the classic trifecta: that it will be cheaper, faster and better than the traditional ways. Theranos’s breakthrough technology claims to use just pinpricks of blood to get the results you used to need whole vials for. Also the tests get results incredibly fast, and would be rolled out at chain pharmacies across America, changing the shape of medical testing forever. Did I mention that the tests would also be incredibly cheap?

It’s claims like this, and support from venture capital firms, that have driven Theranos to a $9bn valuation. It’s not intuitive that all this talk of valuation is simply calculated based on how much venture capital firms have invested. In other words, we say a company is “valued” at $9bn, and then act as though this is actual real money, but that number is based on nothing except what a VC firm felt the company was worth in a bet on the future.

Investors' honeymoon with unicorns of Silicon Valley coming to an end

The 15 October Wall Street Journal exposé of Theranos explodes the mythology of the company. Insiders who spoke to the Journal allege that out of the 240 kinds of tests it currently performs, the “pinprick” technology lauded as the linchpin of their strategy was only used for a tiny fraction of its testing. Worse yet, there have been complaints to regulators from inside the company that their revolutionary tests aren’t giving results that agree with traditional testing, and that Theranos has been burying those unwanted results.

What has been blown open, again, is how little we truly know. Even though Theranos received regulatory approval, it’s not clear at all if anyone truly knows how accurate their tests are. The company responded to the story by stating: “Theranos’ technology is reviewed by regulators, proven in the field, and praised by leaders in the industry and doctors and individuals that we serve”...

[Demeter]

4. Do Declining Unit Revenues At Airlines Still Warn Us Of A Coming Downturn?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/2015/10/26/to-fret-or-not-to-fret-do-declining-unit-revenues-at-airlines-still-warn-us-of-a-coming-downturn/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix

If not for the dramatic fall of oil prices, we might all be fretting about the short-term future of the U.S. and global economy. At least we would be if we were trying to make an economic forecast based on U.S. airlines’ third quarter reports.

There was a time, not too long, when airline unite revenue trends were seen as leading economic indicators, at least to the downside. Because travel, even for business people, is a discretionary expense, historically people and businesses began cutting back on travel whenever they first sensed the approach of an economic slowdown. (Conversely, airline revenue changes were seen as a lagging indicator of economic recoveries because people and businesses typically don’t increase their travel spending until they’re sure the economic environment is improving.)

But now, thanks to a more than 50% drop in oil prices from 2014 and to airline industry consolidation, U.S. carriers are reporting record profits and nobody seems to much care about underlying unit revenue trends that would have us all frightened only a few years ago...Specifically, U.S. airlines are getting noticeably less money per available seat mile than they were a year ago. Not only does that mean their average fare prices are down sharply (nearly 20% from their peak in May 2014 according to a Bloomberg analysis). It means all that extra dough they generate from charging for checking your bags and letting you select your seats, dinging you for other extra services, and hitting you hard for changing your itinerary still is not enough to offset the drop in fare prices... in the “old days” – like before 2012 – such declines in airline unit revenues would be understood as an ominous sign of an economic downturn just around the corner.


YES, THE MODERN AMERICAN BUSINESS CULTURE--STILL READING ENTRAILS, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.

[Demeter]

5. China banks come back for more capital as bad loans pile up

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-banks-come-back-more-081643651.html

Mounting bad loans are running down Chinese banks' capital buffers, forcing them to turn to investors for fresh funds despite raising a record amount last year.

Commercial banks are issuing expensive preference shares as well as convertible and perpetual bonds to shore up their capital bases, even after 2014's bumper issuance when lenders raced to meet new regulatory requirements.

But with bad loans up 30 percent in the first half of 2015 according to China's banking regulator, doubts are growing about the ability of some banks to withstand the economic slowdown.

"China is facing a systemic credit crisis," said Jim Antos, banking analyst at Mizuho Securities in Hong Kong.

"Chinese banks, until mid 2014, were able to cope with deterioration of loans. It seems that has changed."

MORE

[Demeter]

6. Lew: Raise debt ceiling to avoid ‘terrible accident’

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/26/lew-raise-debt-ceiling-to-avoid-terrible-accident.html



Congress risks "manufacturing crisis" by prevaricating over raising the U.S. debt ceiling, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in an opinion piece in USA Today on Monday.

Unless the cap is raised beyond the current limit of $18.1 trillion, the Treasury is seen running out of money to pay bills in full and on time by Tuesday next week. It would then be left with only incoming taxes and fees to cover expenses, which will be insufficient.

"We are on track for further economic growth — yet with eight days, as of Monday, until Treasury runs out of borrowing authority on November 3, some in Congress are endangering this progress by once again manufacturing a crisis for our country. By waiting to the last minute to act on the debt limit, Congress could cause a terrible accident," Lew wrote in USA Today.

He added that Congress had pushed the U.S. "to the brink of potential economic catastrophe" in 2011 and 2013 by waiting until the last moment to raise the then-debt ceiling.

Since 1960, Congress has acted 78 times to raise the debt cap or revise the definition of the debt limit — 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents, according to the Treasury's website.

AND BEFORE 1917 AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE, NO SUCH THING EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE...

The history of United States debt ceiling deals with movements in the United States debt ceiling since it was created in 1917. Management of the United States public debt is an important part of the macroeconomics of the United States economy and finance system, and the debt ceiling is a limitation on the federal government's ability to manage the economy and finance system. The debt ceiling is also a limitation on the federal government's ability to finance government operations, and the failure of Congress to authorise an increase in the debt ceiling has resulted in crises, especially in recent years.



A statutorily imposed debt ceiling has been in effect since 1917 when the US Congress passed the Second Liberty Bond Act. Before 1917 there was no debt ceiling in force, but there were parliamentary procedural limitations on the level of possible debt that could be held by government.

Except for about a year during 1835–1836, the United States has continuously had a fluctuating public debt since the US Constitution legally went into effect on March 4, 1789. Debts incurred during the American Revolutionary War and under the Articles of Confederation led to the first yearly report on the amount of the debt ($75,463,476.52 on January 1, 1791). Every president since Herbert Hoover has added to the national debt expressed in absolute dollars.

Early history

Prior to 1917, the United States did not have a debt ceiling, with Congress either authorizing specific loans or allowing Treasury to issue certain debt instruments and individual debt issues for specific purposes. Sometimes Congress gave Treasury discretion over what type of debt instrument would be issued.

Between 1788 and 1917 Congress would authorise each bond issue by the United States Treasury by passing a legislative act that approved the issue and the amount.

In 1917, during World War I, Congress created the debt ceiling with the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, which allowed Treasury to issue bonds and take on other debt without specific Congressional approval, as long as the total debt fell under the statutory debt ceiling. The 1917 legislation set limits on the aggregate amount of debt that could be accumulated through individual categories of debt (such as bonds and bills).

In 1939, Congress instituted the first limit on total accumulated debt over all kinds of instruments. The debt ceiling, in which an aggregate limit is applied to nearly all federal debt, was substantially established by Public Debt Acts passed in 1939 and 1941 and subsequently amended. The United States Public Debt Act of 1939 eliminated separate limits on different types of debt. The Public Debt Act of 1941 raised the aggregate debt limit on all obligations to $65 billion, and consolidated nearly all federal borrowing under the U.S. Treasury and eliminated the tax-exemption of interest and profit on government debt.

Subsequent Public Debt Acts amended the aggregate debt limit: the 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945 acts raised the limit to $125 billion, $210 billion, $260 billion, and $300 billion respectively. In 1946, the Public Debt Act was amended to reduce the debt limit to $275 billion. The limit stayed unchanged until 1954, the Korean War being financed through taxation.

A feature of the Public Debt Acts, unlike the 1919 Victory Liberty Bond Act which financed American costs in the First World War, was that the new ceiling was set about 10% above the actual federal debt at the time.

1970s

Prior to the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the debt ceiling played an important role since Congress had few opportunities to hold hearings and debates on the budget. James Surowiecki argued that the debt ceiling lost its usefulness after these reforms to the budget process.

In 1979, noting the potential problems of hitting a default, Dick Gephardt imposed the "Gephardt Rule," a parliamentary rule that deemed the debt ceiling raised when a budget was passed. This resolved the contradiction in voting for appropriations but not voting to fund them. The rule stood until it was repealed by Congress in 1995.

Number of requests for increase

Depending on who is doing the research, it is said that the US has raised its debt ceiling (in some form or other) at least 90 times in the 20th century.

The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1962, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W. Bush, and five times under Barack Obama. In practice, the debt ceiling has never been reduced, even though the public debt itself may have reduced.

Congress has raised the debt ceiling 14 times from 2001-2013. The debt ceiling was raised a total of 7 times (total increase of $5365bil) during Pres. Bush's eight-year term and it has been raised 7 times (as of 10/2013 a total increase of $5385bil) under Pres. Obama's term as of 2013 (five years in office).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_debt_ceiling

[Demeter]

7. ROBERT REICH: On Leaders and Demagogues

http://robertreich.org/post/131884484780


Among the current crop of candidates for president of the United States, who exhibits leadership and who doesn’t? Leadership isn’t just the ability to attract followers. Otherwise some of the worst tyrants in history would be considered great leaders. They weren’t leaders; they were demagogues. There’s a difference.

• A leader brings out the best in his followers. A demagogue brings out the worst.
  
  
• Leaders inspire tolerance. Demagogues incite hate.
  
  
• Leaders empower the powerless; they give them voice and respect. Demagogues scapegoat the powerless; they use scapegoating as a means to fortify their power.
  
  
• Leaders calm peoples’ irrational fears. Demagogues exploit them.

My list of great American leaders would include Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

• In his second inaugural address near the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln urged his followers to act with “malice toward none, with charity for all.”
  
  
• In his first inaugural at the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts.”
  
  
• In 1963, as African-Americans demanded their civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr. urged his followers “not to seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

My list of American demagogues would include Senator “Pitchfork” Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, who supported lynch mobs in the 1890s; Father Charles Coughlin, whose antisemitic radio rants in the 1930s praised Nazi Germany; Senator Joseph McCarthy, who conducted the communist witch hunts of the 1950s; and Governor George C. Wallace, the staunch defender of segregation. These men inspired the worst in their followers. They scapegoated the weak and set Americans against each other. They used fear to stoke hate and thereby entrench their power.

Back to the current crop of Presidential candidates: Who are the leaders, and who are the demagogues? The leaders have sought to build bridges with those holding different views.

Rand Paul spoke at Berkeley, for example, seeking common ground with the university’s mostly-progressive students.

Bernie Sanders traveled to Liberty University where most students and faculty disagree with his positions on gay marriage and abortion. “I came here today,” he said, “because I believe from the bottom of my heart that it is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse.”

Other candidates, by contrast, have fueled division.

Ben Carson has said being gay is a choice. “A lot of people who go into prison straight and when they come out they’re gay,” he says, “so did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”
Carson has also argued that Muslims should not be allowed to become President. I “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.”

Donald Trump, meanwhile, has charged that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” Trump has lashed out at those who he charges come to America to give birth, so that their children will be, in his term, “anchor babies” – arguing that “we have to start a process where we take back our country. Our country is going to hell.” And after one of his followers charged that Muslims “have training camps growing where they want to kill us,” and asked Trump “when can we get rid of them?” Trump didn’t demur. He said “a lot of people are saying that” and “we’re going to be looking at that.”

Nor has Trump inspired the best in his followers. At one recent rally, after Trump denigrated undocumented workers, his supporters shoved and spit on immigrant activists who had shown up to protest. At other Trump rallies his followers have shouted at Latino U.S. citizens to “go home” and yelled “if it ain’t white, it ain’t right.” Trump followers have told immigrant activists to “clean my hotel room, bitch.” They’ve beaten up and urinated on the homeless, and and joked “you can shoot all the people you want that cross illegally.”

America is the only democracy in the world where anyone can declare himself or herself a candidate for the presidency – and, armed with enough money, possibly even win. Which makes it all the more important that we distinguish leaders from demagogues. The former ennoble our society. The latter degrade and endanger it – even if they lose.

[Demeter]

8. World set to use more energy for cooling than heating

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/cold-economy-cop21-global-warming-carbon-emissions

Rising demand for air conditioning and refrigeration threatens to make planet hotter and undermine pledges to rein in emissions...The world faces a looming and potentially calamitous “cold crunch”, with demand for air conditioning and refrigeration growing so fast that it threatens to smash pledges and targets for global warming.

Worldwide power consumption for air conditioning alone is forecast to surge 33-fold by 2100 as developing world incomes rise and urbanisation advances. Already, the US uses as much electricity to keep buildings cool as the whole of Africa uses on everything; China and India are fast catching up. By mid-century people will use more energy for cooling than heating. And since cold is still overwhelmingly produced by burning fossil fuels, emission targets agreed at next month’s international climate summit in Paris risk being blown away as governments and scientists struggle with a cruel climate-change irony: cooling makes the planet hotter.

“Most people tend to think of energy in terms of heat and light and transport,” said Toby Peters, visiting professor of power and the cold economy at the University of Birmingham. “But more and more, it’s going to be about cold. Demand for cold is already huge, it’s growing fast, and we’re meeting it in basically the same way we’ve been doing for a century. Cold is the Cinderella of the energy debate. If we don’t change the way we do it, the consequences are going to be dramatic.”

Artificial cold is a recent phenomenon: the first domestic air-conditioning unit appeared in 1914, the first home fridges in 1930. As late as 1965, only a third of UK homes had one...

How America became addicted to air conditioning

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-america-became-addicted-to-air-conditioning

It is an integral part of modern life, but now the US is waking up to the environmental cost of such massive energy consumption...New York City recently passed a law that will oblige nearly all shops and restaurants to keep front doors and windows shut while air conditioners are on, a response to the practice of wooing sweaty passers-by with the promise of chilled respite. Innovators are promising more efficient devices in the next decade, including one that makes and stores ice cheaply at night to cool buildings during the day, from a California firm called Ice Energy.

Only now is the US waking up to the environmental cost of such massive energy consumption – and to the chilling prospect that the rest of the world may follow its example. The proportion of homes in Chinese cities with air conditioning rocketed from 8% to 70% between 1995 and 2004.

US statistics are bracing. A nation with 318 million people accounting for just 4.5% of world population consumes more energy for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. It uses more electricity for cooling than Africa, population 1.1 billion, uses for everything. Vehicle air conditioners in the US use 7bn to 10bn gallons of petrol annually. Each home with an air conditioner emits about two tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air each year, according to the US department of energy...

Climate risks heat up as world switches on to air conditioning

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/10/climate-heat-world-air-conditioning

The world is warming, incomes are rising, and smaller families are living in larger houses in hotter places. One result is a booming market for air conditioning — world sales in 2011 were up 13 percent over 2010, and that growth is expected to accelerate in coming decades.

By my very rough estimate, residential, commercial, and industrial air conditioning worldwide consumes at least one trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. Vehicle air conditioners in the United States alone use 7 to 10 billion gallons of gasoline annually. And thanks largely to demand in warmer regions, it is possible that world consumption of energy for cooling could explode tenfold by 2050, giving climate change an unwelcome dose of extra momentum.

The United States has long consumed more energy each year for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. In fact, we use more electricity for cooling than the entire continent of Africa, home to a billion people, consumes for all purposes. Between 1993 and 2005, with summers growing hotter and homes larger, energy consumed by residential air conditioning in the U.S. doubled, and it leaped another 20 percent by 2010. The climate impact of air conditioning our buildings and vehicles is now that of almost half a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Yet with other nations following our lead, America's century-long reign as the world cooling champion is coming to an end. And if global consumption for cooling grows as projected to 10 trillion kilowatt-hours per year — equal to half of the world's entire electricity supply today — the climate forecast will be grim indeed...MORE

Stan Cox for Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network

India's rising demands for cooling make it a hot topic

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/india-rising-demands-cooling-hot-topic

...Recent figures show India to be the fastest growing of all emerging economies, with growth this year above 7%. The population is still growing too, and forecast to reach 1.4 billion by 2030, greater than that of China.

The current 1.3 billion inhabitants are eating more every year too, even if malnutrition remains a serious problem. Over previous decades, food demand has been met largely by increasing farm yields; production has more than tripled from 87m tonnes in 1991 to 280m today.

Now the new strategy is to streamline the process of getting the produce to the consumer, and that means refrigeration.

“There is actually plenty of food for everyone to have. The problem is moving it around and that is where we need a cold chain,” said Paranexh Kohli, a private sector specialist who has been brought in to run the Indian government’s National Centre for Cold Chain Development.

One problem is that there are almost no chilled “pack-houses” in India where produce straight out of the fields can be sorted, cleaned and readied for onward transportation. Officials estimate that at least 70,000 pack-houses, each equipped with a pre-cooler and dispatch room, are needed. The country only has about 250...

[Demeter]

9. Gov. Snyder: Helping pay off Detroit schools' $750 million debt better than alternative

AFTER DECADES OF ABUSE HEAPED ON DETROIT BY THE GOP GOVERNORS AND STATE LEGISLATURES...IT SEEMS THERE IS AT LEAST ONE EDUCABLE REPUBLICAN!

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2015/10/gov_snyder_helping_pay_off_det.html

...Although the state is sharing Detroit's burden, Snyder said it would be much worse if Detroit Public Schools went bankrupt....

NOW, WE WILL SEE IF HE SURVIVES. HE'S TERM-LIMITED, SO IT'S NO SKIN OFF HIS GOVERNORSHIP...BUT IF HE HAS DESIGNS ON HIGHER OFFICE...

[Demeter]

10. INNUENDO--THE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD!

[Demeter]

11. Australia investment regulator says looking at manipulation, predatory trading

HIGH-FREQUENCY TRADING!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/26/australia-regulator-equity-idUSL3N12P0NJ20151026

26 Australia's corporate regulator on Monday said it was inquiring into a small number of traders that were manipulating quarterly futures expiries, and has asked the Australian Securities Exchange to consider steps to discourage the practice.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), in a report on high-frequency trading (HFT) and so-called dark liquidity pools, also raised concerns about conflicts of interest and predatory trading against clients.

"We will continue to monitor developments in high-frequency trading and dark liquidity, including the recent exponential growth of high-frequency trading in the futures market," ASIC said on Monday.

"Our surveillance focus on predatory trading that manipulates the market will continue and we will actively enforce market misconduct laws," it added.

ASIC said HFT has grown 130 percent in the futures market since Dec. 2013 to 21 percent of volume traded in stock futures and 14 percent of bond futures. Dark liquidity has remained "reasonably constant" in recent years around 25-30 percent of total equity market turnover. Overall, the report concluded that current levels of HFT and dark liquidity were not adversely affecting the function of Australian markets for businesses and investors. High-frequency trading refers to trades based on complex computer algorithms that guide decisions on what stocks to buy or sell. Using automated HFT ownership of traded shares may last only fractions of a second.

Dark liquidity or "dark trades" refers to orders away from the market, making them non-transparent. They have caused concern in the United States about whether firms are trying to manipulate prices in dark pools. In 2012, ASIC introduced a number of "integrity rules" to help weed out bad players and practices.

[Demeter]

12. Unilateral regulatory initiatives undermine G20 financial stability goals

THE RACE TO THE REGULATORY BOTTOM CONTINUES

http://www.bankingtech.com/389902/bba-nilateral-regulatory-initiatives-undermine-g20-financial-stability/

Hasty unilateral moves by individual countries could undermine the ability of financial institutions and markets to benefit from new regulations and weaken efforts to improve financial stability, delegates at the BBA conference in London heard yesterday.

“Don’t expect there won’t be problems if you’re going to unilaterally introduce new rules without regard to what other nations are doing,” said David Wright, secretary general of the International Organization of Securities Commissions. “What we’ll end up with is a multilateral environment. There will be problems, and it will only get worse as more and more countries do the same thing. We’ll end up with a matrix of great complexity.”

Participants in a debate over the future regulatory challenge noted that while the G20 nations signed up to a reform agenda in Pittsburgh in 2009, under Basel III it actually remains up to individual nations to take the rules and implement them. The problem with this approach, however, is that there are differences emerging between different countries – for example, Japan is only applying Basel III to the larger global banks whereas Europe is applying the rules to a much broader range of banks, including smaller and medium-sized institutions.

“There are cross-border implications to all this,” said William Coen, secretary general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervison. “Is it proportionate to apply the rules to all banks, like in Europe? The rule was originally created for the large banks. I don’t think it is necessarily proportionate to apply it to every institution, and I think doing so will have consequences.”

MORE

[Demeter]

13. China should join US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership 'when time is right', says Communist Party new

SO MUCH FOR RING-FENCING CHINA...WHAT WILL BE THE NEW JUSTIFICATION FOR TPP?

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1871975/china-should-join-us-backed-trans-pacific-partnership

China should join at an appropriate time the US-backed regional trade accord the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as its broad aims were in line with the country's own economic reform agenda, a Communist Party newspaper said yesterday.

China is not among the 12 Pacific Rim countries who this month agreed the trade pact, the most ambitious in a generation. The accord includes Australia and Japan among economies worth a combined US$28trillion.


The trade minister has said that Beijing does not feel targeted by it, but will evaluate its probable impact.

The Study Times, published by the Central Party School that trains rising officials, admitted some viewed the TPP as a "plot" to restrain Chinese ambitions...MORE




READ MORE: Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement doesn't look like such a great deal, except for big business in the US and Japan http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1865259/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-doesnt-look-such-great

[Demeter]

14. China Cuts Interest Rates as Policy Divergence With U.S. Widens

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-23/china-cuts-interest-rates-reserve-ratios-to-counter-slowdown

China stepped up monetary easing with its sixth interest-rate cut in a year to combat deflationary pressures and a slowing economy, moving ahead of anticipated fresh stimulus by central banks from Europe to Japan and possible tightening in the U.S.

The one-year lending rate will be cut to 4.35 percent from 4.6 percent effective Saturday the People’s Bank of China said on its website on Friday, while the one-year deposit rate will fall to 1.5 percent from 1.75 percent. Reserve requirements for all banks were lowered by 50 basis points, with an extra 50 basis point reduction for some institutions.

Authorities are seeking to cushion an economy forecast to grow at the slowest annual rate in a quarter century as old growth drivers such as manufacturing and construction falter and new drivers like consumption struggle to compensate. China’s reduction to record-low rates and anticipated stimulus in Europe and Japan add to monetary policy divergence with the U.S., where the Federal Reserve is considering its first rate increase in nine years.

"The Fed may be considering raising interest rates, but in much of the rest of the world, China included, central banks are facing weak growth and a lack of inflation, and are thus more likely to ease rather than tighten monetary policy," said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics Ltd. in Hong Kong.

[Demeter]

15. China’s Raging Bond Bubble Exposed

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/chinas-raging-bond-bubble-exposed.html

LENGTHY COMPENDIUM

[Demeter]

16. Frosty Monday! Have a good one!

[Demeter]

17. TPP agreement doesn't look like such a great deal, except for big business in the US and Japan

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1865259/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-doesnt-look-such-great

Kevin Rafferty says amid the secrecy surrounding the TPP trade pact, big business is the only winner...The much-heralded 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, announced this week, is a major blow against democracy and good governance, studded with measures distorting capitalism and free markets. Above all, it is a triumph for giant corporations in the US and, to a lesser extent, Japan.

Normally when a major deal is struck, there is a press conference with a text available. Ministers face questions about the achievements, implications and details, down to a mini-clause in a sub-chapter or a parenthesis in an appendix.

But, as yet, this TPP has no public text. It runs to 30 chapters and thousands of pages, not surprising when it covers everything from cars to cough medicines, as one newspaper put it. Actually, it goes far beyond traditional trade in agricultural and manufactured goods and into services, intellectual property rights and the settlement of international disputes, as well as labour and environmental standards. Trade ministers, visibly weary after their marathon sessions in Atlanta that turned a day of negotiations into five, congratulated themselves for reaching "the largest free trade deal in a generation" that will link countries representing almost 40 per cent of the global economy. They proclaimed the TPP an "ambitious" and "challenging" negotiation slashing through red tape to "set the rules for the 21st century for trade". New Zealand's trade minister Tim Groser boasted that the achievements of Atlanta would lead to even greater things: "It remains inconceivable that the TPP bus will stop at Atlanta." It was "just a start", added Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, from Tokyo.

We should be suspicious of a deal, for which ministers are congratulating themselves, but dare not release the full text. Each country released bits favouring its own interests...The criticism of my former World Bank colleague and Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz rings true - the TPP is not free trade but managed trade and done "on behalf of each country's most powerful business lobbies".

...Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, which leaked chapters on intellectual property proposals, put it graphically: "If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you're ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs."

...For all the ballyhoo about 40 per cent of the global economy coming together for TPP, the world's two most populous countries, China and India, are excluded. In reality, it is the last throw of imperial America's dice. The problem is that if Obama cannot get it through Congress, he will reveal himself as America's most naked emperor.

MORE AT LINK, I JUST PICKED OUT THE GOOD PARTS