STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday July 12

[ozymandius]

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday July 12, 2010

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON July 9, 2010

Dow... 10,198.03 +59.04 (+0.58%)
Nasdaq... 2,196.45 UNCH (UNCH)
S&P 500... 1,077.96 +7.71 (+0.72%)
Gold future... 1,205 -4.60 (-0.38%)
10-Yr Bond... 3.02 -0.04 (-1.18%)
30-Year Bond 4.01 -0.03 (-0.79%)

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Market Conditions During Trading Hours

Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold

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    William Black: This Economic Disaster    Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn

Bush Administration Officials Convicted = 2
Names: David Safavian, James Fondren

Bush Administration Officials Charged = 1
Name(s): Richard Lopez Razo

Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 = 11

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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.

Read more: du

[ozymandius]

1. no goobermental reports today n/t

[Roland99]

3. *yawn*, morning, ozy

in work early today to make some server changes.

wonder which way the see-saw will go today.....

[ozymandius]

5. g'morning Roland

:donut: :donut: :donut:

I am up earlier than usual - yawning - while in the middle of nowhere somewhere south of Savannah, GA. GPS is not even reliable to find one's way around here.

Please have a nice day at work.

As for the casino - no clue where that will go today. Corporate earnings will be our barometer.

:hi:

[Roland99]

11. Savannah is gorgeous

somehow it manages to be more humid than central FL, though. :)

[ozymandius]

15. We are planning to visit Savannah today.

This will be my first visit there in nearly 40 years. It has been very humid here - about thirty minutes south of Savannah off I-95. A huge thunderstorm blew threw the are yesterday late afternoon. A smaller storm doused the area with rain on Saturday. I have missed these late afternoon thunderstorms so common to this area - as I reflect on my regular visits to St. Augustine in the '90s. Downpours like these are very rejuvenating. Sure, it's humid but the rain breaks the heat.

[Roland99]

16. Enjoy!

(81F at 5:50am in Orlando and humid enough to make me almost start sweating walking from the house to the car!)

[rfranklin]

37. "I get all the news I need from the weather report..."

from Paul Simon's The Only Living boy in New York

[Roland99]

46. heh

Although, I do prefer The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Weekend Update. :)

[AnneD]

61. I get my US news....

from the Guardian and the BBC. It has been so long since I have seen real news reporter asking questions-it is good to refresh my memory. Oh and the SMW is my financial page.

[ozymandius]

2. Oil falls to near $75 ahead of US company earnings

SINGAPORE – Oil prices fell to near $75 a barrel Monday in Asia as investors looked to the start of second quarter company earnings reports this week for clues about the strength of the U.S. economy.

Oil prices rose last week on investor optimism that the U.S. economy, while likely to slow, won't slip into recession later this year.

"The bottom line is that the economic recovery is slowing down sooner than many analysts expected," energy consultant and trader The Schork Group said in a report. "But we will take a slow recovery over no recovery any day of the week."

Traders will be eyeing closely second quarter corporate earnings season, beginning this week with reports from Alcoa Inc., Intel Corp., Google Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp.

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

[ozymandius]

4. Federal Reserve worry list gets longer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve's list of worries may be getting longer.

A fading recovery, persistently high unemployment, Europe's debt troubles and commercial real estate losses have garnered most of the attention. But some Fed officials have begun talking more about another trouble zone -- recession-hit U.S. state and local government finances.

The problem is that they have to balance their budgets, unlike the federal government, which is running a deficit equal to more than 10 percent of total economic output.

But they may draw more attention as the problem gets worse. Next year's state and local government budget gap is expected to reach $140 billion, or a little more than 1 percent of gross domestic product. Considering economists expect GDP growth of only about 3 percent next year, that is a substantial hit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100711/bs_nm/us_economy_weekahead_outlook

[DemReadingDU]

6. Columbus Ohio National Century Financial - Rebecca Parrett's sister sent to prison

7/10/10 Fugitive's sister sent to prison for lying
Mexico rendezvous planned with former exec, e-mails show

A federal government attempt to reel in fugitive Rebecca S. Parrett by charging her 66-year-old sister with obstruction hasn't panned out so far. The sister, Linda Case of Grove City, was sent to prison yesterday while Parrett remains free, probably in Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley sentenced Case to six months in prison, followed by eight months of house arrest and three years of probation after she is released. Case will receive credit for the four months she has spent in jail.

"I accept full responsibility for lying," she said in court. "I'm so very sorry."

Marbley said he found it ironic that Case's "blind loyalty to an undeserving sister has caused (Case) to serve time" when that sister has yet to serve her prison term.

Parrett was sentenced last year in absentia to 25 years in prison for nine fraud-related convictions involving National Century Financial Enterprises, a company that provided financing to small health-care providers. Eleven people were convicted for taking money from the company and hiding the shortfall, taking down 275 health-care providers when NCFE went bankrupt in 2002.

more...
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/07/10/fugitives-sister-sent-to-prison-for-lying.html?sid=101


link backwards to previous articles
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4271087&mesg_id=4271157

[ozymandius]

8. Will it work to use her family to catch Parrett?

Parrett is scum but the true test of how low she her sense of honor is will be shown in how she will allow her family to be punished for her deeds.

[Tansy_Gold]

21. It hasn't worked so far

which pretty much indicates Parrett herself is about the lowest form of scum there is -- doing the deed and then letting someone else do the time.

Kinda like booooosh and cheeeeny and "friends."


:puke:




Tansy Gold, in hot dry central Arizona where we might have hot a few drops of rain last night but then again might not have

[ozymandius]

7. Economists see U.S. recovery weakening: survey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy will lose steam as the year progresses but will not slide back into recession, even though unemployment is unlikely to fall significantly, according to a survey released on Saturday.

The Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey of private forecasters found analysts increasingly glum about the outlook. They now see the economy expanding just 3.1 percent in 2010, down from 3.3 percent in the June poll.

They do not, however, envisage a renewed period of contraction, which has been widely debated in financial markets in recent weeks.

The report's findings highlight the risks of a sputtering recovery amid lingering softness in housing, suggesting the unemployment rate will end the year at 9.4 percent, barely down from the current 9.5 percent rate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100710/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_forecasts

[ozymandius]

9. Debt commission leaders paint gloomy picture

BOSTON – The heads of President Barack Obama's national debt commission painted a gloomy picture Sunday as the United States struggles to get its spending under control.

Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered — including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction, and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage.

Simpson said the entirety of the nation's current discretionary spending is consumed by the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs.

"The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans, the whole rest of the discretionary budget, is being financed by China and other countries," said Simpson. China alone currently holds $920 billion in U.S. IOUs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100712/ap_on_bi_ge/us_governors_debt_commission

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Simpson is wrong - those programs he calls "discretionary" are defined, by law, as budgetary obligations. His argument is slanted toward the idea that these FDR programs are optional. False. False. False.

That third rail is getting closer should these moronic ideas take root in Congressional actions.

[Po_d Mainiac]

30. The first Fed default

Will be the SS trust fund. This would have zero effect on foreign lenders or the banksters. If anything it would fit the Wall St model to a T, but being deflationary (keeping interest rates in the toilet) and creating confidence/market in the remaininng issues.

This will make all kinds of extra room on the balance sheet to issue even more bonds via TBTF.

We taxpayers are going to get whacked with the shortfall anyway, why bother to needlessly kick the can when the taxpayer's can/ass is a much easier target.

No link here, just my random thoughts.....YMMV....But I bet this will happen.

[amandabeech]

51. I think that Medicare or Medicaid is likely to have problems first.

The problems in those systems are more difficult to fix, too.

[Po_d Mainiac]

56. Problems have nothing to do with it

The Fed is holding most of the Treasury (USA) debt.

Imagine this:
Ring-ring..
Chopper: Hello
Turbo: Ben, Timmy here.
Chopper: Timmy old chap. Lloyd, Jamie and I were just talking about you.
Turbo: Really! Say look the reason for the call, I'm a little short this week.
Chooper: Hey no problem. Why don't we forget about that money you owe me that is supposed to go back to SS.
Turbo: Gee that would be swell Ben.
Chopper: No problem, what are friends for. Hey, before you hang up, Lloyd and Jamie want you to give them a ring in the morning.
Turbo: Sure Boss, I mean Ben, no problem.

[Po_d Mainiac]

53. My bad...meant to write Treasury not Fed. n/t

[ozymandius]

10. Stock futures signal losses

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Monday, as investors take a breather after the market posted its best weekly gains in a year and ahead of the start of the earnings season, to be kicked off by Alcoa (AA.L) after U.S. closing bell today.

* At 4:40 a.m. ET, futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.5 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.3 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.6 percent.

* Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer, is expected to turn a second-quarter profit after a year-ago loss, but analysts have recently been cutting their forecasts as the company faces a sharp drop in aluminum prices.

* Overall, analysts expect 27 percent growth in earnings on the S&P 500 for the second quarter according to Thomson Reuters data, up from previous readings in the past three quarters, which hovered around 22 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100712/bs_nm/us_markets_stocks

[Roland99]

13. yeah...not looking like a rosy Monday for sure

S&P 500 1,069 -3.30 -0.31%
DOW 10,090 -42.00 -0.42%
NASDAQ 1,807 -5.00 -0.28%

[Po_d Mainiac]

32. Dollar up

equity markets and metals down.....yawn

[ozymandius]

12. Global stocks hit 2-week high on earnings optimism

LONDON (Reuters) – World stocks briefly hit a two-week peak on Monday as expectations rose that U.S. corporate earnings this week would point to a sustainable economic recovery in the world's biggest economy.

The euro slid as jitters grew ahead of the results of European bank stress tests due later this month and the yen slipped after Japan's ruling coalition lost its upper house majority in Sunday's election, putting the government's policies to deal with the country's massive debt at risk.

The Thomson Reuters global stock index (.TRXFLDGLPU) was down 0.1 percent.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3) ticked higher on the day while emerging stocks (.MSCIEF) rose 0.15 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100712/bs_nm/us_markets_global

[Po_d Mainiac]

14. How it ain't workin...Good read to pass along to the masses

The con of the decade (Part I) involves the transfer of private debt to the public (the marks), who then pays interest forever to the con artists.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/con-of-decade07-10.html

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

I put this up in a different thread yesterday....I just saw that ZH is running it this AM

[ozymandius]

18. My blood pressure is rising.

Even more infuriating - too many politicians have been sold (or maybe bought) on the idea that raising taxes is not an option. Meanwhile - those who brought us to the brink of financial ruin have seen their tax burden reduced to a fraction of what they were thirty years ago.

[Po_d Mainiac]

23. Just the cost of shrubs tax policy

snip
The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period.

This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed.
snip

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/study-bush-tax-cuts-cost-more-twice-m

.................
And these cuts worked out real well for the country :grr:

[AnneD]

47. I love my Mom.....

but she listens to FOX too much. The scales may be falling off her eyes a bit but she is coming to the wrong conclusion. She finally "discovered" that the pension trust is close to bankruptcy. On top of that she found out that her dividends will be taxed and she will have to file a return to get the money back. Does she blame the GOP and the turn coat DEMS that got us into this mess. No she blames Obama for this. Forget that I have been telling her about the pension trust for over 5 years :eyes:

She is on medicare, she has a pension retirement, and she has some stocks (blue chip) that give her a dividend. She benefits from historical timing yet she refused to take my advice that would have place her in an even better position. Even with all that, there are so many people that would give their right nut to be in her shoes. GOD, she has become a whining tea bagger! I call her but I try to avoid politics-it is hard to hold my tongue.

[Juneboarder]

52. I struggle with the same madness with my own parents...

Fair and balanced, my ass!

[AnneD]

60. It is the powdered butt syndrome.....

if they powdered your butt-they can't see you giving them good advice. I am a Nurse-a good competent Nurse. Does Mom take advice from her Nurse daughter that has 20+ years of experience. I lose out to the midnight infomercials :eyes:

Yeah powdered butt syndrome. I have just learned to bite my tongue as much as possible and love her anyway. One day she won't be around and then I really will be sad. She has helped me through tough times. I just have to be prepared to help her through her tough times.

[Po_d Mainiac]

66. I took over as the family patriarch a few years ago

Nieces and nephews ain't used to hearing a senior family member shitting on the "conservative/tea bag" mindset of their parents.

[DemReadingDU]

25. The Automatic Earth has it too

Ilargi:
Charles Hugh Smith sums it up very well, read it a few times, I'd recommend, though he's got the timeframe wrong. It's not the con of the decade, it's the largest -financial- con ever perpetrated on the American people since 1776

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/07/july-11-2010-greatest-con-since-1776.html


and last week in the SMW, I posted Part1 on Thursday, Part2 on Friday.
It is well worth reading again.

[Po_d Mainiac]

33. oops...I missed it. n/t

[DemReadingDU]

34. Hey, I miss many articles too

If I didn't need to sleep every day, I could read more!

[Tansy_Gold]

27. Might be clear to an economist, but the masses won't understand it

"1. Enable trillions of dollars in mortgages guaranteed to default by packaging unlimited quantities of them into mortgage-backed securities (MBS), creating umlimited demand for fraudulently originated loans."

Someone needs to put that in terms the masses will understand.

a. Who did the "enabling" and how did they do it? Who benefited? Where did the money go? How did it get there? Where did it come from?

b. Why were these mortgages "guaranteed" to "default"? What does that mean? Who made money on this deal? Who lost? How does a mortgage itself default?

c. What does "packaging unlimited quantities" mean? A mortgage is a mortgage is a mortgage, to most people. if it gets "sold" to another lender or servicer, so what? Is this something different? If so, how is it different? What's the implication for the borrower/homeowner?

d. What is a "mortgage-backed security"? How is it different from just a bunch of mortgages sold by National Bank of Detroit to Nationwide Financial (as happened on my first home)? How can these be "unlimited" if there is a finite number of mortgages? Is the entity in (a.) selling the same MBS more than once, like "The Producers"?

e. Who created "unlimited demand" for these things? Who is "demanding" them? HOW are they demanding them? In this context, what does "demand" even mean?

f. What are "fraudulently originated loans"? Who committed the fraud? How did they commit it? "Fraud" is a crime, and if there's an accusation of a crime, there ought to be an accused criminal as well.

AND THAT'S JUST THE FIRST ITEM IN THE "OUTLINE."

I'm fairly intelligent, but I'm not an economist and I'm not an expert on the banking system or the stock market or any of that stuff, so I posit myself as kind of a translator between the "know-somethings" and the "huh?" crowd. Maybe I've missed something, but this makes no sense to me and I've only read the first segment of his outline. If I'm lost already, the rest of it isn't going to make any sense either, #3 and #4 especially.

CHS's thinking may have been clarified, but Tansy Gold's sure hasn't. (and she had to edit to get her letters in order, duh.)



TG, NTY

[Po_d Mainiac]

41. Ow my?

I'll take a stab at this over the next few days

For example, to Start:
You want to buy a house. Well not exactly a house, but a BFH (technical term for big house)....So you find a Realtor doing business from the trunk of his car.

You find the near perfect house, and it only costs $750,000! So you start filling out the paper work. Under income you state what you made the last 3 years. It averages out to $27,000. The Realtor gets kinda a blue pallor to to his complexion, and kindly points out that you left the 3 off the front of your income statement. $327,00 has a much better ring to it, wouldn't you agree?

You get to the earnest money part and you realize that after putting a down payment on a snowmobile (it might snow in the desert) you will have to get another credit card to pay for lunch. The Realtor sees no problem here, since there are loans marketed just for excellent credit risks such as yourself.

The RE agent then spends the next 4 hours locating which UPS office his pal with the mortgage underwriting outfit is using for a mailing address today. The underwriter scans the paperwork and asks the all important question of the Realtor..Did his client have a pulse? To which the answer was in the affirmative.

The next step is to get an appraisal. Buster the appraiser is quickly located in an abandoned rail-car comforting a bottle of Dewer's (or maybe it's Muscatel this time) Buster looks the place over and just can't stick a tag on the property over $500,000, and he had to pull a few stops to get that high. Your agent points out that Buster missed a large part of the parcels value. (A full case of Dewer's with a couple Benjamin's holding down the lid) Buster checks his addition and finds he really meant to value the place at $800,000

So now you are good to go, and off to Countrywide you head. The paperwork seems to be A-OK, and you move into your almost perfect dream home. (I'll try to get back to this in the future).

Now Countrywide doesn't really have any money, so they sell your mortgage off to WaMu, and pocket a fine commission in the process. WaMu has less money than Countrywide, so they take your mortgage and bundle it up with a bunch of others and sell them to Bear Stearns. The Bear has people clamoring for bonds, so they create one using your mortgage and a bunch of others as the collateral behind the issue.

Now you can't just toss a bond out and expect it to sell. It needs a rating of AAA so CALPERS and others can legally buy it. So they have this bond they've created along with a few thousand others and go down to the local Moody's office. They drop the whole mess on the receptionist's desk and tell her they'll be back with a check in half an hour to pick them up. (which should be adequate time for her to stamp all the documents with her handy-dandy AAA inker) Now that mortgage that you took out on your dream home is part of a AAA rated Mortgage Backed Security or MBS

Tansy....are you with me so far?

[Tansy_Gold]

43. That's my point --

What you've described is what we DO understand.

We DO know how a fraudulent mortgage was put together via real estate agents, developers, brokers, etc. But WHO set this up as a planned failure? WHY did they do it? HOW did they know it would work?

Most of the people buying homes that have ultimately lost them to default were not the fraudsters. Yes, there were the liar loans and so on, but most of the losses have been due to the economy, which is due to jobs going to cheap-labor markets. The popping of the real estate bubble was an EFFECT, not a CAUSE.

Many of the home losses have also been due to the housing price bubble, as people were ENCOURAGED to buy on the basis of home prices never fall: buy now (even if you can't afford it), sell later, pocket the profit. It wasn't on the basis of totally fraudulent loans, but on the misplaced belief that the housing market was stable.

And while some of the mortgage brokers may have been as sleazy as you portray them -- and some even sleazier! -- that's the extreme. I think many had the same moral standards -- meaning, none -- but not that level of sleaze.

Ultimately, this is much too big a conspiracy theory to work as such, unless Smith comes up with a much more workable and understandable model. And if the Dems (yeah, right) want to keep "the people" on their side (of the ballot, if nothing else) then they'd better do some 'splainin'.

Tansy Gold, NTY and off to morning coffee and conversation with idiots

[Po_d Mainiac]

45. Patience is a vitue.....I'll get you there

I don't think the plan actually went into effect until Lehman and AIG blew up. That was the cellophane doorway barring direct entry to the printing presses. There were a couple different forks in the highway prior to then.

[Juneboarder]

54. I'm a quiet reader here, for the most part.

Thank you for taking the time to offer this explanation and further explanations. :)

[Tansy_Gold]

55. Okay, kewl!

Of course, you understand that the progressive agenda needs

A BEST SELLING BOOK

to explain this to all the people who are NOT in the rightwing 25%. . . . .




Tansy Gold, back from coffee and far too many conversations with idiots. . . . .

[Festivito]

17. Debt: 07/08/2010 13,192,234,850,314.21 (UP 10,243,136,183.03) (Thu)

(Up some. Good day.)
Back to the grind.
(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 8,639,388,337,726.93 + 4,552,846,512,587.28
UP 11,830,915,605.93 + DOWN 1,587,779,422.90

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

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 310-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.23 THAT'S 1B$, and $3,229.63 makes 1T$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.69, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 13 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 309,633,224 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 04/09/2010 15:49 -> 309,034,742
Currently, each of these Americans owe $42,606.01.
A family of three owes $127,818.02. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 6,148,990,948.22.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,509,260,028.69.

There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 192 reports in 281 days of FY2010 averaging 6.68B$ per report, 4.56B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 927 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 14.5 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
07/08/2010 13,192,234,850,314.21 BHO (UP 2,565,357,801,401.13 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,282,405,846,802.50 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof10 +1,665,758,484,280.83 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
06/17/2010 -040,132,025,764.65 -
06/18/2010 +000,218,467,463.90 ------------********
06/21/2010 -000,091,646,713.41 ---- Mon
06/22/2010 -000,064,399,407.68 ----
06/23/2010 +000,605,957,540.69 ------------********
06/24/2010 -003,383,268,122.91 --
06/25/2010 +000,258,141,060.04 ------------********
06/28/2010 -000,856,644,286.03 --- Mon
06/29/2010 +000,753,506,197.45 ------------********
06/30/2010 +077,231,903,487.92 ------------**********
07/01/2010 -006,671,631,742.50 --
07/02/2010 +000,460,030,174.48 ------------********
07/06/2010 +000,075,213,990.44 ------------******* Tue
07/07/2010 +000,013,416,608.65 ------------*******
07/08/2010 +011,830,915,605.93 ------------**********

40,247,936,092.32 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4458316&mesg_id=4459712

[Festivito]

75. Debt: 07/09/2010 13,193,854,880,648.02 (UP 1,620,030,333.81) (Fri)

(Down a little. Good day.)

(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 8,639,253,753,800.78 + 4,554,601,126,847.24
DOWN 134,583,926.15 + UP 1,754,614,259.96

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

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 310-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.23 THAT'S 1B$, and $3,229.56 makes 1T$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.69, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 13 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 309,639,870 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 04/09/2010 15:49 -> 309,034,742
Currently, each of these Americans owe $42,610.32.
A family of three owes $127,830.97. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 6,713,921,130.79.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,923,542,162.58.

There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 193 reports in 282 days of FY2010 averaging 6.65B$ per report, 4.55B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 926 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 14.5 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
07/09/2010 13,193,854,880,648.02 BHO (UP 2,566,977,831,734.94 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,284,025,877,136.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof10 +1,661,948,387,073.58 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
06/18/2010 +000,218,467,463.90 ------------********
06/21/2010 -000,091,646,713.41 ---- Mon
06/22/2010 -000,064,399,407.68 ----
06/23/2010 +000,605,957,540.69 ------------********
06/24/2010 -003,383,268,122.91 --
06/25/2010 +000,258,141,060.04 ------------********
06/28/2010 -000,856,644,286.03 --- Mon
06/29/2010 +000,753,506,197.45 ------------********
06/30/2010 +077,231,903,487.92 ------------**********
07/01/2010 -006,671,631,742.50 --
07/02/2010 +000,460,030,174.48 ------------********
07/06/2010 +000,075,213,990.44 ------------******* Tue
07/07/2010 +000,013,416,608.65 ------------*******
07/08/2010 +011,830,915,605.93 ------------**********
07/09/2010 -000,134,583,926.15 ---

80,245,377,930.82 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4461188&mesg_id=4461217

[Po_d Mainiac]

19. Everything you wanted to know about banks/credit unions

But were just plain too scared shitless to ask
http://bankimplode.com/
..................

I spent some time checking their numbers and they seem legit...YMMV

[ozymandius]

22. This offers up some really wonderful reads.

There's plenty of hyperbole - in the style of BuzzFlash.com - but nothing here appears factually suspect. Looks great!

[Hugin]

40. I find it interesting that even though...

There were no CU failures between Mar 25 and July 1 this site seems to over emphasize the weakness of CUs vs Banks. Seems slightly skewed to me... Probably vastly so in total Dollar amounts.

[Ghost Dog]

68. Crisis Awaits World’s Banks as Trillions Come Due

FRANKFURT — ... The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund have all recently warned of a looming crunch, especially in Europe, where banks have enough trouble raising money as it is. Their concern is that banks hungry for refinancing will compete with governments — which also must roll over huge sums — for the bond market’s favor. As a result, credit for business and consumers could become more costly and scarce, with unpleasant consequences for economic growth.

...

Banks worldwide owe nearly $5 trillion to bondholders and other creditors that will come due through 2012, according to estimates by the Bank for International Settlements. About $2.6 trillion of the liabilities are in Europe... U.S. banks must refinance about $1.3 trillion through 2012.

...

The practice of short-term borrowing and long-term lending contributed to the near-collapse of the world financial system in late 2008 when short-term financing dried up. Banks suddenly found themselves starved for cash, and some would have collapsed without central bank support.

...

Bond issuance by financial institutions in Europe plunged to $10.7 billion in May, compared with $106 billion in January and $95 billion in May 2009, according to Dealogic, a data provider. New issues have recovered somewhat since, to $42 billion in June and $19 billion so far in July.

/... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/business/global/12refinance.html?_r=1

[ozymandius]

20. Bank Profits Depend on Debt-Writedown `Abomination'

Bank of America Corp. and Wall Street firms that notched perfect trading records in the first quarter are now depending on an accounting benefit last used in the depths of the credit crisis to prop up their results.

Bank of America, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, may record a $1 billion second-quarter gain from writing down its debts to their market value, Citigroup Inc. analyst Keith Horowitz estimated in a June 23 report. The boost to earnings, stemming from an accounting rule that allows banks to book profits when the value of their own bonds falls, probably represented a fifth of pretax income, Horowitz wrote.

In the first quarter, the four biggest U.S. lenders -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup and Wells Fargo & Co. -- produced combined profit of $13.5 billion, the most since the second quarter of 2007. That figure probably fell by 28 percent in the second quarter, based on a Bloomberg survey of analysts’ estimates. The banks are scheduled to announce results over the next two weeks, led by JPMorgan on July 15.

The second-quarter results may include gains taken under a U.S. accounting rule known as Statement 159, adopted by the Financial Accounting Standards Board in 2007, which allows banks to book profits when the value of their bonds falls from par. The rule expanded the daily marking of banks’ trading assets to their liabilities, under the theory that a profit would be realized if the debt were bought back at a discount.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-11/bank-earnings-depending-on-debt-writedown-abomination-in-latest-forecast.html

---

The 'abomination' of this gimmick is that it does not reduce the debt levels of these banks. It's a bit like Repo 105 that brought down Lehman. Short the debt levels at the last minute before quarterly reports then revise the report the day after the stock traders have naïvely bought the lie (and the stock).

[Robbien]

39. There's also that BoA $11 billion dollar "error"

Where it booked $10.7 billion as sales rather than borrowings.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bank-america-admits-repo-105-fraud-even-end-quarter-window-dressing-continues-unabated


What is rather confusing is that BoA is admitting it made this "error" every quarter end starting with 2007 and is indicating it will continue to keep making this "error" and by all indications have no intention of going back and correcting the "error".

So the positive earnings they publish this quarter end they have already announced are fake but everyone is to ignore that pesky issue. Bonuses all around.

[ozymandius]

24. CEOs Questioning Obama Policies Put on Boards in `Co-Optation'

Last month, Verizon Communications Inc. Chairman Ivan Seidenberg accused the federal government of “injecting uncertainty into the marketplace.” Last week, he was named to a presidential panel on U.S. exports.

President Barack Obama is trying to embrace corporate executives, even while tension between the White House and business community rises, as he seeks to get companies to step up investment and spur the economy. For executives, joining White House panels offers an inside track to influence policy.

White House councils include executives such as Jim Owens of Caterpillar Inc., Glenn Tilton of UAL Corp. and Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Co. While not hostile, all have raised concerns about policies ranging from taxes to trade to health care.

“Part of the president’s leadership style is not to simply surround himself with people who agree with him 100 percent,” senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said in an interview.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-12/ceos-who-question-obama-policies-picked-for-u-s-boards-in-co-optation-.html

---

I frequently disagree with President Obama's economic policies. If only I were a CEO - then I would look forward to a presidential appointment.

[fasttense]

29. I was thinking the same thing.

I insult President Obama's economic policies regularly, and so do most real progressives. But we are never picked for presidential appointments. I think he picks and chooses those far right wackos because he agrees with them or maybe he just needs their campaign contributions.

He doesn't really need our votes right now. If the Repukes gain subpoena power in Congress, they will be investigation Obama's birth certificate and then move on to investigating his dog.

[Tansy_Gold]

35. makes two of us

I don't see where anyone the president appoints actually disagrees with him; I think they generally persuade him to their point of view, if he wasn't there already.

I see NO ONE in the Administration actually challenging Obama on ANYTHING. All the challenges are coming from outside the administration and mostly from the left. (or, to be sure, the far far far right radical looney insane fringe)

Tansy Gold, NTY

[AnneD]

63. Our theme song today...

Won't Get Fooled Again-Who's Next

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals when they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they'd all flown in the last war

more....

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/csimiami/wontgetfooledagain.htm

[Hawkowl]

67. I've been singing that since O's election

It just rings truer every day.

[Po_d Mainiac]

71. gotta ferget how it sounded during halftime. n/t

[hamerfan]

74. Big +1 on that!

The Who can still rock, but they should not have attempted that one....

[Po_d Mainiac]

72. The four best last and next to last song lines

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

[AnneD]

73. I tried to just post the 4 stanzas....

but hoped someone would post those. And yes, I have been thinking about this song for some time too.

[Robbien]

36. He picks pro-corporate policy

because he firmly agrees with it and has always agreed with it. That's why he picked Rahm Emanual as his CoS and other hard line pro-corporates to fill all WH staff positions.

The new meme being put out there recently by the Chamber of Commerce is that Obama is anti-business. I believe the reasoning behind this push is that more and more lefties are turning away from Obama where the Chamber is afraid the WH will start to throw out a few social gimmies to bring the lefties back into the fold. The Chamber does not want to give up a penny.

[hamerfan]

26. Good morning everyone!

Lots of good reading posted here already!
Great 'toon today. Thanks!
hamerfan

[ozymandius]

28. Corporate America’s Pile-O-Cash

In his Washington Post column last week, Fareed Zakaria laid out the argument that Obama is anti-business (Obama’s CEO problem — and ours):

“The Federal Reserve recently reported that America’s 500 largest nonfinancial companies have accumulated an astonishing $1.8 trillion of cash on their balance sheets . . . And yet, most corporations are not spending this money on new plants, equipment, or workers . . . The key to a sustainable recovery and robust economic growth is to get companies to start investing in America. So why are they reluctant, despite having mounds of cash lying around?”
Answers to Zakaria’s questions apparently came from “business leaders” who “wanted to stay off the record, for fear of offending people in Washington.”

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/corporate-americas-pile-o-cash/

---

FDR faced the same problem: companies hoarded cash rather than invest it in new jobs and equipment upgrades.

[kickysnana]

38. We've done this before...

Then the fundamentalist Capitalists start pirating and looting companies for the cash, bankrupting the companies, laying off workers and closing them or leaving them shells to funnel money in and out of. That is why they went to using credit to run companies because they were not protected from these vampires.

[ozymandius]

31. You folks have a wonderful day.

It is time for me to prepare for a day in the outdoors. I will check back in this afternoon as time allows.

:hi:

[TalkingDog]

42. X Post from GD How facts backfire.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8729309


Not to put too fine a point on it, but some deep self searching and honesty is in order by everyone involved.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/07/11/...

It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.

snip

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.



Interestingly....it's all those folks in other parties who seem to have this problem.....

[Hugin]

44. I like to think of this situation in terms of the Wheat vs. Chaff...

It helps to consider those who respond to corrections and fact with an open mind as the Wheat in the scenario and the partisans as the Chaff.

The Wheat is much more valuable than the Chaff... Those who find no value in facts and are only reinforced in their bias by hearing the truth are already lost much like the Chaff.

Although, I notice an inherent conflict in this "few political scientists"... Isn't what they do dependent on people buying a line and maintaining the illusion that obfuscation is effective?

[Warpy]

48. This is why it's self defeating to argue with a dogmatist

who's long on emotional attachment to a group with like silly ideas and short on facts. The best policy is to say "You bought that???" laugh and walk away chuckling.

It's the only way to start to get through to them.

[Dr.Phool]

50. I use a similar response.

"You really believe that stupid shit?!!!!?"

[AnneD]

62. We have it among the DEMS....

how long has Obama kept Geitner, Summers et al on despite mounting evidence of corruption and error(she said as she put her asbestos swim suit and spf 500 sunscreen on)

[Dr.Phool]

49. A Demeter sighting from yesterday!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x547451

[DemReadingDU]

58. That's good!

Maybe she is just taking a break from SMW.
:shrug:

[ozone_man]

64. Yes, she is taking a break

from DU, not just SMW. I think it's healthy to take a break from the internets once in while. Hope she comes back, when she's rested and ready.

[Po_d Mainiac]

65. Demeter is taking a break

Asked me to pass along, her regards & regrets...received this today

in her own words:

The harassment has gotten to me. I thought SMW and WEE would be safe/unremarked by the disturbed and disturbing bunch of cheerleaders that have taken over, but recent events have proven that there is no refuge from the infantile and insane and no administrative support on DU for hard news and factual analysis. And the "copyright infringement" on ephemeral news is beyond hysteria. How one can critique an idiot without citation of the idiocy is beyond me!

[DemReadingDU]

70. Thanks for the update

Hope she doesn't stay away for long, we miss her.

[DemReadingDU]

57. Dangerous liaisons at IBM: Inside the biggest hedge fund insider-trading ring

7/6/10 Dangerous liaisons at IBM: Inside the biggest hedge fund insider-trading ring
Robert Moffat, who was a top manager at Big Blue, was considered a candidate for CEO. Then he met Wall Street analyst Danielle Chiesi. Both were consumed by the flames of the Galleon hedge fund scandal.

At 7:30 in the morning on Oct. 16, 2009, Robert Moffat had already been at his desk at IBM's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., for an hour and a half. As he had almost every day in his 31-year career at the company, he had left home at 5:30 a.m. to get a jump on work. He had just finished his first call of the day when his phone rang. It was his wife, Amor. He needed to come home immediately, she said. Five FBI agents were at the house to arrest him for conspiracy related to insider trading. "What's going on?" Amor implored.

"I don't know," Moffat said. He hung up and called a senior IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) lawyer, who gave him the name of a white-collar criminal defense attorney. His heart pounding, Moffat bolted across the marble lobby and nearly bowled over a startled colleague. By the time he reached the parking lot he was sprinting hard for his Lexus. It was the last time anyone saw him at IBM.

Moffat, the senior vice president of IBM's systems and technology group, was the most prominent tech executive arrested in the federal dragnet that snagged Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund. The bust sent tremors through Wall Street, exposing a world of illicit, back-channel dealings between prominent hedge fund managers and senior executives in the high-tech industry. Among those caught in the federal bust were a McKinsey & Co. director, a high-level Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) executive, and the head of New Castle Partners, a hedge fund that was once part of Bear Stearns. So far, 11 of 21 people charged have pleaded guilty.

While the scandal seemed to many people a confirmation of all they've suspected is wrong with Wall Street and the hedge fund industry, Moffat's arrest was utterly shocking to the people who knew him. He wasn't a speculator. He was a confidant of IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano and widely considered a candidate to succeed him. He had plenty of money and a family who adored him. On so many levels it didn't compute. IBM itself, with a squared-away corporate culture and a stock favored by long-term investors, was one of the last Fortune 500 companies you'd expect to be dragged into an insider-trading case. Moffat didn't make a penny from the information he provided, nor did he trade a share of stock. And of all the buttoned-down executives at Big Blue, Moffat was the last one that old friends could imagine being caught up in a scandal, let alone a crime. The former Eagle Scout had a reputation for loyalty as solid as his 6-foot-2, 265-pound frame.

Moffat was a number cruncher of the first order: He had been, among other things, the head of IBM's supply chain. Spreadsheets sang to him; he carried three-ring binders stuffed with data about the business. Some people might think his work was dull. But in 2002 he met a hedge fund analyst who found what he did insanely alluring. Danielle Chiesi, a former teenage beauty queen, was a woman for whom business information was the ticket to gratification. She liked older men, and she enjoyed pushing their buttons. "I love the three S's," she would tell them. "Sex, stocks, and sports."

juicy story, lots more
http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/06/news/companies/ibm_insider_trading.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2010070617

[Po_d Mainiac]

69. +1

[DemReadingDU]

59. Charles Hugh Smith: Why (Hyper) Inflation Is Not In the Cards

7/12/10 Why (Hyper) Inflation Is Not In the Cards by Charles Hugh Smith
The policies of the Federal government are set to benefit those who hold the levers of power. Deflation benefits those who own the debt, inflation benefits the debtors. The Financial Power Elites are not the debtors--we are.
.
.
The last thing the Power Elite wants is high inflation. Remember this and you hold the keys to the Kingdom: inflation only benefits debtors, not the owners of the debt, for whom that debt is a treasured asset. Deflation is anathema to debtors and a free gift of additional purchasing power to those holding cash.

The typical analysis focuses on the horrendous debts owed by the nation and its citizenry, but the politically important focus is to look at who owns all that debt.

Much attention is paid to the $900 billion of Treasury bonds owned by the Chinese, but this is really only a small slice of the trillions of debt owed by governments, companies and households in the U.S.

Here is a key question: how much political influence do debtors wield in the U.S.? How many Congresspeople are (in effect) in indentured servitude to mortgage holders, those owing student loans or even to corporations with big debts? I would reckon the number of "captured Congresspeople" owned by debtors to be near-zero.

How many are influenced by owners and/or servicers of debt? Virtually all of them. Check in with any expert in finance--for instance MIT professor Simon Johnson--and you will find that the heavily touted "financial reform" is all smoke and mirrors; Johnson stated flatly, "The big banks won."
.
.
more...
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly10/deflation-hyperinflation-07-10.html