STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 1 April 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 1 April 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 31 March 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 31 March 2015
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Dow Jones 17,776.12 -200.19 (-1.11%)
S&P 500 2,067.89 -18.35 (-0.88%)
Nasdaq 4,900.88 -46.56 (-0.94%)


[font color=green]10 Year 1.92% -0.02 (-1.03%)
30 Year 2.54% -0.01 (-0.39%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[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.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts







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[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]

[Demeter]

1. That's a cartoon for our times, fer sure!

The Kid had her birthday dinner/cake/presents etc. I would have enjoyed it more if I weren't exhausted from the cold she gave me, and I had some sense of taste and smell....

The weather is a month late: March was coming in like a lion...not going out like a lamb. The fruit trees I've planted look okay so far...maybe we will be fruitful this year.

I'm going to have to put it to bed; I worked today, and while dying wasn't on the schedule, it did cross my mind. And there's still two more days of that....

Perhaps the worst part is, she stayed home and slept for a week, which was very restful for us both. Now that she feels better, she's chirping all the time, bubbling over with conversation, and all I want is a quiet dark room with a horizontal surface at blood temperature...

[Demeter]

2. America Can Afford To Increase Social Security, Despite What The Washington Post Says

http://www.alternet.org/media/america-can-afford-increase-social-security-despite-what-washington-post-says?akid=12954.227380._tuBJg&rd=1&src=newsletter1034034&t=16



"It's simple math," is the refrain often uttered by those seeking to explain why cutting, not expanding, Social Security is the choice to make. A variation of that phrase, "arithmetical realities of an aging society," appeared in Fred Hiatt's recent opinion piece ("Never-Compromise Wins Again," Washington Post, 3/23/15). The math is simple, but Mr. Hiatt gets it wrong.

In an effort to show that Social Security will be unaffordable in the future, Mr. Hiatt points out the misleading fact that there used to be a larger number of workers, in comparison to Social Security beneficiaries, than there are now, and there will be an even smaller number in the future. But this "simple math" leaves an important variable out of the equation: productivity. The worker to beneficiary ratio doesn't prove unaffordability any more than affordability is proven from the equally true observation that the total dependency ratio (workers compared to seniors and children) was much higher in the 1950s and 1960s than it is now or will be through most of the 21st century. The appropriate measure to assess affordability, one that takes into account productivity, is the percentage of our Gross Domestic Product--the total value of all goods and services--represented by Social Security. Currently, Social Security represents about five percent of GDP. In the future, at its most expensive, it will represent about 6.2 percent. Many other industrialized countries spend a much higher percentage of their GDP on their counterpart programs right now than we will at Social Security's most expensive. Compared to that 6.2 percent of GDP, for example, Austria today spends 11.9 percent, Germany, 10.7 percent, and Japan, 9.8 percent.

The question of whether Social Security should be expanded, fully funded at its current level of scheduled benefits, or scaled back is not one of math or demographics, but one of values- how we choose to spend our combined wealth. Confusing this question is some other wrong math. Like one of those fifth grade math word problems involving percentages of pies, advocates of cutting Social Security portray federal expenditures as a pie, and then complain that too much of it is going to seniors. What is missed in this analysis is that there are two pies. One pie is Social Security- disability insurance, life insurance, and joint and survivor annuities financed from its own dedicated revenue paid primarily by insured workers and their employers. That pie cannot borrow or deficit-spend. The other pie is the general operating fund of the United States, financed primarily through the federal income tax. Past Congresses have tried to make it as clear as possible that there are two pies, going so far as to enact Public Law 101-508, which unambiguously states that Social Security "shall not be counted...for purposes of...the budget of the United States Government." While the federal budget has a large deficit, Social Security has a large and growing accumulated surplus. Cutting its benefits would shrink the Social Security pie, but not increase the general-fund pie.

Mr. Hiatt and others are missing other important math. Social Security benefits average just $14,600 in 2015. That math is the one that too many Americans are scribbling on the back of envelopes, or neatly entering in Excel spreadsheets. It is the math of hard choices - do I pay for my medications this month, or buy groceries? Forgo heat or pay my phone bill? These are not questions that people should have to ask themselves when they live in the wealthiest country in the world, at the richest time in our history.

Mr. Hiatt and others imply that cuts would affect only the wealthiest beneficiaries, but that math doesn't work. There has not been a single serious proposal to cut Social Security that is so limited. The Bowles-Simpson proposal supported by Social Security opponents would cut benefits of workers earning around $40,000 by almost twenty percent, according to Social Security's Chief Actuary. Those earning more would see their benefits cut by higher percentages; even workers earning just $11,000 would see substantial cuts....

MORE

Nancy J. Altman is the author of The Battle for Social Security, and a founding co-director of Social Security Works and co-chair the Strengthen Social Security Coalition.

Eric R. Kingson is a professor of social work at Syracuse University and a founding co-director of Social Security Works and co-chair the Strengthen Social Security Coalition.


http://www.socialsecurityworks.org/

[Demeter]

3. Robert Reich: The Rich Don't Work Anymore—Working Is for Poor People

http://www.alternet.org/economy/robert-reich-rich-dont-work-anymore-working-poor-people?akid=12958.227380.6lJjZf&rd=1&src=newsletter1034129&t=3

Many believe that poor people deserve to be poor because they’re lazy. As Speaker John Boehner has said, the poor have a notion that “I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think I’d rather just sit around.” In reality, a large and growing share of the nation’s poor work full time — sometimes sixty or more hours a week – yet still don’t earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

It’s also commonly believed, especially among Republicans, that the rich deserve their wealth because they work harder than others. In reality, a large and growing portion of the super-rich have never broken a sweat. Their wealth has been handed to them.

The rise of these two groups — the working poor and non-working rich – is relatively new. Both are challenging the core American assumptions that people are paid what they’re worth, and work is justly rewarded. Why are these two groups growing?

The ranks of the working poor are growing because wages at the bottom have dropped, adjusted for inflation. With increasing numbers of Americans taking low-paying jobs in retail sales, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, childcare, elder care, and other personal services, the pay of the bottom fifth is falling closer to the minimum wage. At the same time, the real value of the federal minimum wage is lower today than it was a quarter century ago. In addition, most recipients of public assistance must now work in order to qualify. Bill Clinton’s welfare reform of 1996 pushed the poor off welfare and into work. Meanwhile, the Earned Income Tax Credit, a wage subsidy, has emerged as the nation’s largest anti-poverty program. Here, too, having a job is a prerequisite. The new work requirements haven’t reduced the number or percentage of Americans in poverty. They’ve just moved poor people from being unemployed and impoverished to being employed and impoverished. While poverty declined in the early years of welfare reform when the economy boomed and jobs were plentiful, it began growing in 2000. By 2012 it exceeded its level in 1996, when welfare ended.

At the same time, the ranks of the non-working rich have been swelling. America’s legendary “self-made” men and women are fast being replaced by wealthy heirs. Six of today’s ten wealthiest Americans are heirs to prominent fortunes. The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined. Americans who became enormously wealthy over the last three decades are now busily transferring that wealth to their children and grand children. The nation is on the cusp of the largest inter-generational transfer of wealth in history. A study from the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy projects a total of $59 trillion passed down to heirs between 2007 and 2061. As the French economist Thomas Piketty reminds us, this is the kind of dynastic wealth that’s kept Europe’s aristocracy going for centuries. It’s about to become the major source of income for a new American aristocracy. The tax code encourages all this by favoring unearned income over earned income. The top tax rate paid by America’s wealthy on their capital gains — the major source of income for the non-working rich – has dropped from 33 percent in the late 1980s to 20 percent today, putting it substantially below the top tax rate on ordinary income (36.9 percent). If the owners of capital assets whose worth increases over their lifetime hold them until death, their heirs pay zero capital gains taxes on them. Such “unrealized” gains now account for more than half the value of assets held by estates worth more than $100 million. At the same time, the estate tax has been slashed. Before George W. Bush was president, it applied to assets in excess of $2 million per couple at a rate of 55 percent. Now it kicks in at $10,680,000 per couple, at a 40 percent rate. Last year only 1.4 out of every 1,000 estates owed any estate tax, and the effective rate they paid was only 17 percent...

MORE

Robert B. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President Obama's transition advisory board. His latest book is "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future." His homepage is www.robertreich.org.

[Demeter]

4. Are We Heading Towards a New Global Financial Crisis?

http://www.alternet.org/economy/are-we-heading-towards-new-global-financial-crisis?akid=12956.227380.mZ-fwy&rd=1&src=newsletter1034088&t=14

Next to nothing has been done about countries that can’t repay their debts...Greek ministers are spending this weekend, almost five grinding years since Athens was first bailed out, wrangling over the details of the spending cuts and economic reforms they have drawn up to appease their creditors...As the recriminations fly between Europe’s capitals, campaigners are warning that the global community has failed to learn the lessons of the Greek debt crisis – or even of Argentina’s default in 2001, the consequences of which are still being contested furiously in courts on both sides of the Atlantic.

As Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates, boosting the value of the dollar, while the plunging price of crude puts intense pressure on the finances of oil-exporting countries, there are growing fears of a new debt crisis in the making. Ann Pettifor of Prime Economics, who foreshadowed the credit crunch in her 2003 book The Coming First World Debt Crisis, says: “We’re going to have another financial crisis. Brazil’s already in great trouble with the strength of the dollar; I dread to think what’s happening in South Africa; then there’s Malaysia. We’re back to where we were, and that for me is really frightening.”

Since the aftershocks of the global financial crisis of 2008 died away, the world’s policymakers have spent countless hours rewriting the banking rulebook and rethinking monetary policy. But next to nothing has been done about the question of what to do about countries that can’t repay their debts, or how to stop them getting into trouble in the first place. Developing countries are using the UN to demand a change in the way sovereign defaults are dealt with. Led by Bolivian ambassador to the UN Sacha Sergio Llorenti, they are calling for a bankruptcy process akin to the Chapter 11 procedure for companies to be applied to governments. Unctad, the UN’s Geneva-based trade and investment arm, has been working for several years to draw up a “roadmap” for sovereign debt resolution. It recommends a series of principles, including a moratorium on repayments while a solution is negotiated; the imposition of currency controls to prevent capital fleeing the troubled country; and continued lending by the IMF to prevent the kind of existential financial threat that roils world markets and causes severe economic hardship. If a new set of rules could be established, Unctad believes, “they should help prevent financial meltdown in countries facing difficulties servicing their external obligations, which often results in a loss of market confidence, currency collapse and drastic interest rates hikes, inflicting serious damage on public and private balance sheets and leading to large losses in output and employment and a sharp increase in poverty”. It calls for a once-and-for-all write-off, instead of the piecemeal Greek-style approach involving harsh terms and conditions that knock the economy off course and can ultimately make the debt even harder to repay. The threat of a genuine default of this kind could also help to constrain reckless lending by the private sector in the first place.

However, when these proposals were put to the UN general assembly last September, a number of developed countries, including the UK and the US, voted against it, claiming the UN was the wrong forum to discuss the proposal, which is anathema to powerful financial institutions...

THE FIRST CRISIS NEVER ENDED....IT'S LIKE FEVER, COMING AND GOING, BUT THE ILLNESS RAGES ON

[Ghost Dog]

7. US/UK & cronies almost never repay sovereign debts

& just service them with toxic fiat paper (ie further debt), while pressuring others.

Such injustice eventually turns nasty.

[Demeter]

5. 7 of the Biggest Reasons America Is Screwed By Robert Kuttner

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-biggest-reasons-america-screwed?akid=12956.227380.mZ-fwy&rd=1&src=newsletter1034088&t=6

Our current political situation is unprecedented. The vast majority of Americans keep falling behind economically because of changes in society's ground rules, while the rich get even richer -- yet this situation doesn't translate into a winning politics. If anything, the right keeps gaining and the wealthy keep pulling away. How can this possibly be?

Let me suggest seven reasons:

Reason One. The Discrediting of Politics Itself.

Reason Two. Compromised Democrats.

Reason Three. The Reign of Politicized Courts and Big Money.

Reason Four. The Collapse of Equalizing Institutions.

Reason Five. Bewildering Changes in How Jobs Are Structured.

Reason Six. The Internalization of a Generation's Plight.

Reason Seven. The Absence of a Movement.

Looking out at the plethora of local and national groups pursuing greater economic equality, one sees mainly idealism and fragmentation. Some of it is caused by that dread phrase, 501 c 3. Well-meaning foundations fall in love with the charismatic activist leader de jour, seem intent on creating yet another grass roots group or coalition, and then that group needs to differentiate itself from rivals and dance to the foundation's tune. (This is a column for another day.)

The remedies that would restore economic opportunity and security to ordinary Americans are far outside mainstream political conversation, and will not become mainstream until forced onto the agenda by a genuine mass movement. Sometimes that movement gets lucky and finds a rendezvous with a sympathetic national leader. This has occurred before -- in the Roosevelt Revolution of the 1930s and the Civil Rights Revolution of the 1960s. But without a potent movement on the ground, mainstream electoral politics is likely to remain stuck with remedies too weak either to rouse public imagination and participation, or to provide more than token relief for today's extreme inequality.


Robert Kuttner is the former co-editor of the American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His latest book is "Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency."

[Demeter]

6. Wally's a True Economist!

[antigop]

8. R. Maddow: I don't see any distance between her (HRC) and Wall Street interests there.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017255849

at the 2:40 mark