STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday April 22

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday April 22, 2009

Bush Administration Officials Under Indictment = 2
Financial Sector Officials Under Indictment = 0
Financial Sector Officials In Prison = 2

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON April 21, 2009

Dow... 7,969.56 +127.83 (+1.60%)
Nasdaq... 1,643.85 +35.64 (+2.22%)
S&P 500... 850.08 +17.69 (+2.13%)
Gold future... 882.70 -4.80 (-0.54%)
30-Year Bond 3.75% +0.06 (+1.60%)
10-Yr Bond... 2.90% +0.06 (+2.08%)

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U.S. FUTURES & MARKETS INDICATORS
NASDAQ FUTURES..............................................S&P FUTURES

Market Conditions During Trading Hours

GOLD, EURO, YEN, Loonie and Silver

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Read more: du

The Invisible Crash for Real Estate
by Frank Barbera, CMT

As I noted last week, the odds are high that in the coming months an inventory replenishment cycle will likely unfold, and in the process will give some long overdue lift to the moribund economic data. In my last article, I also tried to point out that while the headline numbers are bound to improve, that despite the improved news headlines, very little else is likely to have anything but an ongoing ‘recession’ feel. In fact, I would argue that ultimately, the contraction phase currently being seen is but a ‘warm up’ prelude to a much larger economic decline, which in the end will likely only be able to be characterized as a “major depression.” The timing for the second phase of this large contraction is still hard to predict, as if the current Administration is successful in re-inflating the markets, the second leg of contraction could be pushed out several years. In that event, we would have the current contraction followed by a respite period of virtually stagnant, possibly slightly improving conditions, followed by a second and likely much more intense ‘crash’ phase a few years (2-4) down the road. In the end, much higher interest rates of all stripes are on the way, and with them eventually, a currency panic the world will remember for decades.

That sequence, which is the real end-game, will be brutal on the economic data, especially for Real Estate which will likely remain mired in a constant dollar bear market for the next 5 to 10 years. So what do I mean by a ‘constant dollar bear market”? The answer to that is best understood by a look back at the 1970’s. Back then, a decade of high inflation took hold leading to the term stagflation, a condition of no growth and high inflation, sort of a worst of all worlds' economic outcome. Back then the stagflation produced a constant dollar crash in the value of stocks which under performed inflation for nearly 17 years. At the time, James Dines authored a book called, “The Invisible Crash” which pointed out how for 17 years between 1965 and 1982, the DJIA went giant sideways in a trading range between 550 and 1000. Over that same period of time, shown below by the dashed lines, the rate of inflation continued to accelerate.

-see chart-

Flash forward to the decade of the early 2000s and we see a bubble in Real Estate which was supported by an even larger bubble in credit. The bursting of today’s mega-credit bubble is easily the most substantial event in the financial world since the Great Depression. Looking back at history’s greatest Bubbles, there are several major rules one can divine. First off, bubbles this big tend to take at least 10 years to work off the excess and return pricing to a stable climate. Never has a bubble this big managed to be worked off in two years. Second, the asset class at the center of the Bubble, be it shares of the South Sea Company in the 1700’s, Tulips in Holland in the 1630’s, Stocks in Japan in 1980’s, Gold in the 1970-80’s, Internet Stocks in 2000, once the asset class has busted, it has invariably stayed busted for at least 10 years.

In the US, domestic residential housing was the star performer of the latest mega bubble, what arguably was the greatest bubble of all time. What’s more, it was financed by ultra loose, creative credit practices which the world will not be returning to any time soon. As credit continues to contract over the balance of this decade, it will tend to force prices down in all forms of Real Estate over the next few years. More specifically, we believe that while the nominal price of Real Estate, both Residential and Commercial, could move in a very similar extended trading range to the DJIA in the 1960’s and 1970’s, (with some up years and down years), overall, when plotted against the forthcoming rate of inflation, Real Constant Dollar Real Estate values will be moving steadily lower, as Real Estate experiences its ‘lost decade’ and surrenders to an invisible crash.

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

He just predicted both boom and bust. "Could be a bust now, or could be a boom followed by a bust." With very soft timelines for his predictions. And I predict it will get warmer along toward summer, followed by a cooler period next winter.

Expect it to get darker as evening progresses, with daylight rebounding early tomorrow morning. Unless we get another friggin' tornado.

"...an inventory replenishment cycle will likely unfold, and in the process will give some long overdue lift to the moribund economic data"

I mean, can't he write plain English. Does he have to weigh every word down with his pretentious tone to convince us that he's credible?

There are more such examples there but that opening line about made me want to fwo up, so I'll leave it there.

Maybe I'm just a little intolerant this morning.

He does speak in Economese. Funny, but I never realized until now how much economists sound like astrologers! Having been inculcated in the jargon (can you tell?), I took him to mean that the only reason we will get a blip upwards in GDP is going to be a due to inventories (GDP=C+I+G+NX, where I, investment includes inventory). Which means that inventories are increasing because industry has made too much product which people aren't buying. Businesses will then cycle back production to cut inventories and GDP will then fall because this buildup in inventories won't be sustainable as people continue to NOT buy things, lose their jobs and watch their savings evaporate.

Thanks for that, Hawkowl.

Me, I find myself constantly referring back in memory to Pirsig's (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) exposition of the difference between Quantity and Quality in this (and many other) context.

"Buy (and produce, etc.) things". Understood. But, who is asking the question: What things? What things, at this point in time (human, the terrestrial biosphere's history, and, I suppose inevitably, of one's country and/or culture), really matter?

(As well as in the field of economics, one could play this question back into politics, of course, ie: it's one thing to take over the helm; it's something else to (with an eye on the weather, the nearby rocks, the condition of the ship, etc. and, where to we really want to go?) actually pull up or push down the tiller, adjust the sails and change course).

Edit: What course? The slow-motion trainwreck analogy is often used here, for example. But we are not, after all, on a fixed track: There is sea-room, with skill, for plenty of manoeuvre.







Perhaps, especially, right now.

Why a 50% Drop in Housing Is Not the Bottom (April 16, 2009)
Charles Hugh Smith

The psychology behind the idea that a 50% reduction in bubble-era housing prices constitutes a "bargain" is flawed for a number of reasons.

I recently saw a few minutes of a Nightly Business Report program on PBS in which a Florida broker was observing that homes which once commanded $350,000 at the bubble top were selling briskly now at $169,000 to investors from every part of the globe.

In other words: "These homes are half off! They're screaming bargains! They can't get any cheaper than this!"

The psychology behind this euphoria is accessible to us all. It's easy to forget where housing prices were before the bubble and focus instead on how much they've dropped from the bubble peak. The same is true in any bubble, be it collectables, real estate, stocks, or tulip bulbs.

But valuation realities have no relation to bubble top pricing. Thus we should ground our analysis of housing valuations and what constitutes a "bottom" in metrics other than "it's 50% off it's top price."

Let's start by considering just how high the bubble took housing valuations:

lots of charts and graphs
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/housing04-09.html

Why Housing Is Not Coming Back (April 21, 2009)
Charles Hugh Smith

The financial MSM and government officials alike are looking for a recovery in the housing market to bubble valuations to "restart the economy." That is not going to happen--not this year, not in five years or even in ten years. Here's why.

The entire world is hoping that housing is about to "recover" and re-ascend its glorious bubble-era heights of valuation. But it's not going to happen.

Why not? For several fundamental reasons:

1. Bubbles do not re-inflate in the asset class which just popped. It is simply a truism that bubbles never reflate, ever. Tulip bulb valuations did not rise to stratospheric heights after the Tulip Craze popped, and the Nasdaq dot-com bubble did not reinflate, either, for the very good reason that bubbles are never based on rational valuations--they are based on the psychological state of mania which cannot be reinstated once lost.

Consider tech stock Cisco Systems (CSCO), a well-managed "real company" which continues to make profits providing real-world goods and services. It currently trades at around $17.50 a share, down from its dot-com bubble valuation of about $81/share.

To "recover" its bubble-era valuation, Cisco would have to rise five-fold. That's not going to happen. Now that the mania has dissipated, Cisco is valued on more rational metrics like earnings, profits, etc.

The speculative mania always moves on to a new asset class. After the dot-com bubble popped, the speculative bubble moved on to housing. Now that the housing bubble has popped, the mania has moved to the bond market. When the bond bubble bursts (it's guaranteed that it will in the next two years, losing 50% or more in the process) then the only asset class which hasn't already been blown into a bubble is precious metals/gold.

In other words: those wishing to catch the next speculative mania should be buying gold and silver, not stocks, housing or bonds.

2. Inflation sets the "recovery" target ever higher. While we are in a deflationary period right now, a serious amount of inflation occurred between Cisco's top in January 2000 and the present. According to the BLS Inflation Calculator, $81 in 2000 is $100 in current dollars.

So Cisco would have to rise not to $81 to match its bubble-era valuation but to $100. The same is true for housing. Consider the possibility many see on the horizon, a period of high inflation caused by the insanely stupendous rise in paper money supply.

I am not predicting such an inflation, just speculating on the effects it would have on bubble-era valuation calculations.

Let's say a house which sold for $100,000 in 1997 was valued at $400,000 at the housing bubble peak in 2006. I fully expect the property to retrace to its pre-bubble valuation, as that is the usual progression of bubbles and their demise.

Now if inflation ramps up and ravages the value of the dollar, the price of a tangible good like a home might well rise more or less along with inflation, as people will be trying to turn their rapidly devaluing dollars into some tangible good as a means of preserving wealth.

But if inflation is clipping along at 10% a year and the house returns to its bubble-era value of $400,000, does the $400,000 retain the same purchasing power as $400,000 in 2006? No.

more...
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/housing-not-coming-back04-09.html

The system is in full collapse already. After 3 big bubbles, the elastic is gone from the bubble gum. If it were confined to the US, maybe, but this is global, and our neighbors are mostly in worse shape than we, with the possible exception of Canada.

10:35 Crude Inventories 04/17
Briefing.com NA
Consensus NA
Prior +5670K

http://www.briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

08. Gasoline inventories rise 800,000 barrels: EIA
10:31 AM ET, Apr 22, 2009

09. Distillate inventories rise 2.7 million barrels
10:31 AM ET, Apr 22, 2009

10. U.S. crude inventories rise 3.9 million barrels
10:30 AM ET, Apr 22, 2009

SINGAPORE – Oil prices hovered below $49 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as traders worried that a weekly U.S. crude inventories report will show demand remains weak amid a severe recession.

Benchmark crude for June delivery rose 15 cents to $48.69 a barrel by late afternoon in Singapore in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract Tuesday gained 4 cents to settle at $48.55 a barrel.

.....

Traders will be eyeing the weekly petroleum inventory data that the Energy Information Agency plans to release later Wednesday. Analysts expects crude stocks to jump 3 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. Crude stocks already are near 19-year highs.

.....

Expectations that massive stimulus packages by governments around the world would spark an economic recovery helped push crude prices above $54 a barrel earlier this month. But some investors are skeptical the worst of the slowdown is over.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

The New York Times Co. fell into a deeper financial hole during the first quarter as the newspaper publisher's advertising revenue plunged 27 percent in an industrywide slump that is reshaping the print media. Its shares dived after the results were released Tuesday.

The owner of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and 15 other daily newspapers lost $74.5 million, or 52 cents per share, in the opening three months of the year. That compared with a loss of $335,000 at the same time last year, which was break-even on a per-share basis.

The results in the most recent quarter included charges totaling 18 cents per share to cover the costs of jettisoning employees and other one-time accounting measures.

....

Like other major newspaper publishers, the Times Co. is being hit with a devastating double whammy -- a 16-month-old recession and a marketing shift that has diverted more ad spending to less expensive Internet alternatives. At the same time, many people are doing without newspaper subscriptions because they can read much of the same information for free on the Web.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/NYT-Co-1Q-losses-worsen-as-ad-apf-14982705.html?.v=5

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Chemical maker DuPont (DD.N) posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit, but trimmed its full-year outlook and said it would cut more jobs as weak economic conditions continued to constrict demand.

The U.S. chemical industry has been hard hit in recent months by the recession that has shrunk sales of its products from the autos, construction and electronics industries.

"The outlook is definitely disappointing," Morningstar analyst Ben Johnson told Reuters, pointing to the company's expectation that customers will continue to draw down inventories.

The Wilmington, Delaware-based company, said it would seek $200 million in cost reductions, including cuts to contractor positions and work schedule reductions, and announced a 12.5 percent cut to its 2009 spending plans to $1.4 billion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090421/bs_nm/us_dupont

ATLANTA – Delta Air Lines Inc., the world's biggest airline operator, said Tuesday it will institute a $50 fee for most passengers to check a second bag on an international flight — a first among major U.S. carriers — as it reported a $794 million first-quarter loss due to the weak economy and bad bets on fuel hedges.

Company shares soared more than 16 percent as the results beat Wall Street expectations. Also, Delta executives said they've seen some signs of revenue stabilization and the airline still expects to be profitable for the year.

.....

Delta said it posted $684 million in realized fuel hedge losses in the first three months of the year. As oil prices soared to $147 a barrel last July, many airlines hedged a portion of their future fuel needs. When market prices came tumbling down in the months that followed, some airlines were stuck with those hedges and had to pay higher prices for a portion of their fuel.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_delta

LONDON (Dow Jones)--European stocks have posted modest gains Wednesday, with banking stocks to the fore after reassuring comments from U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner over the health of the U.S. banking system. However, volumes are limited with many investors awaiting the U.K. budget in trepidation.

At 0800 GMT, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index was up 0.2% at 190.74, London's FTSE 100 index was up 0.3% at 4001.39, Frankfurt's DAX index was up 0.2% at 4511.5, and the CAC-40 index in Paris was up 0.1% at 2978.66

European financial stocks advanced on Geithner's comments Tuesday, after he told Congress that most banks have more than enough capital, easing concerns that have spread anew about the health of financial institutions.

Shares in Fortis added 4.4% to EUR1.68, while BNP Paribas shares advanced 2.6% to EUR37.70. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 banks index was up 2.2% to 154.57.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090422-703408.html

LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks steadied on Wednesday as a mixed set of key corporate earnings injected caution among investors about the state of the economy, encouraging them to buy the low-yielding dollar and yen.

In Europe, the world's third-largest brewer Heineken (Amsterdam:HEIN.AS - News) fell 4 percent after posting a worse-than-expected drop in beer volumes, while Swedish home appliances maker Electrolux (Stockholm:ELUXB.ST - News) jumped 10 percent after posting a surprise core profit.

World stocks have risen more than 25 percent since hitting a 6-year low in March but investors are pausing to assess the health of the banking sector and other corporates to see if the recovery in risk assets can be sustained.

"In the medium term we're trying to find a bottom....," said John Haynes, strategist at Rensburg Sheppard. "The test is the earnings season, that stocks suffer bad news but react well to that. So far they're not passing that test but not failing it decisively either."

MSCI world equity index (^MIWD00000PUS - News) was largely unchanged on the day. The FTSEurofirst 300 index (^FTEU3 - News) wiped earlier losses to rise 0.1 percent while Asian stocks (^MIAPJ0000PUS - News) fell 0.7 percent.

/... http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mixed-earnings-steady-stocks-rb-14993403.html?.v=3

TOKYO, April 22 (Reuters) - Japanese exports showed a rare sign of recovery in March, government figures showed on Wednesday, suggesting that the global slump in trade that has pushed the economy into a deep recession may be easing.

Exports were almost half the levels of a year earlier but on a seasonally adjusted basis they rose in March from February, the first monthly pick up since May last year -- welcome news for the world's No. 2 economy battling its worst downturn in half a century.

Sales to China and the United States fell sharply compared with a year earlier, but the falls were smaller than in February. Still, exports to the European Union fell at a record pace.

The annual decline in semiconductor and other electronics parts sales eased slightly in March from February, but autos demand plunged again.

"It will take more time for exports to make a full-fledged rebound as overseas economies won't recover any time soon," said Takahide Kiuchi, chief economist at Nomura Securities. "But we expect exports to make a moderate pickup near-term with sharp falls having stopped due to easing strains from the global financial shock, falling inventories and big stimulus packages compiled across the globe."

Exports fell 45.6 percent from a year earlier and imports dropped 36.7 percent. Both declines were smaller than forecast and smaller than the record falls in February.

That produced a trade surplus of 11 billion yen ($111.9 million), down 99 percent from a year earlier. Economists had forecasts a 5 billion yen deficit.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINT5566820090422?rpc=44

LONDON, April 22 (Reuters) - European shares closed higher on Wednesday after a choppy session with financial stocks regaining ground after Wells Fargo (WFC.N) posted a record first quarter-profit and U.S. home prices rose in February.

The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares provisionally closed 0.9 percent higher at 794.25 points after falling as much 1.4 percent and rising more than 1 percent.

Banks recovered after slipping earlier in the session on disappointing quarterly results from Morgan Stanley (MS.N). Standard Chartered Bank (STAN.L) rose 4.6 percent, Barclays (BARC.L) jumped 9.6 percent, Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) was up 6.7 percent and Commerzbank (CBKG.DE) surged 9.6 percent.

"There has been a pretty impressive relief rally and may be we can go higher by another 5 percent, but sooner or later reality is going to be there," said Koen De Leus, economist at KBC Securities. "And the reality is that we are in a recession. Consumers are not spending because they want to save more."

/.. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idCALM22363620090422?rpc=44

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC's first-lien lenders have offered to take equity in a restructured automaker allied with Fiat SpA in exchange for writing off about 35 percent of the $7 billion they are owed, according to people with knowledge of the closed-door talks.

Under the terms of the offer sent to the U.S. Treasury on Monday, the lenders would retain about $4.5 billion in debt and take a stake of more than a third of a new Chrysler supported by government investment and a ground-breaking deal with Fiat.

That would mark a much richer payout for the creditor group than U.S. officials first offered the banks that helped finance Chrysler's 2007 sale to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management.

The counter-offer was immediately criticized by an Obama administration official as giving Chrysler's creditors an "unjustified return" at a time when the No. 3 U.S. automaker is facing the risk of bankruptcy and struggling to win concessions from other key stakeholders, including its major union.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/motoringAutoNews/idUKIndia-39175420090422

(Debt up .193B$, i.e. small amount if not tiny, FICA made up most of the total.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,899,067,097,852.11 + 4,290,315,420,380.64
UP 193,620,436.16 + UP 3,472,918,813.21

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 306-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.27 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.8, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 14 seconds we net gain a another American, so at the end of the workday of this report, there should be 306,202,372 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
Currently, each of these American's owe $36,542.44.
A family of three owes $109,627.33. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 21 reports in the last 30 to 31 days.
The average for the last 21 reports is 7,075,023,365.46.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,952,516,355.82.
The average for the last 31 days would be 4,792,757,763.70.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 62 reports in 90 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 0.47B$ per report, 0.39B$/day so far.
There were 137 reports in 202 days of FY2009 averaging 8.50B$ per report, 5.77B$/day.

PROJECTION:
There are 1,371 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 13.1 and 19.1T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
04/20/2009 11,189,382,518,232.75 BHO (UP 562,505,469,319.67 so far since Obama took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 1,164,657,621,320.30 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
03/30/2009 +000,069,902,880.68 ------------******* Mon
03/31/2009 +079,841,314,678.25 ------------**********
04/01/2009 -001,742,860,350.87 --
04/02/2009 +007,764,243,786.78 ------------*********
04/03/2009 +028,967,677,130.84 ------------**********
04/06/2009 +000,073,808,356.95 ------------******* Mon
04/07/2009 +000,123,552,400.07 ------------********
04/08/2009 +000,050,639,456.95 ------------*******
04/09/2009 +024,055,285,655.59 ------------**********
04/10/2009 +000,051,156,797.54 ------------*******
04/13/2009 +000,309,440,014.97 ------------******** Mon
04/14/2009 +000,167,862,523.71 ------------********
04/15/2009 +044,205,591,028.33 ------------**********
04/17/2009 -038,696,374,097.81 -
04/20/2009 +000,193,620,436.16 ------------******** Mon

145,434,860,698.14 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $1,524,750,714,973.68 in last 214 days.
That's 1,525B$ in 214 days.
More than any year ever, including last year, and it's 150% of that highest year ever only in 214 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 214 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3841444&mesg_id=3841469

(Debt down .363B$, i.e. small amount, FICA made up most of the total.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,898,703,339,762.18 + 4,294,756,202,617.74
DOWN 363,758,089.93 + UP 4,440,782,237.10

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 306-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.27 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.8, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 14 seconds we net gain a another American, so at the end of the workday of this report, there should be 306,208,543 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
Currently, each of these American's owe $36,555.02.
A family of three owes $109,665.06. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 to 32 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 6,938,750,673.72.
The average for the last 30 days would be 5,088,417,160.73.
The average for the last 32 days would be 4,770,391,088.18.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 63 reports in 91 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 0.44B$ per report, 0.38B$/day so far.
There were 138 reports in 203 days of FY2009 averaging 8.47B$ per report, 5.76B$/day.

PROJECTION:
There are 1,370 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 13.1 and 19.1T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
04/21/2009 11,193,459,542,379.92 BHO (UP 566,582,493,466.84 so far since Obama took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 1,168,734,645,467.50 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
03/31/2009 +079,841,314,678.25 ------------**********
04/01/2009 -001,742,860,350.87 --
04/02/2009 +007,764,243,786.78 ------------*********
04/03/2009 +028,967,677,130.84 ------------**********
04/06/2009 +000,073,808,356.95 ------------******* Mon
04/07/2009 +000,123,552,400.07 ------------********
04/08/2009 +000,050,639,456.95 ------------*******
04/09/2009 +024,055,285,655.59 ------------**********
04/10/2009 +000,051,156,797.54 ------------*******
04/13/2009 +000,309,440,014.97 ------------******** Mon
04/14/2009 +000,167,862,523.71 ------------********
04/15/2009 +044,205,591,028.33 ------------**********
04/17/2009 -038,696,374,097.81 -
04/20/2009 +000,193,620,436.16 ------------******** Mon
04/21/2009 -000,363,758,089.93 ---

145,001,199,727.53 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $1,528,827,739,120.85 in last 215 days.
That's 1,529B$ in 215 days.
More than any year ever, including last year, and it's 150% of that highest year ever only in 215 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 215 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3843315&mesg_id=3843330

from Calculated Risk

Conference call notes:


much more at link

MONEY CULTURE
The Rise of the 'Empty Creditor'

They'd rather drive good companies into bankruptcy than save them. Why?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/194820

By Daniel Gross
Apr 21, 2009 | Updated: 3:49 p.m. ET Apr 21, 2009


One key economic assumption is that people act to preserve their economic interests. Those who have lent money to troubled companies, for example, generally prefer the company remain solvent; otherwise, they can't get paid back. Similarly, lenders to troubled firms frequently favor swift, out-of-court restructuring deals, in which they swap debt for stock, instead of pushing companies into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That's because companies in Chapter 11 can languish there for years and waste scarce company assets on huge fees to lawyers, consultants, and accountants.

But if a lender or creditor believes it can profit more from a complete failure—i.e., if it has an insurance policy that pays off only in the event of utter devastation—that creditor might be more inclined to push a company toward bankruptcy. And thanks to the financial innovations of recent years—the rampant use of hedging and credit-default swaps, the ability of investors to purchase insurance on debt—that's exactly what seems to be happening. Creditors are acting to protect their economic self-interest by encouraging companies to destroy themselves.

Henry Hu, a professor at the University of Texas law school, been exploring ways in which new players and new financial technologies are warping the traditional behaviors of creditors and owners. He has coined the term empty creditor to describe situations in which people to whom money is owed don't act as if they want to preserve the company that owes them money. For Hu, Exhibit A was the case of Goldman Sachs and the troubled insurer AIG. Goldman, it was reported this spring, was one of the AIG counterparties to whom government money was funneled last fall. AIG posted $2.5 billion in collateral to Goldman under credit-default-swap obligations and made payments of more than $10 billion to the firm to settle credit-default and securities-lending obligations. Hu notes that forcing a troubled company like AIG to pony up billions of dollars in cash as collateral would have been a contributing factor to further erosion of AIG's financial situation, which, in turn, would have rendered many of the financial arrangements Goldman had entered with AIG worthless. But Goldman didn't care that it would wipe out its AIG arrangements, because it had already hedged its exposure to AIG—through contracts, credit-default swaps, or other derivatives. In the words of Goldman's CFO, the firm was "fully protected and didn't have to take a loss." In other words, although Goldman was a significant creditor to AIG, it appeared to have nothing to lose from AIG's demise and potential failure to make good on debt, which is why it was happy to force AIG to disgorge billions of dollars in collateral.

Empty creditors seem to be appearing elsewhere. Take the case of Six Flags, the amusement park operator that is strugging with a huge debt load. Six Flags' management is furiously trying to avoid a Chapter 11 filing. Last week, the company announced an offer to swap about $600 million in debt for about 60 percent of the company's stock. Should bondholders not take up the offer and insist on receiving interest payments, Six Flags said it might have to file for Chapter 11. But as the Washington Post noted in this good article on Six Flags' difficulties, not all bondholders are going along. "Six Flags executives have not publicly identified the holdout, but people with knowledge of the negotiations say that a Fidelity Investments fund owning more than $100 million in bonds due in 2010 has yet to come to the bargaining table." It's unclear why Fidelity isn't coming to the table. It could be because they believe the company might be able to make the interest payments. Or it could be because Fidelity, in this instance, is an empty creditor. The Post notes that one possible explanation for Fidelity's behavior is that "the bondholder has a credit-default swap—essentially an insurance policy—that would pay it a higher sum than an out-of-court agreement." Since credit-default swaps are triggered by formal bankruptcy filings—and not necessarily by out-of-court restructuring deals—bondholders who purchased insurance may feel they have more to gain from a traumatic filing than from an out-of-court settlement. The Financial Times reported last week (subscription required) that the logic of empty creditors may similarly have been a reason why General Growth Properties and paper company Abitibi-Bowater both ended up filing (here and here) for Chapter 11 on April 11.

You can't blame empty creditors for wanting to see companies in which they hold debt go bankrupt. They had the foresight to purchase insurance on their investments. But for all the other people tethered to troubled companies—managers, employees, suppliers, and customers—the presence of empty creditors may make the process of restructuring debt more lengthy and expensive.

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–77

On Polonius's terms, there is little to argue with in his perhaps ungenerous advice. His logic is thus: lending money to friends is risky, because hitching debt onto personal relationships can cause resentment and, in the case of default, loses the lender both his money and his friend. Borrowing invites more private dangers: it supplants domestic thrift ("husbandry")—in Polonius's eyes, an important gentlemanly value.

Incidentally, in the days when Hamlet was first staged, borrowing was epidemic among the gentry, who sometimes neglected husbandry to the point where they were selling off their estates piece by piece to maintain an ostentatious lifestyle in London.

http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/neither-borrower-nor-lender

Is there a race among the empty creditors to get their insurance proceeds before the insurers run out of money themselves?

Must be these dolts think what happened to AIG won't happen to them. . . . . .


:rofl:

So, what the hell does the small print say in such 'contracts'?

I mean, if I were to take out some juicy insurance on my house or car or expensive cameras, for example, and then trashed them myself in order to claim, I'd be worried about some kind of serious inspection sussing me out. Never mind were it to be a case of taking out said insurance on somebody else's idem.

Wasn't there once a tradition such that any man-made written law was expected to follow some kind of (written or unwritten) long-standing 'higher' moral (and, usually, in fact very pragmatic) law (whether Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist, Judeo-Christian, Islamic, Potlatch or whatever)?

A friend of mine was going through foreclosure. He did everything he could back then to sit down with someone and work out a plan to save his house. His bank wouldn't even discuss it with him.

I knew it was a big expense for a bank to go through foreclosure, and thought it would be in their interest to work something out. Then I started hearing about some kind of insurance that they carried in the event of foreclosure.

Then I started learning about Credit Default Swaps. Then it started making sense.

He had a short sale set up, and they wouldn't talk to the buyer. After it foreclosed someone went through a realtor (commission), and it sold for about $15k less than the short sale would have brought.

I will have to be nosy and get more details

FLINT, Mich. — Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow this city’s endless decline. Now another idea is gaining support: speed it up.

Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods.

The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval.

“Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”

The recession in Flint, as in many old-line manufacturing cities, is quickly making a bad situation worse. Firefighters and police officers are being laid off as the city struggles with a $15 million budget deficit. Many public schools are likely to be closed.

“A lot of people remember the past, when we were a successful city that others looked to as a model, and they hope. But you can’t base government policy on hope,” said Jim Ananich, president of the Flint City Council. “We have to do something drastic.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/22flint.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Unemployment in my county Oconto WI is currently 18%

The official rate is still pegged at 13%

In my view its at least 23%

NPR link for the morning edition
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=3

Series: Remaking Michigan, Retooling Detroit
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103321042


Today Wednesday 4/22/09

Kalamazoo: A Potential Beacon for Detroit?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103325294

Detroit Industry: The Murals of Diego Rivera
Rivera's Murals Depict Early Industrial Detroit
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103337403

Scholar: It's Time For The Post Automotive Era
Use funds to create new companies and attract new workers not just to prop up the old industrial base.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103330070

Smaller Firms May Come To Michigan's Rescue
Fresh Water Demand Fuels Pump Engineering
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103336333

Michigan, Detroit Prep Themselves For A New Era
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103282809


edit to add links for the individual segments

It had a lovely new auditorium, a tacky tourist site, and no jobs.

green spaces, urban farms, orchards and gardens, some of it organzied but a lot of it just happening. The United Food and Commercial Workers who lost their union jobs when the big grocery chains abandoned town have been working with community organizations in an effort to open worker-owned stores that would sell the locally grown produce. They are trying to create a local economy that actually produces something to counter the Casino economics of "phantom wealth" (brings Wall St to my mind).

Seems there's a glimmer of hope within the ruins of Motown. They've been dealing with the implosion and collapse the rest of the country is just now facing for decades. I hope they are onto something - it sure sounds good.

Forty years to give up waiting for a white knight, black knight, casino night, or any other external savior.

Forty years! It's new blood moving in, I expect. A new generation with new expectations, and probably women-centered. People who have nowhere to go but up, because they were born down, but refuse to be considered out.

This country will have to turn around a lot faster than that. We can't wait for somebody with obscene wealth to decide to annex and exploit us. We can't put everything on hold for 40 years.

It's elbow grease time.

a new generation. The community organizations involved include public schools, a young mother/pregnant teen academy, the grocer workers union mentioned in the original post. Granted Detroit has been through decades of trial and error and there's no guarantee this will work either. But this time it is a grass-roots effort by people/residents who are vested in the outcome instead of outside organizations taking advantage of whatever incentives might have been offered by the PTB and policy makers.

edit for typos

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2009/04/01/detroit-artists.html


Artists sought in attempt to rebuild foreclosed Detroit neighbourhood

"They bought a foreclosed home for $1,900 US last year and turned it into both an experiment in operating off the power grid and a centre to link artists and the local community.




I found another blog post referencing a similar project in Cleveland but couldn't find anything else on it quickly.

something similar...trying become a "bedroom community" to artists from Chicago. They've been quite successful so far, though they've become a strictly services economy. Some pretty fancy dwellings and tourist sites along the lakefront now. Waukesha WI is trying to "cash in" on Les Paul and appealing to musicians as well as artist, in rejuvenating the downtown as well. Still having a tough time drawing people in from the suburbs though.

even "disaster tourism".

artsy types together, they can make a whole community.

Greed is like acid--it destroys people and relationships.

April 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock futures fell, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index may pare yesterday’s rally, after Capital One Financial Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. posted first-quarter losses.

Capital One, a Virginia-based credit-card company, slid more than 7 percent in after-hours New York trading. Advanced Micro, the second-largest maker of personal-computer processors, sank 6.3 percent in Germany. Investors will also watch a report today that may show U.S. house prices fell in February.

Futures on the S&P 500 expiring in June lost 0.7 percent to 841.40 as of 11:09 a.m. in London after the index climbed 2.1 percent yesterday. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dropped 0.8 percent to 7,861, while Nasdaq-100 Index futures fell 0.8 percent to 1,317.

“So little has been expected from this earnings season,” said Nick Skiming, who helps oversee about $2 billion at Ashburton Ltd. in Jersey, Channel Islands. “We are a little reluctant to get more involved in the market. Sentiment has been very poor. While all of the stimulus packages will help the market, we still need to see more evidence of recovery in economic growth.”

The S&P 500 has rebounded 26 percent from a 12-year low on March 9 as government efforts to fix the financial system and revive economic growth fueled speculation the first global recession since World War II will end.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601057&sid=ai2Y7Qb2SJ18&refer=futures

The closest thing to a real estate crystal ball in the last few years has been the house auctions that are regularly held around the country.

At the real estate auction, a bidder assistant yells to signal to the auctioneer that an audience member decided, after a tense moment, to place a higher bid.

In 2006 and early 2007, the official housing statistics were still showing that house prices were holding up. But that was largely because so many sellers were refusing to sell. The auctions, made up mostly of foreclosed homes, showed the truth: house values were starting to plummet in many places.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to go to an auction at a hotel ballroom in Washington — and to study the results of several others elsewhere — with an eye to figuring out whether prices may now be close to bottoming out.

That’s clearly a huge economic question. Last week, JPMorgan’s chief financial officer told Eric Dash of The New York Times that JPMorgan, and presumably other banks, would be under pressure “until home prices stabilize and unemployment peaks.” As long as home prices are falling, foreclosures are likely to keep rising and the toxic assets polluting bank balance sheets are likely to stay toxic.

There are reasons, though, to think that prices may be on the verge of stabilizing. Relative to fundamentals, like household incomes and rents, houses nationwide now appear to be overvalued by only about 5 percent. You can make an argument that the end of the housing crash is near.

But that’s not what I found at the auctions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/economy/22leonhardt.html

Fascinating article.

This article was linked in the above article


5/28/08 ECONOMIC SCENE; In the Bubble Years, The Wise Decision Was to Let the Landlord Carry the Burden
by By DAVID LEONHARDT

Over the last several years, I've come to like a simple, back-of-the-envelope way to compare the costs of renting and owning. You find two similar houses, one for sale and the other for rent, and divide the sale price by the annual rent. You can call the result the rent ratio.

The concept will probably sound familiar to stock market investors. It's the real estate market's version of a price-earnings ratio -- a measure of how expensive an asset is, relative to the underlying economic fundamentals. Like a P/E ratio, the rent ratio provides something of a reality check.

Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, the average rent ratio nationwide hovered between 10 and 14. In the last few years, though, it broke through that historical range and hit almost 19 by the time the housing market peaked, in 2006.

And while home prices -- and rent ratios -- have always been higher on the coasts, they reached whole new levels recently. In the Washington area, the ratio went above 20. In Boston, New York, Los Angeles and south Florida, it topped 25. In Northern California, it approached 35, higher than it had been in any city, at any point on record.

In concrete terms, a rent ratio above 20 means that the monthly costs of ownership well exceed the cost of renting. At current mortgage rates, for example, a $500,000 house would typically bring monthly expenses of about $3,000 (taking into account taxes, repairs, a typical down payment and, yes, the mortgage deduction). When the rent ratio is 20, that same house could be rented for only about $2,000 a month.

There are two problems with buying a house in this situation. The first, plainly, is the extra $1,000 you're paying each month for the privilege of owning, on top of the thousands of dollars you spent on closing costs. The second problem is that a rent ratio above 20 is a good indication of a bubble. When the prices of houses get out of line with the competition's prices -- that is, those in the rental market -- a correction is coming.

more...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9907EFD91731F93BA15756C0A96E9C8B63&fta=y&scp=2&sq=leonhardt%20house%20wife%20washington&st=cse

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=i

Last trade 86.463 Change -0.016 (-0.02%)

US Dollar Set to Rise Against Forex Majors as Risky Assets Falter

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/bio2/US_Dollar_Set_to_Rise_1240361984972.html

The US Dollar looks set to resume upward momentum against the spectrum of major currencies, boosted by evaporating risk appetite across financial markets. New entry opportunities have now materialized against the British Pound as well as the Australian and New Zealand Dollars.



...more...

Euro/US Dollar Loses Correlation to S&P 500 - Time for Turn Lower

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/bio1/Euro_US_Dollar_Loses_Correlation_to_1240328621666.html

The Euro/US Dollar recently lost its correlation to the S&P 500, but an early-week decline in both the currency pair and equity index suggests that we are at a turning point for risk sentiment.

In our most recent US Dollar Weekly Forecast, we discuss reasons why the breakdown in the S&P/EURUSD correlation may herald a shift in the tide. Indeed, it seems as though financial markets reached an unsustainable ‘winning streak’ on the S&P’s sixth-consecutive weekly advance.



...more...

Euro gains vs dollar, pound as world stocks revive


NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - The euro rose against the dollar on Wednesday as a recovery in stocks in Europe and on Wall Street helped ease investors' appetite for safe-haven currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen.

The rebound in equities, combined with a report showing U.S. home prices rose in February and news of a sell-off in the British pound earlier, contributed to the gains in the European common currency, analysts said.

"U.S. stocks suddenly took off, bringing European shares up and the euro," said Dan Cook, a senior market analyst at IG Markets Inc in Chicago. "The correlation with equities is very strong, and with any improvement in share prices we also see a bit of a return to risk." Cook said a U.S. report showing a slight rise in home prices in February triggered the rebound on Wall Street.

Stocks had fallen earlier, led lower by financial shares after Morgan Stanley (MS.N) posted a second quarterly loss and slashed its dividend. Is this a rare example of (relative) honesty? :eyes:

The dollar and the yen had benefited recently from concerns over the outlook for the financial system and the global economy.

The euro traded as high as $1.3036 <EUR=>, according to Reuters data, after dropping to $1.2886. In midday trading in New York, the euro was last up 0.7 percent at $1.3032. The euro currency also rebounded against the yen to trade as high as 128.12 <EURJPY=>, after sliding to 126.21.

...

Demand for the euro zone single currency had risen after British Finance Minister Alistair Darling forecast that the country's economy will shrink 3.5 percent this year as public sector net borrowing jumps. His comments sparked a sell-off in sterling and helped push the euro up 1.8 percent versus the pound to 89.81 pence <EURGBP=>. Meanwhile, sterling was down 1.1 percent against the dollar at $1.4502 <GBP=>.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN2254604620090422?rpc=44&sp=true

Reports: Freddie Mac official found dead

WASHINGTON (AP) — David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead at his home Wednesday in what broadcast reports said was an apparent suicide.

WUSA-TV and WTOP Radio reported that David Kellermann was found dead in his Northern Virginia home. The 41-year-old Kellermann has been Freddie Mac's chief financial officer since September.

Sabrina Ruck, a Fairfax County police spokesman, confirmed to The Associated Press that Kellermann was dead, but she could not confirm that he committed suicide.

McLean-based Freddie Mac has been criticized heavily for reckless business practices that some argue contributed to the housing and financial crisis. Freddic Mac is a government-controlled company that owns or guarantees about 13 million home loans. CEO David Moffett resigned last month.

Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults and have received about $60 billion in combined federal aid.

Kellermann was named acting chief financial officer in September 2008, after the resignation of Anthony "Buddy" Piszel, who stepped down after the September 2008 government takeover. The chief financial officer is responsible for the company's financial controls, financial reporting and oversight of the company's budget and financial planning.

Before taking that job, Kellerman served as senior vice president, corporate controller and principal accounting officer. He was with Freddie Mac for more than 16 years.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i0670afSPpeLEmH2SgLHC51kmGJQD97NGKTO1

There's been a significant number of officially confirmed ones already already.

and "window of opportunity" would be tremendously dissonant with suicide.

There was the one that stepped in front of a train--makes me think of the old spiritual:

This train is bound for glory, this train....

What do you feel the value of a body count of this sort would be?

Is anyone, econ blogs... etc., keeping a tally of belly-up bankers?

We are more likely to hear about those overseas, it seems lately.

http://dc.citybizlist.com/lstg/lstgDetail.aspx?id=41278

Freddie Mac Approves Compensation Changes for Michael May and David Kellerman

Freddie Mac, which sponsors the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Executive Deferred Compensation Plan, approved certain changes to the plan, that will permit participants to make a one-time election by October 31, 2008 to change the timing and form of the in-service distribution of their existing non-equity balances in the plan. As of October 7, 2008, Michael C. May, senior vice president — multifamily, has a balance of $2,548,442 and David B. Kellerman, interim chief financial officer, has a balance of $120,472 in the federal home loan mortgage executive deferred compensation plan....


"If an employee leaves the company for any reason after electing to receive in-service distributions in accordance with the above changes to the Plan, distributions subsequent to the separation date will be made in accordance with existing provisions of the Plan."

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Freddie-Mac-acting-CFO-dead/story.aspx?guid=%7B3120ECA7%2D88F0%2D48EB%2D9EBF%2DEF6471936360%7D

<snip>

His death comes as staff from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department have been probing the finance company about issues including possible accounting violations, paper reported.

The Journal said Freddie (FRE: 0.86, +0.10, +13.2%) disclosed the investigation in March filing, and the firm said it is "cooperating fully in these matters."

According to the Journal, Freddie said in filings that it received a federal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York in September. The subpoena sought documents related to accounting, disclosure and corporate governance matters, said the paper.

But that subpoena was later withdrawn and the investigation was taken over by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, added the Journal, and Freddie said the SEC is also investigating and has told it to preserve documents.

Freddie Mac has received more than $30 billion in government support as the mortgage and credit crisis intensified.

see post below.

Mr. Rumsfeld? Mr. Cheney? Gonzo? We're counting on your cooperation.

isn't that the job of a coroner's inquest, anyway?

Knowing nothing more about it, I'm just reminded of the Dr. David Kelly case, where the media immediately called (not even 'apparent') suicide (and then the coroner's inquest was cancelled on the highest (Jack Straw) orders)...

or twice in the head?

or hands were tied and then (fill in the blank)?

It reminds me of a case from back in the '60s, of a guy in Texas who was investigating some cronies of LBJ and Bobby Baker. They found him dead in a field, shot in the back 9 times with a bolt action rifle, and the Justice of the Peace ruled it a suicide.

It took his widow over 20 years to collect his life insurance, after a judge finally ruled it was impossible.

;-)

I suppose an intelligent reading of the police reports would give a knowledgeable person a clue as to cause of death and such.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/23freddie.html?em

excerpt:

Mr. Kellermann, 41, had been Freddie Mac’s chief financial officer since September. He was named to the position when the federal government seized the company and ousted its top executives last fall. In recent weeks, according to neighbors and company officials, Mr. Kellermann had received a bonus of about $800,000. Such bonuses — which totaled $210 million for executives at Freddie Mac and its sibling company Fannie Mae — caused some controversy earlier this month, and some lawmakers called for them to be rescinded.

Come out so we can kill you, Morgan!

It's so beautiful today--hard to believe that all that ugliness and despair are ongoing.

That was great!

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Free fall. Pulverised. Molten metal. Cover up.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16bacc66-2cd1-11de-8710-00144feabdc0.html

The US agriculture secretary has warned that unless countries take immediate steps to sharply boost agricultural productivity and food output and reduce hunger, the world risks fresh social instability.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Tom Vilsack indicated that food security and global stability were tied, in a sign that Washington’s worries about the global food crisis go well beyond its humanitarian implications.

“This is not just about food security, this is about national security, it is about environmental security,” he said on the sidelines of the first meeting of the Group of Eight ministers of agriculture. Although the US has in the past talked about the links, Barack Obama, US president, and his team have made it a priority, officials said.

Last year’s spike in food prices caused riots in about 30 countries, from Haiti to Bangladesh. Leading agricultural commodity exporters, including India and Argentina, imposed bans on overseas sales of food products. “I can figure out there are only three things that could happen if people do not have food: people could riot, that they have done; people migrate to places where there is food, which creates additional challenges; or people die,” said Mr Vilsack.

Alistair Darling has decided to concede for the first time that the government will not recoup the full costs of its banking interventions and that the bill could be as high as £60bn...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bef5efb8-2d31-11de-8710-00144feabdc0.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/77c3aee2-2d08-11de-8710-00144feabdc0.html

Rich Europeans, who were the first to invest in hedge funds and once comprised the majority of investors, have been the first to exit in the downturn, according to a study out Monday.

High net worth individuals last year accounted for 80 per cent – or more than $500bn – of hedge fund redemptions, though they only held two-thirds of the assets. The outflows were disproportionately European, the study by the Bank of New York Mellon and Casey Quirk, a research firm, said.

“The result is not only a smaller industry, but a capital base that is more institutional and more North American,” the study said.

The shift leaves US pension funds as the hedge fund stalwarts. They are likely to account for the single largest source of new capital in the next four years. Pension funds put net new money into hedge funds last year and plan to put more in again this year, according to the study based on a survey of 158 investors and industry members.

Individual investors’ share of hedge fund assets has dropped from 67 per cent in 2005 to 57 per cent at the end of last year.

“Future flows from European high net worth investors are highly sensitive to future returns and represent the greatest source of volatility,” the study said. “Asian high net worth investors also account for a very high redemption rate, in excess of 30 per cent, though the absolute outflow in dollars is smaller than those recorded in the larger European and North American high net worth markets. The widespread use of structured notes with automatic redemption triggers in the Asian and European markets drove these outflows.”

Institutional investors led by Calpers and the Utah state pension fund have begun pushing for fee reductions and trying to renegotiate terms as they review commitments to the asset class.

or possibly criminal.

"The shift leaves US pension funds as the hedge fund stalwarts."

:puke:

I have a yacht in Monte Carlo to feed.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b624ae92-2de0-11de-9eba-00144feabdc0.html


Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, will face lawmakers in Congress on Tuesday, hours after publication of a report that criticises aspects of the bank bail-out and days before stress test results that could lead to the government taking larger stakes in the financial ­sector.

His appearance before the congressional oversight committee comes after increasingly confident public performances and tentative signs of improvement in parts of the economy.

But a report from the ­independent watchdog for the $700bn (€540bn, £470bn) troubled asset relief programme (Tarp) says Mr Geithner’s department is falling short in tracking public money used in the bail-out even as he prepares to steer the financial rescue in new and controversial ­directions.

“In light of the fact that the American taxpayer has been asked to fund this extraordinary effort to stabilise the financial system, it is not unreasonable that the public be told how those funds have been used by Tarp recipients,” says the quarterly report from Neil Barofsky, the Tarp special inspector-general, which is due to be published on Tuesday.

Treasury officials have questioned the value of demanding detailed explanations for use of funds, given that they are designed to improve the broad health of banks’ balance sheets and thus stimulate lending.

The watchdog’s criticism comes days before the completion of stress tests, which could pave the way for the strongest banks to pay back Tarp money and the weakest to be instructed to seek more capital.

A senior administration official told the Financial Times that the government’s preferred equity stakes in banks could be converted to common equity, which would help shore up balance sheets without the need to ask Congress for more resources.

Although both preferred and common equity are classified as Tier 1 capital, bank analysts have tended to focus on common equity in the current crisis, which is the foundation of the capital structure and has been seen as a better gauge of health.

Capital could also come from private equity raising – as initiated already by Goldman Sachs – and from recycling Tarp funds returned by healthier banks, the official said. The Obama administration is keen to avoid returning to Congress to ask for more Tarp money, which would be politically difficult.

Mr Barofsky warns in the report that not enough has been done to guard against fraud in a scheme designed to encourage investors to buy “legacy” assets from banks.

He says that the Treasury “should dispense with rating agency determinations” on mortgage-backed securities, which lay at the root of the financial crisis, and should instead screen each security to assess its value.

The report reveals “almost 20” criminal investigations into possible fraud in the programme are under way.

Neel Kashkari, the outgoing head of the Tarp, says in a letter to Mr Barofsky included in the watchdog’s report that the Treasury is considering modifications to programmes that will be used to buy legacy assets.

However, he emphasises that they are an essential part of the recovery strategy, saying the goal is “to restart markets for these assets to support the flow of credit that is absolutely vital to our economic recovery”.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3757f37a-2de1-11de-9eba-00144feabdc0.html

Vikram Pandit, Citigroup’s chief executive, will on Tuesday strive to convince investors that the company is on the road to recovery amid fresh questions over his future at the financial group.

Ahead of Citi’s annual investor meeting, it has emerged that senior officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation privately discussed who might replace Mr Pandit if the bank needed more government aid.

“It is unthinkable that Vikram could stay on if Citi requires more federal funds,” said a person familiar with the matter. “It is prudent to be thinking about different scenarios.”

The FDIC is only one of the regulators which has a say on whether Mr Pandit steps down if the government bails out Citi for the fourth time in six months following completion of the “stress test” of its health.

Any decision on Citi’s leadership will be led by the Treasury, which is about to take a 36 per cent stake in the company and will sanction further capital injections.

The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulate national banks, will also have to bless top management changes.

People close to the situation said FDIC officials had discussed successors to Mr Pandit, who became chief executive in December 2007.

They include Ned Kelly, chief financial officer, Gary Crittenden, his predecessor and chairman of the division containing Citi’s non-core assets, and one of Citi’s new board members.

The new directors are Jerry Grundhofer, former chief executive of US Bancorp ; Michael O’Neill, former head of the Bank of Hawaii; Anthony Santomero, former head of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve; and William Thompson, former co-head of bond group Pacific Investment Management Co .

The FDIC and the other agencies declined to comment.

In a statement, Citi said: “Our recent quarterly results reveal the underlying strength of the franchise and Mr Pandit’s strategy at work to restore Citi to profitability.”

Citi shares have lost nearly 90 per cent of their value in the past year, following more than $50bn in writedowns and losses.

After closing at $1.02 in March, the stocks rallied, touching $4 last week. However, since Citi announced results on Friday, the shares have fallen 19 per cent, closing at $2.94 in New York.

Additional reporting by Julie MacIntosh in New York

WHY DON'T WE GET THIS KIND OF NEWS IN THE US?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/689af17e-2df2-11de-9eba-00144feabdc0.html

The market for mergers and acquisitions sprang back to life on Monday when 10 deals totalling more than $27bn were announced, with over half of their total value paid in cash.

After months of deal inactivity, Oracle agreed to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4bn; GlaxoSmithKline paid $3.6bn for Stiefel Laboratories ; and PepsiCo offered $6bn in cash and stock to buy out investors in its two biggest bottlers. Bankers said the deals signalled improving business confidence and market conditions for transactions, but cautioned that there was still a long way to go before the market could reach the levels of activity seen in the recent debt boom.

William Vereker, co-head of investment banking at Nomura, said: “Companies are taking advantage of an improvement in markets to execute on strategic transactions which have been in the pipeline. But confidence is still fragile and much will depend on how markets behave over the coming months before M&A volumes increase meaningfully.”

Others said it was encouraging to see deals being struck across several industry sectors. That contrasts with the first quarter, which was dominated by the pharmaceuticals industry – one of the few that is relatively stable and has strong cash flows. Pharmaceutical companies have also been forced to consolidate as they come under threat from patent expiries and generic rivals.

However, the value and volume of worldwide deals remain well below the levels seen during the recent M&A and debt boom. In the year to date, worldwide M&A is down a third from last year to $659.5bn. In the same period in 2007, global deals reached $1,424.3bn – the highest year-to-date total on record, according to Dealogic.

Wilhelm Schulz, co-head of European M&A at Citigroup, said: “Historically, M&A activity levels have been closely correlated to the state of the equity markets. While the recent equity capital market strength has certainly built board confidence and thereby contributed to increased M&A activity levels, structural barriers such as availability of credit, volatility levels and macro­economic uncertainty remain.”

Although companies are using cash to do deals, acquirers with strong credit ratings and cash flows, and which can demonstrate industrial rationale for a deal, are also managing to convince banks to lend.

Other companies are turning to the public bond markets as an alternative to costly short-term bank debt by tapping the bond market for long-dated, non-amortising debt. Roche, for example, financed its hostile offer for the 51 per cent of Genentech it did not own with cash, commercial paper, bonds and bank loans.

“This is further evidence of the trend of selective big-ticket M&A as strategic consolidators take advantage of the lower market valuations to strengthen their own business with synergistic deals,” Philip Noblet, a managing director in Bank of America/Merrill Lynch’s M&A group, said.

The deals did not excite equity markets, which fell on fears of economic weakness and troubled loans at Bank of America.

THE VULTURES ARE LANDING--CASH DEALS

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tarp-fraud21-2009apr21,0,2443377.story?track=rss


The special inspector general says TARP is 'inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.' The risk grows as the plan becomes more complex, he says.
By Ralph Vartabedian and Tom Hamburger

April 21, 2009

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes.

The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program.

The disclosures reinforce fears that the hastily designed and rapidly changing bailout program run by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve is going to carry a heavy price of fraud against taxpayers -- even as questions grow about its ability to stabilize the nation's financial system.

Barofsky said the complex nature of the bailout program makes it "inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse, including significant issues relating to conflicts of interest facing fund managers, collusion between participants, and vulnerabilities to money laundering."

The report said little about who is under investigation and how the fraudulent schemes work, but investigators are already on alert for a long list of potential scams. Such schemes could include obtaining bailout money under false pretenses, bilking the government with phony mortgage modifications, and cheating on taxes with fraudulent filings.

"You don't need an entirely corrupt institution to pull one of these schemes off," Barofsky said. "You only need a few corrupt managers whose compensation may be tied to the performance of these assets in order to effectively pull off a collusion or a kickback scheme."

The risk of fraud is only increasing as the bailout becomes "more complex and larger in scope," he said.

Indeed, much of the 247-page report released in Washington today by Barofsky's office focuses on a segment of the bailout that is only now being put into motion -- an effort to buy toxic securities from banks and other investment groups in which the federal government would provide up to 92.5% of the money. That effort could be the most vulnerable to fraud, Barofsky said, because investors would have so little at risk.

Among the toughest recommendations in the report is for the Treasury to abandon its planned structure for buying the toxic securities, which include intricate bundles of bad mortgages and loans, before it gets rolling.

Members of Congress and consumer advocates expressed outrage Monday when they heard about the findings of the report.

"It shouldn't be a big surprise that a huge pot of honey attracts a lot of flies," said Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is also examining the program. "I would guess that 20 investigations, while a good start, is only the tip of the iceberg."

"That's an appalling record," Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, said of the 20 criminal investigations. "In the midst of this crisis from which they are being bailed out, the same people who created this mess are apparently still breaking the law. What is it with these people?"

In a series of recommendations, Barofsky asked the Treasury Department for greater transparency and greater fraud protections.

The Treasury Department's bailout chief, Neel Kashkari, said in a letter dated April 14 that the recommendations would be "considered."

The report underscores just how complicated the bailout program has become.

What started out in October as a $750-billion effort only to buy toxic securities has morphed into 12 separate programs that cover up to $3 trillion in direct spending, loans and loan guarantees -- an amount roughly equal to the annual federal budget.

Today, banks, insurers, brokerages, auto companies, car parts makers and homeowners are just some of the beneficiaries of the program, known formally as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The report dedicated an entire section to what many experts believe is its most risky operation -- a toxic asset purchase plan under a broader program known as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, known as TALF. Originally, TALF was aimed at expanding consumer lending programs for autos, student loans and other types of credit.

But the Obama administration expanded TALF to include funding and federal loan guarantees to purchase toxic securities.

That program has at least two parts: one to buy up bad loans from banks and another to buy up bundled loans in the form of mortgage-backed securities from investment markets. The government would split any profits with the private investors it partnered with.

The latter has sparked greater concern because of the possibility that buyers could collude to manipulate prices and extract kickbacks, with the government taking virtually all of the risk.

"When you are buying from the market or the street, transparency comes into question," Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor, said. "The potential for pricing fixing and collusion becomes greater because the government doesn't have control or knowledge of who" all the players are.

Members of Congress, who were given Barofsky's report Monday, have already expressed concern over the plan.

House Financial Services Committee member Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), a certified public accountant, said that under the plan, taxpayers would take virtually all the risk, get zero control and only 50% of the profits.

"That doesn't sound like a good deal," he said.

"I can't imagine Warren Buffett signing something like that."

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

tom.hamburger@latimes.com

TO QUOTE DUMBLEDORE: LET THE FEAST BEGIN!

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Even-Jack-Bauer-couldnt-stop/story.aspx?guid=%7BBE0D1772%2DA628%2D454D%2D80BF%2DC4484CEBA7DF%7D

excerpt:

I'm breathless and dizzy after reading that.

The Usual Suspects

Blankfein. Steel. Thain. Paulson. Kashkari. See a pattern? The Goldman Sachs “conspiracy” to take over the U.S. financial system.


Wall Street bankers who’ve spent any time in the business often find they suffer from “Goldman Sachs envy”—a bitter mix of resentment and begrudging admiration for the firm’s seemingly endless list of triumphs. It thrived while others struggled, and even if competitors were succeeding, Goldman always one-upped them. It sealed bigger deals, showered its executives with more money, and placed its powerful alumni in higher levels of government.

Now, with Goldman emerging from the financial crisis battered but still on top, the Street is seeing something more insidiously silly: a bona fide Goldman conspiracy. “A lot of people think that they must have gotten where they are because of some unfair advantage,” hedge fund manager Bill Fleckenstein says. “Nobody likes to think that someone flat out beat ’em.” (See a list of Goldman Sachs alumni and how they figure into the market turmoil of recent months.)

Believers point to the one degree of separation between Goldman bankers and recent financial events. Bush’s Treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, is a former Goldman C.E.O., and his replacement at Treasury, Tim Geithner, was mentored by Goldman alumni. Mario Draghi, who is leading the crisis response for the E.U., is a former Goldman vice chairman.

Merrill Lynch C.E.O. John Thain was once Goldman’s co-president, and Wachovia chief Robert Steel was a vice chairman. Ed Liddy, the new C.E.O. of A.I.G., was Goldman’s vice chairman. World Bank president Robert Zoellick was a managing director. Even Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old tapped to oversee the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, served at Goldman as a vice president. Are they plotting to take over the world? Who knows. They sure are a tight-knit group, and potential conflicts abound.

When we asked the participants about their roles in the alleged conspiracy, some didn’t appreciate the joke. Goldman said that such claims are ludicrous. In fact, a spokesman said that the firm is at a disadvantage, since its alums must go out of their way to avoid the appearance of favoritism. Geithner, Paulson, the S.E.C., and others also dismissed the theories.

(you are then directed to this article:

http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2009/01/07/Goldman-Conspiracy-Theories

and I don't mean country.

My favorite quote from that movie:

Interrogation Cop: I can put you in Queens on the night of the hijacking.
Hockney: Really? I live in Queens, did you put that together yourself, Einstein? Got a team of monkeys working around the clock on this?

You linked to http://www.goldmansachs666.com/ in "Handy Links".

Goldman Sachs ain't gonna be happy!

COOL

up there. As you say, certain parties who may not approve of http://www.goldmansachs666.com may be not very happy to see http://www.goldmansachs666.com mentioned anywhere (apart from their own http://www.goldmansachs666.com - related foot-shooting, of course).

Obama's Secret Plan (April 22, 2009)
Charles Hugh Smith

In which we speculate that perhaps Obama has a secret plan to discredit the investment banker cabal and thus undermine their vast political power and reach.

Many observers, partisans non-partisans alike, have been mystified by President Obama's continuation of the Bush/bankers/Treasury's "privatize bonuses, socialize risks" campaign of taxpayer-funded bank bailouts, phony slight-of-hand "transparency" and political support for blatantly bogus accounting of banks' profits, assets and losses.

The failure of the Obama administration to pursue real regulatory "change" (such as actually enforcing regulations that are already on the books instead of throwing bankers new squeeze toys like "relaxed" mark-to-fantasy accounting) has moved many from mystification to outrage.

Where's the "change" in this continuation of Bush/bailout policies? What is the rationale of a supposedly "progressive" president in filling his financial administration with "investment banker Borgs"?

Let's begin our speculation with a question: if a new President (of either party) wanted to destroy the political power of the investment banker cabal which currently holds sway over Treasury and Congress, what path would actually lead to success?

Does anyone seriously believe that a new President could dent the vast political power of the Financial Aristocracy with a Jimmy Stewart-like speech excoriating the bankers and their minions for gutting the U.S. economy? The chances of that having any effect are zero.

How about tightening regulations? And what happens when lapdogs in Congress quickly rush to gut the regulations or the regulatory forces supposedly empowered to enforce them? If you doubt the power of bankers, please look at what has happened to attempts to limit the most egregious excesses of credit card usury and outrageous junk fees: they're thwarted or watered down every time.

Does anyone seriously believe an obstructionist opposition which supported Bush's giveaways and staggering deficits for eight long years has any credibility? The moment to do something about deficits was 2003, and the moment to vote down bailouts was last Fall (hmm, now there's an appropriate season) when the TARP debacle was shoved down the nation's throat by the Financial Aristocracy.

Does anyone seriously believe the Democrats who cheerily absorbed millions in donations from scalawags and crooks in Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs et al. while obstructing regulations which might have limited the damage have a lick of credibility? To be a partisan in this age is to be either blind or brainwashed.

So let's face it: any President who sought to destroy the political power of the Investment Banker Aristocracy in a frontal assault would be defeated if not destroyed. Any president of either party who dares even mess around the edges of the real power structure gets "the treatment."

Is there any strategy would might actually work? How about "give them enough rope to hang themselves"? President Dwight Eisenhower has long been dismissed as a do-nothing who "got lucky" in his two terms. Perhaps--but he was also a canny politico who didn't say much because he preferred to give his opponents plenty of stout rope. And sure enough, most of the time they promptly hanged themselves with their own excesses.

If you set out to completely discredit the bankers and eviscerate their political power, you'd proceed exactly as Obama has done, enabling it to reach its reductio ad absurdum conclusion of fat bonuses and tax-funded bailouts in the trillions of dollars, at which point the public will rise up in fury, doing the work which was impossible for you, a new "liberal" president.

more...
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/obamas-secret-plan04-09.html

giving Wall Street enough rope means hanging the entire planet.

I prefer FRSP. Surgical, clean, permanent, and an effective deterrent.

I've had this same exact theory for some weeks now. Obama just doesn't have the juice to pull down Wall Street---yet. Having watched his political career since the 1990's, this passive-aggressive, give them enough rope to hang themselves, strategy is exactly his style.

Think about it. The public was angry, but not outraged at the TARP. So, we ponied up more money, which Obama knew they would ill use. Bonuses, hoarding, and scamming the market as usual which will probably result in the economy getting much worse. His job is merely to expose the bankers criminal actions and inciting us, the taxpayers, to a near riot. The president alluded to his with his pitchfork remark, reminding the bankers where his power truly lies. When the sheeple finally are frightened, miserable, and angry enough, then and only then will President Obama have the juice to start implementing true reform--after the bankers have destroyed themselves.

It is the only reason I hold out any hope at all for us to survive as the mythical America we we're all taught to believe in.

Probably by then, the banksters will have looted most of our taxmoney for themselves, and destroyed us too, doing it.

Perhaps Obama's plan 'B' is to help us thru the coming depression when we have few jobs, little money, and not much food to eat, and implement reform. I don't know how Obama is going to do it, but husband says not to worry.

but it's a Rube Goldberg idea.

I (still) do hope.

(But keep it quiet).

Edit: Otherwise, one can foresee some variety of martial law?

As seen elsewhere on DU, but certainly appropriate here.



http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/56151/

You can't make this stuff up!

There's a lot of that going around....even on DU. I'm sticking with this thread. You all are right--it's not safe out there. Or sane.

All the poor little misunderstood John Galts running around crying.

I remember reading about the anti-Chavez rallies in Venezuela. One woman observed to a reporter. "Just look at them. They are the ones who have everything, and they're not happy". She pointed out that they were, rich women, in high heels, and expensive clothes and hair-do's.

We need a healthy dose of FRSP's, right after we eat the cake.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8364392

Presidents Obama & Clinton Wants/sic/ Ordinairy/sic/ Americans To Help America

It’s as simple as that. All that’s required on your part is a willingness to make a difference. That is, after all, the beauty of service. Anyone can do it. You don’t need to be a community organizer, or a Senator -- or a Kennedy – or even a President to bring change to people’s lives.

And he spoke to the larger moment our country faces:

We need your service, right now, at this moment in history. I’m not going to tell you what your role should be; that’s for you to discover. But I’m asking you to stand up and play your part. I’m asking you to help change history’s course. Put your shoulder up against the wheel. And if you do, I promise you – your life will be richer, our country will be stronger, and someday, years from now, you may remember it as the moment when your own story and the American story converged, when they came together, and we met the challenges of our new century.

For your stories on delivering change to America go to

http://www.whitehouse.gov/change /

http://serve.org




You can imagine what my response to THAT was -- you can just go over there and read it.


WHY THE FUCK DO "ORDINAIRY" PEOPLE HAVE TO KEEP STEPPING UP???

Damn them. Just damn them. Smirking bastards.



TG

Almost as bad as the experience I had there over the week-end.

I'm ready to swear off DU, except for SMW, WEE, and LBN.

Otherwise I go into the state forums (MN is pretty busy) and the Lounge besides SMW and LBN.

over there.

I mean other that the SMWers who wandered over.

y'all oughta come see.. . ..


:hi:

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/04/report-card-on-obomanomics-approaching.html

The Administration is coming up to that magical 100-day mark, at which point measures are taken of how a new president is doing. As a university professor I'm accustomed to giving grades. So here's my report card on Obamanomics so far:

The 10-year budget gets an A. It's an extraordinary vision of what America can and should become, including universal health insurance and environmental protections against climate change. And the budget takes a little bit more from the rich and gives a little bit more back to the poor and lower middle class, which seems appropriate given that the income gap is wider than it's been since the 1920s. I'd give the budget an A plus except for its far-too-rosy economic projections.

The stimulus package gets a B. Good as far as it goes but doesn't go nearly far enough. $787 billion over two years sounds like a lot of stimulus. But the economy is operating at about a trillion and a half dollars below its capacity this year alone. And considering that the states are cutting services and increasing taxes to the tune of $350 billion over this year and next, the stimulus is even smaller.

The last grade is for the bank bailouts. I give them an F. I'm a big fan of this administration, but I've got to be honest. The bailouts are failing. So far American taxpayers have shoveled out almost $600 billion. Yet the banks are lending less money than they did five months ago. Bank executives are still taking home princely sums, their toxic assets and non-performing loans are growing, and the banks are still cooking their books. And now the Treasury is talking about converting taxpayer dollars into bank equity, which exposes taxpayers to even greater losses.

So that's the report card. An A on the budget, B on the stimulus, and F on the bailout. On the whole (given how I weigh grades) that gives Obamanomics a C-plus. Not bad given the magnitude of the problems Obama inherited. But by the same token, not nearly good enough.

While not nearly as breathtaking as the Propaganda we were subjected to yesterday with Goofy's Platitudes, You really have to love the crap coming out of The Ministry of Perpetual Ignorance this morning. It's a scream.

I wanted to give a little commentary on it, before Yahoo Scrubs it or alters it, like they do every day to fit whatever is happening at the moment. Ohhhhhhh, What Goebbels could have done with technology.

Stocks rebound as traders look to upbeat earnings

Wall Street reverses early losses as investors focus on upbeat results; AT&T, Boeing gain

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stocks-rebound-as-traders-apf-14997940.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Investors set aside worries about bank earnings Wednesday to focus on upbeat reports from industrial and technology companies.

Stocks fell in early trading only to pull higher in the late morning, as they did on Tuesday when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reassured investors about the health of banks' balance sheets.

On Wednesday, dissipating worries about Morgan Stanley's weaker-than-expected results made it easier for investors to respond to better earnings news from AT&T Inc., Boeing Co., McDonald's Corp. and Yahoo Inc.

"We're starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel," said Frank Ingarra, co-portfolio manager at Hennessy Funds, referring to some of the recent earnings data. "The challenge is I don't know how long the tunnel is."

Is this getting childish and comical or what? The only thing Wall Street, The Media, The Treasury, and TPTB have left is pure Propaganda based on manipulated, synthetic, and competely artificial Bullshit.

More "reassurances", "upbeat rhetoric", "Hopes", "Optimism", and "(Insert favorite weasel language, slogan, buzzword, or Orwellian Catch Phrase Here.)"

If you read further though, once again, they are telling us that bowl of shit in front of us is a Hot Fudge Sunday with Chocolate Ice Cream.


"Morgan Stanley fell 73 cents, or 3 percent, to $23.92 after reporting it lost $578 million. The company said it was hurt in part by a deteriorating commercial real estate market. The bank's loss to common shareholders totaled 57 cents per share for the January to March period. That was wider than the per-share loss of 8 cents analysts had expected."

But wait, didn't the article state at the beginning that there were "dissipating worries" over Morgan Stanley's Earnings? The numbers were FAR worse than expected, but after the initial shock all of a sudden "investors" felt better? :wtf:

"Morgan's report was important because it interrupted a string of better-than-expected results from banks that suggested some of their problems were easing. Banks have largely dictated the stock market's direction since the fall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in mid-September. Analysts say it's crucial that banks become more stable and resume normal levels of lending in order for the economy to recover."

Translation: Either Morgan is the sacrificial lamb in this latest Ponzi Fest, or they just couldn't quite figure out how to creatively adjust their books so they could report Fantasy Earnings like Wells Fargo, Citi, and Goldman did.

"AT&T said strong results from its wireless business softened the effect of the weak economy and helped the country's biggest telecommunications carrier beat analyst estimates for the first quarter. The stock rose 94 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $26.22."

Translation: A five year old could read their statement and know Spy T&T's Earnings were shit, but the "analysts" lowered expectations so low that they could have beat them by only selling one Wireless contract for the quarter. And you can expect shenanigans like this to continue. You haven't seen the worst of the fraudulent crap these thugs are going to try and pull over on the Public, and it should scare you what they are going to come up with next.

"Boeing said its first-quarter earnings fell 50 percent, partly because of planned production cuts as airlines postpone deliveries of new planes. The world's second-largest plane maker also lowered its forecast for the year. The stock rose $1.21, or 3.3 percent, to $37.86."

"Yahoo rose 61 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $14.99 after saying it would lay off nearly 700 workers. The company's earnings fell 78 percent to $118 million for the first three months of the year."

"Continental Airlines Inc. rose 58 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $15.58 after reporting it lost $136 million in the first quarter as traffic fell and business travelers saved money by moving from first-class to the coach cabin."

Now take a good look at those sentences.

Now let's go back to the first sentence in the article:

Investors set aside worries about bank earnings Wednesday to focus on upbeat reports from industrial and technology companies.

Now, as a "fascist", I may be a little green when it comes to stuff like this, but could someone point out to me exactly what was so fucking "UPBEAT" about those earnings statements?

The article also states that McDonald's had a wonderful quarter, and that is a wonderful thing.

Translation: No one has any money to spend at better restaurants so they are subjecting themselves to the gut bombs at McDonald's, because they DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER CHOICE.

That's just SOOOOOOOO "UPBEAT."

I'm re-reading '1984' right now, and I have to say that we have reached an Orwellian Stage in our Media that borderlines on obscene. They aren't even trying to be inconspicuous any more, and it's all so brazenly blatant and arrogant. They really DO think the Public is that Stupid, and what's worse is they KNOW that is the case for a big percentage of the population.

Oh, and by the way, if you think what I just showed you was bad, I can EASILY top it.

Check THIS out:

Japan's Export Market fell -45% in March. but that's not what should horrify you. Well, it should horrify you, but what should horrify you even MORE is how it's being presented.

Japan Exports Slide Slows in Sign Recession May Ease

April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s export slump slowed in March, ending a four-month streak of record drops and adding to signs the recession may have started to ease.

Overseas shipments slumped 45.6 percent from a year earlier, compared with February’s unprecedented 49.4 percent plunge, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. Economists predicted a 46.4 percent drop.

The drop in shipments to the U.S. and China, Japan’s two largest markets, slowed. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said last week the “sharp decline” in the U.S. may be slowing. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. today raised its economic growth forecast for China to 8.3 percent this year from 6 percent previously, citing Premier Wen Jiabao’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package.

“It would be premature to celebrate,” said David Cohen, director of Asian economic forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore. “There’s no denying the Japanese economy is in its most severe recession since WWII, but at least it’s not spiraling down any more.”

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

So a 45.6% Dive in their Export Market shows the Recession may be "EASING?" Hey, GENIUSES, Your Country no longer has a SUSTAINABLE SOURCE OF GROWTH. Your Export Market was the ONLY THING KEEPING YOU FROM A TRUE DEPRESSION. How is this a sign of your problems "EASING?"


I've said it before, and I will say it again.

Orwell was a PROPHET.

The only thing he had wrong was the year.

:banghead:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/alice-in-financeland/

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.

(String Band: MAYA): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_JnyN1ajYw

Edit: All is illusion.

And, coming up next...

Exodus.

catapulted by these bozos. I don't know what's worse: the fact that they think we're dumb or that most of us will buy it.

You're right, Orwell was a prophet.

Susan Boyle has been offered a $1 million proposal for an adult film

20.04.2009 14:50:38 Susan Boyle, Super Star of Britain’s Got Talent has only been public for more than a week and she has already been proposed a $1 million worth contract for an adult film. The following story can be considered sad, silly, funny, stupid or even normal but the bottom line is that it is true and does happen in this jungle world.

(live-PR.com) - She has been given an offer for $1 Million to lose her virginity on camera. That makes £690,000 or approximately 750,000 Euros for unemployed Susan. The LA based film company named “Kick Ass Films” has gone a step ahead by launching a website enabling fans to give possible movie titles to the proposed film.

Boyle admitted on air that she has never dated, she has never been kissed and she has never had any sort of sexual interaction, which was the reason for this expensive offer by the film company.

http://www.live-pr.com/en/susan-boyle-britain-has-talent-r1048269845.htm

------------------------

British songbird Susan Boyle gets a semi-makeover

BY Lauren Johnston
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, April 22nd 2009, 10:29 AM
Susan Boyle returns to her home in Scotland sporting and updated look. Mitchell/Getty

Songbird Susan Boyle has insisted she won't let fame change her and that she has no plans for a makeover

But the surprise star of "Britain's Got Talent" recently stepped out all dolled up outside her home in Scotland.

She traded her shapeless stage dress for a fitted, jersey wrap dress - similar to the signature style of fashion diva Diane Von Furstenburg - and opted for vibrant teal and magenta colors in lieu of her usual muted hues.

Boyle also donned a stylish leather jacket and shiny lepoard print heels.

In a recent interview with CNN, Boyle said, "I wouldn't want to change myself too much because that would really make things a bit false. I want to receive people as the real me, a real person."

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/2009/04/22/2009-04-22_british_songbird_susan_boyle_gets_a_semimakeover.html

-----------------

By the way, the youtube video now has almost 38 million views.

In a recent interview with CNN, Boyle said, "I wouldn't want to change myself too much because that would really make things a bit false. I want to receive people as the real me, a real person."

You know, she's a really nice lady, from everything we can see so far, but those are famous last words.

I've said my peace on this subject in other threads, but it astounds me how batshit disproportionate this whole thing with her has gotten.

You'd think After Paul Potts and his Doppleganger on America's Got talent, people would figure out Cowell's Manipulations of the Public by now.

I guess the third time was a charm. :eyes:

Perhaps I have gotten WAY too cynical, but I think Ms. Boyle is going to regret being part of Cowell's scheme somewhere down the road.

And it sucks too. She's got a great voice, and appears to be a decent lady.

Fame Is An Ass. And a cruel one for those who aren't prepared to deal with too much, too fast.

She has "Exploitation Exhibit A" tattooed on her forehead.

A 126 Point Waterfall Decline in the last half hour of Trading after not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR attempts to manipulate the Market higher during the day is now referred to as Stocks "Fluctuating".

You can now add this to our favorite false paradigm language collection, along with "Pares Losses", "Profit-Taking", "Jitters", and my PERSONAL favorite from The Ministry of Ignorance: "Money on The Sidelines".

Carry On. As You Were. :)

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fluctuating-bank-stocks-steer-apf-15000792.html?sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

OK, not really. But, our growing season starts early down here, but the soil really sucks, for growing anything but weeds.

I always had a good sized garden up north, but couldn't get anything to grow down here.

I bought some of those Topsey Turvy thing-ama- jigs. and put in some tomatoes and peppers. In about a month, when the planting season starts up in Michigan and Ohio and so forth, I'll let you know if they're worth a shit.

It looks like a good idea, and they're cheap at Ace Hardware.

Supposed to get frost here in SW Ohio tonight. I don't usually plant anything until after Mother's Day.

(searches this morning's history): Oh yes, that was it:

Nestle Q1 sales hit by currency, confirms outlook
Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:28am EDT

ZURICH, April 22 (Reuters) - Nestle (NESN.VX), the world's biggest food group, missed forecasts with a dip in first-quarter sales due to the strong Swiss franc and a late Easter, but it reassured investors by repeating its full-year target.

Nestle said its strong brands and global reach, combined with steps to respond to the economic crisis such as promoting cheaper products and cutting costs, meant it still expected 2009 organic sales growth of "at least approaching 5 percent".

Organic sales growth, which strips out currency effects and acquisitions, was 3.8 percent in the first quarter, compared with an average forecast from analysts for a 3.7 percent rise, with 3.5 percent coming from pricing and 0.3 percent from volume growth.

...

Total sales slipped 2.1 percent to 25.2 billion Swiss francs ($21.5 billion) from 25.7 billion a year ago, undershooting the average forecast for a rise to 26 billion, as the strong Swiss currency had a negative impact of 5.2 percent.

...

Independent analyst James Amoroso said weak volume growth was largely due to a tough comparison with last year and the late Easter, which Nestle said hit ice cream sales in Europe and chocolate sales in Brazil, its biggest chocolate market. "The diversity of Nestle's portfolio ... at the levels of regions, categories and (distribution) channels means that it can retain its consumers wherever they go and however their consumption behaviour changes," he said.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLM25645220090422?sp=true

"Organic" not in any pure biological sense, of course. We all know what "cheaper" food and "consumption behaviour changes" means here, right? And I'm still holding some of their shares (inherited), dammit. Am I an innocent pragmatist? At least it's not Monsanto.

Bought the Kid a copy of Jack Benny in "Charlie's Aunt" for birthday....

They do not grow down. They still want to grow upwards. I think the plant spent so much energy reversing course that it only produced one (1) tomato.

The soil in my area is horrible, mostly clay and hard scrabble. So I dug a eight holes, each about one foot in diameter and one foot deep and filled each of them with good organic soil. I also used composted cow manure in the soil mix. The in-ground plants produced dozens of tomatoes.

I filled the things with good organic topsoil, and some fertilizer. I wanted to conditon a plot, but I waited too long. I have some clay kitty litter, dog food, and alfalfa cubes. You're supposed to cover it with cardboard, and straw, and water it regularly for about 4 months. It's supposed to grow some super tomatoes.

Maybe if I water the Topsy's with beer, they won't know which way is up!

No, really, our financial paper (which is real good at producing the incoherent dribble so painfully dissected above, but that's not relevant ;-))

had "Investing in your own garden is very profitable" as a main article :D
Actually, they referred to the US seed company delivering a 50 $ packet of seeds that you can grow 950$ of vegetables with.

For Once I Am on The Fasttrack To Financial Wealth!

I have invested in
- various garden tools (often including a smaller, children version - cost that comes in taking one along to shop),
- too much seeds really but "yeah I wanna try that" and also "soon there will be a run on seeds :blush:" - since every time you sow, you get too much plants, a neigbourhood swapping system is logical and well underway.
- two 5 euro vegetable growing tunnels (to get the greens early / late) only to learn afterwards that with some ingenuity & old see-through drapes you get a better effect, for free
- library fines to the tune of 5 euros for keeping two great seventies books on vegetable gardening way past the three week limit
- 40 euro for an encyclopedia of fruit / vegs - actually, got this as a present because "I seemed serious about it" from my better half (probably looking at the library fines)

Return on investment:
- get to know your neighbours, or talk them into "tending to this impractible tract of land" so now I have an orchard on lend if I share some of the jam
- sharing seed and plants gives you that commune-type feeling
- become one with nature as you discover where your cats have left little surprises
- spend lovely parent-kid moments as we cut ourselves up removing blackcurrant bushes
- rediscover your respect for people that tend(ed) the earth aka farmers, and rediscover several muscles and joints in the process
- you get to throw Free Salad For Everyone around since you sowed / planted them all at once
- if the Greater Depressiflation does happen, you'll be regarded as the Green Guru
- never running out of discussion subjects, ever. Now you've got a REASON to talk about the weather!
- the subtle "mine is bigger / mine is further out" plant comparisons keep that competitive element alive.


It's the best work I've done in ages, really.

And if it ever gets above freezing and stays there, I can go out and do my Demeter gig....

It was all of 49F, if you didn't count the wind, which is at least 10 degrees too cold for April. The sun and showers played tag all day. The trees are still bare, but the grass is so green it makes winter seem like a bad dream. The dandelions are blooming, so technically it is spring, but COLD. Going down below freezing again tonight..

Dow 7,886.57 Down 82.99 (1.04%)
Nasdaq 1,646.12 Up 2.27 (0.14%)
S&P 500 843.55 Down 6.53 (0.77%)
10-Yr Bond 2.964% Up 0.062
NYSE Volume 8,899,651,000
Nasdaq Volume 2,724,917,000

4:30 pm : For the second session in a row, stocks opened lower but buyers moved in to bid the major indices higher. However, upward momentum stalled as the S&P 500 approached the 850 level in the final hour of trading, which prompted sellers to re-enter the fold and hand stocks a sizeable loss.

The late selling effort focused on financial stocks, which closed with a loss of 3.8%, worse than any other sector in the S&P 500. Shares of Morgan Stanley (MS 22.44, -2.21) weighed heavily on the financial sector after the company reported a larger-than-expected first quarter loss and a dividend cut.

Wells Fargo (WFC 18.18, -0.63) worked to offset weakness in the financial sector. Its shares spent most of the session in higher ground after the company reported slightly better earnings than it previewed on April 9. Heading into the close, the stock surrendered its gains to join the sector's many decliners; declining issues in the financial sector outnumbered advancers by more than 6-to-1.

Industrial stocks saw the strongest gains of any sector by closing 1.1% higher. Their advance was led by General Electric (GE 11.80, +0.10), which showed relative strength as the company held a shareholder meeting.

Despite the industrial giant's strength, the Dow lagged the other headline indices and finished 1.0% lower.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq outperformed its counterparts for nearly the entire session. Its advance was largely led by Gilead Sciences (GILD 46.22, +2.49), which garnered support after reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings.

There were several other earnings reports for market participants to digest this session. AT&T (T 25.74, +0.46), McDonald's (MCD 54.25, -1.38), and Yahoo! (YHOO 14.48, +0.10) all topped estimates, but Boeing (BA 37.30, +0.65) and Capital One (COF 14.38, -0.67) missed estimates.

Earnings results will remain in focus heading into tomorrow's session. However, there will also be a couple of economic reports to provide direction to participants. Weekly jobless claims data is due prior to the open (8:30 AM ET), and existing home sales data for March will be released shortly after the opening bell (10:00 AM ET).DJ30 -82.99 NASDAQ +2.27 NQ100 +0.5% R2K +0.1% SP400 +0.3% SP500 -6.53 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1393/2.62 bln/1278 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1617/1.77 bln/1402

:crazy: