but Tansy! Calling it Black Friday! Isn't that rather....dangerous, for a stock market thread? At least, it's ambiguous...

Definition of 'Black Friday'

1. A day of stock market catastrophe. Originally, September 24, 1869, was deemed Black Friday. The crash was sparked by gold speculators, including Jay Gould and James Fist, who attempted to corner the gold market. The attempt failed and the gold market collapsed, causing the stock market to plummet.

2. The day after Thanksgiving in the United States. Retailers generally see an upward spike in sales and consider this to be the start of the holiday shopping season. It's common for retailers to offer special promotions and to open early to draw in customers.

Investopedia explains 'Black Friday'

1. The term "black" has been used to describe other disastrous days in financial markets. For example, on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the market fell precipitously, signaling the start of the Great Depression. The largest one-day drop in stock market history occurred on Black Monday, October 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 22%.

2. The idea behind the term "Black Friday" is that this is the day in which retail stores have enough sales to put them "in the black" - an accounting expression that alludes to the practice of recording losses in red and profits in black.


Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackfriday.asp#ixzz2D0T5bRNP

I'm not the crow in that cartoon.

I was speaking rhetorically when I told Team RobMe to, "Eat me."

Besides, Huginn is a Raven... Not a common crow.

Last edited Fri Nov 23, 2012, 12:08 AM - Edit history (1)

P.S. I almost dropped my teeth laughing when I realized Palin has Tax Cuts written on her hand in the cartoon.

Who are all those people?
Rove, Paul Ryan, Palin

edit to add Tan-man Boehner

Left:

Ryan
Gingrich
McConnell
Bachmann
Boehner

Right
Palin
(unknown?? someone?? Buehler??))
Rove


I also noted the broccolli, which Poppy booosh said he didn't like. But he apparently isn't invited to this dinner. I guess no one wanted to be urped on.

Clay Bennett's cartoons have shown up on the SMW quite a bit recently because he has absolutely nailed the pukes and their mean-boy policies. This 'toon, however, was absolutely outstanding.

One of the best toons ever!

But I think many of us here believe it's going to take a black Friday, in the more traditional sense, to set things to right (or left) in the markets anyway.

And the irrational frenzy of the shopping craze tends to mimc the irrational behavior of the markets, too, so what the hell.

If I prove prophetic, well, it wasn't intentional. Just the usual play on words. . . . .

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/erica-chenoweth-confronting-the-myth-of-the-rational-insurgent-2.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Lambert here: Occupy’s public discussions on “diversity of tactics” have often lacked historical perspective; discussions, at least online, have tended to degenerate to “Ghandi!” “No, ANC!” Now, however, Erica Chenoweth has developed a dataset and analyzed the historical record. Below the fold are slides summarizing the results of her study of 323
 non-violent and violent campaigns 
from
 1900‐2006. (There are twenty slides, so anybody with a slow connection may prefer to download a zipped file of the original PDF). Here’s one key slide:

I’m sure, readers, that like any study, Chenoweth’s work is open to challenge on any number of grounds. That said, surely looking to the historical record to see what’s worked isn’t such a bad thing?

* * *POWER POINT PRESENTATION FOLLOWS***CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK AND THEN ON THE FIRST IMAGE:

http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAMain.asp

"The US has kept consumption levels up thanks to current account and primary budget deficits that, unlike the Baltic states, it was in a position to finance with its own reserve currency. As debt-to-GDP approaches 100 per cent, though, this levitation act can only continue if the rest of the world is prepared to indefinitely buy depreciating dollars and bonds with negative returns. Investors - savers, really - may be greater fools for a while, but not for the indefinite future. Unless, that is, Argentina magically turns out to be a model for us all."

John Dizard
Financial Times

This week in The Institutional Risk Analyst, we feature a comment by veteran securities counsel Fred Feldkamp on the important role player by legal templates in the world of mortgage finance. Not only do the TBTF banks have a financial monopoly in the mortgage market thanks to Congress and the Federal Reserve Board, but the choice of legal configuration for residential mortgage securities also confers a considerable monopoly on the zombie banks.

Before we delve into this sublime realm, it is time to take notice of the extraordinary events in the bond markets care of the Federal Open Market Committee. A November 16, 2012 report from Morgan Stanley on the credit default swap or "CDS" market entitled "As the Basis Turns" notes that the derivatives are once again trading through cash spreads, something that has not happened for a prolonged period since before the 2008 market meltdown. Could this be a glimmer of interest rate risk peering through the warm protective blanket provided by Fed Chairman Bernanke and the FOMC?

MORE AT LINK

THE EUROMESS...THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/9531764/Carthaginian-terms-for-Italy-and-Spain-threaten-Draghi-bond-plan.html

Nothing can happen until Spain and then Italy request a rescue from the EU bail-out funds (EFSF/ESM), and sign away their sovereignty. Nothing further can happen until an angry Bundestag approves the terms and signs away its money.

Germany has a 27pc voting weight and can veto any rescue.

Even less can happen if the German constitutional court issues a preliminary ruling on Wednesday blocking activation of the €500bn ESM fund. Morgan Stanley's team – mostly Germans as in happens – put a 40pc likelihood on this happening.

This is not to belittle the ECB plan for "unlimited" bond purchases. The Jesuit-trained Mario Draghi has pulled off a masterstroke, securing the assent of every northern ECB governor except the Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann, and crucially the assent of Germany's board member Jorg Asmussen, and indeed Chancellor Angela Merkel herself.

Italy's premier Mario Monti – a fellow `Jesuit' – more or less confessed that this minor revolution could not have happened without the defeat of French leader Nicolas Sarkozy in May. The election upset broke the Franco-German axis and reordered the strategic landscape of Europe...

A COMPREHENSIVE BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK, LENGTHY AND WORTH READING

http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/9/10/the-french-government-gets-whacked-even-the-left-is-angry-an.html

France is mired in a stagnating economy. The private sector is under pressure, auto manufacturing is heading into a depression. Unemployment hit a 13-year high of 10.2%, leaving over 3 million people out of work. Youth unemployment of 22.7%, bad as it is, belies the catastrophic jobs situation for young people in ghetto-like enclaves, such as the northern suburbs of Paris. The “solution”—fabricating 150,000 jobs for the young at taxpayers’ expense—has been tried before, with little success. Gasoline and diesel prices are hovering near record highs. So there are a lot of very unhappy campers.

In a BVA poll, 55% of the respondents were dissatisfied with President François Hollande’s efforts to tackle the economic crisis. By comparison, only 31% were dissatisfied with Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 at the end of his honeymoon. Devastatingly, for a socialist: 57% believed that he didn’t distribute the “efforts” equitably—same as Sarkozy, the president of the rich.

The problem with voters is Hollande’s “inaction,” after some initial half-measures, such as the partial reinstatement of retirement at 60 and raising back-to-school aid for families. Now people “seriously doubt his ability to change things.” They believe that the government spends its time trying to “unravel Sarkozy’s legacy” and “sitting around in meetings,” rather than making decisions.

In an OpinionWay poll, satisfaction with the job Hollande is doing crashed a vertigo-inducing 14 points from 60% in July to 46% in September—compared to the 64% satisfaction score voters heaped on Sarkozy in 2007. And 58% believed Hollande, after four months in office, is already going “in the wrong direction.” MORE

By Nathan Tankus, a member of Occupy Wall Street Alternative Banking working group. He is also deeply involved in the heterodox economics community and plans to have a PhD in economics before the decade is done. Cross posted with View From the Metropole.

In accounts of American economic history, the early days of banking are typically described as chaotic, contradictory and many decisions are depicted as awful, stupid mistakes. That period certainly included all these things, but looking at Europe now, one can’t help but feel that many back then (especially the elites) understood money better and were much better pragmatists. The point about pragmatism is especially important: you can only make realistic decisions if you know how things actually work. In this sense, the Euro is the ultimate idealist project. Its designers took a vision (some would say a religion), compared their vision to the functioning of an entire continent and attempted to chop off the parts of the continent and different societies that didn’t fit the template. I would call it a Procrustean bed, but to be fair to him, I bet he only mutilated a few dozen people, not an entire continent.

What is the theory that justified the Eurozone? It is a geographic extension of these assertions by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations:



Later on he extends this point to an analysis of money:



Notice he says that barter “ceases”. The implicit assumption here, which has been extended and made explicit since Smith wrote these words, is that people “naturally” move towards exchanging what they produce for a particular commodity (Smith obviously was thinking of gold and silver), which would then be money. In short, Smith proposed that money develops to reduce the cost of transactions between people. It’s an interesting theory but, as David Graeber has described at some length in his book Debt: The First 5000 Years, , it’s one with no historical foundation. A policymaker, working under the view that these assumptions are correct, would have a very difficult time coming up with and implementing pragmatic solutions to financial (and fiscal) crises.

Modern economists took the obvious next step in this theory in that they applied it to geography. Named Optimal Currency Area (OCA) theory, it suggests that how large a “currency area” is and which locations are in that currency should be determined by what will reduce transaction costs between firms and individuals the most. In some ways this view is more incoherent then Adam Smith’s view. Smith had a labor theory of value so he thought the value of the unit of account (gold and silver in Smith’s mind) would vary with the rising or falling labor time it took to produce it. But OCA theorists never suggested tying these currencies to a particular commodity. They seemed to think everyone would just say “oh wow, they said my costs will be less if I use those pieces of paper and electronic spreadsheets so I’m going to do that now!”

So what would give this money that isn’t tied to any particular commodity, value? Ironically, later in the Wealth of Nations, Smith provides an alternative mechanism for money receiving value.



Long time readers of Naked Capitalism will recognize this as the view of Neo-Chartalists, primarily based out of University of Missouri, Kansas City and who blog at New Economic Perspectives (and often on this blog too). The reason that a whole “area” (what normal people call a country) shares a unit of account is ultimately because people try to acquire whatever they can pay their taxes in. Rather then the need for a medium of exchange automatically generating a “natural” unit of account, an artificial unit of account is imposed through taxation. It becomes a medium of exchange when people try to acquire the money they need to pay taxes by selling whatever they have (for most people, it ends up being their ability to work). In Graeber’s book, he hypothesizes that this really started historically as a means for a king or government to get the local population to give up goods and services to their armies...

MORE MONETARY PHILOSOPHY


Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/the-euro-as-idealist-project-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-pragmatic-elites.html#6s5hQ6uEEh7e5IZH.99

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/merkel-accused-of-being-female-don-corleone-8120170.html

TOO BAD SHE DIDN'T TAKE OUT W (BUT THEN, WE'D'VE BEEN STUCK WITH CHENEY...)



Has Angela Merkel turned into a female equivalent of Don Corleone, the sinister Mafia boss portrayed in The Godfather? A prominent female member of the German Chancellor's ruling conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, is convinced she has – and she's not joking.

A withering attack on Germany's first female leader has been delivered in a new and savagely critical book that accuses Merkel of ruining the euro, being obsessed with her own political power and installing an autocratic regime which borders on the totalitarian.

The Godmother: How Angela Merkel Is Reconstructing Germany is the work of the veteran Christian Democrat, Gertrud Höhler, 71, a prominent and outspoken conservative who was both an adviser to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and on the boards of several major Swiss and German companies.

Höhler argues that because Merkel was brought up in communist East Germany, she has no real understanding of democracy and is convinced that only remaining in power is paramount. As a result, Höhler claims, Merkel has muzzled all critics and dispensed with political rivals by ruthlessly sidelining or stabbing them in the back....Höhler's savage criticism could be dismissed as the anger of a piqued former rival venting her envy on someone who has made it to the top. Her book is dedicated to "those who still carry a clenched fist in their pocket". But, significantly, publication of The Godmother has coincided with attacks on the Chancellor from other leading members of Germany's Christian Democratic Union, which suggest that the author may have a point...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/helaineolen/2012/09/10/more-people-identify-as-lower-class/

This week’s first communiqué on the hopelessness of the former middle class comes courtesy of the Pew Charitable Trusts, the organization which has been doing an estimable job of tracking the descent of the net worth and incomes of Americans over the past decade.

According to the folks at Pew, fully a third of Americans now admit they are either of lower middle class or flat out lower class economic status, an increase of 25% since 2008.

Even more distressing, the numbers are worse for those between the ages of 18 and 29, where almost two fifths of those polled told surveyors they considered themselves to be in the lowest economic brackets. Of course, this might well involve a certain amount of realistic thinking. Earlier this year, it was reported that half of all recent college graduates were either unemployed or underemployed relative to their credentials...

http://news.yahoo.com/1-2-graduates-jobless-underemployed-140300522.html

The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor's degrees...Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor's degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade...

http://www.economist.com/node/21562189

THE idea that American bosses are obscenely overpaid is conventional wisdom, and not just among the true believers at the Democratic convention. The New York Times complains of “fat paychecks awarded to chief executives who, by many measures, don’t deserve them.” Forbes, hardly the in-house journal of Occupy Wall Street, frets that CEO pay is “gravity-defying”. An issue in April gave warning that “our report on executive compensation will only fuel the outrage over corporate greed.” This orthodoxy rests on three propositions: that CEO pay just keeps on going up; that it is not tied to performance; and that boards are not doing their job of holding fat cats’ paws to the fire. These propositions in turn rest on a bigger argument: that CEOs are using their political power to rig the system, and that an efficient market for talent would produce very different results.

Steven Kaplan of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (WHERE ELSE? ALL POLITICAL ECONOMIC DREK COMES OUT OF CHICAGO) has been poking holes in this orthodoxy for years. He has now gathered his research together in a new paper (“Executive Compensation and Corporate Governance in the US: Perceptions, Facts and Challenges”). His argument is well-grounded and intricate. He distinguishes, for example, between “estimated” and “realised” pay. Estimated pay is the estimated value of the CEO’s pay, including stock options, when the board does the hiring. Realised pay is what the CEO actually makes when he exercises his options. There is a big difference. It is now impossible to talk sensibly about this subject without first grappling with Mr Kaplan...He starts off by questioning the idea that CEO pay always goes up. Granted, it shot up between 1993 and 2000. But since then it has fallen. Average estimated pay for the bosses of S&P 500 companies has declined by 46% since 2000. Median CEO pay has declined since 2001, though only slightly. In 2010 CEOs were paid about as much in real terms as they were in 1998. The captains of the corner office are hardly going short. In 2010 the average package for an S&P 500 CEO was $10m and the median CEO took home $8.5m. Egalitarians will not be thrilled to learn that the average S&P 500 CEO, who made 350 times the median household income in 2000, now makes only 200 times as much. But S&P 500 CEOs are not doing well when compared with other 0.1 percenters. Bosses of unlisted companies and people in the hedge-fund and private-equity industries have pulled rapidly ahead. (Leading lawyers, in contrast, have roughly kept pace with S&P 500 CEOs.) The top 25 hedge-fund managers regularly earn more as a group than all 500 S&P CEOs put together. The ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of other 0.1 percenters is comparable to or lower than the ratio in the early 1990s and roughly similar to the average ratio since the 1930s.

What about the relationship between pay and performance? Mr Kaplan argues that CEOs are clearly paid for improving the performance of their company’s stock. Firms with CEOs in the highest 20% of realised pay generated stock returns 60% greater than those of other firms in their industries over the previous three years. Firms with CEOs in the bottom 20% underperform their industries by almost 20%. CEOs are also kicked out if they fail to perform well. In the 1970s one Fortune 500 boss in ten was tossed from the top floor in any given year. In the 2000s that number increased to one in six. The sharp decline in CEO tenure—from eight years in the 1990s to six years today—also means that the average CEO spends 25% less time on the payroll.

Mr Kaplan provides a valuable corrective to much of the rhetoric that surrounds this subject. But two questions remain troubling. One is about short-termism. Many critics of CEO pay argue that the problem lies not with the size of the pay packets but with the incentives that they create. Many bosses receive options that are worthless unless the company’s shares reach a certain price, but fabulously lucrative if they exceed it. This may spur them to take big risks to boost share prices in the short term, and then cash out. But if their bets go sour, other shareholders suffer. It would be better to pay bosses in restricted shares, which they must hold for a specified period rather than choosing when to sell. The second question concerns the political economy of inequality. It is one thing for CEOs to earn $10m a year when the economy is booming, but quite another when unemployment is 8%. Big companies are still refusing to hire, despite sitting on piles of cash. And a handful of bosses are still making eye-popping sums: the CEOs of CBS, Oracle and Viacom all earned more than $50m in 2010. Bosses should not underestimate the risk that their riches could provoke a backlash against business.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-10/business/ct-biz-0910-long-term-jobs-20120910_1_long-term-unemployment-labor-department-labor-costs

James Ensley, of Rocky Face, Ga., took a $10,000-a-year job last month as a school bus driver after almost two years of unemployment benefits ran out. While that's one-third of what he had made as a warehouse manager, the father of two says he's content.

"It feels great to go to work instead of having somebody tell you, 'I can't help you,'" said Ensley, 51, whose former employer went bankrupt in the housing slump. "I miss my old job, but it is not coming back so I have to get over it."

A surge in long-term unemployment, which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has cited as evidence of a "far from normal" labor market, is abating. That's good news for American companies, which are taking advantage of a pool of 5.2 million people whose career hardships have made them eager to return to work. Most of the re-employed have had to settle for reduced pay, allowing businesses to keep labor costs low while boosting profits amid sluggish sales gains after the deepest recession since the 1930s.

"The cost of labor is very cheap," said James Paulsen, who helps oversee about $325 billion as chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. "Nominal wage gains are very anemic," so these costs "are down and will likely stay down for a while longer."

The number of Americans out of work for 27 weeks or longer in July was 1.5 million fewer than the April 2010 peak, Labor Department data show. The total represented 41 percent of all jobless, the lowest share since 2009. The August figure dropped slightly to 40 percent, with about 5 million people unemployed long term. Fifty-four percent of the long-term unemployed have had to settle for lower wages to secure another job, according to a Labor Department report released Aug. 24. One in 3 said their compensation was at least 20 percent less than what they made previously. This has helped increase corporate efficiency and earnings. Seventy-one percent of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index reported profits that exceeded the consensus analysts' estimates in the most recent quarter, though 59 percent missed sales estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Low labor costs will continue to boost results, said Charles Lieberman, chief investment officer at Advisors Capital Management. Companies in the S&P 500 probably will earn more than $110 a share next year, which could lift the index to about 1700, he said, from 1437.92 Friday. The median estimate of 11 analysts in data compiled by Bloomberg for earnings per share in 2013 is $106.75....


IF IT'S ALL THAT GREAT, WHY ARE WE ALL SO MISERABLE?

who consider themselves middle class on lower quintile incomes.

The rest of us have always suspected the awful truth, that even if we'd been middle class kids growing up, the vicious suppression of wages since the 1970s had shoved us down to the working class or lower, even if we were educated and had "good" jobs.

The kids now must feel particularly hopeless with student debt around their necks that will prevent them from achieving even the little we managed.

The economic one is subject to change without notice, because our safety net is shredded, and too many of the government doesn't believe in full employment.

The social one is a matter on mind over matter, of standards, of aspirations, of not being totally beaten down for generations, of networking, of being to stubborn to die, and lucky enough not to want to, and having enough education to try.

http://brucekrasting.com/d-c-finalizing-plan-for-assault-on-metro-nyc/

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/ssoe-wcm090612.php

In 2030, if all energy is converted to clean energy, humans will consume about eleven-and-a-half terawatts of power every year, all sources combined. If there is to be a clean-energy economy based on renewable energy, wind power will no doubt have to help meet much of that demand.

In a new study, researchers at Stanford University's School of Engineering and the University of Delaware developed the most sophisticated weather model available to show that not only is there plenty of wind over land and near to shore to provide half the world's power, but there is enough to exceed total demand by several times if need be, even after accounting for reductions in wind speed caused by turbines.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and Cristina Archer, an associate professor of geography and physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware...

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT WHERE YOU LIVE, BUT, IN MICHIGAN WE SEEM TO BE GETTING WINDIER EVERY YEAR. THE JET STREAM GETS STUCK OVER THE GREAT LAKES...OR THE GREAT LAKES FORMED BECAUSE THE JET STREAM GETS STUCK IN THIS PART OF THE CONTINENT...

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/debt-default-the-end-of-the-world-and-timothy-geithners-thoughts

Real reporters and newspapers don't try to tell audiences what political figures think because they don't know what they think. But Bob Woodward does not fit the description of the former and the Washington Post does not fit the description of the latter, hence we have a front page account of the battle over the debt ceiling that concludes with a section beginning:


The piece then goes on to explain how Geithner thought it would be horribly immoral to default on the debt because of the price the country would pay for generations...There are two points to be made here. First, Woodward and the Post do not have direct access to Timothy Geithner's thoughts. Either Geithner conveyed his thoughts to Woodward, in which case this section should begin: "Geithner said there was one other consideration." Alternatively, someone close to Geithner told Woodward what Geithner said, in which case the section would begin: "according to Person X (ideally a person with a name as opposed to "someone close to Secretary Geithner&quot , Geithner said there was one other consideration." Okay, but this is the Post.

Let's get to the substance. While we don't have any clue as to what Geithner really thought, it is worth saying a word about the likely consequences of a debt default. First, it would lead to a serious downturn and big-time financial crisis. If U.S. debt was no longer 100 percent solid, it would almost certainly lead to a financial freeze-up that made the post-Lehman crisis look like a Sunday picnic...However, the plus side of this would be that it would almost certainly wipe out the Wall Street banks once and for all. We would eliminate this massive parasitic structure that is draining hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the productive economy and is the largest single source of inequality in the economy today.

The other point is that countries do bounce back from financial crises. The best example here is probably Argentina. It had a complete financial meltdown in December of 2001. This led to banks closing and people being unable to access their money. The economy was in free fall for three months. It stabilized in the next three months and began 7 years of robust growth in the fall of 2002. By the middle of 2003 the country had made up all the ground lost in the crisis. In the case of Argentina, the people of the country are almost certainly better off today from having to endure short-term pain for long-term gain.

While economic policy makers in the United States may not be as competent as those in Argentina, even if it took twice as long to regain the lost ground (i.e. three years), the country could still be much better off in the long-run as a result of eliminating the bloat in its financial sector. It would be appropriate for a lengthy discussion of the crisis like the Post's piece to consider this issue, even if Geithner claims that it would be immoral to allow Wall Street to go under.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/11/22/inenglish/1353613351_878930.html

The Francisco Franco Foundation has convened an event to mark the 120th anniversary of the late dictator's birth at Madrid's Palacio de Congresos, a public building managed by the Spain Tourism Institute, itself a part of the Industry, Energy and Tourism Ministry.

The act is being advertised on the foundation's website, although its secretary said that it has not yet been confirmed. The foundation received public subsidies from the conservative government of José María Aznar, funds that were later withdrawn by the Socialists.

The United Left (IU) has asked that the Popular Party (PP) government move to prohibit the event, which it called "an attack on Spanish democracy."

The PP is to withdraw subsidies to associations working in the field of historical memory in 2013.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/23/us-eu-budget-idUSBRE8AM0B820121123

(Reuters) - Britain and Germany warned on Friday there will be no summit deal on the European Union's proposed 1 trillion euro long-term budget without deeper spending cuts, after the latest compromise plan ignored their calls for further restraint.

British Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed a proposal to scale back tentative cuts to EU farm subsidies and regional aid to placate France and Poland, taking savings elsewhere to keep the overall budget cut at about 80 billion euros.

"It isn't a time for tinkering," he told reporters as he arrived for the second day of budget talks. "There hasn't been the progress in cutting back proposals for additional spending."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she didn't believe leaders would reach the unanimity needed to clinch a budget deal at this summit, but played down the consequences of failure.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/us-usa-economy-idUSBRE8AI0OQ20121122

(Reuters) - Manufacturing grew in November at its quickest pace in five months, with a rise in domestic demand hinting that factories could provide a boost to economic growth in the fourth quarter.

Other data on Wednesday showed a drop in new claims for jobless benefits, although they remained elevated due to superstorm Sandy, and only a marginal improvement in consumer sentiment.

Financial information firm Markit said its U.S. "flash," or preliminary, manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index rose to 52.4 from a three-year low of 51.0 in October. A reading above 50 points to growth in the factory sector.

Still, economists cautioned against taking the reading at face value as other gauges of manufacturing have looked softer, including readings for new orders and regional business sentiment surveys.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/21/us-usa-construction-abi-idUSBRE8AK0TB20121121

(Reuters) - A leading indicator of U.S. construction activity improved for the fifth consecutive month in October as demand for design services continued to recover, an architects' trade group said on Wednesday.

The October architecture billings index rose 1.2 points to a reading of 52.8, led by demand from builders of apartment buildings, according to the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The billings index is considered a predictor of construction spending nine to 12 months into the future.

After declining earlier in 2012, the billings index began to turn higher in June, then accelerated, and has now marked its third straight month above the 50 level, which indicates expanding demand for architects' services.

"It's beginning to look like demand for design services has turned the corner," said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WALL_STREET_OPEN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-23-09-40-25

U.S. stocks are opening higher on Black Friday, the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.

In the first few minutes of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average is up 61 points at 12,898. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is up six at 1,397. The Nasdaq composite index is up 17 at 2,943.

Retail is a key driver of the nation's economy. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity. Traders will be looking for signs about how enthusiastically Americans are spending. That could reflect the momentum of the economic recovery.

The Friday after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday because it begins the period in which many retailers turn profitable for the year.

It wouldn't be Xmas without that.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_EU_BUDGET_SUMMIT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-23-08-57-47

BRUSSELS (AP) -- The prospect of failure loomed over a European Union leaders' summit charged with agreeing on a (EURO)1 trillion ($1.25 trillion) long-term spending plan for the 27-country bloc.

As the EU's leaders resumed another round of negotiations Friday, any sign of a deal remained far out of reach. While heavyweights like Britain and France were pulling in opposite directions, smaller members were also threatening to veto a deal in order to make themselves heard.

`'I have my doubts that we will come to an agreement," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said early Friday as she left the first day of the talks, which could stretch into Saturday.

The EU budget primarily funds programs to help farming and spur growth in the bloc's less developed countries. In financial terms, the budget amounts to only about 1 percent of the EU's gross domestic product, but carries great political significance as it lays bare the balance of power between the bloc's members.

UK PM Cameron claims victory over defence of rUK ebate but is accused of ‘blackmail’

The European Union was in disarray tonight after its 27 leaders failed to reach agreement on a new €970bn budget at a two-day summit which collapsed amid acrimony.

David Cameron was accused of trying to “blackmail” other EU leaders but he was not the only stumbling block to a deal for 2014-20 and did not need to wield his veto. Crucially, there was no agreement between France, anxious to preserve farm subsidies, and Germany, which backed Britain’s call for deeper EU spending cuts along with the Netherlands and Sweden...

... European leaders will resume talks on the budget early next year. To retain Germany’s support, Mr Cameron will be under pressure to approve plans for banking union in the eurozone at another EU summit next month...

/... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/stalemate-in-brussels-as-eu-fails-to-agree-budget-8342986.html

... The summit has been effectively deadlocked by a dispute between net contributors to the budget – including Britain and Germany – and those who get more from the EU than they pay into it. France, a net contributor, has also complicated talks by opposing any cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy of farm subsidies.

Hannes Swoboda, the president of the Socialists and Democrats group in the parliament, said the summit had been “disastrous” and blamed Mr Cameron

"Regarding the additional cuts, it is unacceptable that the majority of member countries are letting themselves be blackmailed by David Cameron who is permanently threatening to block progress in the EU,” he said.

"The British prime minister, who is considering leading the UK out of the EU, is having more impact on the future of the EU than those who are committed to strengthening the EU and fulfilling their obligations." ...

/... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9699134/EU-leaders-accuse-Cameron-of-sabotaging-budget-deal.html

... The manner of the collapse of the summit is a highly significant moment for Cameron and will strengthen his position in the EU. He had arrived in Brussels on Thursday as an isolated figure after criticising the handling of the eurozone crisis by the bloc's leaders.

But the prime minister has improved his relations with Merkel after he was seen to take a constructive stance in the negotiations. The German chancellor did not agree with his call for €50bn in cuts to the budget. But she was impressed with the way he engaged in the negotiations.

Merkel was deeply irritated with the negotiating tactics of Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission. Berlin believes that they tried to structure the negotiations to isolate Britain. One UK source said: "Herman Van Rompuy has fucked this up."...

/... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/23/eu-summit-breaks-up-budget

(Village fiesta tonight. Just got home. I just can't tell you how it feels. Yes I can. Community).

Libres. Libres como el aire
Que respira, y nos permite respirar. Como la tierra
Fecunda. Como el fuego que ilumina
Las más oscuras horas y calienta
El corazón. Y como el agua
Que siempre encuentra su Mar.

http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2012/11/liveblogging-world-war-2-fdrs-1942.html