70 years ago, the war turned.

38 years ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life.

Such is the fickle finger of fate.

We got a topic for the Weekend, which will start late due to Euchre night.

Here is the widget that works:

http://tools.investing.com/market_quotes.php?

I've done a lot of stupid things but mercifully I've forgotten the dates. Maybe sometime I will be able to forget the stupidity and how it blew up in my silly face.

Being me, I have to learn everything the hard way.

The main reason to celebrate D-Day is that it worked. The Germans were handed loss after loss and retreat after retreat. My dad was in a military hospital on the Isle of Capri, having picked up a case of Hepatitis B after an appendectomy, probably though tainted blood or contaminated field instruments. Once he was well enough to return to duty, he sat much of the war out in Italy, repairing gyroscopes and bomb sights in Allied aircraft. Italy is also where he finally received his draft notice, someone in either the UK or US getting tired of paying his salary as a civilian engineer attached to the RAF.

I can't imagine what it was like on the landing craft, the soldiers looking around at each other, realizing that by the end of the day, only one or two of them might still be alive.

I've still got some of the memorabilia, coins from every country he was in, old newspapers about the invasion and the end of the war when it came, and the letters of transit that got him where he was going without a passport. One of these days, I'll put it up on Ebay for collectors.

Still, the thing to remember about DDay was the sheer horror of it, the sand, water and air full of blood and screams of agony. The thing to learn from it is to try to keep from getting stuck in the same situation, ever again.

From H.S. into the general population.

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2014-05-15-leshchenko-en.html

It'll be a long haul, but it can be done. Having systematically charted the careers of the people who drove Ukraine to the brink of destruction, Sergii Leshchenko grapples with the question of how to shake Ukraine free of the oligarchs' grip.

For nearly 20 years, oligarchic clans have contributed significantly to building contemporary Ukrainian society. They emerged as Soviet state property was transferred to new ownership, and replaced the traditional "red directors". Different groups of oligarchs have alternated in achieving positions of power, and must be held responsible for the disintegration of Ukrainian politics, leading to the bloodbath in Kyiv in the winter of 2014. Yet without the clans opposing Viktor Yanukovich, public protest would probably not have stood so much chance of success.

In Ukraine oligarchs are characterized by a heterogeneous variety of attributes that define their status and influence. These consist, among other things, of parliamentary mandates and assets in the media as well as in the form of football clubs, church connections, private jets and art collections. Combined with considerable financial resources, all this allows them to exert influence on the politics of the country and thereafter to earn money through politics, creating a closed circle for the acquisition of personal wealth.

Oligarchs prefer litigation in London because they do not trust the judicial system in their own country, even though they themselves have corrupted it over the course of many years. They send their children to the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland and the London School of Economics in the British capital, because they do not trust the education system in Ukraine. They surround themselves with dozens of bodyguards because they do not trust security in a society that they have corrupted and destroyed. They spend their summers on yachts in the Mediterranean, in Sardinia or on the Cote d'Azur, and their winters in Courchevel in France. Stars of the Soviet stage or yesterday's western idols perform for them on their birthdays. As the former US ambassador in Kyiv, John Herbst, put it so well in a conversation with me: "The best place to enjoy the wealth you have stolen from your compatriots is not in Ukraine, but in Paris, London or New York."

A VERITABLE WHO'S WHO AND WHAT'S WHAT FOLLOWS AT LINK

http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/charles-ponzis-house-up-for-sale-in-us-20140603-39f5w.html

This postcard-perfect town near Boston was where the first patriots died in the Revolutionary War.It was also where Charles Ponzi, the financial con artist who pioneered the category of swindle that now bears his name, made his last stand. Mr. Ponzi, a hardscrabble Italian immigrant whose fraudulent scheme allowed him to guzzle cash and briefly taste luxury, was only a short-term resident of Lexington, buying a mansion here in 1920 just weeks before his arrest.

The mansion at 19 Slocum Road – a three-story residence in the colonial revival style, with stately balusters and a circular porch, alongside a porte-cochère leading to a carriage house in back – sat privately owned for decades. But on Sunday, the house opened to the public for the first time in memory, allowing curious neighbors to explore its many rooms and marvel at its Art Deco flourishes. Some who visited were drawn by the legend of Mr. Ponzi, whose particular brand of trickery became known to a wider audience when Bernard L. Madoff admitted in 2009 to perpetrating it on a far larger scale. Others simply wanted a peek inside one of the most distinctive houses in the area...The current owners, Ofer Gneezy and Christine McLaughlin, a husband and wife who bought the property in 2000, are seeking to sell it for $3.3 million. In the future, the only access to the house will be through private showings to interested buyers. This weekend, however, the Lexington Historical Society was able to bring hundreds of curiosity seekers inside as part of a paid tour of 12 notable homes in the area.

..............................


He was no Samuel Adams or Thomas Paine, heroes of the American Revolution. But Mr. Ponzi does capture the imagination of Lexington's residents. Because his fraud happened so long ago, "it doesn't feel as awful as Madoff," said Ms. McLaughlin, the owner.

"Even though Ponzi was a crook," she said, "he was Lexington's crook."

AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS A QUINTESSENTIAL MASSACHUSETTS VIEWPOINT! IT ALWAYS DROVE ME CRAZY, WHEN SUCH NATIVISM MANIFESTED. MASSACHUSETTS IS PROVINCIAL PERSONIFIED. THE UNITED STATES ENDS AT THE BERKSHIRES, IN BOSTON'S GLOBAL MAP.

also many photos of the interior

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/19-Slocum-Rd-Lexington-MA-02421/61316035_zpid/

The solar is gorgeous!

If I could get the wife another job.......

Not a garden spot.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ECB_ACTION_WILL_IT_WORK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-06-00-28-24

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Central banks can't fix everything.

The European Central Bank took bold steps Thursday to protect Europe's fragile economic recovery, cutting interest rates and offering to pump more money into the financial system.

Economists generally praised the moves, which are designed to raise dangerously low inflation in the 18 countries that use the euro and encourage lending. The ECB's steps could also make exporters more competitive by reducing the euro's value and thereby making Europe's goods less expensive abroad.

But they say Europe's economy won't return to health until it receives long-term fixes that the ECB can't provide on its own.

The ECB's "actions will help, but only on the margin," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "This will be a very long road."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-06-03-23-54

BERLIN (AP) -- German industrial production edged up by a smaller-than-expected 0.2 percent in April, but the country's trade surplus widened as exports rebounded and the country's central bank on Friday raised its growth forecast for Europe's biggest economy.

Germany's economy grew by a robust 0.8 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous three-month period. However, recent data have sent mixed signals and Friday's production figure underlined expectations of slower second-quarter growth.

The figure was below economists' expectations of a rise by 0.3 percent or more compared with the previous month. In March, production dropped 0.6 percent - revised downward from the original reading of a fall of 0.5 percent.

The economy is fundamentally strong but two consecutive disappointing production figures suggest that the Ukraine crisis and China's slowdown "could still have a stronger impact on the real economy than confidence indicators made us believe and that the eurozone recovery is not (yet) strong enough to have a positive impact on the German industry," ING economist Carsten Brzeski said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SEC_HIGH_FREQUENCY_TRADING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-05-15-59-07

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission is embarking on a broad plan to tackle growing concerns about the impact of high-speed computer-based trading on equity markets.

In a speech Thursday, SEC Chair Mary Jo White outlined new rules and regulations that aim to boost market stability and fairness, enhance transparency and improve markets for smaller companies.

"We are assessing the extent to which specific elements of the computer-driven trading environment may be working against investors rather than for them," said White, who has led the SEC since April 2013.

Among the proposed measures is a rule intended to curb aggressive short-term tactics when the market is especially volatile. White also wants to see private high-frequency traders registered as dealers, a change that would bring them under SEC oversight.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NET_WORTH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-05-14-34-24

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rising stock markets and home prices helped lift U.S. household wealth to a record in the first three months of the year.

The Federal Reserve said Thursday that household net worth increased $1.5 trillion in the first quarter to $81.8 trillion. The gain was driven by higher home prices, which boosted Americans' home values $758 billion. A rising, if choppy, stock market pushed up stock and mutual fund holdings $361 billion.

Checking account balances, pensions plan assets and retirement savings, such as 401(k)s, also rose.

The Fed's figures aren't adjusted for population growth or inflation. And the wealth is flowing mainly to affluent Americans: Roughly 10 percent of households own about 80 percent of stocks.

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldmans-jobs-report-preview-2014-6

Goldman economist David Mericle is out with his Jobs Report prediction, and it's not that bullish.
He writes:

We forecast a 210k increase in nonfarm payrolls in May, a touch softer than consensus expectations. Payroll gains have averaged 238k over the last three months, but the May employment data flow looks more mixed. As a result, we expect May to come in a bit below the trend-like rate of about 225k that we expect as growth accelerates in 2014.

We expect that the unemployment rate rose two-tenths to 6.5% in May after a larger-than-expected four-tenths decline in April. The reason is that we expect that last month's four-tenths decline in the participation rate will be partially reversed, in part because most of it arose from an increase in non-participation for 'other reasons' rather than retirement or disability. Wage growth will likely remain a focus of attention this month, and we expect a 0.2% increase in average hourly earnings (AHE).

Mericle then goes on to list a number of positive indicators and negative indicators — the negative ones include a spike in reported layoffs, and the weak ADP jobs report.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/goldmans-jobs-report-preview-2014-6#ixzz33qxvUTqQ

http://www.businessinsider.com/post-recovery-milestone-2014-6



Today could be a historic day in the history of the American economic recovery.

As Annalyn Kurtz points out, the US 113,000 jobs away from the total employment peak that was reached in early 2008.

The peak of US non-farm payroll employment was January 2008, when there were 138,365,000 Americans employed As of last month, that number stoo at 128,252,000.


FRED
Of course, this doesn't mean we'll have fully recovered. Because of economic and population growth, America still has an employment problem. But finally, we'll have cleared this one level, which has taken far too long.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/post-recovery-milestone-2014-6#ixzz33r58bzDB

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/05-8


By raising its minimum wage to $15, Seattle is leading a long-overdue movement toward a living wage. Most minimum wage workers aren’t teenagers these days. They’re major breadwinners who need a higher minimum wage in order to keep their families out of poverty.

Across America, the ranks of the working poor are growing. While low-paying industries such as retail and food preparation accounted for 22 percent of the jobs lost in the Great Recession, they’ve generated 44 percent of the jobs added since then, according to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project. Last February, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that raising the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 would lift 900,000 people out of poverty.

Seattle estimates almost a fourth of its workers now earn below $15 an hour. That translates into about $31,000 a year for a full-time worker. In a high-cost city like Seattle, that’s barely enough to support a family.

The gains from a higher minimum wage extend beyond those who receive it. More money in the pockets of low-wage workers means more sales, especially in the locales they live in – which in turn creates faster growth and more jobs. A major reason the current economic recovery is anemic is that so many Americans lack the purchasing power to get the economy moving again.

We still have a long way to go.

I was making $10.00 an hour and it was a luxurious supplement to my husband's living wage.

I haven't made that much an hour since then.

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/05-10

Things got shaken up quite a bit in Spanish politics last week, as they did in much of the European Union. The Union’s parliamentary elections, held just over a week ago, exposed massive discontent toward the traditional ruling parties and were followed by a week of mea culpa’s, resignations, restructuring, and nasty infighting.

The more important implications of the results lie less in the composition of the new parliament, relatively low on the EU power totem poll, than in each country’s upcoming regional and national elections. De facto two-party systems that exist in many of the 28 EU states, despite their European-style multiparty look, are at risk, as smaller parties grow and new alliances form.

In many states, nationalist, leftwing, or simply anti-EU parties advanced at the expense of both center-right conservative and center-left socialist parties. Openly anti-immigrant nationalist parties gained alarming ground in countries with relatively long histories of immigration and foreigner scapegoating, such as France, Denmark, Holland, Greece, Austria, and Britain. But parties with platforms that were simply anti-EU or more left-leaning than the mainstream socialists, such as in Italy, Greece, and Spain, also gained footing.

Here in Spain, it was the left that siphoned votes from the Socialists (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE), who happened to be holding the bag during the first few years of the economic meltdown after 2008. In 2011, an angry electorate voted them out and the conservative Partido Popular (PP) in. An absolute majority allowed the PP, without parliamentary debate, to do the bidding of the European Central Bank and European Commission. They enacted drastic budget cuts, raised income and consumer taxes, and, undeterred by repeated national strikes and massive street protests, ran roughshod over decades of social and labor law gains.

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/05/the_newest_threat_to_the_middle_class_why_private_equity_is_becoming_public_problem_partner/

A few weeks ago, a top official at the Securities and Exchange Commission reported on what he called a “remarkable” amount of potentially illegal behavior in the private equity industry — aka the industry that buys up, changes and sells off smaller companies.

In its evaluation of private equity firms, the SEC official declared that half of all the reviews discovered “violations of law or material weaknesses in controls.” The announcement followed an earlier Bloomberg News report on how the agency now believes “a majority of private equity firms inflate fees and expenses charged to companies in which they hold stakes.”

At first glance, many probably dismiss this news as just an example of plutocrats bilking plutocrats. But that interpretation ignores how such malfeasance affects the wider economy.

One way to understand that is through the simmering debate over pension obligations in states and cities across the country.

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/06/robert_reich_throw_gms_top_guns_in_jail_partner/

Today General Motors announced that it has fired 15 employees and disciplined five others in the wake of an internal investigation into the company’s handling of defective ignition switches, which lead to at least 13 fatalities.

But who’s legally responsible when a big corporation breaks the law? The government thinks it’s the corporation itself.

Wrong.

“What GM did was break the law … They failed to meet their public safety obligations,” scolded Sec of Transportation Anthony Foxx a few weeks ago after imposing the largest possible penalty on the giant automaker.

Attorney General Eric Holder was even more adamant recently when he announced the guilty plea of giant bank Credit Suisse to criminal charges for aiding rich Americans avoid paying taxes. “This case shows that no financial institution, no matter its size or global reach, is above the law.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-06/bond-battle-seen-as-draghi-confronts-abs-rules-credit-markets.html

Mario Draghi is on a collision course with regulators as he seeks to revive Europe’s asset-backed debt market to boost lending to businesses.

The European Central Bank president said yesterday regulators are holding back the market he wants to use to spur economic growth. Policy makers are frustrated by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s demands that investors increase the capital they hold to absorb losses on the debt.

“We are working on the ABS, but you know that there are also other actors,” Draghi said at a press conference in Frankfurt. “There has to be a revisitation of the regulation that had been introduced in the past few years about ABS to eliminate some of the undue discriminations.”

Europe’s $2 trillion ABS market contracted 32 percent since 2009 as regulators cracked down on the debt they blamed for deepening the financial crisis. The securities package individual loans such as mortgages, auto credit or credit-card debt and sell them on to investors, allowing banks to share the risk of default and encouraging them to offer more credit.

on this titanic, and deal with the holes they've punched below the waterline, down here in steerage.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-06/bundesbank-cuts-german-price-outlook-as-ecb-fights-low-inflation.html

The Bundesbank cut its inflation forecast for Germany this year, reflecting the euro area’s battle with subdued price pressures.

The Frankfurt-based central bank reduced its projection for 2014 to 1.1 percent from the 1.3 percent it predicted in December. It raised its economic growth forecast to 1.9 percent from 1.7 percent. Separate data on industrial output and trade signaled a continued expansion in Europe’s largest economy.

The reports come a day after the European Central Bank cut its inflation forecasts through 2016 and unveiled an historic package of stimulus measures. ECB President Mario Draghi introduced a negative rate for banks parking cash at the central bank and a liquidity injection aimed at boosting lending to companies as the region’s weakened banking system drags on the economic recovery.

“The German economy is on the right track, even if the growth dynamic is easing a bit,” said Mario Gruppe, an economist at NordLB in Hanover. “The economic impact of the interest-rate cut should remain moderate, and for the foreseeable future the environment for investment is still encouraging.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/barclays-fine-leads-to-new-u-k-scrutiny-of-derivatives-conflict.html

Britain’s markets regulator plans to scrutinize the conflicts of interest banks face when they use derivatives after fining Barclays Plc (BARC) for manipulating the price of gold to avoid a pay-out to a client.

The Financial Conduct Authority will examine how investment banks manage such conflicts in coming months, with so-called barrier options “one of the most obvious examples of a conflict,” Chief Executive Officer Martin Wheatley, 55, said in a June 4 interview in New York.

The FCA last month fined Barclays 26 million pounds ($44 million) after finding a former trader had suppressed the London gold fixing on June 28, 2012 to avoid paying out $3.9 million to a client who had taken out a barrier option with the London-based bank. Such contracts are a winner-takes-all bet on whether an asset will reach a certain price or not.

“Barrier options are one of those classic cases where there are likely to be conflicts,” Wheatley said. If there is “the ability to influence a price that prevents a payoff, and therefore gain a significant profit-and-loss, that is a conflict that needs managing.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/high-speed-trading-rules-coming-from-sec-white-says.html

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White unveiled the regulator’s most sweeping plan yet for reining in high-frequency trading and monitoring dark pools and other secretive trading practices in the world’s largest equity market.

Proprietary traders who use computers to buy and sell stocks in milliseconds would have to register with the SEC under recommendations made public yesterday by White in New York.

Operators of dark pools, broker-owned venues that compete with exchanges and don’t publish bids and offers, would have to provide the regulator with their rules for matching buyers and sellers, White said.

The SEC is aiming to bring more transparency to markets and address claims of unfair advantages held by traders who account for about half of U.S. stock executions and have been blamed for everything from the flash crash of May 2010 to market volatility during the European debt crisis. The agenda outlined yesterday could affect stock exchanges, brokerages and a class of proprietary traders who have so far escaped oversight.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/chinese-military-shows-new-capabilities-pentagon-says.html

China’s military is improving its military doctrine, training, weapons and surveillance to be able to conduct more sophisticated attacks against the U.S. and other adversaries, according to the Pentagon.

After jamming communications and mounting other forms of electronic and cyberwarfare, stealthy Chinese aircraft, drones and missiles could attack U.S. warships, aircraft and supply craft, the Defense Department said yesterday in its annual report on China.

The report, which is required by Congress, doesn’t suggest that such attacks are likely, only that the Chinese military last year continued to demonstrate new capabilities similar to those the U.S. began embracing at least 20 years ago, with mixed success. The buildup is occurring as China increasingly asserts itself in territorial disputes with its neighbors.

“Although the Pentagon was overstating the Chinese military threat to avoid more cuts in its budget, the speed of the People’s Liberation Army’s modernization has indeed exceeded western countries’ expectation,” said Ni Lexiong, director of national defense policy research at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/abenomics-spells-most-misery-since-81-as-retiree-skimps-on-meat.html

Mieko Tatsunami finds Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to reflate Japan’s economy hard to digest.

“The price of everything we eat on a daily basis is going up,” Tatsunami, 70, a retired kimono dresser, said while shopping in Tokyo’s Sugamo area. “I’m making do by halving the amount of meat I serve and adding more vegetables.”

Tatsunami’s concerns stem from the price of food soaring at the fastest pace in 23 years after April’s sales-tax increase. Rising prices helped push the nation’s misery index to the highest level since 1981, while wages adjusted for inflation fell the most in more than four years.

With food accounting for one quarter of the consumer price index and the central bank looking to drive inflation higher, a squeeze on household budgets threatens consumption as Abe weighs a further boost in the sales levy. The prime minister may be forced to ease the pain with economic stimulus, cash handouts or tax exemptions championed by his coalition partner.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/pimco-using-ukraine-turmoil-to-buy-cheap-russian-stocks.html

When some investors were fleeing Russian stocks as President Vladimir Putin moved to annex Crimea, Pacific Investment Management Co. (PEQWX) turned bullish.

The Newport Beach, California-based investment manager has been buying Russian equities amid a decline which, at the height of the conflict with Ukraine, pushed the average dividend yield for the benchmark Micex Index (INDEXCF) above its estimated 12-month price-to-earnings ratio for the first time since at least 2009.

“Over the past three months, we have used market volatility to increase or initiate positions in high-quality stocks that were sold down to distressed levels,” Masha Gordon, who oversees more than $2.5 billion in assets as the London-based head of emerging-market equities at Pimco, wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

The Micex’s dividend yield on March 14, the last trading day before Crimeans voted to join Russia, was 4.59 percent, while the gauge traded at 4.56 times estimated earnings, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Valuations slumping below payout levels can signal a buying opportunity to investors.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-06/dax-peeks-above-10-000-with-bull-market-enticing-converts.html

Less than three years after the Greek debt crisis sent the DAX Index (DAX) plunging 30 percent over 47 days, confidence is being restored to Germany’s stock market.

Helped by economic growth that is twice as fast as the euro area’s, the benchmark gauge briefly surpassed 10,000 for the first time yesterday after the European Central Bank announced a stimulus package. The threshold was crossed after U.S. investors poured $142 million into an exchange-traded fund tracking German shares last month, reversing withdrawals that began in February.

Optimism is growing in the region’s largest economy after Chancellor Angela Merkel helped preserve the euro and rising household demand boosted gross domestic product. The DAX, a total-return index that reflects dividend gains, has climbed 171 percent since global stocks bottomed in March 2009, beating France, the U.K. and Switzerland.

“Back in September 2011, no one would have thought that the DAX would double and exceed the 10,000 mark in less than three years,” Ralf Zimmermann, an equity analyst at Bankhaus Lampe KG, said in a phone interview. “This shows the strength of the German economy and its companies. As long as growth continues in the globe, the DAX will drift upwards.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/wall-street-fights-for-our-right-to-pay-5-fund-fees.html

One of Wall Street’s chief lobbyists wants you to know that the financial industry has changed, a lot, since the financial crisis. The industry “has already fundamentally reshaped itself into one that is safer, sounder and more resilient,” Ken Bentsen Jr., chief executive officer of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma), said recently.

If you count up the rules regulators have imposed on banks and brokers since the passage of the Dodd-Frank law, Bentsen has a point. Unfortunately, few of those regulations do anything to improve investing options for individuals. Too many Americans are still steered into financial products that are far more profitable for salespeople than for clients, and pay high fees and commissions. With basically anyone able assume the "financial adviser" title, whether at a brokerage or an independent firm, many investors remain baffled about whom they can trust.

Yet many major financial players appear more intent on lobbying lawmakers to maintain the status quo than changing the way investors are treated. A strong fiduciary rule, requiring all advisers to put clients’ interests first, would help investors navigate an increasingly complex financial landscape. After years of opposition by Sifma and other industry groups, late last month the Department of Labor once again quietly delayed re-proposing that rule until January 2015. That came after previous fiduciary rules were stalled several times by the department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sifma says it would be in favor of a weaker version of the fiduciary rule, one that leaves alone longstanding business practices. That means unsophisticated investors with, say, $40,000 to invest could still get wildly different advice and pricing depending on what type of adviser's office they walk into. At an independent adviser, investors might end up in a cheap mutual fund after paying $300 an hour or less for advice. At a brokerage firm that's a Sifma member, they might be put in a broker-sponsored fund with as much as a 5 percent load fee, costing them $2,000 right off the top.

http://www.vice.com/read/tim-geithner-and-the-con-artist-wing-of-the-democratic-party

The most consequential event of this young century has been the financial crisis. This is a catchall term that means three different things: an economic housing boom and bust, a financial meltdown, and a political response in which bailouts were showered upon the very institutions that were responsible for the chaos. We will be seeing the fallout for decades. Today, in Europe, far-right fascist parties are on the rise, climbing the unhappiness that the crisis-induced austerity has unleashed. China is looking away from the West as a model of development. In the US, Congress is more popular than certain sexually transmitted infections* but little else, and all institutions of national power are losing their legitimacy. At the same time, the financial system did not, in the end, collapse, and there was no repeat of the Great Depression.

More than anyone else, it was then US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who shaped this response, and who bears praise, blame, and responsibility for the outcome. And finally, with the release of his book, Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, Geithner is getting to tell his side of the bailout story. Stress Test is an important book, because Tim Geithner is an important man. Economist Thomas Piketty may be explaining essential social dynamics of inequality, and Elizabeth Warren may be describing the need for Americans to get a break from the banks, but it is Tim Geithner who, for better or worse, actually shaped our institutional, legal, political, and economic dynamics at the moment when the system was most malleable. That said, Geithner is not a popular man, and he knows it. “I never found an effective way to explain to the public what we were doing and why,” he writes. “We did save the economy, but we lost the country doing it.” He knows he’s never going to win the argument, he knows he can’t possibly convince people he did the right thing. Even his book tour is being described as an undertaking that "could have been worse." But he’s going to try to convince you anyway. Stress Test is a fun, if long, book. It’s enjoyable, it’s charming, and it’s well written (or least well written by ghostwriter Mike Grunwald). It’s replete with simple and colorful anecdotes that explain the complexities of capital markets, without condescension and with a minimal amount of jargon. There are two parts to the book. The first is a set of arguments, told through his experiences during the crisis, about why bank bailouts are essential—the financial world according to Geithner. And the second is an autobiographical account of Geithner’s life.

I’ll address both of these, since they are intertwined. For as I read the book, and compared the book with what was written at the time and what was written afterwards, I noticed something odd, and perhaps too bold to say in polite company. As much as I really wanted to hear what Geithner had to say, I quickly realized that I wasn’t getting his actual side of the story. The book is full of narratives, facts, and statements that are, well, untrue, or at the very least, highly misleading. Despite its length, there are also serious omissions that suggest an intention to mislead, as well as misrepresentations of his critics’ arguments. As I went further into Geithner’s narrative, even back into his college days, I got the sense that I was seeing only a brilliantly scrubbed surface, that there were nooks and crannies hidden away. It struck me that I was reading the memoirs of an incredibly savvy and well-bred grifter, the kind that the American WASP establishment of financiers, foundation officials, and spies produces in such rich abundance. I realize this is a bold claim, because it’s an indictment not just of Geithner but also of those who worked for him at Treasury and at the Federal Reserve, as well as indictment of the Clinton-era finance team of Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, Michael Barr, Jason Furman, and other accomplices. That’s why this review is somewhat long, as it’s an attempt to back up such a broad and sweeping claim. I will also connect it to what Geithner is doing now: working in the same kind of financial business that made Mitt Romney a near billionaire.

First, it’s important to rehash Geithner’s stated argument in the book about why he did what he did, and go over those debates. I should say upfront that I do not know why Geithner organized the bailouts the way he did, but I do not believe that the intellectual justifications laid down in the book are the actual reasons. Perhaps we’ll never know why he did what he did. It’s still important to chronicle what he says he did, and why he says he did it...Geithner’s basic stated view is that financial panics are inherent to capitalism, and that they are incredibly destructive if not stopped through massive and immediate bailouts. Geithner uses a metaphor—"wall of money"—to describe this. In traditional bank runs, depositors would be afraid their bank could not honor deposits. Banks would put bricks of cash in the windows, a visible "wall of money," to assure lined up customers they needn't worry, that the bank was solvent. Customers, seeing the assurance, would then go home without needing to withdraw their deposit, secure in the knowledge their money was safe. Breaking the back of any panic is a confidence game. Geithner argues he acquired this philosophical view from his career as a financial-crisis manager in the public sector. He worked on collapses in Mexico, East Asia, and the United States, and his conclusion is that all crises require a wall of money. The downside of such a strategy, Geithner acknowledges, is that it’s very unpopular. No one likes it when bankers get bailed out, but if you don’t do that, depositors will get spooked and reignite a panic. You must put forth a wall of money, with no strings attached, or all is lost.

So that’s his argument.

AND IT GETS MUCH BETTER...THIS IS A MUST READ! I WISH I'D HAD IT FOR LAST WEEKEND!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/10876377/The-nagging-fear-that-QE-itself-may-be-causing-deflation.html



The way we are going, the whole world will end up with zero interest rates or some variant of quantitative easing before long. Such is the overwhelming power of deflation in countries with burst credit bubbles. Such too is the implication of a global savings rate that has spiralled to an all-time high of 25pc of GDP, starving the world of demand.

The European Central Bank looks poised to cut the discount rate below zero on Thursday, becoming the first of the monetary superpowers to venture into these uncharted waters. Banks will be charged to park money in Frankfurt. More than €800bn of money market funds will sink below the water line, so the funds will go elsewhere. The chief purpose is to drive down the euro, an attempt to pass the toxic parcel of incipient deflation to somebody else. The ECB is expected to map out future purchases of asset-back securities, "unsterilised" and intended to steer stimulus with surgical precision towards small businesses in what amounts to light QE. This is not yet the €1 trillion blitz already modelled and sitting in the ECB's contingency drawer. Germany's DIW institute is calling for €60bn of bond purchases each month, equal to 0.7pc of total EMU sovereign debt, and roughly in line with moves by the US Federal Reserve. Such radical action will have to wait.

In China the new talk is "targeted monetary easing", with the first hints of outright asset purchases. Railways bonds have been cited, and local government debt. The authorities are casting around for ways to keep the economy afloat while at the same gently deflating a property boom that has pushed total credit from $9 trillion to $25 trillion in five years. This is not an easy task, not least because land sales and taxes make up 39pc of state revenue in China, and the property sector employs 20pc of workers one way or another. It is clearly a bubble of epic proportions, and already losing air. Mao Daqing from Vanke - China's top developer - says total land value in Beijing has been bid up to such extremes that is on paper worth 61.6pc of America's GDP. The figure was 63.3pc for Tokyo at the peak of the bubble in 1990. "A dangerous level," he says. China faces this delicate task with deflation lodging in the economic supply chain. Factory gate inflation is -2pc, with prices falling for 27 months. It has no safety buffer against a shock, and is facing demographic headwinds. The workforce has already peaked and is now shrinking by 3m a year, much like the squeeze that played such a big role in the onset of Japan's deflation.

The question is why the world economy cannot seem to shake off this "lowflation" malaise, even after QE on unprecedented scale by the US, Britain, Japan and in its own way Switzerland. America's core PCE inflation is still just 1.4pc five years after the Fed embarked on $3 trillion of bond purchases. Part of the reason is a glut of factories flooding the world with goods, bearing down on global prices. China's investment last year was $5 trillion, as much as in Europe and the US together. But another argument is taking hold, which I pass on to readers though it is not my view. Narayana Kocherlakota, the Minneapolis Fed chief, suggested as far back as 2011 that zero rates and QE may perversely be the cause of deflation, not the cure that everybody thought. This caused consternation, and he quickly retreated. Stephen Williamson, from the St Louis Fed, picked up the refrain last November in a paper entitled "Liquidity Premia and the Monetary Policy Trap", arguing that that the Fed's actions are pulling down the "liquidity premium" on government bonds (by buying so many). This in turn is pulling down inflation. The more the policy fails - he argues - the more the Fed doubles down, thinking it must do more. That too caused a storm.

The theme refuses to go away. India's central bank chief, Raghuram Rajan, says QE is a beggar-thy-neighbour devaluation policy in thin disguise. The West's QE caused a flood of hot capital into emerging markets hunting for yield, stoking destructive booms that these countries could not easily control. The result was an interest rate regime that was too lax for the world as a whole, leaving even more economies in a mess than before as they too have to cope with post-bubble hangovers.

MORE

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/part-1-the-zirp-economy-unmasked-zero-growth-in-private-labor-hours-since-1998/

Every now and again the apparatchiks who dutifully tend Washington’s statistical sausage factories accidentally let loose a damning picture of what actually goes on inside. In that vein the BLS has just published the equivalent of a smoking gun. Namely, a study showing that in 2013—the year of 32% stock returns—the business sector of the US economy generated no more labor hours than it did way back in Bill Clinton’s blue dress period (1998) yet purportedly produced 42% more output in real terms:



Striking indeed! The most important thing we know about those 194 billion labor hours is that the mix of labor supplied to the US economy deteriorated drastically during that 15 year period owing to the sharp decline of the goods producing economy in the US and its replacement by the low productivity HES Complex (health, education and social services). So the implication of the BLS study is that business sector productivity soared—at about 2.4% annually over the period— even as factory materials handlers were replaced by bedpan handlers in the labor mix. Needless to say, to smell a skunk in that woodpile does not take a lot of sniffing. Here is the reason. The BLS claim that real business sector output grew by 42% during the period, and therefore that private productivity grew by leaps and bounds, is based on an arithmetical derivative, not a direct measure of output. Stated differently, what the GDP accounts measure directly is spending by households, business and government—a metric which is then “deflated” by patently low-balled guesstimates about the inflation rate. Subtract from that figure for “real GDP” actual government consumption and investment spending (plus a small amount for household sector output) and, presto, you get a fiction called “business sector output”. According to the BEA’s official publication of the NIPA accounts, that figure was $8.4 trillion in 1998 and just shy of $12 trillion in 2013. Moreover, the BEA is not shy in explaining how it computes business sector output:



So the government statistical mills are essentially dividing an apple from the BLS (total labor hours) and an artificially modified spending orange from BEA (real GDP) to get a miracle of productivity growth since 1998. Yet common sense and self-evident social and economic trends suggest just the opposite...In truth, the business sector of an economy which has generated no labor hour growth in a decade and one-half might well still be closer in size to $8 trillion than today’s $12 trillion guesstimate. That’s especially true when it is recalled that what passes for employment gains during the monthly ritual known as “Jobs Friday” is simply the cycling of low-productivity jobs in bars, restaurants, retail emporiums and temp agencies. Even then, the entire part-time economy has generated only 20k jobs per month on average during the last 172 months running. To be sure, the above data is enough to excite the boys and girls on bubblevision because despite purportedly being in the financial analysis business they are actually headline readers who bring no more insight to the table than headline sniffing algos—except that they move their lips far more slowly. Still, the vast expanse of the Part-Time Economy contains some embedded math that raises some pretty serious “Where’s Waldo” questions about that purported $3.5 trillion gain in real business output since 1998.

Today the average Part-Time Economy job (hospitality and leisure, retail, personal services and temp employment agencies) generates pay of about $20k annually, and there have been no gains in real hourly pay in this sector during the past 15 years. So when all is said and done, the Part-Time Economy has generated perhaps a $70 billion gain in the real wage bill since 1998 (3.5 million net jobs added X $20k). Moreover, it does not take much familiarity with the income statements of bars, restaurants, hotels and mall stores to recall that the wage bill, in turn, amounts to 20-25% of total sales, and in some cases considerably more. Accordingly, the math of the thing doesn’t get you very far. Multiplying the estimated wage bill gain by 4X you get real business output growth of around $300 billion. That is, the apparent real gain in the Part-Time Economy since 1998 amounts to just 8.5% of the purported $3.5 trillion growth in total business sector output. That leaves a pretty enormous growth deficit to fill elsewhere, of course, but there are pretty big remaining swaths of the business economy that are definitely not candidates for the job.

Consider some of the highest productivity sectors of the manufacturing economy:

As shown below, domestic auto output in 2013 had recovered from its crisis low, but was virtually flat with its 1998 level, meaning no net gain over the 15 year period. Moreover, the graph below is measured in nominal dollars which were paid at the factory gate for US produced cars and trucks. There’s no way that could contribute to the 42% real (inflation-adjusted) business sector output gain—unless the good folks in the statistical mills are playing with some heavy “hedonic” adjustments which turn a flat trend into a rising one by bureaucratic writ.

The highest productivity industry in American—computers and related products—can’t fill the gap, either. As shown below, nominal shipments have fallen by 75% since 1998. Were the government stat boys measuring business sector output directly, they would undoubtedly apply a whole heap of hedonics on this chart to turn a line which is plunging southward into a curve which is ascending in a firm northerly direction. But that hocus pocus occurs in the spending accounts, not here. What this graph explains is something far more logical. Aggregate labor hours have not grown since 1998 because in many important sectors of the US industrial economy, employment and shipments have been chronically shrinking.

Likewise, the missing gains cannot possibly be found in many of the other manufacturing industries which have essentially been off-shored since the mid-1990. Here are three examples where nominal output is essentially flat; where labor hours have been steadily falling; and where it would take more hedonics magic to turn the trend into real gains.

Another non-candidate for the missing $3.5 trillion of business sector output is the construction industry. Yet once again, the tepid recovery we have had to date from the 2009 bottom does not get new housing construction—the largest component of the overall construction industry back close to its 1998 level. So Waldo is not lurking there, either.

In truth, Waldo is actually to be found in the place where Keynesian economists live—that is, in the spending accounts, and the deflators which are applied to them. As will be shown in Part 2, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the 2.0% GDP deflator for 1998-2013 captures the actual inflation experienced by the American economy during that 15 year period. Accordingly, there is every reason to believe that real GDP growth has been considerably lower than reported. That is, it has been more consistent with a stagnant economy that generated zero labor hour growth in the business sector; a pick-up in food stamps and disability dependency from 23 million to 60 million over the 15 year period; and which saw real household income fall from $57k to $52K or by 8%. Stated different, the truth about the Fed’s dangerously misguided ZIRP policy is that it generates a ZIRP economy.






MORE GRAPHS AT LINK

THIS IS A MUST READ, TOO!

WHAT STOCKMAN IS SAYING IS THAT THE NUMBER-MASSAGERS ARE CALLING INFLATION "GROWTH" AND THE DECEIT RIPPLES THROUGH EVERY NUMBER THEY TOUCH.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/01/luxury/wealthy-tax-residence/

Increasing numbers of the wealthy global elite are saying goodbye to their home country and taking up residence elsewhere in an effort to preserve their riches. Popular destination countries like Cyprus, Spain and Australia have programs that offer a path to citizenship or permanent residency -- for those who can afford to pay up. Right now, immigrant investor programs are available in about 20 countries around the globe, including the U.S., Europe, and island nations in the Caribbean. More are on the way, especially as countries still reeling from the global financial crisis seek to energize their economies.

While some individuals can maintain their citizenship status with their home countries, others from nations that do not allow dual citizenship must turn in their passports in order to adopt a new country...In recent years, "there have been many countries offering investment immigration targeted at wealthy individuals," according to a report by Arton Capital, which advises governments and individuals regarding such programs, and Wealth-X, a research firm. "As a pure investment, some of these programs are very attractive to ultra high net worth individuals." That's because the programs are quite affordable for the world's uber rich. Required investments range from $500,000 to several million dollars and are often "a very small fraction of someone's net worth," said Mykolas Rambus, CEO of Wealth-X.
Bulgaria, for example, requires investors to hold $700,000 in government bonds for five years, while St. Kitts & Nevis in the Caribbean mandates a $400,000 investment in real estate or the nation's sugar industry. Other countries demand hefty property purchases, putting a few million on deposit in a domestic bank or into projects that support job creation.

A decade ago, only a handful of these programs existed. Now, as new countries join the fray, roughly 20,000 rich individuals are rushing to apply each year, often in hopes of preserving their wealth. While lower income taxes are sometimes a plus, some applicants are also looking to avoid inheritance taxes. Over the next three decades, the children of the super wealthy are set to inherit more than $16 trillion. Other incentives include access to better education, a desire to escape political instability, visa-free travel to more countries or higher standards of living, said Armand Arton, president of Arton Capital.

In extreme cases, the craftiest individuals may even be able to avoid taxes by bouncing around the globe armed with multiple citizenships and residence permits. It's possible to "spend a number of days here, a certain number of days there -- and if you keep moving around, you never establish a long-enough term to be subject to permanent taxable residency," said David Kuenzi, founder of investment advisory Thun Financial.


Most immigrant investors are coming from the Middle East, followed by India and China, Arton said. And more rich Russians have inquired about such programs lately, given political instability in that region. Europe remains the most popular destination, followed by island nations in the Caribbean -- where some countries levy no personal income, capital gains or inheritance tax. While those two regions are popular with investors from the Middle East, the Chinese seem most drawn to the American Dream, Arton said. The U.S. program is also attractive as it offers a green card, a better alternative for the Chinese, who are barred from having dual citizenship. In fact, the Chinese now account for 80% of the U.S. immigrant investor program, according to a CNNMoney analysis of U.S. government data.

"Those who are globally minded who have quite a bit of wealth -- this is becoming a must-have," Rambus said.

NOW I ASK YOU....DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE? HOW DOES THE UNITED STATES COME OUT OF THIS STRONGER? ALL IT SAYS IS THAT THE COUNTRY IS FOR SALE, AND THE 1% ARE FREE TO EXPLOIT THE 99% NATIVE-BORN. SELLING ONES BIRTHRIGHT FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/04/the-second-largest-religion-in-each-state/

Christianity is by far the largest religion in the United States; more than three-quarters of Americans identify as Christians. A little more than half of us identify as Protestants, about 23 percent as Catholic and about 2 percent as Mormon.

But what about the rest of us? In the Western U.S., Buddhists represent the largest non-Christian religious bloc in most states. In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and Delaware, and there are more practitioners of the Baha’i faith in South Carolina than anyone else.






TOO BAD THEY DON'T TABULATE THE ATHEISTS.

AND ALL THAT WAS NEEDED, WAS PUTTING MONEY INTO IT...AND TAKING OFF ALL THE BUDGET-BASED CONSTRAINTS ON ELIGIBILITY. NO MASSIVE OBAMACARE BUREAUCRACY NEEDED TO BE IMPOSED LIKE A CRUSHING STONE ON THE POPULATION....

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-rt-us-usa-healthcare-medicaid-20140604%2c0%2c3680375.story

Six million people have enrolled in government healthcare programs for the poor, including Medicaid, since the launch of Obamacare health insurance enrollment on Oct. 1, the Obama administration said on Wednesday. The total, which includes 1.1 million people who enrolled in April alone, does not indicate specifically how many people have gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid, a program run by states but overseen by the federal government. But the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said enrollment in states that have expanded Medicaid grew much faster than in other states -- 15.3 percent, vs. 3.3 percent in states that have not expanded the program.

Enrollment figures including existing Medicaid programs and the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage for children from families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but still cannot afford private coverage.

President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy, the law known as Obamacare, was designed to extend health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans through subsidized private health insurance and by expanding Medicaid to people with incomes of up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $15,521 for an individual and $31,721 for a family of four...

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/obamacare-affordable-care-act-107436.html



About 2 million people enrolled in Obamacare exchanges submitted information that doesn’t match up with federal records, potentially jeopardizing the coverage and federal subsidies for some of them, the Obama administration said Wednesday afternoon....


AND OF COURSE, IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S INFORMATION THAT'S FAULTY....LET ALONE WHY THE HELL THEY NEED THAT MUCH INFORMATION...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/06/recovery-2014-economy-wall-street-washington-hype

Forget the cheerleading from the White House. Nevermind the latest job numbers. Look at your wallets. Despite the persistent happy talk about a recovery, and the hundreds of charts that come along with it, the US economy is not getting better – it may actually be getting worse.

There are millions of Americans who hoped 2014 would be the year their financial lives would improve. After the struggle of a stagnant country since 2009, economic forecasts predicted that a real recovery was coming - that this this would be the year for a well-paying new job, a house, the year those Americans would pay off student loans or reduce their credit-card debt.

But nothing can really improve for us individually until everything improves for all of us economically. And, increasingly, that utopia looks distant. According to the numbers – and to an increasingly frustrated group of experts – the first few months of 2014 are turning out to be a bust, and there’s no reason to believe the rest of the year will be any better, for the haves or the have-nots.

First, there are the basics. This year has started with bad news for consumers: a weaker housing market, anemic employment with 10m people out of work and millions of others not even looking any more, plus economic growth that’s lower than it’s been in three years.

Cross posted from the Video forum.