STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 24 August 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday, 24 August 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 21 August 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 21 August 2015
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Dow Jones 16,459.75 -530.94 (-3.12%)
S&P 500 1,970.89 -64.84 (-3.19%)
Nasdaq 4,706.04 -171.45 (-3.52%)


[font color=green]10 year 2.04% -0.03 (-1.45%)
30 Year 2.73% -0.02 (-0.73%) [font color=black]


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
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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
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
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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
08/03/15 Former City (London) trader Tom Hayes found guilty of rigging global Libor interest rates. Each fo eight counts carries up to 10 yr. sentence.
08/21/15 Charles Antonucci Sr, former pres. Park Ave. Bank sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for bribery, fraud, embezzlement, and attempt to steal $11MM in TARP bailout funds, as well as $37.5MM fraud on OK insurance company. To pay $54MM in restitution and give up additional $11MM.







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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. What the Heck is Going on in the Global Markets? by Wolf Richter

THE WHEELS ARE FALLING OFF, WOULD BE MY GUESS

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/23/what-the-heck-is-going-on-in-the-global-markets-meltdown/

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The week was already on a crummy downhill path globally, and emerging-market currencies were blowing up, when on Friday in China the Caixin’s Purchasing Manager’s Index hit the worst level since March 2009; manufacturing is sinking deeper into the mire...So the Shanghai stock index plunged 4.3% for the day, and 11.5% for the week, to 3,508, closing at the same level as the bottom of its July rout. The entire machinery, that the Chinese government and the People’s Bank of China had set in motion to bail out the markets during the July rout, which had worked for a couple of weeks, has now proven to be useless. And the markets, thought to be controllable by fiat or manipulation, suddenly regained a will of their own.

Other Asian stock markets plunged too: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.5% on Friday and 6.6% for the week; it’s 5.1% in the hole for the year. The Nikkei fell 3% on Friday and 5.3% for the week. Europe was next. The German Dax, the British FTSE 100, French CAC 40, the Spanish IBEX 35, the Italian FTSE MIB, they all plunged about 3% for the day and lost between 5% and 6.5% for the week, except for the German Dax which lost nearly 8% for the week. It has now plummeted 18% since its dizzying peak in early April. Easy come, easy go.

Have central banks lost their omnipotence?

That despicable, unpredictable force that central banks were thought to have vanquished – markets with a will of their own – ricocheted in its unruly manner around the world. In Europe and Japan, the central banks are currently engaging in relentless QE programs to inflate stocks, and China is doing a whole lot more, and yet, this debacle! A few more episodes of this – and folks are going to question the omnipotence of central banks, and they’re going to doubt the central banks’ vaunted ability to inflate the markets. If those doubts spread, not even QE can prop up the markets. Omnipotence only works if people believe in it.

For US stocks, an apt close of a lousy week.

The Dow plunged 541 points to 16,460, or 3.2%, after having already plunged 358 points on Thursday. It’s down 5.8%, for the week, the worst percentage drop since September 2011, and off 10.3% from its peak in May, and thus in a “correction.” The Nasdaq plummeted 171 points for the day, or 3.5% to 4,706. It too is in a correction, having lost 10% in a month. The S&P 500 index dropped 65 points, or 3.2%, to close at 1,971, after losing 2.1% on Thursday, and is down 5.8% for the week, also its worst week since September 2011. It’s 4.3% in the hole for the year...This chart by Doug Short, of Advisor Perspectives, shows the dismal trend for the week. In the bottom section of the chart, note how volume rose sharply each day during the four-day selloff. That’s not necessarily a good omen:



But wait…. The S&P 500 is down only 7.5% from its all-time high, and still not in a correction. Doug Short’s chart of the index shows the selloffs going back to 2007. The last time there was a correction of 10% or more was in 2011. And even that selloff the Fed got ironed out pretty quickly.



Stocks lost their grip into the close. Volume soared. Dip buyers had already checked out. And sellers were lining up to dump their wares so that they could sleep and party over the weekend...Bill Bonner, Chairman of Bonner & Partners, commented in his mix of cynicism, humor, and razor-sharp observation: “What puzzles us is not why stocks are going down but why anyone thought they were worth so much in the first place.” It’s just that folks have forgotten after years of QE and ZIRP what a selloff looks and feels like, that stocks can actually decline year-over-year. Folks have come to believe that the Fed will prevent these sort of dastardly events.

But here’s the thing…

All of the gains in the S&P 500 since 2009 piled up when the Fed’s QE and Operation Twist were cranking out trillions of dollars in new play money. But when QE was tapered out of existence last year, the S&P began to lose steam. ZIRP alone isn’t enough anymore, apparently, to prop up the markets. And now the Fed is even thinking about ending ZIRP….

So Volatility is back with a vengeance.

MORE MANIC REPORTING AT LINK

[Warpy]

8. Manic reporting is right

The hyperbole used by financial reporters shames even sports reporters.

The truth is that the markets have been flat for months, meaning a correction was on the way. They will eventually overcorrect, at which time smart money will start snapping up bargains.

If the jig were really up, markets would be losing 5% per day--or even more.

[Demeter]

9. Give it time....we'll get there

[fasttense]

19. Yup.

[Demeter]

2. Anti-privacy unkillable super-cookies spreading around the world SMART PHONES

And there's nothing you can do about it

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/17/tracking_supercookies_spreading/?mt=1440279981387

?x=648&y=429&crop=1

At least nine telcos around the world are using so-called super-cookies to secretly monitor citizens' online behavior, according to a new study.

A super-cookie is a token unique to each subscriber that is injected into every HTTP request made through a telco's cellphone networks. They can't be stripped by the user: every time a subscriber visits a website from his or her smartphone, the telco's system places the super-cookie in the HTTP headers, so that the site's servers can identify the visitor. This super-cookie allows ad networks and media publishers to follow people across the internet even if they clear their cookies. It allows the networks to build up profiles on users' habits, and pitch them targeted advertising, while the telcos take a cut.

When it emerged that Verizon and AT&T in the US were using this technology it caused a storm. AT&T dropped the super-cookies, and Verizon eventually switched to an opt-out approach: if you switched them off, the headers went away. Now a six-month investigation by digital rights group Access has shown that telcos overseas are using the same super-cookie techniques.

Access set up a website called Amibeingtracked.com, and monitored visits from 180,000 netizens on their phones. The group found that 15.3 per cent of visitors had the tracking headers installed from cellphone owners in Canada, China, India, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Peru, Spain, the US, and Venezuela.

Verizon, AT&T, Bell Canada, Bharti Airtel, Cricket, Telefonica de España, Viettel Peru S.a.c., Vodafone NL, and Vodafone Spain all used the technology, although AT&T dropped off the charts when it withdrew the system. Verizon is still on the charts because people are opted-in by default. By far the largest number of people being monitored were in the US, with the Access engine finding over 23,000 unstrippable headers from phone users in the Land of the Free. Spain was the next most tracked nation – with just over 3,000 cases – and the other countries had fewer than a thousand cases each.

The samples collected by the website showed a great degree of variance in what data was being collected and transferred using the technique. Telcos are increasingly encrypting the header information, but some still send data in clear text, including the phone number of the user in three cases.

"Not all carriers track their users, and those that respect user privacy deserve our support," the report concludes.

"Telecommunications companies occupy a central role in providing access to the internet, enhancing the communications capabilities of billions of people. By delivering open access, networks, and services, telcos can serve not just as internet service providers, but also as 'freedom providers.'"

The only way to stop the header from reporting back is to limit your web browsing to HTTPS sites only, but that's going to prove rather limiting. Alternatively, switch to a telco that doesn't use the technology, although that may become harder over time as well.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/access.3cdn.net/a0a7cea86cc5eee2d1_kjm6ig8y3.pdf

[hamerfan]

30. Makes me so glad

I have a dumb phone.
So damn glad....

[Demeter]

3. FROM LAST AUGUST: Which country relies most heavily on Russian gas?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/31/which-country-depends-most-heavily-on-russian-gas/14758961/

When it comes to energy, Germany is a bit of a conundrum. It's a global leader in renewables usage, having increased the share of renewables in its total energy consumption from 6% to an impressive 25% over the past decade. Yet it's also a heavy user of coal – a fact that's glaringly inconsistent with its sustainable energy leadership.

What's even more surprising, however, is that Germany is actually the biggest importer of natural gas from Russia. According to BP's latest annual review, it imported close to a whopping 40 billion cubic meters of gas from the Russian Federation in 2013. That places it well ahead of even Ukraine, which imported about 25 billion cubic meters.

German reliance on Russia

Germany relies on imports to supply more than 70% of its domestic energy demand, with Russia alone representing a quarter of the country's imports of natural gas, oil, and coal. According to the International Energy Agency, Russia supplies about 38% of German gas imports, 35% of oil imports, and 25% of coal imports.

That dependence makes Germany particularly vulnerable to any supply disruptions that prevent Russian gas from flowing across its borders. It's not surprising, then, that Chancellor Angela Merkel has been especially circumspect in her dealings with Vladimir Putin; she knows that Russia has the upper hand. If Russian supplies were cut off for any number of reasons, Germany has only three options left, none of them particularly attractive...

[Demeter]

4. Goon Thugs and Gullible Conservatives By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39557.htm

...Gratuitous police violence in America is totally out of control. Every day police murder 1.4 Americans, and beat, taser, body slam, and break into the homes of many others. Ferguson made it into the news, but Americans suffer police violence every day. In response to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, apologists for police brutality concocted every possible excuse imaginable in order to justify Brown’s killing. Yet, we know for a fact that unprovoked police violence is routine and apparently unavoidable. The willingness of “law and order conservatives” to give the police the benefit of the doubt in the face of all evidence to the contrary is inexcusable.

In the story reported in the link, a 68-year old woman and her adopted daughter were attacked in their home by a goon thug SWAT team that destroyed their unlocked front door, threw stun grenades into the home blowing out the windows, ordered the women to the floor with rifles pointed at their heads, handcuffed them and paraded them out of the house in front of neighbors...What was it all about? More stupid incompetence and outrageous behavior by our goon thugs. The women’s wireless internet signal was not protected by a password, and a neighbor used it to post a silly message that read as a threat to the Evansville police. The police followed the IP address to the women’s home and terrorized them.

Before the police were militarized, detectives would have arrived at the house with a search warrant to inspect cell phones and computers for evidence of the threatening message. None would have been found, and the detectives would have realized that someone nearby was operating on the women’s wireless signal. The search would have been expanded and the matter resolved without violence. The violence inflicted on the women and their home was totally unnecessary and totally unjustified. Luckily, the women did not have a pet dog or it would have been shot by the goon thugs. The trauma gratuitously inflicted on the two women is experienced by Americans many times each day. Our taxes are used not to protect us but to traumatize us and to inflict property damage on us. The Federal Reserve reports that 52% of American households cannot raise $400 in cash, which is about the cost of replacing a shattered door and door frame...

MORE

[Demeter]

5. The End of Democracy as we Knew it By Bernd Hamm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39554.htm

...

(1) How is the global ruling class structured internally?
(2) Is it theoretically correct to use the term class for the ruling elite?
(3) What are the major instruments of power?
(4) How do these analytical insights impact on the probable future of human society?

Drawing on C. Wright Mills’ seminal work on The Power Elite (1956), recent power structure research suggests an ideal-type model of four concentric circles:

• In the inner circle, we find the global money trust, the richest individuals, families or clans, all with fortunes well above one billion Euros.
  
  
• The CEOs of big transnational corporations and biggest international financial players make up the second circle. They are mostly concerned with increasing the wealth of the inner circle, and with it their own.
  
  
• Top international politicians, some active in governments and international institutions, some more in the background as advisors, plus the top military, compose the third circle. This political class has assignments: organize the distribution of the social product in such a way as to transfer as much as the actual power balance allows into the pockets of the inner and second circles, and secure the legitimacy of government by organizing the political circus of an allegedly pluralistic structure.
  
  
• The fourth ring will be composed of top academics, media moguls, lawyers, and may sometimes include prominent authors, film and music stars, artists, NGO representatives, few religious leaders, few top criminals and others useful for decorating the inner circles. They enjoy the privilege of close access to those in power, they are well paid, and they will make sure not to lose such benefits (Hamm, B. 2010:1008-9; see also Phillips, P., Osborne, B. 2013).

It appears that the degree of internationalization of the powerful correlates with their status on the ring hierarchy. The two inner circles have always been international. The third and fourth rings, however, tend to be much more nationally bound (by ownership and by elections) than the first and the second. The inner circle is not static but relatively solid. It builds on financial and social capital often accumulated by former generations (steel industry, banking, weapons, or oil barons). The major source of power is being borne to a family of the inner circle (for example, the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Morgans, the DuPonts, the Vanderbilts, the Agnellis, the Thyssens, and the Krupps, to mention a few).

There are also the nouveaux riches. Names like George Soros, William Gates, Warren Buffet, Marc Zuckerberg, Sheldon Adelson, or the Koch brothers come to mind (Smith, Y. 2013), and the Bush-Clan might also be mentioned here (Bowles, W. 2005); Russian or Eastern European oligarchs like Alisher Usmanov, Mikhail Chodorkowski, Boris Beresowski, Mikhail Fridman, Rinat Ahmetov, Leonid Mikhelson, Viktor Vekselberg, Andrej Melnichenko, Roman Abramovich; then there are Carlos Slim Helu, Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Jorge Paulo Lemann, Iris Fontbona or Aliko Dangote from the so-called less developed countries. These parvenus tend to be politically more active, at least on the front stage, than the old rich families: George Soros with his Open Society Foundation and his permanent warnings of the evils of unregulated capitalism is the best known for his liberal leanings, while the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson or Robert Murdoch are aggressively right-wing (Heath, T. 2014; Snyder, M. 2013; Webster, S.C. 2013). The oligarchs of the former Soviet block have almost all grabbed their fortunes during the presidency of Boris Yeltzin who, pathological alcoholic as he was, made room for large scale privatization of state corporations and raw materials after the collapse of the socialist regime. Shock therapy was pushed through under the influence of Western advisors, especially the Harvard privatization program with Jeffrey Sachs as the leading figure, as well the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Jegor Gajdar, Anatoli Tschubais (an oligarch himself) and Alfred Koch [2] were their local executives in Russia (Vaclav Klaus in Czecholovakia, Leszek Balcerowicz in Poland, etc.).

The strategy for the creation of oligarchs and social polarization is easy to understand since it has been practiced by the IMF time and again to this very day as part of their structural adjustment policy (later cynically referred to as “poverty reduction strategy”). What it amounts to is the abolition of all prize control and public subventions, laying-off civil servants, limiting wages, devaluing currencies, and privatizing public corporations and infrastructure (the so-called Washington Consensus). Widespread poverty is the immediate result, and the other side of the coin is extremely concentrated wealth in just a few hands. If the number of victims multiplied by the gravity of damages done to each of them is used as an indicator, the IMF is certainly the most criminal organization on earth (Chossudovsky, M. 2001).

Does this global oligarchy constitute a social class in the theoretical sense of the term? If so, it should (1) be in control of the means of production, (2) be bound together by class consciousness, and in-group mentality, and (3) be party to a global class struggle over the distribution of the social product. The second criterion, in particular, was answered affirmatively:

“The GRC (Global Ruling Class) will tend to see themselves, very much like feudal kings, as being of divine superiority placing them far above all other human beings. Fascism is very likely to be a basic pillar of their ideology, and war will be just one of the tools to increase their power and profits” (Hamm, 2010:1010; see also Turley, J. 2014; Dolan, E.W. 2013).

As the money elite generally tend to focus their social contacts inside, groupthink is permanently reinforced. This might hold true even if it is not homogeneous in other respects (Lofgren, M. 2013; Domhoff, G.W., Staples, C., Schneider, A. 2013).

For the first question, the extent that the financial sector has taken over control of productive industries should be emphasized. Here, the enormous amount of freshly printed dollars injected in the global economy since the abolishment of the gold standard in 1971 is decisive. The Federal Reserve Bank under successive US administrations has followed this policy up to the present day. The amount of money strolling around for profitable investment is not underpinned by production or services but rather by printing fiat notes. It has allowed the financial industry to buy up real businesses by shares and bonds and their respective derivatives inside and outside the US. Thus, the financial industry acquired, in fact, control of large parts of the real economy including (via production chains) small and medium-sized businesses, fertile lands, and raw materials. The financial industry is also highly influential in the areas of science and technology, and through lobbying and campaign donations, it influences political decision-making. In fact, as US lawmakers tend to belong to the upper strata of the financial hierarchy (thus to the third circle of our power model), they also tend to widely identify with the interests of the inner rings (Money Choice 2013). Therefore, it is correct to conclude that the financial industry is in control of the means of production....


THE THESIS CONTINUES AT LINK

[Demeter]

6. How Poor Are America's Poorest? U.S. $2 A Day Poverty In A Global Context

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/08/poverty-america-global-context-chandy-smith

In the United States, the official poverty rate for 2012 stood at 15 percent based on the national poverty line which is equivalent to around $16 per person per day. Of the 46.5 million Americans living in poverty, 20.4 million live under half the poverty line. This begs the question of just how poor America’s poorest people are.

Poverty, in one form or other, exists in every country. But the most acute, absolute manifestations of poverty are assumed to be limited to the developing world. This is reflected in the fact that rich countries tend to set higher poverty lines than poor countries, and that global poverty estimates have traditionally excluded industrialized countries and their populations altogether.

An important study on U.S. poverty by Luke Shaefer and Kathryn Edin gently challenges this assumption. Using an alternative dataset from the one employed for the official U.S. poverty measure, Shaefer and Edin show that millions of Americans live on less than $2 a day—a threshold commonly used to measure poverty in the developing world. Depending on the exact definitions used, they find that up to 5 percent of American households with children are shown to fall under this parsimonious poverty line.

These numbers are intended to shock—and they succeed. The United States is known for having higher inequality and a less generous social safety net than many affluent countries in Europe, but the acute deprivations that flow from this are less understood. A crude comparison of Shaefer and Edin’s estimates with the World Bank’s official $2 a day poverty estimates for developing economies would place the United States level with or behind a large set of countries, including Russia (0.1 percent), the West Bank and Gaza (0.3 percent), Jordan (1.6 percent), Albania (1.7 percent), urban Argentina (1.9 percent), urban China (3.5 percent), and Thailand (4.1 percent). Many of these countries are recipients of American foreign aid. However, methodologies for measuring poverty differ wildly both within and across countries, so such comparisons and their interpretation demand extreme care.

This brief is organized into two parts. In the first part, we examine the welfare of America’s poorest people using a variety of different data sources and definitions. These generate estimates of the number of Americans living under $2 a day that range from 12 million all the way down to zero. This wide spectrum reflects not only a lack of agreement on how poverty can most reliably be measured, but the particular ways in which poverty is, and isn’t, manifested in the U.S.. In the second part, we reexamine America’s $2 a day poverty in the context of global poverty. We begin by identifying the source and definition of poverty that most faithfully replicates the World Bank’s official poverty measure for the developing world to allow a fairer comparison between the U.S. and developing nations. We then compare the characteristics of poverty in the U.S. and the developing world to provide a more complete picture of the nature of poverty in these different settings. Finally, we explain why comparisons of poverty in the U.S. and the developing world, despite their limitations and pitfalls, are likely to become more common.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE TEXT: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/08/america-poverty-global-context/how-poor-are-americas-poorest.pdf

[snot]

7. This may go nowhere; but if you have time and interest, your thoughts?

"Top Ten Financial Terrorists of ----" [pls add your faves]. Below is a start, but I think/hope many of you here are more knowledgeable:

Koch Bros.
Hank Paulson
Timothy Geithner
Jamie Dimon
Robert Rubin
Jack Lew

I'm looking for the movers, or those who've had the power to make a critical difference (not those dependent on them).

[Fuddnik]

10. .....

Paul Singer
Mitt Romney
Sheldon Adelson....

[Demeter]

11. Karl Rove and Ronald Reagan and W

Throw in Bill Clinton, too, for what he did to welfare.

[MattSh]

12. More...

Lloyd Blankfein
Milton Friedman

[Tansy_Gold]

24. more

Larry Summers

I'd add Bill Gates and even the late Steve Jobs for the control they exerted over the information systems, and libertarian Jeff Bezos for engineering a variety of international tax avoidance schemes and leading the way with bizarre intellectual property claims.

[Demeter]

13. Central Banks Have Become A Corrupting Force By Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42706.htm

Are we witnessing the corruption of central banks? Are we observing the money-creating powers of central banks being used to drive up prices in the stock market for the benefit of the mega-rich? These questions came to mind when we learned that the central bank of Switzerland, the Swiss National Bank, purchased 3,300,000 shares of Apple stock in the first quarter of this year, adding 500,000 shares in the second quarter. Smart money would have been selling, not buying. It turns out that the Swiss central bank, in addition to its Apple stock, holds very large equity positions, ranging from $250,000,000 to $637,000,000, in numerous US corporations — Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Google, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Verizon, AT&T, Pfizer, Chevron, Merck, Facebook, Pepsico, Coca Cola, Disney, Valeant, IBM, Gilead, Amazon. Among this list of the Swiss central bank’s holdings are stocks which are responsible for more than 100% of the year-to-date rise in the S&P 500 prior to the latest sell-off.

What is going on here?

The purpose of central banks was to serve as a “lender of last resort” to commercial banks faced with a run on the bank by depositors demanding cash withdrawals of their deposits. Banks would call in loans in an effort to raise cash to pay off depositors... Businesses would fail, and the banks would fail from their inability to pay depositors their money on demand.

As time passed, this rationale for a central bank was made redundant by government deposit insurance for bank depositors, and central banks found additional functions for their existence. The Federal Reserve, for example, under the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, is responsible for maintaining full employment and low inflation. By the time this legislation was passed, the worsening “Phillips Curve tradeoffs” between inflation and employment had made the goals inconsistent. The result was the introduction by the Reagan administration of the supply-side economic policy that cured the simultaneously rising inflation and unemployment. Neither the Federal Reserve’s charter nor the Humphrey-Hawkins Act says that the Federal Reserve is supposed to stabilize the stock market by purchasing stocks. The Federal Reserve is supposed to buy and sell bonds in open market operations in order to encourage employment with lower interest rates or to restrict inflation with higher interest rates.

If central banks purchase stocks in order to support equity prices, what is the point of having a stock market? The central bank’s ability to create money to support stock prices negates the price discovery function of the stock market. The problem with central banks is that humans are fallible, including the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and all the board members and staff. Nobel prize-winner Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz established that the Great Depression was the consequence of the failure of the Federal Reserve to expand monetary policy sufficiently to offset the restriction of the money supply due to bank failure. When a bank failed in the pre-deposit insurance era, the money supply would shrink by the amount of the bank’s deposits. During the Great Depression, thousands of banks failed, wiping out the purchasing power of millions of Americans and the credit creating power of thousands of banks.

The Fed is prohibited from buying equities by the Federal Reserve Act. But an amendment in 2010 – Section 13(3) – was enacted to permit the Fed to buy AIG’s insolvent Maiden Lane assets. This amendment also created a loophole which enables the Fed to lend money to entities that can use the funds to buy stocks. Thus, the Swiss central bank could be operating as an agent of the Federal Reserve. If central banks cannot properly conduct monetary policy, how can they conduct an equity policy? Some astute observers believe that the Swiss National Bank is acting as an agent for the Federal Reserve and purchases large blocs of US equities at critical times to arrest stock market declines that would puncture the propagandized belief that all is fine here in the US economy. We know that the US government has a “plunge protection team” consisting of the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. The purpose of this team is to prevent unwanted stock market crashes.

Is the stock market decline of August 20-21 welcome or unwelcome?

At this point we do not know. In order to keep the dollar up, the basis of US power, the Federal Reserve has promised to raise interest rates, but always in the future. The latest future is next month. The belief that a hike in interest rates is in the cards keeps the US dollar from losing exchange value in relation to other currencies, thus preventing a flight from the dollar that would reduce the Uni-power to Third World status...

[Demeter]

14. Great fall of China sinks world stocks, dollar tumbles TODAY!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/24/us-markets-global-idUSKCN0QT00B20150824?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

Alarm bells rang across world markets on Monday as a 9 percent dive in Chinese shares and a sharp drop in the dollar and major commodities panicked investors. European stocks opened more than 3 percent in the red after their Asian counterparts slumped to 3-year lows as a three month-long rout in Chinese equities threatened to get out of hand. Safe-haven government bonds and the yen and the euro rallied as widespread fears of a China-led global economic slowdown and currency war kicked in.

"It is a China-driven macro panic," said Didier Duret, chief investment officer at ABN Amro. "Volatility will persist until we see better data there or strong policy action through forceful monetary easing."

With serious doubts now emerging about the likelihood of a U.S. interest rate rise this year, the dollar slid against other major currencies. It was last at 120.25 yen, its lowest in three months. The Australian dollar fell to six-year lows and many emerging market currencies also plunged, whilst the frantic dash to safety pushed the euro to a 6-1/2-month high.

"Things are starting look like the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. Speculators are selling assets that seem the most vulnerable," said Takako Masai, head of research at Shinsei Bank in Tokyo.

Commodity markets took a fresh battering. Brent and U.S. crude oil futures hit 6-1/2-year lows as concerns about a global supply glut added to worries over potentially weaker demand from China. U.S. crude was down 3 percent at $39.20 a barrel CLc1 while Brent LCOc1 lost 2.4 percent to $44.40 a barrel. Copper, seen as a barometer of global industrial demand, tumbled 2.5 percent, with three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange CMCU3 hitting a six-year low of $4,920 a tonne. Nickel CMNI3 slid 4.6 percent to its lowest since 2009 at $9,730 a tonne.

GREAT FALL OF CHINA

The near 9 percent slump in Chinese stocks was their worst performance since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009 and wiped out what was left of the 2015 gains, which in June has been more than 50 percent. The latest rout was rooted in investor disappointment that Beijing did not announce expected policy support over the weekend after its markets shed 11 percent last week.

Compounding the real-time falls all index futures contracts slumped by their 10 percent daily limit, pointing to more bad days ahead.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 5.1 percent to a three-year low. Tokyo's Nikkei was down 4.1 percent and Australian and Indonesian shares hit two-year troughs.

"China could be forced to devalue the yuan even more, should its economy falter, and the equity markets are dealing with the prospect of a weaker yuan amplifying the negative impact from a sluggish Chinese economy," said Eiji Kinouchi, chief technical analyst at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.

There was further evidence that developed markets were becoming synchronized with the troubles. London's FTSE which has a large number of global miners and oil firms, was down for its 10th straight day, its worst run since 2003. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300, meanwhile, was down 3.1 percent by 0830 GMT (0430 EDT) at 1,382.15 points, wiping around 260 billion euros ($298.61 billion) off the index and taking its losses for the month to more that 1 trillion euros.

U.S. stock futures also pointed to larger losses for Wall Street's main markets, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial and Nasdaq expected to open down 1.8, 2.2 and 3.1 percent respectively.

"We are in the midst of a full-blown growth scare," strategists at JP Morgan Cazenove said in a note.

GROWTH SCARE? WHAT KIND OF BS IS THAT?

[Demeter]

15. Sprawl of Ghost Homes in Aging Tokyo Suburbs

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/world/a-sprawl-of-abandoned-homes-in-tokyo-suburbs.html

YOKOSUKA, Japan — Ever since her elderly neighbor moved a decade ago, Yoriko Haneda has done what she can to keep the empty house she left behind from becoming an eyesore. Ms. Haneda regularly trims its shrubs and clips its narrow strip of grass, maintaining its perfect view of the sea. The volunteer yard work has not extended to the house two doors down, however. That one is vacant, too, and overgrown with bamboo. In fact, dozens of houses in this hillside neighborhood about an hour’s drive from Tokyo are abandoned.

“There are empty houses everywhere, places where nobody’s lived for 20 years, and more are cropping up all the time,” said Ms. Haneda, 77, complaining that thieves had broken into her neighbor’s house twice and that a typhoon had damaged the roof of the one next to it. Despite a deeply rooted national aversion to waste, discarded homes are spreading across Japan like a blight in a garden. Long-term vacancy rates have climbed significantly higher than in the United States or Europe, and some eight million dwellings are now unoccupied, according to a government count. Nearly half of them have been forsaken completely — neither for sale nor for rent, they simply sit there, in varying states of disrepair.

SOUNDS LIKE DETROIT--HOW FITTING! THEY DESTROYED US AUTO INDUSTRY, AND NOW THEY DESTROY THEMSELVES.

These ghost homes are the most visible sign of human retreat in a country where the population peaked a half-decade ago and is forecast to fall by a third over the next 50 years. The demographic pressure has weighed on the Japanese economy, as a smaller work force struggles to support a growing proportion of the old, and has prompted intense debate over long-term proposals to boost immigration or encourage women to have more children...For now, though, after decades in which it struggled with overcrowding, Japan is confronting the opposite problem: When a society shrinks, what should be done with the buildings it no longer needs? Many of Japan’s vacant houses have been inherited by people who have no use for them and yet are unable to sell, because of a shortage of interested buyers. But demolishing them involves tactful questions about property rights, and about who should pay the costs. The government passed a law this year to promote demolition of the most dilapidated homes, but experts say the tide of newly emptied ones will be hard to stop.

“Tokyo could end up being surrounded by Detroits,” said Tomohiko Makino, a real estate expert who has studied the vacant-house phenomenon. Once limited mostly to remote rural communities, it is now spreading through regional cities and the suburbs of major metropolises. Even in the bustling capital, the ratio of unoccupied houses is rising.


I CAN SEE DETROIT'S EVICTED GOING TO JAPAN TO "GENTRIFY" THE PLACE....

[Demeter]

16. A Moveable Glut PAUL KRUGMAN

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/opinion/a-moveable-glut.html

What caused Friday’s stock plunge? What does it mean for the future? Nobody knows, and not much.

Attempts to explain daily stock movements are usually foolish: a real-time survey of the 1987 stock crash found no evidence for any of the rationalizations economists and journalists offered after the fact, finding instead that people were selling because, you guessed it, prices were falling. And the stock market is a terrible guide to the economic future: Paul Samuelson once quipped that the market had predicted nine of the last five recessions, and nothing has changed on that front. Still, investors are clearly jittery — with good reason. U.S. economic news has been good though not great lately, but the world as a whole still seems remarkably accident-prone. For seven years and counting we’ve lived in a global economy that lurches from crisis to crisis: Every time one part of the world finally seems to get back on its feet, another part stumbles. And America can’t insulate itself completely from these global woes.

But why does the world economy keep stumbling?

On the surface, we seem to have had a remarkable run of bad luck. First there was the housing bust, and the banking crisis it triggered. Then, just as the worst seemed to be over, Europe went into debt crisis and double-dip recession. Europe eventually achieved a precarious stability and began growing again — but now we’re seeing big problems in China and other emerging markets, which were previously pillars of strength. But these aren’t just a series of unrelated accidents. Instead, what we’re seeing is what happens when too much money is chasing too few investment opportunities. More than a decade ago, Ben Bernanke famously argued that a ballooning U.S. trade deficit was the result, not of domestic factors, but of a “global saving glut”: a huge excess of savings over investment in China and other developing nations, driven in part by policy reactions to the Asian crisis of the 1990s, which was flowing to the United States in search of returns. He worried a bit about the fact that the inflow of capital was being channeled, not into business investment, but into housing; obviously he should have worried much more. (Some of us did.) But his suggestion that the U.S. housing boom was in part caused by weakness in foreign economies still looks valid.

Of course, the boom became a bubble, which inflicted immense damage when it burst. Furthermore, that wasn’t the end of the story. There was also a flood of capital from Germany and other northern European countries to Spain, Portugal, and Greece. This too turned out to be a bubble, and the bursting of that bubble in 2009-2010 precipitated the euro crisis. And still the story wasn’t over. With America and Europe no longer attractive destinations, the global glut went looking for new bubbles to inflate. It found them in emerging markets, sending currencies like Brazil’s real to unsustainable heights. It couldn’t last, and now we’re in the middle of an emerging-market crisis that reminds some observers of Asia in the 1990s — remember, where it all started.

So where does the moving finger of glut go now? Why, back to America, where a fresh inflow of foreign funds has driven the dollar way up, threatening to make our industry uncompetitive again. What’s causing this global glut? Probably a mix of factors. Population growth is slowing worldwide, and for all the hype about the latest technology, it doesn’t seem to be creating either surging productivity or a lot of demand for business investment. The ideology of austerity, which has led to unprecedented weakness in government spending, has added to the problem. And low inflation around the world, which means low interest rates even when economies are booming, has reduced the room to cut rates when economies slump. Whatever the precise mix of causes, what’s important now is that policy makers take seriously the possibility, I’d say probability, that excess savings and persistent global weakness is the new normal. My sense is that there’s a deep-seated unwillingness, even among sophisticated officials, to accept this reality. Partly this is about special interests: Wall Street doesn’t want to hear that an unstable world requires strong financial regulation, and politicians who want to kill the welfare state don’t want to hear that government spending and debt aren’t problems in the current environment. But there’s also, I believe, a sort of emotional prejudice against the very notion of global glut. Politicians and technocrats alike want to view themselves as serious people making hard choices — choices like cutting popular programs and raising interest rates. They don’t like being told that we’re in a world where seemingly tough-minded policies will actually make things worse. But we are, and they will.

FOR SHAME! SUCH SUPERFICIAL AND USELESS COMMENTARY!

[Demeter]

17. 10 things Wall Street won’t tell you about the stock market

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-wall-street-wont-tell-you-about-the-stock-market-2015-08-24?siteid=YAHOOB

I don’t know what the stock market is going to do next, and nor does anybody else.
But here are 10 things that Wall Street’s alleged experts won’t tell you, but should.

1. “Our investment forecasts are bogus.”

All those spreadsheets and charts telling you that stocks produce “average returns of 9% a year”? They’re based on completely faulty math. Yes, they use “historic data.” But they misuse the data. Stocks in the past only produced such “average returns” because of three reasons: inflation, bargain stock prices and high dividend yields. None of those three factors are at play today. Based on the real math, real logic and real use of past data, calculations once produced by Wall Street legends Rob Arnott and the late Peter Bernstein suggest U.S. shares today may only earn 3% or 4% a year in real, purchasing-power terms.

2. “We only agree because we have to.”

Yes, every investment “expert” seems to parrot the same cheerful things as every other. But if you think that’s because they all independently reached the same conclusions, you’re dreaming. They have to agree. Professionally, it is far better to be wrong en masse than right independently. And, legally, one of the ways to avoid being sued is just to do what all your competitors are doing, no matter how wise or foolish it may be. “Your honor, everyone in the industry was doing the same thing” is an actual defense, even if you bankrupted your client.

3. “We don’t know anything about history.”

Wall Street experts like to cite historical data to validate their strategy and analysis. The problem? They actually know little about financial history, and understand even less. Most of their “historical data” come from the past few decades, an unprecedented era that will tell you completely different things about stocks, bonds and the economy than other periods will. Historically, a few decades’ worth of data is nothing — a mere snapshot in time. Even data going back to World War II, or the 1920s, isn’t enough to draw too many long-term conclusions. No serious historian would be so foolish.

4. “We’ve missed every crash.”

It is worth remembering that twice in the past 20 years, the U.S. stock market has fallen by about half. And on both occasions, most Wall Street “experts” were taken completely by surprise. They also failed to predict the housing bust — most of them, indeed, cited “history” to say that it couldn’t happen. A majority of economists polled in early 2008 failed to predict the biggest recession in 70 years, even though it had already begun. All the experts at the International Monetary Fund completely failed to predict the financial crisis as well. And since 2011, most Wall Street experts have missed the crashes in emerging market stocks and commodities as well. Generally, the only people who successfully predict a coming crash are dismissed by the rest of Wall Street as cranks, eccentrics and losers — until it’s too late.

5. “Your wealth is not our No. 1 priority.”

I don’t mean to be cynical, but Wall Street’s top priority is not to protect your wealth. It’s to protect their own. That’s just human nature. Wall Street’s experts are all worrying about putting their own kids and grandkids through college and securing their own retirement. And that means they have to go along to get along. It’s not that they don’t care about you at all. It’s just that, unfortunately, you come second. And that makes all the difference.

6. “Your balanced portfolio can fail.”

It is conventional wisdom on Wall Street that a “balanced portfolio” of stocks and bonds will protect you, because even if stocks go down, then bonds will go up. The problem? It’s not true. It’s based on yet another misreading of history. Stocks and bonds both got hosed in the 1940s. They both got hosed in the 1970s. Today, based on history, both stocks and bonds are very expensive. Since 1982, both stocks and bonds have gone up together. And what goes up together can come down together.

7. “There is no ‘money on the sidelines’ to push the market higher.”

Wall Street experts are fond of saying that the stock market is bound to go higher shortly because there is so much “money on the sidelines, waiting to come into the market,” and that will drive up prices. But this is actually a total lie. There is no such thing as money on the sidelines. That’s because for every stock bought, one must be sold. If I have $100 “on the sidelines” and you have a share in Apple AAPL, -4.03% and I buy your share, what happens? I end up with a share in Apple … and you end up with my $100. Nothing’s changed.

8. “The best investments are the ones we won’t tell you about.”

The biggest conspiracy on Wall Street is the one hiding in plain sight. The best long-term investments must, by definition, be those that are cheapest in relation to their fundamental worth. That was true, for example, of emerging markets in the late 1990s (after the Asian crisis), “old economy” non-dot-coms in 1999 (during the Internet bubble), dot-coms in 2003 (after the crash) and housing in 2010-12 (after that crash too). But guess what? Those are exactly the investments that Wall Street can never and will never recommend, because the professional risk to them is too great. If they recommend you buy today’s most hated assets and you make a fortune, they don’t get the upside. But if they recommend you buy today’s most hated assets and those assets fall further, they’ll get fired and you’ll sue. So instead, they will recommend you invest in the things that everyone else likes. Make of it what you will, but right now everyone is running away from emerging market stocks and currencies and anything to do with commodities.

9. “The better the market, the worse the outlook.”

Have you been watching the market go up and up and up? Are you afraid of “missing out” on further gains? Do you want to “put your money to work”? Wall Street loves you. But the logic is absolutely upside down. The stock market is just a claim on companies’ future income. And despite what people think, that future income isn’t going to vary by much, regardless of what happens to the economy in the short term. The net result: The higher the stock market, the worse an investment it becomes. The time to buy is when no one wants to.

10. “Another crisis is just around the corner.”

If you missed the last big buying opportunity, don’t panic — another one will probably come along shortly. Wall Street likes to pretend that today’s modern economy, with its MBAs and CFAs, PhDs and other experts, has pretty much relegated financial turmoil and chaos to the bad old days. But it’s untrue. Actually, the past 20 years have seen more turmoil than the previous period, not less. The late Hyman Minsky, an economist, argued that crises are part of human nature. When things go well, people just get complacent and take more and more risks. J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon acknowledged to Congress after 2008 that financial crises come along pretty much every five to seven years. The Book of Genesis suggested much the same thing several thousand years ago. The historical record bears them both out. But you won’t hear it from Wall Street.

[Demeter]

18. The seasons have turned--today will only reach 70F

I'm wearing jeans, and thinking about a sweater! It's nice to wear clothes, again, but let's not be too precipitate, shall we? And it did rain last evening, too, a gentle steady pour.

I'm not ready! I'm never ready for change, not even such a basic, predictable one...

[MattSh]

29. Just had that last week...

The joys of a northerly clime.

This whole summer, it's been on again, off again weather. Hot when we're in Kiev, cool when we're at the summer place. Except for one week. Last week we had a (doing a quick mental C to F conversion) high 60's with rain day. This weekend looks to be high 80's again.

[Demeter]

20. SLIPPING ON GREECE

European hard-left looks to Varoufakis amid Greek turmoil

http://www.france24.com/en/20150821-varoufakis-europe-radical-left-greece-turmoil-syriza-montebourg

...Amid the political upheaval that will likely lead Greece to a September ballot, attention is turning to one of Syriza’s most recognizable figures: the boisterous, motorcycle-riding former finance minister Varoufakis. Varoufakis stepped down from his post in early July, just hours after Greek voters rejected austerity measures in a nationwide referendum. As Tsipras followed suit – although for different reasons – on Thursday, the outspoken Varoufakis was uncharacteristically silent.

As the anti-austerity dream spun by Greece’s Syriza party is squashed by a new massive international bailout and more belt-tightening measures, former minister Yanis Varoufakis may be emerging as the new standard-bearer for Europe’s radical left...Varoufakis’s rebellious swagGER and open defiance of European finance ministers has earned him fans far beyond Greek shores.

He is the guest of honour at a prominent left-wing gathering in France on Sunday. Known as the Rose Festival (Fête de la rose in French), the event was first organised in the central town of Frangy-en-Bresse in 1973, but remained a local and quiet event for many years. It has nevertheless grown in importance under the stewardship of former Socialist MP Arnaud Montebourg, effectively kicking off each year’s political calendar for French Socialists. Montebourg and Varoufakis share the distinction of having quit their ministry jobs in protest of their government’s policies. Montebourg, considered to be on the far-left of the Socialist Party, was named France’s economy minister in 2012. But after publicly criticizing the economic policies of President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls he was booted out of the government in 2014. The Rose Festival will not be Montebourg and Varoufakis’s first meeting. The two renegade ministers met in the Greek island of Aegina in late July while on vacation, even posing for a picture together.

Another photo-op will almost certainly be on Sunday’s schedule as Montebourg seeks to cash-in on Varoufakis’s popularity among left-wing sympathisers in France. Those who see in Varoufakis a man of conviction who, unlike Tsipras, chose to abandon his position of power rather than abandon his principles, will also be eager to know where he stands in the political storm brewing back in his home country. Speaking to French weekly L’Obs before Tsipras’s resignation, Varoufakis clearly distanced himself from his former boss, saying the party had “betrayed a majority of Greeks”.

“When we took office, Alexis Tsipras and I promised each other two things. First, that our government would try to surprise people by actually doing what we set out to do. Second, that if we could not keep our word, we would resign rather than betray our campaign promises,” Tsipras claimed. “I thought that was our pact.”

However, he did not go as far as saying he would part ways with Syriza. In fact, he appeared to defend the unity of the left-wing party.

“If the party fails to remain united despite members’ different opinions about the international bailout deal, it has no future. If it succeeds it will play the most important role in Greece for many years to come,” Varoufakis added.

Some experts said Varoufakis is at a critical crossroad, and that the path he decides to take will matter beyond the next Greek election.

“We are witnessing a very important change,” said Marc Lazar, a political scientist at France’s Sciences Po university and an expert of radical-left movements in Europe. “Will Varoufakis join those who already quit Syriza, will he start a new party with less radical positions, or will he remain alongside Tsipras? His decision will be very important for Greece, but also for Europe’s radical left."

Lazar said that Varoufakis had already supplanted Tsipras as the symbol of Greece’s rebellion against German-led austerity. From Podemos in Spain to the Left Front in France, radical left movements are now looking to Varoufakis for inspiration and guidance...Varoufakis acknowledged Greek voters had stood as an example for austerity-weary citizens across Europe, but had ultimately been let down by politicians, including himself... Syriza’s humbling was felt like personal injury by far-left activists and politicians in Europe. Some still hope that something other than endless austerity and debt await Greece and the rest of the continent. Those hopes now rest on the shoulders of Varoufakis, whether he likes it or not.


***************************************************

...Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday admitted that he and Syriza had failed to deliver on their campaign promise to reject austerity, saying the mandate he won in January had come to an end and that the debt-crippled country needed early parliamentary elections. His resignation and call for a new poll was seen as a bid to consolidate power by pushing out the more radical MPs within Syriza’s own ranks who voted against the bailout package. Indeed, at least 25 hard-left Syriza members split with Tsipras on Friday, announcing they would form a separate party...

“Syriza’s failure to implement its original programme is painfully obvious, and an embarrassment for all of Europe’s radical left,” Lazar told FRANCE 24. “What happened in Greece shows Germany’s overall supremacy, France’s weakness, and above all that it is impossible to change the status quo in the eurozone. Hopes were dashed.”

For now Tsipras has succeeded in keeping bankruptcy at bay, and keeping Greece in the eurozone. He is even likely to win a new mandate for Syriza next month, presiding over creditor-mandated spending cuts and taxes, just like his predecessors...

*************************************************

This article has been translated from the original in French: http://www.france24.com/fr/20150821-grece-syriza-yanis-varoufakis-gauches-radicales-europeennes-montebourg-fete-rose

VIDEO AT LINK--I REGROUPED THE ARTICLE TO SEPARATE THE TWO MEN

Greece's creditors demand casino rights, archaeological sites, selloff of EUR50B of national assets

https://boingboing.net/2015/08/22/greeces-creditors-demand-cas.html

Already sold: most of Greece's airports -- for sale: gas transmission, oil refineries, power company, post office, national highways, water company.

The creditors also want Greece's government ministers removed from oversight of national assets -- they'll be replaced with managers appointed by the creditors.

Why does this matter? First because it makes no sense to sell off valuable assets in the middle of Europe’s worst depression in 70 years. Those industries could generate revenues to help the Greek government rebuild the economy. In fact, the vast majority of the funds raised will go back to the creditors in debt repayments, and to the recapitalisation of Greek banks.

So the privatisations aren’t to do with helping Greece. The beneficiaries are corporations from around the world, though eyebrows are particularly being raised at the number of European companies – from German airport operators and phone companies to French railways – who are getting their hands on Greece’s economy. Not to mention the European investment banks and legal firms who are making a fast buck along the way. The self-interest of European governments in forcing these policies on Greece leaves a particularly unpleasant flavour.

Most important is the inequality this will entrench in Greek society for decades to come. Of course the fact that the state currently holds these assets is no guarantee of democracy. Clientelism is rife in Greece. But the answer is transparency and democracy, just as German citizens are currently trying to take back energy companies into collective ownership because they see this as a prerequisite for fair pricing and supporting renewable energy.

http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2015/aug/19/greece-sale-%E2%80%93-and-everything-must-go

Misinformation Hides Real Dimension of Greek “Bailout” By Roberto Savio

http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/08/opinion-misinformation-hides-real-dimension-of-greek-bailout/

The long saga on Greece is apparently over – European institutions have given Athens a third bailout of 86 billion euros which, combined with the previous two, makes a grand total of 240 billion euros. There is no doubt that the large majority of European citizens are convinced that this is a great example of solidarity, and that if Greece is not now able to walk on its own feet, the responsibility will lie solely with Greek citizens and their government. But this is only due to the fact that the media system has, by and large, ceased to provide alternative views … and some people even ignore that the bailout is a loan, and therefore increases the country’s debt. In fact, the productive economy of Greece saw very little of that money because the bailouts were merely financial operations and Greek citizens, not only did not see anything, they have even had to pay a brutal price.

The truth behind the operation has been aptly described by Mujtaba Rahman, the respected chief Eurozone analyst for the London-based Eurasia Group, who said: “The bailout is not really about a growth plan for Greece, but a plan to make sure the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) get paid, and the euro area does not break up.” And the purpose of this third bailout is clear. Of the famous 86 billion, 36 billion will go to pay the debt with the other European governments (and first of all Germany). Another 25 billion will go to recapitalize the Greek banks, because much capital left the country, heading for safer European banks. Another 18 billion will go to pay interest on the debt which Greece has been piling up. And, finally, seven billion will go to pay the debt of the state with Greek enterprises. So, seven will go to the real economy and nothing to the citizens, who will have now to go through several new drastic measures of austerity, which will further depress their standards of living and their ability to spend.

Financially, the bailouts have been a success. All the losses and bad exposure of European institutions have been passed on to Greece. Before the first bailout, French banks were exposed with bad bonds for 63 billion euros, now only for 1.6 billion with no losses. German banks have gone from 45 to five billion. What is intriguing is that a number of studies show that until the very last moment, when it was widely known that Greece was in deep crisis, European banks and investors continued to buy Greek bonds. Were they certain that Greece would pay? No, but they were confident that the Greek government would be rescued, and that they would therefore recover their investments, which is exactly what happened.

The financial system has now a life of its own and has nothing to do with real economy, which it dwarfs by being 40 times larger (if we judge by the volumes of daily financial transactions against the production of good and services). Capital is untouchable and circulates freely in Europe, unlike its citizens. And now there is a great wave of legislation to introduce lower taxation for the richest one percent! During the negotiations, one frequent accusation levelled against the Greeks was that they were unable to have their rich ship-owners pay their share of taxes. Of course, ship-owners place their money where it cannot be reached. But is this not hypocritical when we know that there are at least two trillion euros stashed in fiscal paradises, and that, just to give one example, nobody has got Ryanair to really pay taxes? Not to mention the fact that when he was prime minister of Luxembourg, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker granted secret tax rebates to over a hundred international companies?

Now Agence France Press has circulated a new astonishing study from the German Leibnitz Institute of Economic Research, which says that Germany has profited from the Greek crisis to the tune of 100 billion euros, saving money through lower interest payments on funds the government borrowed amid investor “flights to safety” and “these savings exceed the cost of the crisis – even if Greece were to default on its entire debt.” Meanwhile, a large number of studies point out how, by having a positive balance of trade with its European partners, Germany is in fact sucking capital from Europe.

Interpreting the third bailout and its conditions of austerity as a mere economic operation would be to commit a great error. No economist can believe that Greece will be able to pay back and not only because it has always had a fragile economy, with little industry and with tourism as its main source of income (aggravated by decades of mismanagement and the corruption of its traditional parties, the very parties that European leaders would like to see come back). Greece is already in recession and now the doubling of VAT is going to compress consumption further, also because there will now be further reductions in pensions and public salaries (which have been already cut by 20 percent). It is widely believed that the Greek debt will now reach 200 percent of its GDP, up from 170 percent prior to the bailout. How could any economist, even in the first year of studies, fail to understand that, by cutting consumption and raising taxes you are bound to depress an already depressed economy?

Well, it is no coincidence that the IMF, which is the Rotary Club of conservative economists, has refused to join this bailout. The IMF has said it will not put in any money unless European creditors (which is a diplomatic way of saying Germany) accept a restructuring of the Greek debt. It is clear that the bailout has not been a technical but a political operation. Many European leaders, starting with Juncker himself, intervened in last month’s internal Greek referendum, asking Greeks to vote against Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. They indicated clearly and openly, in a campaign that the Wall Street Journal repeated in the United States, that the revolt against austerity and the neoliberal economy should be stopped dead in its tracks to avoid political contagion. For her part, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared on German television that she has come to the conclusion that °Tsipras has changed°. This has an air of dejà vu … was it not then British Prime Margaret Thatcher who, intent on destroying the trade unions, launched her famous TINA slogan – There Is No Alternative?

And is there no alternative to this kind of Europe?

Approvals for banking transactions gather pace

http://www.ekathimerini.com/200820/article/ekathimerini/business/approvals-for-banking-transactions-gather-pace

Around 60 percent of businesses’ requests to send money abroad are being approved by the Banking Transactions Approval Committee and the banks themselves. From July 29 to August 18, international transactions worth 2.97 billion euros were approved, against 5 billion euros across a similar timeframe before capital controls were introduced.

As highlighted by Greece’s banks, in the third week of capital controls the situation improved as such transactions reached the cumulative value of approved transactions for the first two weeks of capital controls.

A total of 10,331 requests were made, of which 8,509 were approved, 332 rejected, 373 withdrawn and 579 required additional processing. Of the applications approved, 1,293 were for amounts of less than 100,000 euros and 1,195 were for amounts of less than 150,000 euros.

The Greek International Business Association says Greece’s average monthly needs for imported products over the past six months came to 3.9 billion euros. July, September and October are the months with the highest value of imports, on average reaching 4.5 billion each month.

[TalkingDog]

21. To recap

[Roland99]

22. Oh Myyyyyy

[Hugin]

25. Minus 1000 pts on the Dow. Biggest dive I've ever seen.

It's puttering back now.

Don't bargain shop too soon!

[Roland99]

26. 'tis but a flesh wound!

[Hugin]

28. Stand by on the lego blood bath graphic.

[Demeter]

23. Exciting markets

djia dropped 1000 points at open, fought back 500 at noon....

s&p 500 dropped 100 (getting close to circuit breaker limit) and rebounded 50...

good to know the Plunge Protection Team is out there, throwing their money on the bonfire.
God forbid we should have "free markets" that can correct the excesses fostered by easy (counterfeit) money....

Come back tonight and view the ashes!

[StoneCarver]

27. Demeter, thanks for making me smile!

Your sarcasm is hysterical. I'd laugh harder if it weren't so true.
Stonecarver

[Hugin]

31. Ding! Ding! Ding! There's the bell and it's a...

[center][font color="red" size="4"]Blood bath![/font]




[/center]

By $0.02 on INTC.

[Roland99]

32. Thus ends the madness

[font color="red"]
Dow 15,871 -589 -3.58%
Nasdaq 4,526 -180 -3.83%
S&P 500 1,893 -78 -3.95%
GlobalDow 2,277 -91 -3.86%
Gold 1,153 -7 -0.57%
Oil 38.16 -2.29 -5.66%[/font]

[Demeter]

33. So Roland, Are you taking up ambulance-chasing?

Only show up for the fires and mayhem?

Or are you finally in a place where you can stop and buzz the internet?

[Roland99]

34. A cameo...for now

We'll see what the next couple of weeks bring.

Don't wanna divulge much yet.