STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 21 December 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 21 December 2012[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 20 December 2012

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 20 December 2012
[center][font color=green]
Dow Jones 13,311.72 +59.75 (0.45%)
S&P 500 1,443.69 +7.88 (0.55%)
Nasdaq 3,050.39 +6.03 (0.20%)


[font color=black]10 Year 1.80% 0.00 (0.00%)
[font color=green]30 Year 2.98% -0.01 (-0.33%) [font color=black]


[center][/font]

[HR width=85%]

[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
[center]


[/center]

[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

[/center]

[center]

[/center]

[HR width=95%]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
[center]
Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
[center]
The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
[center]
LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
[center]
Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
[/center]

[div]
[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.



[HR width=95%]


[center]
[HR width=95%]
[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Hugin]

1. Happy EOWD, Tansy!

[Demeter]

2. Happy Solstice to All, and to all, a shorter night!

Occurs 6:12 am in Detroit.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=December+solstice+2012&iso=20121221T1112&sort=2

[Hugin]

5. All EoW kidding around aside...

The singular thing I find amazing about the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar is that even after being started several thousand years ago (The total span of the LC is 5125 years) it ends precisely on the Winter Solstice. A pretty amazing feat when one considers that if left to drift uncorrected our "modern" calendar would have the Winter Solstice sometime in July after a few centuries.

[Demeter]

6. It probably repeats after that

Last edited Fri Dec 21, 2012, 09:23 AM - Edit history (1)

[DemReadingDU]

11. People are making apocalypse jokes like there is no tomorrow.

[Demeter]

14. Okay, I'm putting you on Ignore, now

How could you do such a pun, and at Christmas?!

[DemReadingDU]

21. I'm the scrooge

[Demeter]

3. So, the Kid and I FINALLY Saw the New James Bond Flick

It was very good, surprisingly so. I've watched the series with all the different actors; they leave me mostly shaken, but not stirred.

This one, I actually cared how it ended. A plot, AND great special effects. And I like this Bond. He's more human than the others.

[Demeter]

4. I suppose James Bond could be the Weekend Topic

if I were the kind of cold-hearted, rub your nose in it, insensitive person that would stomp on a bruised heart.

So, to protect my reputation, please pick a better one!

[bread_and_roses]

31. I've been around so little - but either

the Solstice or the EOTW ? (the Mayan Doomsday stuff has been a source of such endless amusement these last few years ... I almost hate to see it go away. Of course, some other Doomsday scenario will pop up - never the right one, of course, which would be that we are in the midst of a mass extinction right now and are doing everything we can to accelerate it, regardless of consequences .... come to think of it, all that is way too grim ...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/20

Published on Thursday, December 20, 2012 by Common Dreams
Report: Ecosystems in Upheaval, Biodiversity in Collapse
New study documenting climate change shows sweeping changes happening faster than previously recorded and bringing 'cascading effects'

... )

I'm sure we've done the Winter Solstice, but I never tire of it ... just my two cents, and since I'll scarcely be around for days yet I'll take whatever you want to do and be glad for the few minutes I get to spend at least scanning down the post titles ....

[tclambert]

7. Nyaah, nyaah, Nibiru! You missed me!

http://weeklyworldnews.com/aliens/42896/earth-to-collide-with-nibiru-on-decembe-21-2012/

http://www.cosmostv.org/2012/12/nibiru-planet-x-changes-its-course.html

[Demeter]

9. Sometimes I think the Cowardly wish for total annihilation by an asteroid

because they are unable to do themselves any favors.

[DemReadingDU]

8. Documentary "The Ghost Exchange"

About the Documentary...
Ghost Exchange probes the current state of US capital markets, the impact of high frequency and algorithmic trading, the lack of, or ineffective regulatory oversight and the risks that are now inherent in our markets by going right to the source –Wall Street’s leading insiders – who shine a light on startling signs that the US stock market has built so much speed and complexity into the current system that it is impossible to regulate. The system has become – a Ghost Exchange.

The technology powering these markets has evolved at breakneck speed and change has accelerated dramatically. An unrelenting focus on technology, hyper short-term trading, speed, and volume has eclipsed sanity in some areas – benefiting an increasingly smaller group of players. Mathematical algorithms conduct nearly 75% of US stock trades today. Machines trade against each other, chasing mathematical models written by an elite group of engineers and mathematicians. The idea that Wall Street is a loud market place of open commerce is a long gone myth. Now, traders’ machines are moving blocks of stock and holding them for less than a microsecond. There are more than 50 trading venues, (once it was just the NYSE, NasDaq and the American Stock Exchange) the majority of which are so-called dark pools where trades are executed without transparency to the public.

The film seeks to explain how all this happened, who did it, what it means, and what’s coming next- understanding the true implications of events ranging the “Flash Crash” of 2010 to the trading system crash for the Facebook IPO in 2012…and most importantly, what it may mean to the investing public, what can be done to change it and what the SEC is (or isn’t) doing about it.
http://ghostexchangemovie.com/about-the-film/



Watch the trailer...
http://ghostexchangemovie.com/videos/watch-the-trailer/


Here are the people in the above trailer
http://ghostexchangemovie.com/theexperts/

[Demeter]

10. 75%!

No wonder the economy is sick all over.

There's nothing for it but pitchforks and torches, I fear.

[DemReadingDU]

12. scary

[Demeter]

13. Here in Michigan, we welcome in the solstice with a snowstorm

The weather people call it light snow mist...

The flakes are very small, but they are sticking, and the wind is blowing them around violently. The grass isn't covered---yet. And the wind chill is 22F. BRRR!

I have to go out in that all day today, tomorrow, and so forth.

It's a two-layer day.

[Demeter]

15. BOJ Loosens With Pledge to Review Inflation Objectives

EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-20/boj-adds-stimulus-as-abe-is-set-to-push-more-aggressive-easing.html

The Bank of Japan (8301) expanded its asset-purchase program for the third time in four months, and will reconsider its objectives for inflation as incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urges more action to end price declines.

The central bank increased the asset-purchase fund to 76 trillion yen ($906 billion) from 66 trillion yen, according to a statement released in Tokyo today. The BOJ kept its credit lending program unchanged at 25 trillion yen...

IT'S CALLED DEFLATION, ABE. GET USED TO IT. JUST KEEP PEOPLE WORKING, AND THE ASSETS WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES. THE RICH AREN'T SUFFERING, DON'T LET THEM TELL YOU OTHERWISE.

[Demeter]

16. Europe's Short of Ammo in the Currency Wars

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324407504578186963563197792.html

When Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told the Economic Club of New York last week that he was worried about a foreign exchange war*, it's tempting to wonder whether any of the worthy members spluttered into their zinfandel. For the post-crisis currency battle has been joined for a very long time now, and the Bank of England got its salvoes in earlier than most.

Its performance has been beyond hopeless as far as its supposed mandate is concerned, with consumer price index gains stubbornly above the Bank's State-set 2% target every month for three years. We've just found out that November's rise was 2.7%. Well done indeed.

But its monetary settings did coincide with a smart fall for sterling. A pound bought you $2 in July 2008. It bought you less than $1.40 by March 2009, the month when U.K. rates hit their all-time low of 0.5%. More than three years later, they are still there, augmented by vast quantitative easing. Trade-weighted, the pound fell more than 20% between 2007 and 2009, and, although it has clawed back about 4% in 2012, it's still 11% or so below its pre-crisis levels.

If we are to judge a central bank by deeds, rather than words or mandates, how shall we judge the BOE? Would currency manipulator be too strong a term?

[Demeter]

17. BUT WAIT, IT GETS WORSE

If anything the pace is hotting up. Japan's leader-elect Shinzo Abe has made no secret of the fact that he's a currency warrior. The Bank of Japan has a 1% inflation target. Mr. Abe wants it doubled to 2%. The idea is to weaken the yen and kick-start Japan's torpid economy. The fact that this has been the plan for more than two decades without obvious result seems not to matter much at the moment.

And then there's the U.S. Federal Reserve. Its extraordinary almost-pledge that the funds rate is going nowhere until the labor market behaves will severely limit the dollar's attraction; a totally unintended consequence of course. "Yeah, right," as my children put it.

[Demeter]

18. Goldman Bullish With Hedge Funds Amid Citi Warning

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/goldman-bullish-with-hedge-funds-amid-citi-warning-commodities.html

Investors almost doubled purchases of commodities this year, at a time when Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are forecasting higher prices and Citigroup Inc. (C) says the best returns are over.

Money invested in commodity funds increased by $21.6 billion this year, up 92 percent from the gain in 2011, according to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR Global, which tracks the flows. Hedge funds’ bets on a rally are 51 percent bigger than a year ago, U.S. government data show. Precious metals will lead returns in 2013, rising as much as 25 percent, as grains advance 18 percent and industrial metals 16 percent, according to a Bloomberg survey of 131 traders, investors and analysts across 15 raw materials.

While commodities are headed for their first annual retreat since 2008, growth in emerging markets will boost demand and tighten supply, Goldman Sachs’ analysts said in a report Dec. 5. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 raw materials almost tripled in the past decade as producers failed to keep up with consumption. That “super cycle” of returns has now ended because China is growing more slowly and supply has caught up, Citigroup’s analysts said in a report last month.

“It comes back to the uncertainty about the economy, and the government policies that are going to be enacted or potentially changing over the next year,” said Peter Jankovskis, who helps oversee about $3 billion of assets as co- chief investment officer at Lisle, Illinois-based Oakbrook Investments LLC. “That’s why you’re seeing that disparity in the outlooks of many of these forecasting firms.”

OR, THEY COULD BE JUST GUESSING

[Demeter]

19. MF Global Cases Focus on 'Letters' A KOCH CONSPIRACY

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324677204578183562540760332.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Thousands of former MF Global Holdings Ltd. customers still don't have a chunk of their money more than a year after the brokerage firm's collapse. But some of its big clients largely avoided similar losses, thanks to arrangements struck with the firm before its demise. These clients include energy-trading heavyweights ConocoPhillips COP and Koch Industries Inc. They are now battling in court against a trustee who says they owe him funds. The fight casts a spotlight on the privileges these and a small number of other customers secured from MF Global and raises the question whether these arrangements should continue after bankruptcy. A hearing on ConocoPhillips's dispute with the trustee is scheduled to be heard in federal district court in Manhattan on Wednesday. Koch and the trustee are engaged in separate litigation on the issue.

Most of the ranchers, farmers and small traders who traded commodities through MF Global were required to back their trades with cash or other assets as collateral. But nine customers, including two units of Houston-based ConocoPhillips and the energy-trading arm of Koch, based in Wichita, Kan., had agreements to back millions of dollars in trades with so-called letters of credit. Issued by banks, letters of credit essentially act as guarantees so that a customer doesn't have to put up cash or other assets. The letters could be drawn upon if the customer defaults on a trade. They were useful for the customers because they freed up cash that would otherwise sit around as collateral.

When MF Global failed, more than 27,000 customer accounts, most of whom backed their trades with assets like cash or Treasurys, filed claims for their missing funds with the U.S. trustee who is gathering assets for customers, James Giddens. He has so far returned 80% of assets to customers with U.S.-based accounts and 5% to customers with overseas accounts. For the customers with letters of credit, the situation has been different. Because some of their trades were backed by a guarantee instead of actual assets, their losses were smaller than they would have been if they had put up cash, the trustee says. Mr. Giddens argues this has created an unfair situation, where these customers haven't fully contributed to the pool of assets he is able to distribute back to the customer base. The circumstances have created a legal dispute that court documents indicate has rarely been seen before: whether letters of credit should be treated the same as other types of collateral in a brokerage liquidation. The trustee insists they should be, arguing that Commodity Futures Trading Commission rules are on his side.

"The trustee correctly applied the CFTC rules in determining that the letters of credit were customer property,'' a spokesman for Mr. Giddens said. "Those rules are designed to ensure that customers that used letters of credit as margin are treated the same as customers that used cash, securities, or other assets.''

The CFTC has filed a brief backing the trustee in its dispute with ConocoPhillips, saying the oil company must share the pain of MF Global's liquidation equally with other customers. ConocoPhillips has countered in court papers that since it never defaulted on its trades, the trustee cannot draw upon the letters. "Neither MF Global nor the Trustee...has ever declared default on the part of ConocoPhillips,'' according to a filing by Conoco's attorneys. As a result, the Trustee has had no legal authority to present the letters of credit for payment.'' At issue for ConocoPhillips are six letters of credit valued at $205 million posted to a combination of domestic and foreign accounts and issued by banks based in Italy, Sweden and the U.K. For Koch, at stake is a $20 million letter of credit issued by a unit of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and posted to a foreign account. In court filings, Koch also says it never defaulted on its trades, meaning the trustee can't claim the letter as customer property. It also added that the letter expired at the end of last year. In each case, if the trustee prevails, the companies would have to pay additional funds. ConocoPhillips could owe $58 million to the trustee, according to a calculation based on figures filed in court by ConocoPhillips, though the company could be owed money if it prevails.

The other customers with letters of credit have reached agreements with the trustee....

I HOPE THE TRUSTEE WINS AND SUCKS THE MONEY OUT OF THE KOCH BROTHERS....

[Demeter]

20. Nearly 1 Million Workers Will Receive a Pay Boost in January Due to Minimum Wage Increases

http://www.nationofchange.org/nearly-1-million-workers-will-receive-pay-boost-january-due-minimum-wage-increases-1356020843

AND THEY WILL STILL BE UNDER THE POVERTY LEVEL OF INCOME...

Nearly one million workers will see their pay increase in January due to scheduled increases in the minimum wage, according to a release by the National Employment Law Project. These workers in in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington will have their hourly pay rise by between 10 and 35 cents per hour, “resulting in an extra $190 to $510 per year for the average directly-affected worker,” NELP found. This table shows the increases in each state:



If the federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation since the 1960s, it would be over $10 today, a far cry from the current $7.25. And as the Economic Policy Institute noted, “Based on current projections of inflation growth over the next ten years, the federal minimum wage will lose nearly 20 percent of its purchasing power by 2022, equaling $5.99 in today’s dollars.”

Nearly one in four American workers is expected to be in a low-wage job over the next decade (which doesn’t just harm the individual worker, but is detrimental to the workers’ children). Raising the minimum wage would especially benefit women, as “women comprise 54.5 percent of workers who would be affected by a potential minimum-wage increase.”

[Demeter]

22. Could You Survive on $2 a Day?

Nearly 1.4 million American households live on that much per person. Gabriel Thompson reports from one of the nation's poorest areas....Two years ago, Harvard professor Kathryn Edin was in Baltimore interviewing public housing residents about how they got by. As a sociologist who had spent a quarter century studying poverty, she was no stranger to the trappings of life on the edge: families doubling or tripling up in apartments, relying on handouts from friends and relatives, selling blood plasma for cash. But as her fieldwork progressed, Edin began to notice a disturbing pattern. “Nobody was working and nobody was getting welfare,” she says. Her research subjects were always pretty strapped, but “this was different. These people had nothing coming in.”

Edin shared her observations with H. Luke Shaefer, a colleague from the University of Michigan. While the income numbers weren’t literally nothing, they were pretty darn close. Families were subsisting on just a few thousand bucks a year. “We pretty much assumed that incomes this low are really, really rare,” Shaefer told me. “It hadn’t occurred to us to even look.”

Curious, they began pulling together detailed household Census data for the past 15 years. There was reason for pessimism. Welfare reform had placed strict time limits on general assistance and America’s ongoing economic woes were demonstrating just how far the jobless could fall in the absence of a strong safety net. The researchers were already aware of a rise in “deep poverty,” a term used to describe households living at less than half of the federal poverty threshold, or $11,000 a year for a family of four. Since 2000, the number of people in that category has grown to more than 20 million—a whopping 60 percent increase. And the rate has grown from 4.5 percent of the population to 6.6 percent in 2011, the highest in recent memory save 2010, which was just a tad worse (6.7 percent).

But Edin and Shaefer wanted to see just how deep that poverty went. In doing so, they relied on a World Bank marker used to study the poor in developing nations: This designation, which they dubbed “extreme” poverty, makes deep poverty look like a cakewalk. It means scraping by on less than $2 per person per day, or $2,920 per year for a family of four. In a report published earlier this year by the University of Michigan’s National Poverty Center, Edin and Shaefer estimated that nearly 1 in 5 low-income American households has been living in extreme povery; since 1996, the number of households in that category had increased by about 130 percent. Among the truly destitute were 2.8 million children. Even if you counted food stamps as cash, half of those kids were still being raised in homes whose weekly take wasn’t enough to cover a trip to Applebee’s. (The chart below reflects their data.)

?9d7bd4

THERE'S SO MUCH MORE AT:

http://economichardship.org/could-you-survive-on-2-a-day/

[Demeter]

23. "Fiscal Cliff" Proposals Would Deepen Inequality By Scott Klinge

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33386.htm

The early reaction by many progressive organizations is that it would be better to go over the cliff than accept the emerging bargain the President has offered.

The latest proposals by both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would widen economic inequality in the United States. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the major offers on the table.

Top personal income tax rates

Rather than allowing Bush tax cuts on personal income over $250,000 to expire as scheduled at the end of the year, President Obama is now proposing to continue tax breaks for all income up to $400,000. This means just a fraction of the nation’s top 1 percent would be asked to pay more (the 1 percent threshold is $343,927). Shifting the goal posts would place more than $200 billion more into the pockets of those in the top 2 percent than would be the case if the $250,000 threshold were kept in place. This doesn’t just give a tax break to families with between $250,000 and $400,000 in income. Since we’re just talking about lifting the top marginal tax rate, those who earn more than $400,000 would also get a tax break of about $6,900 per year by not having to pay higher rates on their income in the $250,000-$400,000 range.

Neither the President nor Speaker Boehner has sought to end the carried interest exclusion which allows hedge fund managers to continue to pay taxes at the capital gains rate, not the higher wage income rate. The top hedge fund manager made $3.9 billion in 2011, meaning that the carried interest exclusion saved him $780 million last year alone.

Estate Tax

President Obama is proposing returning the U.S. estate tax to its tepid 2009 level: a 35 percent tax on couple’s estates over $7 million. At that level, only people in the top 0.25 percent would be affected. A more equitable approach would be a proposal by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would establish the same $7 million per couple exemption, but impose a graduated tax, starting at 45 percent for amounts between $7 million and $10 million; 50 percent between $10 million and $50 million; and 55 percent on amounts above $50 million. A ten percent “billionaire’s surtax” would be imposed on estates worth more than $1 billion for couples or $500 million for individuals.

Earned Benefit Programs

Even though Social Security, by law, is not funded out of the general fund, both President Obama and Speaker Boehner continue to act as if Social Security is somehow a part of the federal deficit. The President’s latest proposal, one supported by many House Democrats, would result in immediate and on-going reductions in Social Security benefits, through use of a new formula to calculate annual cost-of-living benefits. The so-called “chained CPI,” allegedly a more accurate measure of inflation for the society at large, would reduce Social Security cost of living allowance (COLA) by 0.3 percent per year.

This doesn’t sound like much, but over 20 years, that’s a cut of 6 percent (or about $1,000 a year) over what benefits would have otherwise been. Moreover, economist Dean Baker points out that the new measure poorly reflects the actual consumption patterns of elderly Americans. Since health care inflation has historically risen much more rapidly than other consumer items, retirees face costs that are already 0.2 to 0.3 percent higher than the current COLA formula reflects. Given that the median income of Americans over 65 is less than $20,000, and that 45 percent of senior citizens rely on Social Security for more than 90 percent of their income, the proposed change represents increased hardship for those who can least afford it.

Capital Gains and Dividends

President Obama has abandoned his proposal to tax dividends as ordinary income and instead would allow all income from wealth – capital gains and dividends – to be permanently taxed at 20 percent. That’s only about half the top marginal tax rate for income from work and reflects an additional $100 billion in tax savings that would go disproportionately to upper-income Americans. This would assure that America’s wealthiest citizens, including folks like Warren Buffett, will continue to pay lower tax rates than many middle class families.

Corporate Taxes

President Obama is proposing a “fast track” process for achieving both corporate and individual tax reform. This suggests that members of Congress will have only limited time to debate and no chance to amend the tax legislation. Pushing corporate tax reform through as part of a “fast track” package is particularly problematic, given the high-profile role of corporate CEOs in backing tax hikes for wealthy taxpayers in exchange for sharp cuts in corporate tax rates and a permanent offshore tax holiday on foreign profits.

Neither side is taking up the issue of the $100 billion lost each year as the result of tax haven abuse. This $1 trillion over the 10-year budget window nearly is equal to the total proposed cuts to health, social security, and military spending under the draft proposals.

Not only are both sides silent on offshore tax abuse, they stand ready to make permanent two pernicious loopholes in the corporate tax extenders bill. One, called the active financing exception is the principal reason General Electric pays little to no taxes each year. The other, called the “Controlled Foreign Corporation Look-Through” is the reason why companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google can shift their U.S. profits to a foreign tax haven with a simple computer keystroke. Both of these egregious abuses have been targeted by progressive fair tax advocates.

While corporate profits are at a 50-year high, corporate tax collections as a share of the economy are at 50-year lows. If corporate lobbyists get their way, corporate taxes will be going lower still.

Giving rich individuals and prosperous corporations more tax cuts, while asking seniors to give up Social Security benefits is a bad deal. The early reaction by many progressive organizations is that it would be better to go over the cliff than accept the emerging bargain the President has offered.

[Demeter]

30. That Old Sick Feeling PAUL KRUGMAN

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/that-old-sick-feeling/



Here we go again -- or so I find myself fearing.

Obama's fiscal deal offer was already distressing -- cuts to Social Security, and a big concession, it turns out, on taxation of dividends, retaining most of the Bush cut (with the benefits flowing overwhelmingly to the top 1 percent). It wasn't clear that the deal would have gotten nearly enough in return. But sure enough, it looks as if Republicans have taken the offer as a sign of weakness, as a starting point from which they can bargain Obama down. Oh, and they're not giving up at all on the idea of using the debt ceiling for further blackmail. In other words, all of a sudden it's feeling a lot like 2011 again, with the president negotiating with himself while the other side enjoys the process.

So Obama needs to draw a line right now: no further concessions. None. He's already given too much.

Yes, this probably means going over the cliff. So be it: it's less bad than the alternative.

And if Obama does try to make more concessions, Democrats in Congress need to let him know that they're not behind him, that he cannot count on their votes.

[Roland99]

24. US Futures TANKING after GOP Plan B fails in the House

[font color="red"]S&P 500 -1.5%
DOW -1.4%
NASDAQ -1.2% [/font]

[Demeter]

27. Another Epic Fail by the GOP

Maybe it will become a weekly series? A kind of real-life, live sit. com.!

I might even buy cable service, if they package it right.

[Demeter]

25. What If All the World’s Debt Just Went Away?

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13454-what-if-all-the-world%E2%80%99s-debt-just-went-away

Just for fun, imagine if all debt were wiped away when the Mayan Calendar ends this Friday…

How would the world be different? What would become possible for you personally in your life? How would nations and corporations invest our newfound wealth differently if we all started from a clean slate? Problems like global warming and extreme poverty would instantly become financial drops in the bucket—easily tackled with fair contracts and forward-looking investments. The structural debts of entrenched subsidies, invested capital, tax havens, and trade agreements that keep them from being addressed would simply no longer exist.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well just such a fantasy used to be standard practice in the Hebrew Tradition throughout the early days of their civilization. They held a great Jubilee every seven years to erase all debt and end economic slavery. Accounts kept on stone tablets were broken. Those stored on papyrus were burned to ash. Slaves were returned to their families. Everyone was given a fresh start. (This tradition is being revived today through the Occupy-inspired project, Rolling Jubilee, that has already abolished more than $9,000,000 in US debt for everyday citizens.)

The Invention of Debt

What you may not know is that debt arose recently on the human stage. Throughout more than 99% of our history we have not even had a concept for debt. (The interested reader can pick up David Graeber’s excellent book Debt: The First 5000 Years for the full story.)

Anthropological studies of hunter-gatherer societies reveal that there were no barter systems, no currencies to use for money, and — in the absence of these cultural artifacts — there was no debt. With all the great variation across cultures one might expect from ethnographic research, the anthropologists found that some tribal communities engaged in “gift economies” where status arises from how generous a person after they have acquired wealth, while others have remained egalitarian and non-hierarchical for thousands of years by sharing their food and materials based on the principles of “from each as they are able, to each as they need.”

This belies the great misunderstanding about communism that treats it as a state-centric governing system, when in truth it is the foundational sentiment of any community that builds upon the trust and good will of social relations between people who know and depend upon one another — a condition that has held for all hunter-gatherer societies throughout our long 200,000 year history as a species...

[Roland99]

26. Spending up 0.4% as November income jumps 0.6%

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/spending-up-04-as-november-income-jumps-06-2012-12-21

[Demeter]

28. Welcome to 'Michiganistan' By Jim Hightower

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/welcome-michiganistan?akid=9833.227380.QCO3bB&rd=1&src=newsletter764612&t=4

Michigan is no longer a state. It is now “Michiganistan,” an autocratic czardom in the hands of Emperor Rick Snyder. Formerly the Republican governor, Snyder has been enthroned by the GOP’s lame-duck, legislative supermajority to rule with an iron fist — democracy, rule-of-law, fairness, and the people be damned....Ironically, voters had given Snyder and his cohort of right-wing corporate ideologues a spanking for this kind of nastiness in a November referendum. The GOP cabal in Lansing had conspired last year to usurp the local authority of city governments and allow Snyder to send in unelected, unaccountable autocrats to fire elected officials and seize control, but last month, Michigan voters overthrew this absurdity.

This month, however, Snyder and gang doubled down on their dumbfounding, anti-democratic zealotry. With no warning, no hearings, no public input, no floor debate, and no time for citizens to even know what was happening, the same legislative czarists rammed a union-busting bill into law. Even though he had publicly rejected such a proposal earlier this year as being “very divisive,” Emperor Snyder gleefully signed this measure.

Who’s behind this madness? Say hello to two infamous, anti-union, billionaire plutocrats: the Koch brothers. They had funneled as much as a million dollars into Snyder’s 2010 gubernatorial election, and three Michigan front groups funded by the billionaire brothers aggressively pushed the exact same anti-worker proposal that the Republican thugs just bullied into law.

Two things not long for this world are dogs that chase cars and politicians who deceive and cheat the people. Already, Michiganders are organizing a petition drive for another referendum to overturn the law and return the Czardom of Michiganistan back to democratic rule. Stay tuned.

YOU BETCHA WE ARE! IT'S GOING TO BE ANOTHER EPIC FAIL!

MAYBE THIS CAN REPLACE CRAP LIKE DANCING WITH THE STARS, OR THAT SURVIVAL THINGEE...

[Demeter]

29. Julian Assange: WikiLeaks is preparing to publish one million new secret government documents

A XMAS GIFT TO THE WORLD!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/21/julian-assange-wikileaks-is-preparing-to-publish-one-million-new-secret-government-documents/

Julian Assange has said that WikiLeaks is preparing to publish 1m new secret government documents as he marked six months of refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London with a speech from its balcony on Thursday. The WikiLeaks founder has remained in the embassy to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden on suspicion of sexual offences. There is a permanent police guard and Assange will be arrested if he leaves the premises.

Around 80 supporters gathered to hear Assange speak. They carried candles and held placards reading, “Don’t shoot the messenger” and “Don’t trust Sweden”. Some sang Christmas carols as they waited for Assange from the first floor balcony, a short distance from Harrods department store. There were 60 additional police officers on duty. Assange emerged with a raised fist and greeted the crowd: “What a sight for sore eyes. People ask what gives me hope. The answer is right here,” he said.

[bread_and_roses]

32. Boehnerville & "The Grand Sellout"

from NEA, AFSCME, & SEIU

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/12/20

Links embedded at Commondreams so you can go directly to call your Legislators

With the Capitulator-in-Chief reportedly considering cuts to social security and other benefits in the fiscal showdown - after insisting he wouidn't, but we digress - many are not happy and calling for protests. A new labor ad warns that Boehnerville will not be fun, and a new whip list of Democrats from Moveon.org tracks your legislators' stands, and suggests you call if they are "Weak-kneed" or "Wavering" on cuts. With more from Esquire's Charles Pierce on "The Grand Sellout."

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Fuddnik]

34. And that little nauseating, rat-faced Cantor is standing right behing Boner

Sharpening his knife.

[Roland99]

33. Dec. UMich consumer sentiment 72.9

[Demeter]

35. HO! HO! HO! DOWN 170 PTS AT NOON

I guess the algorithms are getting coal in their stockings....

[Demeter]

36. Baby, it's cold outside!

Last edited Fri Dec 21, 2012, 01:38 PM - Edit history (1)

Rumor of 3 inches tonight....at least it looks like it could be Christmas!

I do NOT want to go out again, after sloshing around all morning...but, duty calls, and calls, and calls, and....

[Hugin]

37. Post Apocalyptic K&R

[Demeter]

38. The Latest War on Single Moms

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/latest-war-single-moms?akid=9836.227380.7KKamG&rd=1&src=newsletter764878&t=8&paging=off


...it’s not just Sweden (THAT TREATS WOMEN BETTER): The comparison countries include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. When put in this relatively diverse and similarly wealthy company, the authors write, “We find that U.S. single-parent families are the worst off. They have the highest poverty rate. They have the highest rate of no health care coverage. They face the stingiest income support system. They lack the paid-time-off-from-work entitlements that in comparison countries make it easier for single parents to balance caregiving and job holding. They must wait longer than single parents in comparison countries for early childhood education to begin. They have a low rate of child support receipt.”

Partly as a result of “welfare reform” policies, they note, “U.S. single parents have both above average employment rates,” including, often, full-time and year-round work, “and above average poverty rates.” How does that happen? Single mothers pushed into the workforce disproportionately end up in low-wage jobs, and a diminishing pool of them at that. (Over 80 percent of single parents in the U.S. are single mothers, less than half of whom have never been married.) The recession’s lasting impacts have meant a decline in employment rates for single mothers — from 73 percent in 2007 to 66 percent in 2011 — even as the last remaining benefits are being haggled down in Congress. Single mothers also tend to make substantially less than single or married men with the same education, thanks to discrimination, occupational segregation and the historic devaluing of jobs women tend to do.

The study takes a broad view of government policies affecting the most vulnerable families: It’s about affordable daycare and paid family leave, but it’s also about access to health insurance, subsidized or free early education for 3- to 5-year-olds, and child allowance program, payments many countries adopted to encourage fertility, something conservatives supposedly want too. (The earned income tax credit and additional child tax credit were meant to have a similar impact, but those were different days.)

Getting fathers to step up is increasingly popular to talk about in the U.S., but when that doesn’t happen, this country is not among several countries offering “advanced maintenance programs,” in which the government guarantees child support payments, up to a point, and then tries to collect from the deadbeat parent.

These are all concrete ways that other countries are protecting low-income families, including children who might be trapped in a cycle of poverty — but they cost a lot more than demonizing single mothers.

[Demeter]

39. Climate Change Is Not Just an Environmental Problem -- It's an Economic One

http://www.alternet.org/environment/climate-change-not-just-environmental-problem-its-economic-one?akid=9836.227380.7KKamG&rd=1&src=newsletter764878&t=18&paging=off


...And here, in microcosm, is the problem with solving climate change. There's too much money to to be made doing the same old same old. There's no incentive to change, I mean, unless you like breathing the air and drinking the water. But apparently that's just not as sexy as the old "jobs and revenue" line that gets trotted out by every fill-in-the-blank financially interested party to defend every project that will add more carbon to the atmosphere.

The sticking point with climate change is it's not an environmental problem, primarily, but an economic problem. The entire world's economy revolves around carbon-spewing technologies. And until the kingpins controlling the resources that keep this economy running figure out how to make money in changing, there will be no serious change. Period, the end. Too bad about the air and water...

...I'm not against jobs and revenue but I've come to highly value breathing air and drinking water. The only force in the world capable of ultimately winning out over all this prevailing wisdom about jobs and revenue and the incredible boon of "clean" fossil fuels is sustained direct action by people. For real change, people will have to push harder, because politicians can talk forever, if you let them.

This is the conclusion many activists have come to across a variety of campaigns likeGreenpeace, theTar Sands Blockade and the newstudent movement to force colleges and universities to divest themselves of their fossil fuel investments, to name a few. It's surely going to get hotter - literally and figuratively - before health and well-being win out over jobs and revenue.

[tclambert]

40. The Mayan calendar ends. But the Dilbert calendar goes on. The Mayans should just switch over.

Maybe we should get together and buy them a LOLcats calendar.

[kickysnana]

41. Fear