I'm gonna get a pit bull and name it Spike.

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/18/5_political_crises_that_threaten_the_global_economy_partner/

1. Iraq and Syria: Two conflicts beat as one

The Middle East as you’ve known it no longer exists.

An Islamic militant group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) this week raced across large parts of Iraq, taking Mosul and other Iraqi cities as its fighters marched, menacingly, toward Baghdad.


2. China vs. Japan: Asia’s next great war?

Of course, the Middle East doesn’t have a monopoly on conflict. It looks increasingly like the two most important economies in Asia could be headed in that very ugly direction.

This week Japan formally protested after Chinese SU-27 fighter jets flew “abnormally close” to Japanese military aircraft in the East China Sea.

The root of this Asian political crisis is economic in nature. Both China and Japan claim a chain of strategically placed islands in the East China Sea — the Diaouyu to the Chinese, the Senkaku to Japan.

3. The rise of Europe’s far right

As any student of 20th-century Europe can tell you, the place doesn’t always shine during periods of economic peril.

4. Russia vs. Ukraine (and the rest of Europe): Back in the USSR?

Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolt and the subsequent Russian annexation of Crimea topped global headlines this spring. Today, the country has a new president (chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko), and the global news cycle has since returned to “normal.”

which has created and fomented all of these conflicts...with the possible exception of the Chinese.

Although, if the Chinese didn't have the export income from the US jobs exported to China, they might not be feeling their oats right now.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SMALLBIZ_LENDING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-18-06-12-21

NEW YORK (AP) -- Banks are making it easier for small businesses to get loans, and they're giving companies better terms and lower interest rates.

That's the conclusion of researchers at Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management and Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp., who Wednesday released the results of a survey on small business financing.

Forty-four percent of the small businesses surveyed last month said they received bank loans during the previous three months. That's a sizeable increase from 39 percent in February and 34 percent last fall.

The Pepperdine Private Capital Access Index for small businesses rose to 27.7 from 27.1 in February. It measures companies' demand for and ease in getting financing, including loans.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/no-breakthrough-vietnam-china-talks

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A top Chinese diplomat and Vietnamese officials made no progress in talks Wednesday about an increasingly bitter confrontation over a giant oil rig China deployed in the disputed South China Sea, officials said.

State Councilor Yang Jiechi was the most senior Chinese diplomat to visit Vietnam since China placed the rig off the Vietnamese coast last month. Both countries have accused the other of violating territorial rights and instigating clashes between ships around the rig.

A Vietnamese official familiar with the talks said that no progress was made during the discussion between Yang and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said that the two sides still insisted on their opposing positions.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-18-04-52-09

LONDON (AP) -- Policymakers at the Bank of England voted unanimously to keep interest rates at a record low of 0.5 percent - unwilling to tamper with an economy that is returning to normal.

Minutes published Wednesday for the June meeting showed policymakers were united in voting to keep interest rates steady, particularly since inflation remained in check. But the minutes show that policymakers are looking for a sustained rise in real wages before acting. Such a rise would suggest that slack in the economy had been eroded.

They were also united in opting to refrain from pumping more money into the economy.

The bank's governor, Mark Carney, predicted last week that an interest rate hike might come sooner than markets expect - and many had expected some divisions on the committee.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WORLD_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-18-05-37-16

HONG KONG (AP) -- World stocks were muted as investors awaited an update on the U.S. economy later Wednesday from the Federal Reserve following its two-day policy meeting, while Japanese markets rose on a weaker yen.

Equity investors have been holding back this week as they looked ahead to the Fed's meeting and its implications for the economy. The central bank was expected to update its forecasts for the world's biggest economy and scale back economic stimulus another notch. It was less certain whether policymakers would give any hints on when they want to start raising short-term interest rates from record lows.

"Markets will focus on any adjustments to growth and inflation outlook, and especially on any shifts in guidance provided on the timing of the first hike," analysts at Mizuho Bank said in a report.

Investors will be looking for clear signs on the direction of the U.S. economy following some mixed data that showed U.S. inflation hitting its highest level in more than a year but home construction data disappointed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/going-carney-2014-6

The Fed's next monetary policy decision is today, and one of the questions going around is whether Fed Chief Janet Yellen is going to go "Carney" or maybe even "The Full Carney."
Last week, Bank of England chief Mark Carney warned that interest rate hikes could come sooner than markets currently expect.

Specifically he said:

The MPC’s current guidance makes clear that we will set monetary policy to meet the inflation target while using up that spare capacity. This has implications for the timing, pace and degree of Bank Rate increases. There’s already great speculation about the exact timing of the first rate hike and this decision is becoming more balanced. It could happen sooner than markets currently expect. But to be clear, the MPC has no pre-set course. The ultimate decision will be data-driven.

So the big question is whether Yellen says anything similar tomorrow.

In a note to clients, Citi's currency analyst Steven Englander asked: Will FOMC/USD have a Carney/GBP moment?



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/going-carney-2014-6#ixzz34zBBqhKI

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-a-quarter-of-indias-land-is-turning-into-desert-minister-2014-18

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - About a quarter of India's land is turning to desert and degradation of agricultural areas is becoming a severe problem, the environment minister said, potentially threatening food security in the world's second most populous country.
India occupies just 2 percent of the world's territory but is home to 17 percent of its population, leading to over-use of land and excessive grazing. Along with changing rainfall patterns, these are the main causes of desertification.

"Land is becoming barren, degradation is happening," said Prakash Javadekar, minister for environment, forests and climate change. "A lot of areas are on the verge of becoming deserts but it can be stopped."

Land degradation - largely defined as loss of productivity - is estimated at 105 million hectares, constituting 32 percent of the total land.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-a-quarter-of-indias-land-is-turning-into-desert-minister-2014-18#ixzz34zBtKXdm

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-new-default-for-argentina-wont-be-as-bad-as-last-default-2014-17

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina's battle with investors who rejected its proposals to restructure debt risks pushing the nation into a new default that would wreck its attempts to return to credit markets but not have the same economic effect as its catastrophic 2001-02 default.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear Argentina's appeal against lower court rulings that ordered it to pay in full the hedge funds which refused 2005 and 2010 debt swaps on $100 billion in debt.

As the risk of default rises, Argentina must now either negotiate a deal with the funds it dismisses as "vultures" or quickly find a way around the court rulings that would prevent it from paying holders of its restructured debt if it doesn't also agree to pay the holdouts.

Argentina's battle with investors who rejected its proposals to restructure debt risks pushing the nation into a new default that would wreck its attempts to return to credit markets but not have the same economic effect as its catastrophic 2001-02 default.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-new-default-for-argentina-wont-be-as-bad-as-last-default-2014-17#ixzz34zCHPfYv

http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-all-star-team-for-digital-tech-2014-6

McDonald's is opening up shop in the Bay Area, only this particular establishment won't sell Happy Meals.
The world's largest fast-food restaurant has a new office on San Francisco's Market Street, opened with the intent of creating new digital technology for the company, Ad Age reports.

McDonald's Chief Digital Officer Atif Rafiq leads the Bay Area operation; he arrived at the company last fall after stints at Amazon, Yahoo, and AOL.

Just recently he oversaw the launch of McDonald's augmented reality app for the World Cup, and now he's working with a team of tech minds from companies like PayPal, Facebook, Xbox, and others, Ad Age reports.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-all-star-team-for-digital-tech-2014-6#ixzz34zGyFNZg

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-17/pfizer-to-at-t-made-political-footballs-in-shaky-recovery.html

Amid the raft of multi-billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions this year, a new player has entered negotiations: politicians.

Two Congressional committees are studying AT&T Inc. (T)’s $48.5 billion takeover of DirecTV (DTV), while Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s $45.2 billion offer for Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) faced tough questioning last month at a House hearing. Politicians are also trying to crack down on overseas mergers intended to escape U.S. corporate taxes. Across the Atlantic, U.K. lawmakers fought Pfizer Inc. (PFE)’s shelved $118 billion offer for AstraZeneca Plc (AZN), and their French counterparts have challenged General Electric Co. (GE)’s $17 billion bid for Alstom SA (ALO)’s power assets.

As the U.S. and Europe struggle with weak job creation and stalled wages, lawmakers are increasingly injecting themselves into announced mergers by raising concerns over layoffs or industries dominated by a few huge companies. Such attempts are putting some of the biggest transactions under the magnifying glass, and are likely to become more common, especially in high-profile industries like telecommunications and healthcare.

“Once in a blue moon, takeovers do spill into the public consciousness, and in terms of doing deals it completely changes the dynamics,” said Stephen Blackshaw, a partner in London at law firm Sidley Austin LLP. “There’s no doubt that we are in a wave of popular debate or outrage.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/-120-seen-danger-point-for-oil-return-as-economic-threat.html

The global economy faces a new threat from an old enemy: oil.

A spike in the price of crude foreshadowed economic slumps in each of the last four decades and economists are worrying anew after Brent touched its highest price in nine months above $113 a barrel amid fresh violence in Iraq, OPEC’s second biggest producer. Brent started the year about $6 cheaper.

The rule of thumb favored by many economists is that every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil ends up cutting global growth by about 0.2 percentage point. That’s not an inconsequential amount for an already lackluster expansion. The World Bank last week cut its outlook for 2014 global growth to 2.8 percent.

“There is no doubt that, beyond a certain point, higher prices become a major constraint on global economic activity, particularly if the price reflects supply problems rather than buoyant demand,” said Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/boe-surprised-by-low-probability-attached-to-2014-rate-increase.html

Bank of England policy makers said a rate increase this year may be more likely than investors anticipate as the debate on the timing of the first policy tightening in seven years heats up.

In the minutes of its June 4-5 meeting, the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said the economy could maintain its pace of growth, and slack “would be absorbed more quickly than had previously been expected.”

“In that context, the relatively low probability attached to a bank rate increase this year implied by some financial market prices was somewhat surprising,” the BOE said.

The meeting took place before Governor Mark Carney said last week that interest rates might start to rise earlier than anticipated. His comments prompted investors to bring forward their bets on the timing of the first increase.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-17/there-might-be-a-lot-of-insider-trading

Andrew Ross Sorkin has a column today about a new study of options trading before merger announcements, by Patrick Augustin, Menachem Brenner and Marti Subrahmanyam. And ... I mean, it's almost too perfect. Everything you'd predict, if you were maximally cynical, the researchers found. Here are the astounding highlights:

There is abnormal options volume in the 30 days preceding a substantial minority of merger announcements.2

"The proportion of cases with abnormal volumes is relatively higher for call options (26%) than for put options (15%)."

There's more abnormal trading in advance of cash acquisitions than stock ones, since cash deals usually result in bigger price jumps for the target.

"There is significantly higher abnormal trading volume (both in average levels and frequencies) in OTM call options compared to at-the-money (ATM) and in-the-money (ITM) calls." That is: Use of out-of-the-money call options, the most obvious way to insider trade, the Forbidden Option, increases not only absolutely but also compared with other call options in advance of a merger.

HOW CAN THEY GO BACK TO SOMEWHERE THEY'VE NEVER ACTUALLY BEEN? CAN'T STEP INTO THE SAME RIVER TWICE, ANYWAY!







I WONDER IF THAT WOULD WORK ON REPUBLICANS?

The clouds were so low, they looked like they touched the treetops.

And now the deluge! Rain at last! Hope it cools and dries out the air...

Now THAT'S a storm!

http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/06/revolving-doors-from-goldman-sachs-to.html


The passage of Gikas Hardouvelis, the new Greek Minister of Finance, from Eurobank to the Presidential Office, back again to Eurobank and after that to the Ministry of Finance, is one of the most characteristic phenomenon of what the Anglo-Saxons call "revolving door". The difference is that, in Greece, some people have stopped even to preserve the pretexts

by Aris Chatzistefanou

Tür ohne Luftzug - A door without airstreams. This is the name used by the German H. Bockhacker in 1881 to patent the construction of the known revolving door. A few decades later, the specific mechanism which allowed people to enter a high building without the powerful airstreams, became a characteristic of the skyscrapers that started to appear in the urban scenery of the American cities. In such a skyscraper in Manhattan or Washington, the term "revolving door" was used for the first time to describe the passage of big private companies' executives to government positions and vice versa. The term will appear later in English dictionaries of the 70s, but the phenomenon is as old as capitalism and urban democracy. The bankers and big businessmen were entering European governments, without being elected, during 20th century - they were either technocrats in the Weimar Republic, or funders of Hitler who later became executives in Hitler's governmental mechanism.

In modern Germany, the example of Gerhard Schröder, who came out of the German Chancellor "revolving door" and went to the offices of the Russian natural gas company Gazprom, is considered one of the most characteristic cases of conflict interests - together of course with the "green" Minister of Foreign Affairs Joschka Fischer, who after he left the Schröder administration, he was hired as a consultant in the consortium for the construction of the natural gas pipe Nabucco. In the US, the "revolving door" phenomenon is lost during the last two centuries, but will take its current shape after the end of the WWII, when the president Eisenhower placed Charles Erwin Wilson, CEO of General Motors, in the position of Secretary of Defense (be careful, not to confuse him with Charles Edward Wilson, which was the CEO of General Electric and served Truman administration!). The fact that General Motors played a crucial role for the armament of Nazi Germany and specifically, for the military technology used for the Blitzkrieg against Poland, seems that didn't bother the "General of Victory" who opened the doors of the White House to the representatives of the American automobile industry and when a Congress committee asked Charles Erwin Wilson what would happen if the national interest of the United States was opposite to that of his company, he gave the historic answer "What's good for General Motors is good for the country". (CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR...A FILM I CAN'T BEAR TO TRY TO WATCH)

Thankfully for the "revolving doors" of the American multinationals, Congress committees has stopped a long time ago to make such an annoying questions when the Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney, became CEO of Halliburton and returned as vice-president. In his first governmental term, he offered to the company contracts of millions of dollars to handle the fires in oil rigs in Kuwait, while when he became vice-president, he literally delivered Iraq to Halliburton and its partners. Similarly, the Chevron executive and later Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, served her position in such a remarkable success that the company gave her name to a tanker of 120,000 tonnes.

However, the company that would literally occupy the American government was the banking giant Goldman Sachs. From the four latest CEOs of the bank, Henry Paulson became Secretary of the Treasury, Stephen Friedman became a key consultant of president Bush for the economy, and Robert Rubin was a key consultant of president Clinton while he also became later Secretary of the Treasury. Even the head of the Bush presidential office came from this bank. The European course of the specific financial institution is quite known as Goldman Sachs started to put its employees in the ECB, Commission and even in the Italian presidential office, while no one can forget that the former top executive of the Greek Public Debt Management Agency, Petros Christodoulou, was also Goldman Sachs' employee prior to his term in National Bank of Greece...Many governments voted for laws to treat corruption and conflict interests that come from "revolving doors", like for example, the fact that governmental officials are not allowed to take positions in companies right after the end of their term, or the opposite. Japan is trying to limit the Amakudari (descent from heaven) phenomenon, that is, the unwritten law according to which all governmental officials are hired immediately by big multinationals after the end of their term...The only country that truly managed to break the "revolving doors" is Greece with the Gikas Hardouvelis case. As George Vassalos, former member of the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) had once explained on Infowar, Hardouvelis entered Megaro Maximou, the official seat of the Prime Minister of Greece, as consultant of Lucas Papademos without being retired from his position in Latsis' Eurobank, as he received a simple unpaid leave. Further than this, he was negotiating with international banking lobby IIF, for the future of the Greek banks, with Eurobank being member of this lobby.

Who needs a "revolving door" in a presidential office or a ministry when the companies and the banks are already inside?

To summarize: The Greek government is just exchanging banking puppets in key positions

https://news.yahoo.com/ex-madoff-accountant-expected-plead-guilty-court-hearing-191021868--sector.html

Bernard Madoff's former accountant is expected to plead guilty to charges in connection with the convicted swindler's massive Ponzi scheme, a U.S. prosecutor said at a Tuesday court hearing. Paul Konigsberg, a former senior tax partner at Konigsberg Wolf & Co, will likely enter a guilty plea next week under a cooperation agreement with the government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Schwartz said.

"We are finalizing the terms of a plea," Schwartz told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan.

Konigsberg and his attorney, Reed Brodsky, attended the hearing but did not discuss plea details. The nature of Konigsberg's proposed cooperation is unclear. No criminal charges are pending against other defendants in the Madoff case, though several have yet to be sentenced...Konigsberg would be the 15th defendant to plead guilty or be convicted at trial in connection with Madoff's fraud, estimated to have cost customers more than $17 billion in principal...

Konigsberg, who is in his 70s, was charged in September with two counts of conspiracy and three counts of falsifying records and statements. Prosecutors accused him of manipulating trades, including by backdating transactions, to make it appear that Madoff's customers were receiving their promised investment returns. He was also charged with helping Madoff conceal the fraud by arranging for customers to receive "amended" account statements that included fake trading records. Konigsberg faces a parallel civil lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/opinion/the-limits-of-the-fed.html

The Federal Reserve is expected to conclude its two-day meeting on Wednesday afternoon with another $10 billion scale-back of its monthly bond purchases. At that pace, the bond-buying program — an effort to stimulate the economy by lowering long-term interest rates — will be over by December at the latest. Unfortunately, the slow and steady withdrawal of stimulus has not been accompanied by a slow and steady improvement in economic conditions. Rather, since the economy emerged from recession in mid-2009, growth has averaged a sluggish 2 percent or so — year in and year out.

That is not to fault the Fed for winding down the bond purchases. The point of the program is to propel growth, so if growth is not accelerating, the program has run its course. Besides, the Fed is not giving up. By all indications, it will not begin to raise the current near-zero short-term rates until at least the middle of next year.

In that light, the Fed’s moves are less about confidence in the economy and more about the limits of its present tools to change conditions. When the Fed met in April, for example, the government’s initial estimate of growth in the first quarter of 2014 was an anemic 0.1 percent, which the Fed attributed to the rough winter. Since then, the initial estimate has been revised downward, to a contraction of 1 percent. The final estimate, to be released at the end of June, is expected to be worse still. Even if growth rebounds as projected, overall economic performance for the year would still end up around 2 percent. That is not a cause for optimism...Even signs of life that the Federal Reserve and its chairwoman, Janet Yellen, have identified as vital to a real recovery — modestly higher inflation and a stronger job market — are not as reassuring as they appear. For instance, inflation over the past year recently clocked in at 2.1 percent, a level the Fed aims for. But, at that rate, hourly and weekly pay for private-sector American workers has fallen over the past year, by 0.1 percent, after adjusting for inflation.

In a normal business cycle, low interest rates are usually enough to generate sufficient demand to boost economic growth to its historical average of roughly 3 percent. But there is nothing normal about the present cycle. The Fed has extracted about all the juice it can from low rates and continues to squeeze. It could also spur investment by tolerating higher inflation than its 2 percent target. But the basic problem — spurring demand on the part of consumers and borrowers — is outside its purview. Only Congress can provide the extra dollars for that, but lawmakers have been unwilling or unable to take action, even just to provide basics like federal unemployment benefits or highway and bridge repair. Given that failure to act, it is a wonder the economy has managed to grow at 2 percent.

To assume that it will continue to do so or that it will fully recover without the government sector engaging in a meaningful way is to hope against evidence.



I WOULDN'T FRET...ANY DAY NOW THERE WILL COME REVELATIONS OF HOW THAT PARTICULAR GOVERNMENT-GENERATED NUMBER IS AS FRAUDULENT AS THE REST.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-17/japan-futures-rise-with-dollar-before-fed-as-crude-climbs.html

Emerging-market currencies in Asia fell with stocks outside Japan before the Federal Reserve reports on monetary policy and amid speculation U.S. interest-rate increases will be brought forward. Shares in Europe gained while zinc rose to the highest in 16 months as wheat and corn advanced.

Indonesia’s rupiah dropped 0.8 percent as at 8:32 a.m. in London, while Malaysia’s ringgit sank 0.3 percent and Thailand’s baht declined 0.1 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.2 percent while Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures were little changed. A gauge of Asian equities outside Japan lost 0.4 percent as South Korea’s Kospi index slipped 0.6 percent. Zinc advanced 0.7 percent, rising for a fourth day, and wheat and corn added at least 0.3 percent.

U.S. rates will be raised faster than investors expect, economists surveyed by Bloomberg June 12-16 predicted, with data yesterday showing inflation quickened in May by the most in more than a year. The Fed is expected to announce the fifth cut to stimulus at the end of its meeting today. In Asia, new home prices in China rose last month in 15 out of 70 cities versus 44 in April. Thailand is projected to keep its key rate unchanged.

“Last night’s U.S. consumer-price data has made people fear that the Fed will bring forward its forecast timing of the first rate hike,” Tim Condon, the Singapore-based head of Asian research at ING Groep NV said. “That would be negative for all risky assets.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/orban-struggling-to-curb-foreign-bond-demand-east-europe-credit.html

Foreign investors are building up forint bond holdings to the most in five months, driving yields to record lows, as they disregard efforts by Prime Minister Viktor Orban to cut Hungary’s reliance on international funding.

Non-residents raised their holdings of domestic government debt to 4.97 trillion forint ($21.9 billion) on June 12, the highest level since January, according to data from the Debt Management Agency. Foreigners held 41.7 percent of outstanding notes as of April, compared with 19 percent for higher-rated Romanian leu securities. The yield on Hungary’s benchmark 10-year forint bonds fell to a record 4.41 percent on June 6 and rose to 4.61 percent by 8:43 a.m. in Budapest.

While Orban is seeking to reduce the risk of a potential selloff fueled by overseas investors, he’s benefiting from falling borrowing costs as foreigners snap up the debt amid Europe’s longest cycle of interest-rate cuts by the central bank. The government also suspended Eurobond issuance for the rest of the year in May and refashioned debt instruments to encourage reliance on household savings and domestic banks.

“While foreign financing contains risks, it also conveys trust in Hungary’s debt,” Sandor Jobbagy, a fixed-income analyst at CIB Bank Zrt., a unit of Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, said by phone yesterday. “Reducing Hungary’s external vulnerability is definitely important. Foreign ownership of forint debt is very concentrated. It’s a slow process.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-17/basque-nation-building-lures-emigrants-home-to-bilbao.html

Ramon de la Sota returned to Spain to set up investment firm ARGI Industrial Partners -- and work toward making his Basque homeland an independent European state.

“We’re very Basque nationalist,” de la Sota, 35, a former General Electric Co. (GE) executive who studied at Insead business school in Paris, said over lunch with a group of fellow returnees in downtown Bilbao. “But independence is a long-term project. There are things we have to do first. The dream is to build an international champion based here.”

With a new king, Felipe VI, preparing to take the throne tomorrow and Scots and Catalans readying for back-to-back referendums on independence later this year, constitutional reform has been thrust on to the agenda in Spain. Yet for leaders in Bilbao, the business capital of the northern Basque region, building up the economy comes before joining the rush to redraw the map of Europe.

“We are paying very close attention to what happens in Scotland and Catalonia,” Bilbao Mayor Ibon Areso, a member of the Basque Nationalist Party, said in an interview. “But at the moment our priority is the economy and creating jobs.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/levin-hearing-ups-volume-in-high-frequency-call-to-action.html

For the U.S. stock market’s biggest players, the writing on the wall is getting easier to read.

Executives from exchange operators and fund companies are starting to join lawmakers and regulators in warning that the world’s largest equities market is beset with conflicts that can harm investors and undermine confidence.

Support for a solution increased yesterday at a hearing led by Senator Carl Levin as representatives from New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE), IEX Group Inc. and Vanguard Group Inc. said trading rebates and payments to brokers for investor trades warrant greater government scrutiny. The systems, embedded in market plumbing over the last two decades, were cited as one of the reasons high-frequency firms now account for about half of volume.

“Hopefully the regulatory agencies are going to take action,” Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said at the end of the half-day hearing of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “There are steps which must be taken either by regulators or by Congress to deal with conflicts and to deal with the other kinds of problems which exist in the current market, because it’s clear there can be improvements.”

god, I hate the banksters and their little friends.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27886361

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that Argentina's legal defeat in its fight against hedge fund investors may have wider implications.

On Monday, a US Supreme Court ruling sided with bondholders demanding Argentina pay them $1.3bn (£766m).

The IMF said it was concerned about "broader systemic implications".

Meanwhile the ratings agency S&P cut Argentina's credit rating, warning the ruling made it more likely that the country would default.

Actually, Tarr worked for Royal Alliance Associates, a brokerage firm owned by insurer American International Group (AIG) She encouraged hundreds of departing AT&T employees to roll over their retirement money into the kind of risky high-commission investments that Wall Street's self-regulatory agency warns against on its website.

"You're going into the wild, wild west when you take your money out of a 401k and put it into an IRA," said Karen Friedman, executive vice president and policy director of the Pension Rights Center, a Washington-based group representing retirees.

http://money.msn.com/investing/post--retirees-lose-brokers-win-in-401k-rollover-boom

FRSP for Wall St.