http://robertreich.org/post/129646556930

WHY? BECAUSE THEY CHEAT ON THEIR TAXES AND COLLUDE WITH THE NSA TO DESTROY THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS. AND BUY ELECTIONS. AND BECOMES SHADOW BANKS. AND RAN A BIG WAGE-SUPPRESSION CONSPIRACY FOR YEARS. AND OTHER THINGS THAT WILL BE REVEALED AT A LATER DATE...



Conservatives and liberals interminably debate the merits of “the free market” versus “the government.” Which one you trust more delineates the main ideological divide in America. In reality, they aren’t two separate things and there can’t be a market without government. Legislators, agency heads and judges decide the rules of the game. And, over time, they change the rules. The important question, too rarely discussed, is who has the most influence over these decisions and in that way wins the game.

Two centuries ago slaves were among the nation’s most valuable assets, and a century ago, perhaps the most valuable asset was land. Then came another shift as factories, machines, railroads and oil transformed America. By the 1920s most Americans were employees, and the most contested property issue was their freedom to organize into unions. In more recent years, information and ideas have become the most valuable forms of property. This property can’t be concretely weighed or measured, and most of the cost of producing it goes into discovering it or making the first copy. After that, the additional production cost is often zero. Such “intellectual property” is the key building block of the new economy. Without government decisions over what it is, and who can own it and on what terms, the new economy could not exist.

But as has happened before with other forms of property, the most politically influential owners of the new property are doing their utmost to increase their profits by creating monopolies that must eventually be broken up. The most valuable intellectual property are platforms so widely used that everyone else has to use them, too. Think of standard operating systems like Microsoft’s Windows or Google’s Android; Google’s search engine; Amazon’s shopping system; and Facebooks’ communication network. Google runs two-thirds of all searches in the United States. Amazon sells more than 40 percent of new books. Facebook has nearly 1.5 billion active monthly users worldwide. This is where the money is.

Despite an explosion in the number of websites over the last decade, page views are becoming more concentrated. While in 2001, the top 10 websites accounted for 31 percent of all page views in America, by 2010 the top 10 accounted for 75 percent. Google and Facebook are now among the first stops for many Americans seeking news — while Internet traffic to national newspapers, network television and other news gathering agencies has fallen well below 50 percent of all traffic. Meanwhile, Amazon is now the first stop for almost a third of all American consumers seeking to buy anything. Talk about power. Whenever markets become so concentrated, consumers end up paying more than they otherwise would, and innovations are squelched. Sure, big platforms let creators showcase and introduce new apps, songs, books, videos and other content. But most of the profits go to the platforms’ owners, who have all bargaining power. Which is why writers, musicians, visual artists, photographers, videographers, journalists and other content creators are receiving less and less for their work.

Contrary to the conventional view of an American economy bubbling with innovative small companies, the reality is quite different. Big Tech’s sweeping patents, standard platforms, fleets of lawyers to litigate against potential rivals and armies of lobbyists have created formidable barriers to new entrants. This is one reason the rate that new businesses have formed in the United States has slowed markedly. Between 1978 and 2011, as the new giants gained control, that rate was nearly halved. The patent system is crucial to this slowing of innovation. The law gives 20 years of patent protection to inventions that are “new and useful,” as decided by the Patent and Trademark Office. But the winners are big enough to game the system. They make small improvements warranting new patents, effectively making their intellectual property permanent. They also lay claim to whole terrains of potential innovation including ideas barely on drawing boards and flood the system with so many applications that lone inventors have to wait years. The White House intellectual property adviser, Colleen V. Chien, noted in 2012 that Google and Apple were spending more money acquiring patents (not to mention litigating them) than on doing research and development.

Antitrust laws used to fight this sort of market power. In the 1990s, the federal government accused Microsoft of illegally bundling its popular Windows operating system with its Internet Explorer browser to create an industry standard that stifled competition. Microsoft settled the case by agreeing to share its programming interfaces with other companies. But since then Big Tech has been almost immune to antitrust, even though the largest tech companies have more market power than ever. Maybe these tech companies have actually avoided wrongdoing as they accumulate unprecedented market share. Or maybe they’ve accumulated enough political power to keep antitrust regulators at bay.

In 2012, the staff of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition submitted to the commissioners a 160-page analysis of Google’s dominance in the search and related advertising markets, and recommended suing Google for conduct that “has resulted — and will result — in real harm to consumers and to innovation.” But the commissioners chose not to pursue a case. Investigators also found evidence that Google was pushing it’s own products ahead of competitors’ on search results, though they did not recommend a lawsuit on this point...It’s unusual for commissioners not to accept staff recommendations, and they didn’t give a full explanation. The FTC noted a competing internal report that recommended against legal action, but another plausible reason has to do with Google’s political clout. Google is now among the largest corporate lobbyists in the United States. Around the time of the investigation the company poured money into influencing both the commissioners and the commission’s congressional overseers.

Google is heading into a major fight with antitrust officials in the European Union for some of the same reasons the F.T.C. staff went after it. Not incidentally, Europe is also investigating Amazon for allegedly stifling competition in e-books, and Apple for doing the same in music. Many on this side of the Atlantic believe Europe is taking on these tech giants because they’re American. Another possible explanation is that Google, Amazon and Apple lack as much political clout in Europe as they have here. Economic and political power can’t be separated because dominant corporations gain political influence over how markets are maintained and enforced, which enlarges their economic power further. One of the original goals of antitrust law was to prevent this.

“The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power,” warned Edward G. Ryan, the chief justice of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, in 1873. Antitrust law was viewed as a means of breaking this link. “If we will not endure a king as a political power,” Senator John Sherman of Ohio thundered, “we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale” of what the nation produced.

Sherman’s Antitrust Act passed the Senate with just a single vote against, passed the House unanimously, and was signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison on July 2, 1890. Twelve years later, President Teddy Roosevelt used it against Edward H. Harriman’s giant Northern Securities Company, which dominated rail transportation in the Northwest. In 1911, President William Howard Taft broke up John D. Rockefeller’s sprawling Standard Oil empire. The underlying issue has little to do with whether one prefers the “free market” or government. The real question is how government organizes the market, and who has the most influence over its decisions. We are now in a new gilded age similar to the first Gilded Age, when the nation’s antitrust laws were enacted. As then, those with great power and resources are making the “free market” function on their behalf. Big Tech — along with the Big Pharma, giant health insurance companies, Big Agriculture, and the largest banks on Wall Street — dominate our economy and our politics.

Yet as long as we remain obsessed by the debate over the relative merits of the “free market” and “government,” we have little hope of seeing what’s occurring and taking the action that’s needed to make our economy work for the many, not the few.

This originally appeared in the September 20 edition of the New York Times. It’s drawn from my forthcoming book “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few.”

OH, YEAH. MONOPOLY....THAT'S THE ONE I WAS FORGETTING...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/france-confirms-that-google-must-remove-search-results-globally-or-face-big-fines/

Google's informal appeal against a French order to apply the so-called "right to be forgotten" to all of its global Internet services and domains, not just those in Europe, has been rejected. The president of the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), France's data protection authority, gave a number of reasons for the rejection, including the fact that European orders to de-list information from search results could be easily circumvented if links were still available on Google's other domains.

CNIL's president also claimed that "this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe."

As you've probably gathered, Google disagrees with CNIL's stance. In a July blog post regarding the case, the company's global privacy chief, Peter Fleischer, wrote: "If the CNIL’s proposed approach were to be embraced as the standard for Internet regulation, we would find ourselves in a race to the bottom. In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world’s least free place. We believe that no one country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access."

As far as CNIL is concerned, Google must now comply with its order. "Otherwise, the President of the CNIL may designate a Rapporteur who may refer to the CNIL’s sanctions committee with a view of obtaining a ruling on this matter." Those sanctions could be severe. According to The Guardian: "CNIL will likely begin to apply sanctions including the possibility of a fine in the region of €300,000 against Google, should the company refuse to comply with the order. Under incoming French regulation the fine could increase to between 2% and 5% of global operating costs." For 2014, Google's total operating costs were just under $50 billion, so potentially the fine could be from $1 billion to $2.5 billion (€900 million to €2.2 billion).

If Google is fined by CNIL in this way, it can then make a formal appeal to the French supreme court for administrative justice and argue its case in detail. Since important issues are at stake for both the company and the Internet itself, and the French government is unlikely to back down in its threat to impose fines, it seems likely that Google will end up taking this route.

http://fusion.net/story/191773/i-created-a-fake-business-and-fooled-thousands-of-people-into-thinking-it-was-real/


If you live in the Bay Area and have looked for something special to spice up a birthday party, you might have discovered the Freakin’ Awesome Karaoke Express, a truck that promises to deliver an unbelievable selection of songs to your doorstep. You might have seen a review on Yelp that said it’s perfect for a girl’s night out or a Facebook review that mentioned it being a crowd-pleaser at a neighborhood block party. You may have been impressed by its 19,000 Twitter followers, and considered hiring this mobile song-slinging truck to drive up to your next outdoor shindig.

What you probably didn’t realize was that there is no such thing as the Freakin’ Awesome Karaoke Express (or F.A.K.E., for short). I made it up and paid strangers to pump up its online footprint to make it seem real. I didn’t do it to scam anyone or even for the LULZ. I wanted to see firsthand how the fake reputation economy operates. The investigation led me to an online marketplace where a good reputation comes cheap.

For $5, I could get 200 Facebook fans, or 6,000 Twitter followers, or I could get @SMExpertsBiz to tweet about the truck to the account’s 26,000 Twitter fans. A Lincoln could get me a Facebook review, a Google review, an Amazon review, or, less easily, a Yelp review.

I found all these offers on Fiverr.com, a “global online marketplace for creative and professional services.” Launched in 2010 by two Tel Aviv-based entrepreneurs, Fiverr has raised $50 million in venture capital to give a platform to freelancers who want to hawk their services. Most of the gigs there start at $5; Fiverr makes its money by taking 20% of the payment for any gig as its commission. Fiverr’s front page offers a variety of sample gigs: “SEO articles,” freelance press release writing, and album cover design work, but I was just interested in the fake reputation gigs.

YES, OF COURSE, BOTH

http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-argument-for-higher-interest-rates-are-the-bankers-evil-or-stupid

I see my friends Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong are arguing over whether the pressure from the banking industry for the Fed to raise interest rates is the result of their calculation that higher interest rates would raise their profits or is it just ignorance of the way the economy works. Krugman argues the former and DeLong the latter. I would mostly agree with Krugman, but for a slightly different reason. I don't see the clear link, claimed by Krugman, between higher Fed interest rates and higher net lending margins for banks (the difference between the interest rate they charge on loans and the interest rate they pay on deposits). Such a link may exist, but his data don't show it. On the other hand, I think it is still not hard to make a case for banks' self-interest in following a tight money policy.

An unexpected rise in the inflation rate is clearly harmful to banks' bottom line. This will lead to a rise in long-term interest rates and loss in the value of their outstanding debt. This is very bad news for them.

While we (the three of us) can agree that such a jump in inflation is highly unlikely in the current economic situation, it is not zero. Furthermore, a stronger economy increases this risk. If we assume that the banks care little about lower unemployment (they may not be bothered by lower unemployment, but high unemployment is not something they wake up every morning worrying about), then they are faced with a trade-off between a greater risk of something they really fear and something to which they are largely indifferent. It shouldn't be surprising that they want to the Fed to act to ensure the event they really fear (higher inflation) does not happen. Hence the push to raise interest rates.

I suspect also there is a strong desire to head off any idea that the government can shape the economy in important ways. There is enormous value for the rich to believe that they got where they are through their talent and hard work and that those facing difficult economic times lack these qualities. It makes for a much more troubling world view to suggest that tens of millions of people might be struggling because of bad fiscal policy from the government and inept monetary policy by the Fed.

because they think they can get away with it, indefinitely.

and they are never accountable, always blame someone/something else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/business/dealbook/empty-floor-at-goldman-puts-change-on-display.html

When Goldman Sachs moved into its new tower near the Hudson River in 2009, the sprawling trading desks on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors were some of the most active and lucrative in the world.

Now, nearly six years later, the glass-walled sixth floor — stretching much of a city block — has become something of a ghost town, all but empty save for a few still-occupied offices. Goldman’s trimmed-down trading operations are now consolidated on two floors instead of three.

The emptying out of the sixth floor this year is a sign of the declining expectations for growth in a financial industry that is being challenged by new regulations and quickly changing technology that is making fewer traders necessary. At an industry conference last week, executives from other big Wall Street banks said they expected their trading revenue to fall roughly 5 percent in the current quarter from a year ago.

The reorganization at Goldman’s Manhattan headquarters is particularly notable because the firm is seen as the shrewdest trading house on the Street. While other banks have been shrinking their desks, Goldman — which has not publicly disclosed the emptying-out of its sixth floor — continues to have ambitions for the kind of trading that went on there...

JAMIE MUST HAVE HAD A REALLY BAD DREAM, ALA EBENEEZER SCROOGE

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/20/jp-morgan-jamie-dimon-presidential-candidates

The chief executive of one of America’s most powerful financial companies said on Sunday that CEOs have some attributes that would serve a president well, but running the country might be better left to a politician.

In an interview on NBC, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was asked by host Chuck Todd whether a CEO would make a good president. Two Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina, have experience as chief executives.

“I think some of the attributes could be good. Running things, knowing how to run things, knowing how to get good people involved,” Dimon said.

But he added: “It’s not sufficient. I think you have a whole ’nother set of attributes. I think it’s really complex politics. It’s three-dimensional chess.”

He said he had a lot of respect for how hard politicians’ jobs are...

SURE HE DOES...WHEN THEY DO WHAT HE WANTS

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/25/us-jpmorgan-commodities-henry-bath-idUSKCN0RP01O20150925?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

JPMorgan Chase & Co reaped a $150 million dividend from its metals storage business Henry Bath & Son before selling its physical commodities business last October, as the firm reported its first loss in over a decade, a filing on Thursday showed.

A review of filings to the UK business registry revealed the payout to the Wall Street bank and the loss were the first since 2002 when Henry Bath was held by Enron, the failed energy trader and one of its best-known owners in its 200-year history.

JPMorgan officials were not immediately available for comment on the matter.

The payment to JPMorgan included in a filing on Thursday illustrates the big profits made during a period when warehouse owners were under attack for exploiting exchange rules in order to collect more rent on stockpiled metals.

But the loss also underscores how quickly the lucrative business model has unraveled after the London Metal Exchange cracked down on the practices over the past two years, making it harder for storage firms to capture big profits...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=342&v=I8wmN3wvhNM

http://jalopnik.com/your-guide-to-dieselgate-volkswagens-diesel-cheating-c-1731857018

Yes, it’s a catastrophe. There’s no other way to describe the allegations from the Environmental Protection Agency that Volkswagen cheated on their emissions tests with nearly half a million TDI diesel cars. What’s at stake here? Potentially billions in fines, criminal prosecutions, VW’s reputation, and maybe even the future of diesel in the U.S. (The scandal has also gone worldwide; see update below.)

On Friday the EPA said VW found a way to circumvent emissions requirements during testing with a “defeat device” that lets the TDI cars detect when they are being tested and then emit far less than normal.

When the device is not working, and the cars are operating in regular driving, they emit 10 to 40 times more than the allowable legal levels of certain pollutants.

Make no mistake that this scandal is a huge deal. If the EPA’s allegations are true, VW knowingly broke the law with some of their most important products and could face severe financial and criminal penalties. And even in an era of recall after recall, Automotive News puts this well: “Compared with other run-ins between the EPA and automakers, VW’s alleged violation stands out in its brazenness.”

MUCH MORE

THERE ARE EVIDENTLY MANY AXES TO GRIND...HAVE AT IT!

TRULY, TO COMMIT GLOBAL FRAUD IS CRIMINAL...TO PERMIT TORTURE IS SOMETHING WORSE

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34335094

A group of former Volkswagen employees in Brazil has filed a civil lawsuit against the German carmaker. The former employees accuse the firm of allowing its workers to be detained and tortured under Brazil's military rule from 1964 to 1985. Twelve former workers say they were arrested and tortured at Volkswagen's huge factory in Sao Bernardo do Campo.

Volkswagen's subsidiary in Brazil has said that it is investigating the allegations.

"The company is contacting the parties involved to learn their versions about acts committed by former employees during the military dictatorship. Detailed investigations are being conducted," VW said in a statement to the AFP news agency.

Brazil's national truth commission last year found that abuse was rife under military rule. More than 400 people were killed or disappeared between 1964 and 1985. Many others were arrested and tortured. Trade union and left-wing activists were among those targeted and a number of companies have been accused of colluding with the repression.

'Torture at work'

In its final report, published in December 2014, the truth commission described the case of Volkswagen employee Lucio Bellentani.

"I was at work when two people with machine guns came up to me," the communist activist said.

"They held my arms behind my back and immediately put me in handcuffs. As soon as we arrived in Volkswagen's security centre, the torture began. I was beaten, punched and slapped."

According to lawyer Rosa Cardoso, 12 employees at the Sao Bernardo do Campo site near Sao Paulo were tortured, while others were laid off and placed on blacklists. When the allegations were published in the truth commission's report last year, Volkswagen said it was "pursuing any indication of possible involvement of the employees at Volkswagen do Brasil in human rights violations during the period of military dictatorship".

The firm, which is currently embroiled in a scandal after it was caught manipulating its diesel car emissions tests, has not yet responded to the news of the civil suit being filed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/25/us-usa-volkswagen-idUSKCN0RO13K20150925?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Volkswagen will name Matthias Mueller, the head of its Porsche sports car brand, as its chief executive, a source close to the matter said on Thursday, as the fallout from the U.S. vehicle emissions test rigging scandal broadened.

Mueller, 62, has been widely tipped to succeed Martin Winterkorn, who quit on Wednesday, when the German carmaker's supervisory board meets on Friday. He will take responsibility for steering Volkswagen through the biggest business crisis in its 78-year history.

The crisis deepened on Thursday as officials in Europe and the United States stepped up their investigations.

Germany's transport minister said Volkswagen had manipulated tests in Europe too...

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/24/deutsche-bank-must-face-190m-us-tax-fraud-case.html

Deutsche Bank was ordered on Thursday to face a U.S. government lawsuit seeking to recoup more than $190 million from the German bank over alleged tax fraud 15 years ago.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan rejected Deutsche Bank's arguments that the government had waited too long to sue and failed to state a legally sufficient claim.

For anyone that owns one of these since they now won't pass smog checks, at least here on the West Coast.

Can they be modified (Legitimately!) to be in compliance? If so, I expect VW will have to pick up the tab, and what will that do to vehicle performance.

If they can't be modified, then what does an owner do? They have a vehicle that won't pass emissions, and therefore can't be licensed! Sue VW for the loss? Class action suits are already started and I see no defense for VW. Even experts were fooled for years.

These cars are everywhere in the NW. My neighbors on either side of me own VW diesels and we thought about buying a VW diesel wagon last year. Thankfully my wife chose something different that she liked better and was much cheaper. Sometimes it's about luck I guess.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/alexis-tsipras-and-greece-are-still-trapped

How long will the smile on the face of Alexis Tsipras last? On Monday night, Tsipras was sworn in as the head of a new Greek government that looks very similar to the previous one. The left-wing Syriza party is again forming a coalition with a small nationalist party, Independent Greeks; together, the two parties will have a small majority in parliament.

In calling a snap election shortly after he did a U-turn and accepted a third austerity-packed bailout from Greece’s creditors, Tsipras took a political gamble. It paid off in Sunday’s elections, when Syriza won slightly more than thirty-five per cent of the votes cast, practically the same percentage it gained in the January election that brought it to power. With some of Syriza’s more radical representatives having defected to a new party that failed to win any seats, Tsipras should also theoretically be in a stronger position to push through a series of economic reforms that Greece’s creditors have demanded, including an effective raise in the retirement age and measures designed to make more people pay taxes.

Still, Tsipras and his colleagues face a monumental challenge—not only in implementing the terms of the bailout but in getting Greece’s stricken economy growing again. Unless the country can somehow engineer a recovery, it won’t be very long before it faces yet another financial crisis.

Let’s start with the task of carrying out the economic reforms, which may be the lesser of the difficulties facing Tsipras. Back in July, faced with an imminent collapse in the banking system, he reluctantly signed on to a new bailout, worth close to a hundred billion dollars, that laid out a series of steps Greece has to take before the money is disbursed. Even now, Tsipras hasn’t exactly embraced this agreement. After the result of the election became clear, he said that it had given him a “clear mandate to carry on fighting inside and outside our country to uphold the pride of our people.” But he didn’t mention anything about pension cuts, privatization, or other unpopular reforms.

In a research note released on Monday, the Wall Street ratings agency Fitch said that the Greek government’s “ownership” of the reform program “is likely to remain less than whole-hearted, and its negotiating stance unpredictable.” That seems about right. At the same time that the new Syriza government sets about passing a series of laws designed to reduce the budget deficit and open up Greece’s economy to competition—for example, by deregulating the energy market, scrapping price controls for medicines, and selling state-owned ports and airports to private companies—it will be busy recapitalizing the country’s banks, which saw big withdrawals of capital during the spring and early summer. As in other countries that have been down this path, the sight of big banks receiving large infusions of public money while budget cuts are being introduced elsewhere is likely to prove toxic politically.

Tsipras doesn’t have much choice, however. Since his government imposed emergency capital controls in late June, placing strict limits on how much cash Greeks can withdraw from banks, liquidity has been in short supply, and some parts of the economy have been reduced to barter. To restore confidence in the banking system, and to get credit flowing again, the banks’ balance sheets will have to be reinforced, and that is where a good portion of the bailout funds will be directed. As for the rest of the money, much of it will go toward interest payments on Greece’s existing mountain of debt—i.e., it will go straight back to the country’s creditors, who, at this stage, consist largely of other European Union countries, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund...

MORE BAD NEWS AT LINK

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/greece-tsipras-thomas-piketty/406417/

In the wake of the surprise reelection of Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party in Greece, the French economist Thomas Piketty discusses the need for a more active approach from European leaders when it comes to the Greek question—and for a euro-zone parliament to be established.

The Conversation: The Tsipras victory has come as a surprise to some. What has changed for Greece?

Thomas Piketty: Normally, we would expect some stability in the coming years. But above all, Greece and Europe need to make up for lost time. Until now, Europe has obstinately refused to talk seriously about restructuring Greece’s debt. That was what caused the downfall of the last government.

Europe had in effect implied that it would reconsider the debt as soon as the Greeks managed to balance their budget with a small primary budget surplus—which meant Greece would have more revenues than public spending. But when the Greeks appealed for help in December 2014, Europe said “no.” That is what ultimately opened the path for Alexis Tsipras.

And the situation continued. Between January and July 2015, Europe refused to reopen talks. Now it’s September and the new support package that was discussed this summer has led to the further postponement of debt negotiations. If Europe insists on repayment, there will be fresh crises and the problem will not be resolved.

The Conversation: Why does the dialogue between Europe and Greece need to change?

Piketty: Europe has other problems to tackle. There is the migrant crisis and the wider economic situation. Europe, Germany, and France can’t exist in a permanent state of crisis. Europeans need to adjust their position. And for that to happen, France needs to have more courage—others too. Perhaps the elections in Spain at the end of this year will change things. All these elements can combine to influence majority politics in Europe when it comes to the Greek question.

The Conversation: What should Tsipras’s economic priorities be from now on?

Piketty: Modernizing the tax system is clearly the priority. It needs to be fairer and more efficient. But that can only really be done with Europe’s cooperation—and if Europe sets an example. We have to remember that the biggest businesses in Europe often pay less tax than small- and medium-sized businesses. That’s because governments do deals that will lead to favorable conditions for their own national industry. That’s without even considering that the European Commission has a president who, as prime minister of Luxembourg, signed deals with multinational corporations that allowed them to pay just 1 percent to 2 percent tax.

Europe can’t just hand out advice without itself committing to fiscal transparency. That goes to the heart of the system—German and French banks are only too happy to handle the funds of rich Greeks.

MORE IMPOSSIBILITIES AT LINK

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/opinion/the-supreme-courts-secret-power.html

ON Monday, the Supreme Court will meet in private to perform one of its most consequential — yet least appreciated — functions: choosing the cases it will hear. The court’s nine justices hold regular conferences from late September to late June to perform this task. From the roughly 8,000 petitions that arrive at the court each year, the justices select about 75 cases. If four or more justices vote to take a case, it is added to the docket; otherwise, review is denied. Either way, an explanation for the court’s decision is almost never given, nor is it customary to indicate how the individual justices voted.

It is hard to think of a more significant power in the machinery of our democracy that is exercised more secretly. Imagine if members of Congress could propose or filibuster bills anonymously. It’s unthinkable. But that’s essentially what the court does on a regular basis: With complete discretion, it decides whether to undertake potentially major lawmaking without exposing any governmental official to public scrutiny.

The justices should lift the veil of secrecy that shrouds this power.

I am not suggesting that the justices should have to explain their votes. They are already busy enough, and there are good reasons for allowing judicial deliberations to remain private. But the Supreme Court, which has always decided for itself how to transmit its work to the public, could easily do what many other federal and state appellate courts already do: Simply announce the vote tallies — that is, how each justice voted for each petition for review — when accepting or turning away cases.

In light of the Supreme Court’s significant role in shaping so much of our national policy, it does not seem too much to ask to know which justices are putting which issues on the court’s docket. Indeed, these votes are more consequential than anything said at oral argument. If some justices regularly vote to hear appeals from corporations and never from employees, the public ought to know this. If others often vote to hear petitions from civil rights groups but never from state or local governments defending their policies, the public should know this, too....

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kraft-heinz-phillips-66-targeted-by-fake-securities-filings-2015-09-24-18103380?siteid=YAHOOB

Two more companies were targets of apparently fake securities filings, this time Kraft Heinz Co. and Phillips 66.

Two separate filings that said they were submitted by Loreto M. Zamora on behalf of LMZ & Berkshire Hathaway Co. to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday morning claimed to hold at least 10% stakes in both Kraft Heinz and Phillips 66.

Both companies told The Wall Street Journal that the filings are fraudulent and they have contacted the SEC. Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns stakes in the food and energy companies, said in an email that he has never heard of Zamora.

Attempts to reach Zamora were unsuccessful, and a representative from the SEC declined to comment on the filings.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-world-giant-oil-fields-214405176.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/24/spain-rato-idUSL5N11U3F420150924

A Madrid court investigating former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato for alleged tax fraud on Thursday said it had frozen some of his assets after he failed to deposit funds to cover possible liabilities. The court said in a statement it had frozen 18 million euros ($20 million) worth of Rato's assets, including his IMF pension. It did not say how much this amounted to.

Rato, a former deputy prime minister and heavyweight in the centre-right People's Party (PP) now in government, has been caught up in several judicial probes in recent years. The cases, which include investigations into his time at lender Bankia, where he was chairman, made Rato a target of public anger during a deep economic crisis. His links to the PP have also caused headaches for its current leaders, just as the government, damaged by party corruption scandals, faces a general election by year-end.

The tax fraud and money-laundering investigation centres on Rato's personal wealth. Spain's High Court is also probing allegations that the 2011 flotation of Bankia, which took place under Rato's watch, was flawed. Bankia had to be bailed out by the state less than a year later.

In another case, magistrates are looking into the alleged misuse of company credit cards for personal expenses during Rato's tenure at the bank.

Rato has denied any wrongdoing in the cases. None of the investigations have yet gone to trial.

9/23/15 MACRO ANALYTICS - Its Getting Ugly out there!

Charles Hugh Smith and Gordon T Long discuss the US Equity Market Technicals. They position the technical charts which they go thropugh in the context of the following primary sources of system risk to the markets:

1. Too much debt globally; public and private debt has skyrocketed since 2008.

2. Mal-investment due to perverse incentives: borrow money for stock buybacks rather than invest in new productive capacity, etc.

3. Stagnant income/revenues: households, companies and nations cannot support more debt

4. The rise of high-frequency trading (HFT) has increased the odds of flash crashes and instability

5. Rising U.S. dollar has triggered capital flight from emerging markets and China

6. China’s economy is grinding to a halt, crushing demand for commodities and commodity-dependent economies

7. Opaque banking: shadow banking in China, dark pools in offshore banking centers, etc. True totals of debt, leverage and quality of collateral are all unknown

8. Deteriorating collateral globally. How many of the 60 million empty “investment” flats in China can be sold for the purchase price? This is just one example of illiquid, impaired assets that are grossly overvalued.

appx 28 minutes
&feature=youtu.be

but my coughing is MUCH reduced, and I made it through an entire week of work (okay, not at regular level of effort, but still...)

And there's so much obsession about VW, and Yellen, and Bernie, it's going to be hard to scrape up enough real news. Also I have so much to catch up on in Real Life....

Let's put our heads together and think of something! I'm thinking of going on Hajj, but I think I did that the last time they had a stampede...or potluck (contribute anything)...or skipping it entirely (joke...I don't think I could, as a matter of personality).

---I think I'd rather die, first.

Sidenote: A few years ago, our county got shoved into his 8th district. Wondering who is successor will be.