Weekend Economists Go Looney Toony May 6-8, 2011

[Demeter]

Which reminds me, my brother's got a birthday Sunday....he was a Mother's Day present. Happy Birthday, Bro!

Well, don't know about you, but I am ready to join Bugs and Bab and Daffy and Tweety and all the crew after only a week of this merry month of May.



Hmm... they don't look too welcoming.



Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and is WB's first animated theatrical series. The regular Warner Bros. animation cast also became known as the "Looney Tunes" (often misspelled, intentionally or not, as "Looney Toons"). The name Looney Tunes is a variation on Silly Symphonies, the name of Walt Disney's concurrent series of music-based cartoon shorts. Looney Tunes originally showcased Warner-owned musical compositions through the adventures of cartoon characters such as Bosko and Honey. Later Looney Tunes shorts featured popular characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester the Cat, Speedy Gonzales, Tweety Bird, Granny, Pepé Le Pew, Penelope Pussycat, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Taz, Gossamer, Witch Hazel, Michigan J. Frog, Bosko, Buddy, and many others. Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Looney Tunes were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944, and the newly renamed Warner Bros. Cartoons continued production until 1963.

Looney Tunes were outsourced to DePatie-Freleng Enterprises from 1964 to 1967, and Warner Bros. Cartoons re-assumed production for the series' final two years. From 1942 until 1969, Looney Tunes was the most popular short cartoon series in theaters, even exceeding Disney and other popular competitors. Starting in 1960 the cartoons were repackaged into several different TV programs that remained popular for several decades before being purchased by Turner Broadcasting Systems. Turner's Cartoon Network reran cartoons for 12 years, from their start on October 1, 1992 until October 3, 2004. The cartoons were aired on Cartoon Network, then later shifted to sister channel Boomerang, which specializes in "Classic Animation". Gradually, they disappeared from the schedule altogether, including the annual June Bugs showing of all Bugs Bunny shorts in alphabetical order. In November 2009, Cartoon Network brought back reruns of Looney Tunes cartoons, but stopped airing them in early 2010. As of March 14, 2011, Cartoon Network have again started showing the original shorts in the run-up to the new "Looney Tunes Show" that will air on May 3, 2011. Many of the cartoons are available on DVDs marketed by Time Warner.

The term Looney Tunes is often used as a collective reference to all Warner Bros. animation and characters, and is a registered trademark of Warner Bros...

---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes

A spin-off of Looney Tunes, entitled Baby Looney Tunes ran in America from June 2002 through October 2005 on Cartoon Network. The series shows many of the Looney Tunes characters as babies living with Granny. Duck Dodgers is a 2003 half-hour action-comedy-sci-fi series based on Chuck Jones' original short, and expands upon the universe Duck Dodgers explores, as well as Marvin's own civilization. Another series called Loonatics Unleashed ran from 2005 to 2007. It featured futuristic descendents of the Looney Tunes characters as super-heroes. Cartoon Network announced a half-hour series of brand new Looney Tunes cartoons produced by Warner Bros. Animation and slated for a premiere on May 3, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x07BOja7eog

[Demeter]

1. ONE BANK DOWN THIS WEEKEND--LEFTOVER FROM LAST WEEK?

Coastal Bank, Cocoa Beach, Florida, was closed today by the Office of Thrift Supervision, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Premier American Bank, National Association, Miami, Florida, to assume all of the deposits of Coastal Bank.

The two branches of Coastal Bank will reopen on Monday as branches of Florida Community Bank, a division of Premier American Bank, N.A...As of March 31, 2011, Coastal Bank had approximately $129.4 million in total assets and $123.9 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Premier American Bank, N.A. agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.

The FDIC and Premier American Bank, N.A. entered into a loss-share transaction on $108.2 million of Coastal Bank's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $13.4 million. Compared to other alternatives, Premier American Bank, N.A.'s acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Coastal Bank is the 40th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the fifth in Florida. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Cortez Community Bank, Brooksville, on April 29, 2011.

[Demeter]

2. One Year After Stock Crash Regulators Still Vexed by Fragmentation

PERHAPS PART OF THE COLLAPSE THIS WEEK WAS DUE TO FEARS OF ANOTHER "FLASH CRASH"?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-06/fragmentation-that-fed-may-6-plunge-is-focus-of-regulators-one-year-later.html

One year ago, regulators were unable to arrest a market collapse that erased $862 billion from stock values in less than 20 minutes. Yesterday, they agreed that their work to prevent a recurrence has yet to be completed.

Exchanges established circuit breakers to curb price swings across about 50 equity venues, adopted uniform rules on when to cancel transactions and eliminated quotes that let companies such as Accenture Plc (ACN) fall as low as a penny from about $41 on May 6, 2010. David Shillman, associate director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of trading and markets, said yesterday that while the initiatives have worked so far, more needs to be done. “It’s an ongoing task by the commission to make sure the regulatory structure keeps up with markets,” Shillman said at a Georgetown University conference in Washington. “We need to coordinate with the futures market. We don’t want a world where single-stock circuit breakers are going off at lower thresholds yet the index continues to trade.”

Twelve months after a mutual fund’s hedging strategy set off a chain reaction that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its biggest slide since 1987, the SEC has acted to solve issues created by market fragmentation on equity exchanges. That the selloff originated on a futures venue run by CME Group Inc. (CME) in Chicago, overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, shows why even more coordination may be one of the SEC’s biggest challenges... Almost 1.3 billion shares traded on U.S. markets in a 10- minute span starting at 2:40 p.m. New York time on May 6, 2010, six times the average, sending prices lower from New York to New Jersey and Chicago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped almost 1,000 points intraday before paring losses.

While automated trading was blamed for feeding the rout, regulators have little choice but to rely on computers to prevent another one, said Frank Hatheway, chief economist and senior vice president at Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ) in New York. Before electronic trading, “when there was a problem, the system would kick off and trading would be handled by a human,” Hatheway said. “Now we’re putting systems in place to do what people used to do in terms of handling the unexpected. There’s no other option.”

MUCH MORE WONKY GOODNESS AT LINK

[truedelphi]

24. Jeremy Rifkin wrote about how the computerized circuit breakers are

Totally inadequate to the task at hand with regards to stock market crashes.

There is simply no way to have the human intervention that occurred back in 1987 and that helped stop some of the declines during that bad stock week. Things are now so over-computerized.

And worse still, Rifkin has also pointed out that our nuclear defense system is also so computerized that it might no longer be possible to intervene the next time that a flock of geese is seen as incoming missiles from a foreign enemy.

[Demeter]

3. Just for AnneD--Who admits to Being a Tiny Looney Tooney

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQVXYy7Fs&NR=1

[AnneD]

8. Thanks for the ear worm....

My daughter and I would watch that show together. It brings back fond memories. Dad would drive us all to the drive in. We would be in our jammies with blankets on the hood of our car. They always had the cartoon features. Dad loved the Road Runner and Wylie Coyote. The car shook when he laughed.

[Demeter]

4. Brazilian Banks Beat Wall Street as Itau Shows Who Rules

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-05/brazil-banks-beating-wall-street-as-itau-shows-jpmorgan-who-rules-markets.html

Gerdau SA (GGBR4), the largest steel producer in the Americas, chose three Brazilian banks to manage a $3.5 billion share sale last month. U.S. firms JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Citigroup Inc. (C), which led previous deals for the company, weren’t in the mix.

When Magazine Luiza SA, an electronics and furniture retailer, held an initial public offering in April that raised $586.7 million, it asked Banco Itau BBA SA, the investment- banking unit of Brazil’s largest lender, to lead the deal. Foreign banks weren’t invited.

“It’s a sign of the times,” Jean-Marc Etlin, vice president for investment banking at Itau BBA, which also worked on the Gerdau share sale, said April 19 in an interview in Sao Paulo. “Brazilian companies and entrepreneurs are learning that they don’t need a foreign bank to help them with their financing needs. Local banks have got what it takes to do even the most sophisticated deal.” MORE

[AnneD]

5. I can never listen to....

The Barber of Seville or Das Reingold with out thinking of Bugs Bunny's send up.

[Demeter]

7. Looney Tunes - Pigs in a Polka 1943

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh11A41klL4&feature=related

[hamerfan]

26. So true!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55G7T8VdWEs

[Demeter]

27. I'd never seen that one before!

Oh, the misspent youth! The cultural inadequacy! The insufficient amount of sleep (damn cat).

[hamerfan]

36. Wagner, anyone?

Or maybe just a reasonable facsimile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQlmXU1zqfc

[Demeter]

46. I don't remember ever seeing that one, either

It's a scream!

Yo-to-ho-yo!

A lot like Spike Jones, IMO.

[AnneD]

56. Thanks for posting those.....

They are still as funny as I remember them.

I trace my love of classical music and opera directly to these cartoons and the Mighty Mouse cartoons. When I view these cartoons and I see the shit on Saturdays now that passes for entertainment, I just get sad. What a waste. Just one long moralizing, boring, infomercial disguised as cartoon.

Thank God for Pixar. My daughter got Mister Rogers, Disney, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Reading Rainbow, and Pixar. I don't think we ever really watched Saturday Cartoons like I did as a child.

[Demeter]

6. Russia threatens crude trade measures to ensure gasoline supplies

ttp://en.rian.ru/russia/20110505/163868484.html

The Russian government may take more steps to ensure uninterrupted deliveries of gasoline to the local market, including examining the operation of crude oil trading and gasoline exchanges, if it does not see a stable market, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said on Thursday.

"If when monitoring ... we do not see any stabilization, we will take additional measures, primarily with regard to crude," Sechin told a government meeting.

The government boosted the gasoline export tariff to a nearly prohibitive 44 percent from May 1 to fight local shortages which started in mid-May in some regions. Russian oil companies prefer to sell gasoline abroad where prices are higher than in Russia, where the state has capped prices.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service, the government's competition watchdog, has accused large oil firms of operating a cartel...The government believes that the introduction of exchange trade in oil products will help regulate the market and has ordered companies to sell 15 percent of their products via exchanges...

[truedelphi]

25. Yep, those socialist types will do anything to ensure that

The people of their nation get to use the oil that is produced inside their country.

Damn Commies!


They even <gasp> sentenced Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to 14 years in prison for his swiping 20 billion dollars worth of oil to play with for his own advantage in the international markets. (This put Both Obama' and Sec of State Clinton's panties in a knot. Why, all oil should be part of a free market!)

[Demeter]

9. Nominate Elizabeth Warren - Provide the Pecora Hearings We Need

http://www.truth-out.org/nominate-elizabeth-warren-provide-pecora-hearings-we-need/1304604231

Ms. Warren is helping get the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) off the ground and remains the leading contender to become its formal head (subject to Senate confirmation). She summarizes her substantive agenda this way: "We’re trying to make these markets transparent, which makes it easier for community banks to compete both with large financial institutions and with their nonbank competitors.” She should now be nominated to the CFPB position.

There will be strong Republican opposition and some Democrats who are close to the financial sector may be lukewarm. But a public hearing on her case represents our best opportunity to experience a modern version of the Pecora Hearings – the Senate Banking Committee hearings in the 1930s that laid bare the inner (and rotten) workings of the biggest financial firms (see Michael Perino’s book on Pecora for details). These hearings would represent a major step forward towards forging a new consensus regarding how to really establish markets (as opposed to the crazy government subsidy schemes that predominate). In addition, the administration would win a big victory with Ms. Warren’s confirmation.

Elizabeth Warren has worked long and hard to build a working relationship with reasonable people in the banking community. These investments now seem to be paying off, with the president of the American Banker Association saying this week that his organization would support Professor Warren if she is nominated (although he later backtracked and said he meant they would be supportive “if she is appointed”). Community bankers have already expressed support in various ways....A proper Senate confirmation hearing would be the perfect platform for Ms. Warren to explain, (a) not only do “too big to fail” banks now constitute and hugely dangerous government subsidy scheme, but (b) based on these subsidies, they are becoming larger and acquiring more market power that can be – and has been – used to abuse consumers in a nontransparent fashion.

All attempts so far to construct some form of Pecora Hearings have failed – partly because the issues are complex and partly because of partisan fighting. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission made some progress but could reach no consensus (or bring anyone to justice). Senator Levin’s hearings into Goldman Sachs grabbed attention and were most helpful in the Dodd-Frank reform debate but again no one is going to jail – and few people even grasp what were the real issues at stake. And the Department of Justice has preferred to pursue insider trading cases, perhaps taking the view that these are easier to explain to juries....But Elizabeth Warren cuts through the complexity and offers a message that – outside of Washington – plays well across the political spectrum...Elizabeth Warren is offering to allow proper markets to work again within at least part of finance. She has convinced many community bankers that her intentions are sincere and that her principles-based approach can work.

It’s time for the president to stand up to abusive financial practices facilitated by cynical and nontransparent subsidies...If nominated, Elizabeth Warren’s confirmation hearing would become a defining moment for thinking about finance in America. And reform would win. All the missed opportunities, botched bailouts, and kowtowing to megabanks would fade into the background. Every attempt at change must face many setbacks – and financial reform has really struggled to have any impact...But at the end of the day, if Elizabeth Warren wins, we all win.

[Demeter]

10. The Global Economy's Corporate Crime Wave

http://www.truthout.org/global-economys-corporate-crime-wave/1304603221

New York - The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries – those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich countries that host the global companies that carry out the largest offenses. Money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world...Hardly a day passes without a new story of malfeasance. Every Wall Street firm has paid significant fines during the past decade for phony accounting, insider trading, securities fraud, Ponzi schemes, or outright embezzlement by CEOs. A massive insider-trading ring is currently on trial in New York, and has implicated some leading financial-industry figures. And it follows a series of fines paid by America’s biggest investment banks to settle charges of various securities violations.


--SPECIFICS AT LINK--

Corporate corruption is out of control for two main reasons. First, big companies are now multinational, while governments remain national. Big companies are so financially powerful that governments are afraid to take them on....Given the close connections of wealth and power with the law, reining in corporate crime will be an enormous struggle. Fortunately, the rapid and pervasive flow of information nowadays could act as a kind of deterrent or disinfectant. Corruption thrives in the dark, yet more information than ever comes to light via email and blogs, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks...We will also need a new kind of politician leading a new kind of political campaign, one based on free online media rather than paid media. When politicians can emancipate themselves from corporate donations, they will regain the ability to control corporate abuses.

Moreover, we will need to light the dark corners of international finance, especially tax havens like the Cayman Islands and secretive Swiss banks. Tax evasion, kickbacks, illegal payments, bribes, and other illegal transactions flow through these accounts. The wealth, power, and illegality enabled by this hidden system are now so vast as to threaten the global economy’s legitimacy, especially at a time of unprecedented income inequality and large budget deficits, owing to governments’ inability politically – and sometimes even operationally – to impose taxes on the wealthy.

So the next time you hear about a corruption scandal in Africa or other poor region, ask where it started and who is doing the corrupting. Neither the US nor any other “advanced” country should be pointing the finger at poor countries, for it is often the most powerful global companies that have created the problem.

[Demeter]

11. Coyote & Road Runner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUq9hynzCVo&feature=related

[Demeter]

12. James Galbraith: China Will Not Demand Its Money Back

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=qa_china_will_not_demand_their_money_back#

The Prospect talks with James Galbraith about why the doomsday predictions on the debt ceiling are wrong....

Everyone says that if we don't raise the debt ceiling soon, we'll have a financial disaster on our hands. How accurate are these catastrophic predictions?

Failure to raise the debt limit would be, for sure, a bad idea. Whether it would produce a fiscal and bond market Armageddon, I think, is really doubtful.

This is a group of politicians saying, give me cuts or I will shoot the economy. So that's the political problem that we face. And one way I think to handle that problem is to point out that what the hostage-takers have in their hands may well not be a nuclear grenade; it might be something much less cataclysmic.

A few weeks ago, the ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned that the United States could lose its AAA rating on U.S. debt (securities, bonds, etc.), which could have serious repercussions for the economy. How do you gauge the chances of a downgrade?

One can't judge what Standard & Poor's or Moody's will do, because they've gotten most everything else wrong in the last decade. These are firms that graded vast mounds of worthless mortgage-backed paper as AAA because of the crafty ways it was securitized. These are firms that never to my knowledge downgraded a major corporate fraud -- Enron and so forth -- more than a few days in advance of its collapse. And they routinely give cities lower ratings than they should based upon the default rates on those instruments. They have no particular competence in Europe, either. So, it's a little bit unpredictable what a corporation with that track record is going to do.

Is there a danger we'll default?

If you read the 14th Amendment, Section 4, it says that the debt of the United States authorized by law -- including pensions, by the way, so including Social Security -- shall not be questioned. So long as we are run by the Constitution, we're going to pay the debt.

AYE... THERE'S THE RUB. I'M NOT SO SURE WE ARE RUN BY THE CONSTITUTION ANY MORE...

[Fuddnik]

13. Here I am!

Red-headed, rowdy son-of-a-bitch

And my birthday is next Saturday!

[Demeter]

15. We're Giving Out Flats of Flowers That Day to Residents

Local beautification effort, as well as building community spirit...

I'll be handling refreshments (coffee, juice and doughnut holes).

[DemReadingDU]

14. Sylvester & Tweety

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACkBAcN4kh4


We have lots of Tweety birds at our house - stuff animals, mugs, key chains, floor mats in the car, clothes

[Demeter]

16. Proving (as if there was any doubt) That We ARE Looney Tunes Around Here

Here's my favorite:



Not sure if I could put up with the smell, although the devotion would make a pleasant change....

[Demeter]

17. Titanic insurer Atlantic Mutual sinks/After 173 years, insurer swamped by wave of workers’ comp clai

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/titanic-insurer-atlantic-mutual-sinks-2011-05-06?siteid=YAHOOB

Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co. managed to pay out claims when the legendary Titanic passenger liner sank in April 1912, but the insurer couldn’t survive a wave of workers’ compensation claims, industry publication BestWire reported Friday.

The company was placed into liquidation and New York’s superintendent of insurance was appointed liquidator on April 27, according to the website of the New York Liquidation Bureau.

Atlantic Mutual Insurance was incorporated under the laws of the state of New York on April 11, 1842. A week after the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in April 1912, the insurer paid $100,000 in hull coverage, according to BestWire, part of insurance rating agency A.M. Best.

By early this century, Atlantic Mutual’s surplus was being whittled away by “severe” loss-reserve development in its commercial lines business, mainly from workers’ compensation and general liability policies, BestWire said.

[Demeter]

18. Is Congress quietly set for a jobs compromise?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110505/pl_yblog_exclusive/is-congress-quietly-set-for-a-jobs-compromise

Senate Republicans and House Democrats both released comprehensive plans for job creation this week. That's surprising by itself. Even more surprising: There's a decent amount the parties agree on.

Taken together, the provisions included in both the Democratic and Republican plans add up to what could well be a meaningful boost to an economy that is still not recovering as fast as either party would like. On Thursday, the government reported jobless claims jumped 10 percent to 474,000, the highest levels since last summer. Economists are predicting Friday's report will show the economy added 185,000 jobs in April, slightly weaker than the job growth the month before.

So the jobs plans form a blueprint for a bill that could attract bipartisan and bicameral support on Capitol Hill: one that would include simplifying the tax code, closing loopholes, and reducing rates across the board; making tax incentives for research and development permanent; improving training programs for laid-off workers; and incentivizing deployment of natural gas, the fuel attracting the most support from both parties as an alternative to oil.

Architects of both jobs plans talked up their aisle-crossing potential in interviews. "There clearly are opportunities for us to cooperate and work together toward the goal of creating jobs," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who re-launched Democrats' "Make it in America" jobs platform on Wednesday...

[Demeter]

19. Consumers Dust Off Their Credit Cards, Borrow More

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/06/136063901/consumers-dust-off-their-credit-cards-borrow-more?ft=1&f=1001

American consumers used their credit cards more in March, marking only the second increase in the more than two years since the height of the financial crisis.

The Federal Reserve said Friday that consumers increased their total borrowing by $6 billion in March, the sixth consecutive monthly gain. Consumers borrowed more to finance car loans for the eighth straight month. And a category of borrowing that includes credit card use rose for only the second time since August 2008.

More frequent credit card purchases could be a sign that consumers are feeling more confident about the economy.

The 3 percent overall increase pushed consumer borrowing to a seasonally adjusted annual level of $2.43 trillion, still just 1.3 percent higher level than a nearly four-year low of $2.39 trillion hit in September....

[Demeter]

20. Fannie Mae Has Loss, Seeks $8.5 Billion In U.S. Aid

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/06/136066372/fannie-mae-has-loss-seeks-8-5-billion-in-u-s-aid?ft=1&f=1001

Mortgage buyer Fannie Mae is reporting a loss of $8.7 billion for the January-March quarter, and asking for an additional $8.5 billion in federal aid.

The new request is more than three times the $2.6 billion in government aid it sought in the final three months of last year.

The government rescued Fannie Mae and sibling company Freddie Mac in September 2008 to cover their losses on soured mortgage loans. It estimates the bailouts will cost taxpayers about $259 billion.

Fannie Mae's January-March loss attributable to common shareholders works out to $1.52 per share. It takes into account $2.2 billion in dividend payments to the government. That compares with a loss of $13.1 billion, or $2.29 per share, in the same period last year.

[Demeter]

21. I'm off to bed, folks. Post them if you got them

Got a busy schedule tomorrow--big co-op wind-up meeting. We might actually work ourselves out of a job....and it's finally spring, and I've got lettuces and flowers to plant...and then, there's the usual, but I'll be back for a little posting, I hope.

[truedelphi]

22. As far as Looney Tunes - I remember how a FLA daycare

Put up a carefully painted mural of a lot of beloved Disney characters.

Well, someone at Disney World found out and they made sure that the DayCare Facility painted over the patented, copyrighted characters. Can't have kids thinking it is possible to have fun for free.

Then someone at Warner Bros found out, and soon the DayCare Facility had a new mural complete with Daffy and Tweety and all the rest. Compliments of Looney Tunes, despite those characters having the same patents and copyrights as the Disney trademark characters.

Way to go!

[AnneD]

23. Great story.....

How cheap does Disney look? Walt must be turning over in his grave.

[Demeter]

28. "Unequal Protection": The People's Masters (HISTORY OF CORPORATIONS IN AMERICA)

http://truthout.org/unequal-protection-peoples-masters/1304366817

THE SAGE CONTINUES WITH THE GROWTH OF THE TRUSTS, AND THE TRUSTBUSTERS.

[Demeter]

29. Foghorn Leghorn - (1980) - The Yolk's On You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMTXPAuUvSU&feature=related

NEEDED THIS 2 WEEKS AGO, FOR EASTER

[Demeter]

30. Portugal faces pain despite rescue

Lisbon can expect recession and three years of austerity, according to the deal, in spite of suggestions that it has been granted more lenient terms than Greece or Ireland

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/4RNQTT/YHUIXN/B49CK/XTFK79/LQXH9P/GX/t?a1=2011&a2=5&a3=5

[Demeter]

43. Portugal settles terms of €78bn bailout with EU and IMF

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/04/portugal-78bn-bailout-imf

...Portugal's caretaker government said that it had negotiated a €78bn bailout deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, but was waiting for opposition parties to agree.

Acting prime minister José Sócrates said that, under the terms of the deal, Portugal must slash its budget deficit from 9.1% to 5.9% this year, and then reduce it to 3% by 2013.

"The government has today reached an agreement with the international institutions regarding the financial aid to our country," Sócrates said in a televised address.

"Naturally, there are no financial assistance programs that are not demanding," he added. "The times we live in continue to imply efforts and a lot of work. Let no one doubt that."...

[Demeter]

31. Fund for Libyan rebels to exclude frozen assets

Access to a ‘temporary finance mechanism’ expected to be agreed by western and Arab countries, but it will not initially include frozen Gaddafi regime assets

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/4RNQTT/YHUIXN/B49CK/XTFK79/181W6A/GX/t?a1=2011&a2=5&a3=5

BY FAR THE MOST BLATANT PROOF THAT WAR IS ORGANIZED THEFT...(OF EVERYONE)

[xchrom]

32. recommend

[Demeter]

34. Morning!

Sun's up, but it's chill. Hope it warms rapidly so I can garden...

[xchrom]

35. it poured here last evening.

sun's up today.

nice.

and a very good day to you, Miss Demeter!

[Demeter]

33. Bernanke's Bubblenomics; Who Wins and Who Loses By Mike Whitney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28040.htm



Assets bubbles require massive amounts of leverage. But too much leverage can destabilize the system, so it needs to be regulated. But Wall Street doesn't like restrictions on leverage because it can make more money by borrowing like crazy, inflating a ginormous bubble, skimming off the profits, and cashing in before the crash. So, the Fed ignores Wall Street's "gearing" operations and pretends not to see what's going on. It becomes a bubble "enabler" by lowering interest rates, easing credit and waving-off tighter regulations. It's all part of the game. The Fed works to help its core constituents while everyone else is put at risk.

But there's another reason for bubbles, too. Stagnation is a chronic problem in mature capitalist economies. As businesses become more efficient in their various widget-making operations, demand for their products drops off making it harder for owners to find profitable outlets for investment. And when investment starts to flag, then grip of economic inertia begins to tighten. As author Robert Skidelsky says, "investment fills the gap between production and consumption", so when investment hits a speed-bump, spending starts to wither and the economy slows to a crawl.

The Fed's remedy: Zero rates, easy money and more bubbles; Professor Bernanke's one-size-fits-all, magic elixir for sclerotic economies. In other words, the emerging stock and commodities bubbles are not a sign that the Fed is flubbing the policy. Bubbles are the policy, and have been for a very long time. Bernanke is no fool. He knows that each business cycle is weaker than the last, creating fewer jobs, more slack in the economy, and more anemic growth. His job is to endlessly tweak the process in order to maintain profitability for the people at the top of the economic foodchain, his real bosses...

MASSIVE AMOUNT OF SPECIFICS, QUAOTATIONS, AND SUPPORTING EVIDENCE AT LINK

...Bernanke's job is to assure that Wall Street's massive looting operation continues apace. That's Job#1. And, while "systemic instability" may be a concern, it's largely irrelevant. Maintaining profitability for uber-rich speculators takes precedent over everything else. That's the way Bubblenomics is designed to work.

[Demeter]

38. Grand Theft Benny By Mike Whitney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27989.htm

Here's the scoop: When Fed chairman Ben Bernanke initiated the first round of Quantitative Easing (QE), the stated goal was to revive the flagging housing market by purchasing $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from the country's biggest banks. The policy was a ripoff from the get go. No one wanted these mortgage stinkbombs that were stitched together from subprime loans to unqualified applicants. But because the banks were already busted--and because the $700 billion TARP was barely enough to keep the ventilator running until the next bailout came through-- the Fed helped to conceal its real objectives behind an elaborate PR smokescreen. In truth, the Fed must have colluded with the banks to move the toxic assets off their books (and onto the Fed's balance sheet) with the proviso that the banks withhold foreclosed homes from the market.

Sounds pretty fishy, eh?

By keeping the extra homes off-market, supply went down, demand went up (slightly), and housing showed signs of a rebound. The withholding of supply was synchronized with the Firsttime Homebuyers credit, which provided an $8,000 subsidy to new home buyers. This pumped up housing sales and further concealed what was really taking place, which was a gigantic transferal of public wealth to the banks in exchange for putrid assets that no one wanted. Naturally, the process kept the market from correcting and added vast numbers of foreclosed homes to the shadow inventory.

During this same period, the Fed worked out an agreement with Congress to pay the banks interest on the reserves it created at the banks. (Note: The MBS were exchanged for reserves) At the time, many experts questioned the wisdom of the Fed's plan saying that the reserves would not lead to another credit expansion. And they were right, too. In fact, it didn't stop the slide in housing either which resumed with gusto as soon as QE ended and the banks started dumping more foreclosed homes onto the market...

...
So, now we have irrefutable proof that the Fed was simply handing out money to the banks. More importantly, the report shows that this was not just a few isolated incidents, but a pattern of abuse that increased as the needs of the banks became more pressing. In other words, giving away money became policy. Is it any wonder why the Fed has fought so ferociously to prevent an audit of its books?

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37. THE BEARS ARE BACK! Federal Reserve For Dummies Video

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27988.htm

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39. Daffy duck-Yankee Doodle Daffy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Lf7yNhdtk&feature=related

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40. The theatrical era (1930–1969)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes

In the beginning both Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies drew their storylines from Warner's vast music library (notice the names Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies). Also, from 1934 to 1943 Merrie Melodies were produced in color and Looney Tunes in black and white. After 1943, however, both series were produced in color and became virtually indistinguishable, with the only stylistic difference being in the variation between the opening theme music and titles. Both series also made use of the various Warner Bros. cartoon characters. By 1937, the theme music for Looney Tunes was "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin; the theme music for Merrie Melodies was an adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along" by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher and Eddie Cantor.

In 1929, Warner Bros. became interested in developing a series of musical animated shorts to promote their music. They had recently acquired the ownership of Brunswick Records along with four music publishers for US $28 million. Consequently, they were eager to start promoting this material to cash in on the sales of sheet music and phonograph records. Warner made a deal with Leon Schlesinger to produce cartoons for Warner Bros. Schlesinger hired Rudolph Ising and Hugh Harman to produce their first series of cartoons. Bosko was Looney Tunes' first major lead character, debuting in the short Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid in 1929. The first Looney Tunes short was Sinkin' in the Bathtub which was released in 1930. When Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. in 1933 over a budget dispute with Schlesinger, they took with them all the rights of the characters and cartoons which they had created.

From 1937–1946, every Looney Tune (except for Hare Tonic and Baseball Bugs, with Bugs doing the drum scene instead) ended with Porky Pig coming out of a drum and saying "th-th-th-that's all folks!"

A new character called Buddy became the only star of the Looney Tunes series for a couple of years. With the animators working in the Termite Terrace studio, they debuted the first truly major Looney Tunes star, Porky Pig, who was introduced in 1935 along with Beans the Cat in the Merrie Melodie cartoon I Haven't Got a Hat directed by Friz Freleng. Beans was the star of the next Porky/Beans cartoon Golddiggers of '49, but it was Porky who emerged as the star instead of Beans. The ensemble characters of I Haven't Got a Hat, such as Oliver Owl, and twin dogs Ham and Ex, were also given a sampling of shorts, but demand for these characters was far exceeded by Beans and Porky; Beans himself was later phased out due to declining popularity, leaving Porky as the only star of the Schlesinger studio. This was followed by the debuts of other memorable Looney Tunes stars such as Daffy Duck (in 1937) and the most famous of the Looney Tunes cast, Bugs Bunny (in 1940).

Bugs appeared mostly in the color Merrie Melodies and formally joined the Looney Tunes crew with the release of Buckaroo Bugs. Schlesinger began to phase in the production of color Looney Tunes with the 1942 cartoon The Hep Cat. The final black-and-white Looney Tune was Puss n' Booty in 1943 directed by Frank Tashlin. The inspiration for the changeover was Warner's decision to re-release only the color cartoons in the Blue Ribbon Classics series of Merrie Melodies. Bugs Bunny made a cameo appearance in 1942 in the Avery/Clampett cartoon Crazy Cruise and also at the end of the Frank Tashlin 1943 cartoon Porky Pig's Feat which marked Bugs' only appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tunes cartoon. Schlesinger sold his interest in the cartoon studio in 1944 to Warner Bros. and went into retirement. He died five years later.

The original Looney Tunes theatrical series ran from 1930 to 1969 (the last short being Injun Trouble, a Merrie Melodie by Robert McKimson). From 1964 to 1967, the shorts were produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises after Warner Bros. shut down their animation studios. The shorts from this era can be identified by the fact that they open with a different title sequence featuring stylized limited animation and graphics on a black background and a re-arranged (and much more dissonant) version of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down," arranged by William Lava. The change in the preceding, introductory title cards was possibly to reflect the switch in the animation style of the featurettes themselves. (When Seven Arts Associates merged with Warner Bros. in 1967, the logos were updated, replacing all regular WB elements with the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts logo, as well as new theme music.) These final shorts were obviously made with a smaller budget, and looked cheap compared to the lush scenery and detailed expressions of the earlier shorts. They resemble shorts produced by Filmation and Hanna-Barbera (based on the influence of Alex Lovy, who worked for Hanna-Barbera after the Walter Lantz Studio). The WB and HB cartoon studios have a history of borrowing from each other and of associating with each other that dates back to this epoch; incidentally, both studios are now under Time Warner's ownership.

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41. I Had a Thought

If the stock market goes BOOM, so does the Economic Elite and the Obscenely Wealthy. Their wealth is all paper.

So, we could either have the markets crash, or a bloody revolution.

Choices, choices...

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42. US 'not out' of financial crisis, says Kenneth Rogoff

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13212312

audio and transcript

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44. U.S. SEC, Justice Department Probe Goldman Findings After Senate Referral

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-03/levin-report-accusing-goldman-of-deception-referred-to-u-s-justice-sec.html

U.S. senators formally referred to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission an investigative report that found Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) misled clients about mortgage-linked securities.

Senators Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the senior Republican, signed a letter asking the agencies to examine the panel’s report, Levin said in an interview yesterday. The results of the investigation, made public by the committee April 13, lay much of the blame for the credit crisis on Wall Street banks that earned billions by enticing clients to buy the risky bond deals.

“If something comes up that needs to be reviewed by some agency, it gets referred,” said Levin. “That’s the way we do it.”

The scrutiny is a setback for Goldman Sachs, which hired lawyers, lobbyists and public relations specialists to monitor the two-year Senate probe and tamp down any controversy that arose from the subcommittee’s conclusions...

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45. Common Sense 2.0: How to Save America – First Steps

http://ampedstatus.org/common-sense-2-0-how-to-save-america-%E2%80%93-first-steps/

As our descent accelerates, we need to urgently focus on reaching common ground on the root causes of our crisis. Anyone who has spent significant time researching how our system of power functions will come to three core common sense conclusions. These systemic issues must be solved before we can move forward in addressing the many problems that we are now confronted with. If we are going to get ourselves out of this crisis, we need to launch an all-out attack on these three fronts:

1) End the system of political bribery: campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door.DETAILS AT LINK


2) Break up the banks and hold them accountable: The Federal Reserve banking system and their primary dealers (i.e. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo). DETAILS AT LINK



3) Open up the mainstream media and protect Internet freedom. DETAILS AT LINK



There are many other problems that obviously need to be addressed, but these three core systemic issues must be addressed first. No matter what issue is of most concern to you – the economy, tax system, wars, environment, healthcare, national debt, etc. – these three core systemic problems have to be solved first. Otherwise, any success will be short-lived, as those with the most money will overwhelm the political process and economic system, and launch an all-pervasive propaganda campaign via the mainstream media to derail any advance achieved. MORE AT LINK

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47. Pepe le Pew - Touche And Go 1957

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAIdrSN1L6s

Report from the meeting:

we paid off 3 lawyers. One is dismissed, one is put on a choke collar, and the 3rd will probably sue us for the inflated and unauthorized work he claims to have done, which was covered in the signed contract fixed fee.

I may live to see the co-op wound up!

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48. Osama bin Laden didn’t win, but he was ‘enormously successful’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/osama-bin-laden-didnt-win-but-he-was-enormously-successful/2011/05/02/AFexZjbF_story.html


...Bin Laden’s transition from scion of a wealthy family to terrorist mastermind came in the 1980s, when the Soviet Union was trying to conquer Afghanistan. Bin Laden was part of the resistance, and the resistance was successful — not only in repelling the Soviet invasion, but in contributing to the Communist super-state’s collapse a few years later. “We, alongside the mujaheddin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt,” he later explained.

The campaign taught bin Laden a lot. For one thing, superpowers fall because their economies crumble, not because they’re beaten on the battlefield. For another, superpowers are so allergic to losing that they’ll bankrupt themselves trying to conquer a mass of rocks and sand. This was bin Laden’s plan for the United States, too.

“He has compared the United States to the Soviet Union on numerous occasions — and these comparisons have been explicitly economic,” Gartenstein-Ross argued in a Foreign Policy article. “For example, in October 2004 bin Laden said that just as the Arab fighters and Afghan mujaheddin had destroyed Russia economically, al Qaeda was now doing the same to the United States, ‘continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.’ ”

For bin Laden, in other words, success was not to be measured in body counts. It was to be measured in deficits, in borrowing costs, in investments we weren’t able to make in our country’s continued economic strength. And by those measures, bin Laden landed a lot of blows...

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49. MUST READ! Can't blame economic policy on Osama NOMI PRINS

http://www.nomiprins.com/thoughts/2011/5/4/cant-blame-economic-policy-on-osama.html

....theatre was invented for distraction, in culture and in politics. So while all the Osama drama was unfolding, the Treasury Department issued another plea for raising the debt ceiling, aka supporting its pro-bank policy. It went something like this: We need to borrow more to pay social security obligations and not default on our debt, so other countries won’t question our ability to manage an economy (as if that hasn’t already happened) and we won’t have to pay more to borrow more. If we don’t – you know what’ll happen – yep, another financial crisis.

The actual quote was: “The debt limit is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments.”

Though technically correct, omitting the fact that our leaders chose to float the financial system on such an unprecedented scale with no obvious Main Street benefits - hence the massive and quick debt increase - continues to show an aversion to reality....Hitting the debt ceiling isn’t about spending gone haywire because the Social Security and Medicaid buckets are too small for the people that rely on these programs; it’s about the big-ticket items– like recently, bailouts...

MANY HARD AND UGLY FACTUAL NUMBERS FOLLOW--SEE LINK--GREAT EXPLANATION! MUST READ!

...With respect to bin Laden, conflicting stories will go on forever – when did he die?, whose body is in the ocean?why didn’t Obama release a photo? But with respect to the economy, it’s super clear - our debt ballooned and our economy deflated, to subsidize banks and their practices, period. We can’t blame that on Osama bin Laden

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50. At Glencore's pinnacle of capitalism, even hunger is a commodity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/05/glencore-hunge-commodity-food-prices

Now Glencore is going public, the destructive power it can wield to force up food prices could be even greater...What does it take to make the food speculators at Goldman Sachs look like they're playing for lunch money? A secretive Swiss-based company, and one of the world's largest commodity trading firms, knows. With its initial public offering announced on Thursday, Glencore – a multibillion-dollar mining, energy and food trader that will soon list in London and Hong Kong – is the envy of Wall Street. When Goldman Sachs was floated, the then CEO Hank Paulson made off with $219m. Glencore's chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, has already earned the moniker "The Ten Billion Dollar Man" for his share of the bonanza.

Glencore will be the first company in 25 years to make the FTSE 100 on its first day of trading, with an estimated valuation of about $60bn. The company has had an average return on equity of 38% (compared to Goldman Sachs's 12%). Its base in the Swiss town of Baar has freed it of even the minimal regulation US-based companies entertain. Not by accident does Glencore find itself in Switzerland. Like the mining and oil trading company Trafigura, Glencore is a descendant of the Marc Rich group. Rich fled the US in 1983 after being indicted by a federal prosecutor, Rudolph Giuliani, for tax evasion and trading with Iran (though he was pardoned by Bill Clinton). As Marcia Vickers reported in a Businessweek exposé: "Rich's philosophy is that no law applies to him."

In exchange for going public and raising money for further acquisitions, Glencore will now have to submit to the bared gums of UK regulators – whose rules are far less onerous than their US counterparts. With the funds from its flotation, the company looks set to dominate the fields in which it chooses to operate. Although primarily a mining and energy company, it has substantial interests in food – controlling around a quarter of the global market for barley, sunflower and rape seed, and 10% of the world's wheat market.

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51. Expert: "EPA Trying To Make Sure That There Are No Measurements That Could Cause People Concern

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/05/expert-it-seems-to-be-part-of-pattern.html

As I noted Tuesday, the EPA has suspended all heightened radiation monitoring, and will simply test and report every 3 months as if there were no nuclear crisis in Japan.... “I really am horrified,” said Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It’s quite staggering and it seems to be part of the pattern of the EPA trying to make sure that there are no measurements that could cause people to be concerned.”

...EPA officials, however, refused to answer questions or make staff members available to explain the exact location and number of monitors, or the levels of radiation, if any, being recorded at existing monitors in California. Margot Perez-Sullivan, a spokeswoman at the EPA's regional headquarters in San Francisco, said the agency's written statement would stand on its own..."It's disappointing," said Bill Magavern, director of Sierra Club California. "I have a strong suspicion that EPA is being silenced by those in the federal government who don't want anything to stand in the way of a nuclear power expansion in this country, heavily subsidized by taxpayer money."

The EPA has pulled 8 of its 18 radiation monitors in California, Oregon and Washington because (by implication) they are giving readings which seem too high...Indeed, all nuclear regulators have been captured by the nuclear industry.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen urges people to call their congressman and demand that EPA increase monitoring.

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52. How The CBOT, Comex And CFTC Coordinated To Break The Last Silver Price Surge

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/how-cbot-comex-and-cftc-coordinated-break-last-silver-price-surge?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drop

Just AS QE is nothing new in the monetary arena, and has seen some incarnation at least since the early 80's primarily in Japan, so parabolic commodity price surges have occurred periodically, most notably in 1980, when Bunker Hunt brought the price of silver to over $50.

However, unlike any time before, never in the history of the world have we seen a coordinated worldwide monetary stimulus via relentless credit money "printing" courtesy of global central banks. In that regard, this time really is different, as there is no other remaining backstop to the world financial system: the global banking cartel has used up all its bullets and now can only double down in the most nightmarish Martingale system ever conceived, where each iteration means further fiat absolute value destruction (on a relative basis it simply means a race to the currency bottom, whereby definition only one can be in the lead at any given moment: usually the one with the biggest printing press, and greatest deflationary threat).

And while many still believe that QE2 will be the last of domestic US monetary easing episodes, as Bill Gross noted earlier, it is very possible that the US may be headed into a triple-dip recession, for which the only prescription will be another QE round (with political gridlock in DC at unseen levels no fiscal stimulus is even remotely possible). If this happens, precious metals will once again surge. The only question is what will the exchanges do after the next gold and silver spike? Indeed, as we suggest, margin hikes are just the beginning. For a complete playbook of how the CME may proceed after the margin hike approach fails, we once again go back to the curious case of Bunker Hunt. Below, from the Playbook biopic of the Texas billionaire we posted yesterday, we present the walk through of how the CBOT, Comex and CFTC tried to break silver's back. Back in 1980 they succeeded. Have they, and will they succeed this time?

SEE LINK FOR THE STORY OF THE BUNKER HUNT SQUEEZE PLAY

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53. Memo to Bernanke: It's Called Blowback, Baby

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2011/05/memo-to-bernanke-its-called-blowback.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+google%2FRzFQ+%28oftwominds%29


...The term blowback first appeared in the the CIA internal history of the US’s 1953 Iranian coup d'état. Examples of blowback include the CIA’s financing and support for Afghan insurgents to fight an anti-Communist proxy guerilla war against the USSR in Afghanistan; some of the beneficiaries of this CIA support joined al-Qaeda's terrorist campaign against the United States. But there is another kind of blowback brewing in the U.S.: the negative consequences of massive covert manipulation of the domestic economy by the Federal Reserve and agencies of the Federal government. A key feature of propaganda is the "documentation" presented to support a politically advantageous distortion. In this case, the statistical support for the "recovery" rests on three numbers:

1. the stock market
2. the Federally issued jobs report
3. the GDP


In all cases, the numbers are doctored in a coordinated covert campaign to persuade the public that the economy is growing smartly. The stock market has doubled as a consequence of a declining dollar and other policies of the Federal Reserve designed to incentivize speculation in "risk trades" such as stocks and "carry trades" in currencies.


I have broken down the distortion many times, for example: The Stock Market As Propaganda (March 10, 2010): "The jobs report is heavily reliant on the "birth-death model" of small businesses, an opaque Federal guesstimate of the number of new small businesses being started and those being closed. As reliably as clockwork, hundreds of thousands of "created out of thin air" jobs are logged as if they were real by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "birth-death model." Yet in the real world, the number of small businesses has been in a three-year free-fall: Few Businesses Sprout, With Even Fewer Jobs (WSJ.com)."

In the real world, small business income is down 5%. Small Business: Still Waiting for Recovery:

According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Proprietors' income-- the profits of unincorporated businesses such as partnerships or individuals who work for themselves--is down nearly 5 percent from two years ago, while corporate profits have jumped 21 percent in that period.


About 19.9 million partnerships and sole proprietorships with no employees existed in 2008, the latest year for which U.S. Census Bureau data are available. That number fell almost 2 percent from the previous year.

In a private-sector workforce of about 106 million, that's about 19% of all people with a job. Recall that the BLS counts you as employed if you work one hour a week or if you're "self-employed," even if you aren't making a dime...Only in the world of massaged statistics does nobody notice that self-employed people who are seeing revenues and profits fall do not need to hire someone: they're sinking all on their own. Small business understands uncertainty is now permanent. That's why 26% of all new private-sector hires are temporary...Buried deep in the "news" announcing 244,000 new hires last month is the reality that income rose by a paltry 1.9% and hours worked were flat. The broader measure of the unemployment rate, which includes people who stopped looking for work and those settling for part-time jobs, rose to 15.9% in April from 15.7% the previous month.


The GDP rises because the Federal government has borrowed roughly $5 trillion in the past three years and sent much of it out as "income" where it is of course added to the GDP. Never mind where the money came from or what it will cost our children--the only thing that matters to the manipulation operation is that GDP rises every quarter. If it doesn't, then the "recovery" lie collapses...According to the Consumer Metrics Institute, their Daily Growth Index resumed its movement into record negative territory, setting a new all-time low representing a 6.39% year-over-year contraction on May 3, 2011...
Our problem has always been the reliability of the reports, since their version of history often undergoes dramatic rewrites long after the fact. In this particular case a 7.6% year-over-year gain becomes a 0.9% year-over-year gain, and a 0.8% year-over-year growth was admittedly actually a 2.4% contraction -- all done quietly and without media scrutiny. In short, retail sales were not as good as previously purported -- for all the reasons we have previously described -- and hardly anyone noticed...In other words, the "recovery of consumer spending" is bogus. The pyramid of the American economy is instructive:


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

All this coordinated misinformation and distortion is setting up the delegitimization of the complicit institutions, which include the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the White House, Congress, and all the agencies tasked with documenting the "recovery."

[bread_and_roses]

58. The graphic says it all - all except....

that none of it will matter. If we are to survive on this planet - which we are not likely to - we can't have a stock market, or manufacturing, or global transportation, or much of anything else. I would like to think that with careful husbandry and by virtue of forgoing everything else we could have medicine and communications, but it's unlikely - if for no other reason than we will kill each other before we could ever behave so rationally. I am just sorry it looks like it won't happen soon enough to save the polar bears, tigers, mountain gorillas, whales, probably 90% of the great predators of the ocean - to name just some of the disappearing "charismatic mega-fauna." We'll no doubt manage to kill every other living thing on the earth before we make our way into the rock layers.

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54. Beyond ForeclosureGate – It Gets Uglier BY Michael Collins

http://dailycensored.com/2011/04/20/beyond-foreclosuregate-it-gets-uglier

The ForeclosureGate scandal poses a threat to Wall Street, the big banks, and the political establishment. If the public ever gets a complete picture of the personal, financial, and legal assault on citizens at their most vulnerable, the outrage will be endless.

Foreclosure practices lift the veil on a broader set of interlocking efforts to exploit those hardest hit by the endless economic hard times, citizens who become financially desperate due medical conditions. A 2007 study found that medical expenses or income losses related to medical crises among bankruptcy filers or family members triggered 62% of bankruptcies. There is no underground conspiracy. The facts are in plain sight.

ForeclosureGate represents the sum total illegal and unethical lending and collections activities during the real estate bubble. It continues today. Law professor and law school dean Christopher L. Peterson describes the contractual language for the sixty million contracts between borrowers and lenders as fictional since the boilerplate language names a universal surrogate as creditor (Mortgage Electronic Registration System), not the actual creditor. Other aspects of ForeclosureGate harmed homeowners but the contractual problems that the lenders created on their own pose the greatest threats.

When the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that the actual creditor must named in the mortgage agreement (a legal requirement that the banks forgot to meet in their contracts), there was consternation on Wall Street. What would happen if a class action lawsuit challenged these flawed mortgages? Isn’t the Massachusetts decision the latest of many attacking the legal basis of the shoddy business practices and boilerplate industry contracts? What if homeowners started walking away from their underwater mortgages based on the legally flawed contracts? If there were a viable prospect of a class action suit against financial institutions threatening to invalidate these contracts, wouldn’t that crash the stock values of the big banks and some Wall Street firms?

The big banks and their partners on Wall Street need a preemptive strike to derail the legal process that threatens their existence. They may get a temporary reprieve through pending consent decrees from the United States Department of Justice and consortia of state attorney’s general. If that protection fails, big money will make every effort to buy a bill from Congress that absolves them retroactively, en masse. The consent decree might cost them a few billion dollars. That’s much better than owing the trillions in lost home values due to their contrived real estate bubble and stork market crash.

As bad as this is, it gets worse.

Beyond ForeclosureGate

The surface scandal is about fraudulent business practices and a systematic assault on homeowners by lenders, servicers, and the legal system. A much broader picture must be viewed in order to understand the utter contempt that the ruling elite has toward citizens and the depraved tactics used to express that contempt, all to serve endless desire to accumulate more money and power.

The set up began when we heard about the ownership society in the 2004 presidential election. President Bush defined ownership as taking the government out of our lives so more people could own homes and control their destinies. The foundation was home ownership. As Bush said on the campaign trail, “We’re creating a home — an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property” October 2, 2004.

Beyond ForeclosureGate It Gets Uglier

Then Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was uncharacteristically coherent when he laid the foundation for the swindle earlier that year. Greenspan told the Credit Union National Association that the fixed rate mortgage was “an expensive way of financing a home.” He was clear when he advised lenders that, “consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.” February 2, 2004. Home equity through exotic mortgage products fueled consumption and became the new “margin account.”

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the president ratified the real estate bubble, already underway at the time, as political and financial doctrine. The advice was clear. Get an ARM, own your piece of the American Dream and spend that equity. Housing prices never go down, right? (Image)

Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Wall Street and the big banks provided the back room. Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) derivatives were vastly expanded. This made it easy for more home buyers to qualify for mortgages they might not otherwise get, credit standards dropped. Those with good credit saw an array of tantalizing zero interest loans and other mortgage products to maximize available cash and feed the stock market.

It was all good until it wasn’t.

The real scandal is the unfathomable loss of wealth and opportunities by the vast majority of citizens and the vicious attack on the most vulnerable citizens as a part that process. The attack continues and is worthy of review.

Foreclosure and Bankruptcy

Foreclosure is the down side of the ownership society. When you’re sold a bill of goods, a property that you were told you were qualified to buy, and you lose it, you are evicted from ownership island.

Before Congress passed the 2005 bankruptcy reform act, homeowners could avert foreclosure in many states by filing for bankruptcy. Not just anyone could qualify. The process of qualifying was difficult and, oftentimes humiliating. But homes were saved and families were preserved with a chance to start over.

A myth emerged of the bankruptcy abuser, a high-class sort of welfare cheat. These reckless people worked the system to rack up large debts that were subsequently wiped clean through bankruptcy. The alleged abuse of the system became the excuse for a major overhaul of bankruptcy law. The legislation passed the Senate with 74 yes votes and soon became law.

The changes since the 2005 legislation provide substantial benefits to creditors. Morgan et al summarized the direct benefits to creditors in a forthcoming publication in the New York Fed’s Economic Policy Review. Before bankruptcy reform, the filer of a bankruptcy claim used to determine Chapter 7 or 13 filing status. That makes a difference in the amount and type of debt relief. The legislation imposes means test that determines precisely which chapter (7 or 13) filers must use. Significantly, chanter 13 filers retain more debt from medical and other unsecured credit.

Legal costs ranged from $600 to $1500 before bankruptcy reform. Legal fees now range between $2800 and $3700. Previously, there was no requirement for credit counseling prior to filing.

Filers must now document approved credit counseling six months before filing or face dismissal of their case (Morgan et al.). This counseling requirement can lead to unwarranted dismissals or inordinate delays in filing at a time when filers need relief.

Under the old law, only bankruptcy trustees appointed by the federal court could file claims of abuse by the filer. Under the new legislation, anyone can file a claim of bankruptcy abuse, which can lead to a dismissal of the cause. This is a huge benefit to lenders who wanted to keep citizens from realizing debt relief.

The Real Benefit for Big Money – Delayed Bankruptcy Filings

The new law makes it harder to file a claim, doubles costs, and gives the creditors a say in claiming fraud on the part of those who file claims. Significant delays in filing for bankruptcy became the norm.



From Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, Lawless et al., American Bankruptcy Law Journal, Vol 82, 2008

Time is money for loan servicers. A long delay before a bankruptcy filing, allows servicers the opportunity to add on special fees, many of which the borrower can’t comprehend. One thorough study showed that many of these fees were questionable. The longer it takes, the greater the revenue opportunities. Delay benefits creditors since loan payments continue at their original level.

What happened to those big spending, reckless bankruptcy abusers that were the rationale for the 2005 reforms? The following graph from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project shows that there is virtually no difference between the incomes of filers before and after bankruptcy reform. The majority of filers made between ten and forty thousand dollars a year before reform. That has remained virtually unchanged. The big spending abusers were and remain a mythical construct; the centerpiece of a diversion strategy to keep attention away from this never-ending gift to creditors.



From Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, Lawless et al., American Bankruptcy Law Journal, Vol 82, 2008

These newly empowered creditors were the same creditors who hired debt collectors to try and frighten people out of their filings. A major study found that 24% of filers reported that debt collectors told deliberate lies to avoid bankruptcy. They heard that filing for bankruptcy would lead to jail, job loss, or an IRS audit. Some were told that it was illegal to file for bankruptcy. Lawless, et al. Did the Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study, October 2008

The deck was stacked early against citizens and protection from creditors disappeared under the new law. The creditors, who so recklessly precipitated the economic collapse, came out on top. They were free to profit in any way they could from their new market,

What Causes Bankruptcy – Financial Shocks from Medical Expenses

Prior to the new law, the major cause of bankruptcy stemmed from medical care expenses and the resulting disruptions to families. Rather than the mythical big spender contrived by Congress, for nearly half of filers, major medical expenses, family tragedies, were the tipping point to a loss of financial viability.

The Consumer Bankruptcy Project audited a representative sample of bankruptcy filers in 2001. The audit found that 46% cited a “major medical cause” for bankruptcy. This includes the direct cost of uncovered medical bills for major illness or injury, lost work due to the same, and the need to mortgage the family home to cover medical costs.

Did Congress review this data? Were they intent on making it harder to file bankruptcy as a result of illness? When bankruptcy is delayed or simply not attainable, less money is available for needed medical care. Were the members supporting bankruptcy reform indifferent to the suffering compounded by their thoughtless legislation?

The situation is worse now. A comprehensive survey of those who filed bankruptcy in 2007 showed the increasing desperation of those faced with medical problems. When individuals or family members are in dire need of medical care, do they just sit home and suffer?



From Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study, Himmelstein et al., American Journal of Medicine, 2009:04

The results of this survey show that two thirds of bankruptcies result from medical care that they can’t afford or losses in income from medically required leave. Where are the big spending cheats?

Nihilists at the Helm

The big banks, Wall Street, the politicians they own, and the Federal Reserve Board created the real estate bubble in bad faith.

They knew or should have known:

* that the real estate bubble was unsustainable;
* when the bubble deflated, many homeowners would hit a financial wall; and, that
* when homeowners hit the wall, to maintain viability for their families, they would need relief of some sort.

What did the nihilists of the financial elite and their hit men walking the halls of power do with all this knowledge? They went ahead with the real estate bubble, fostered it, deregulated meaningful controls on the financial industry, and crafted a new bankruptcy law to stick it to filers. They knew or should have know that data from 2001 showed a very high rate of filings due to the financial stress of medical care and crises. Did they care? Do they care now? Has anything been done to correct this injustice?

While citizens suffer in financial distress, often due to illness, at the behest of influential bankers and investors, the Department of Justice crafts a settlement with lenders and their representatives to relieve them of the stern justice due for their specific crimes and the larger horrors they visit upon citizens, all in the name of short term profit.

We are most emphatically not a nation of laws. We are a nation where the law is used by a very few for their own purposes, without regard for the well-being of the nation or its citizens. We are a lawless nation.

END

This article may be reproduced entirely or in part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

[Fuddnik]

57. You would think that, with Democrats in control of Congress for six years.

Someone would at least ATTEMPT to address this injustice.

Not a peep out of anybody.

[Demeter]

59. There are no democrats in Congress

[Demeter]

55. Warners Studios Used Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies as Propaganda Vehicles

and the results are too painful to watch. A Tea Party precursor of racism, bigotry, violence and ignorance :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjLfyooJQEc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8jKZ9HH3U&feature=related

are just two.

[Demeter]

60. Well, I was lazy this Weekend

Didn't get much below 200 emails this week...

We had a lovely Mother's Day feast--I am filled to bursting and so is the dishwasher. The grandpuppy came and was very well behaved. We drank the champagne, even. I had a refreshing nap, even if that meant not getting much else done.

I hope you all had a good weekend--if the iceberg approaches, let us at least go out in style and with fellowship.

[DemReadingDU]

61. We had a two-fer today

Mother's day, and daughter's birthday!

House full of people. Grilled hamburgers, and of course...cake and ice cream.

Weather was lovely, no rain. amazing!