STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday December 15

[ozymandius]

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Monday December 15, 2008

COUNTING THE DAYS
DAYS REMAINING IN THE * REGIME 36
WHERE'S OSAMA BIN-LADEN? 2602 DAYS
DAYS SINCE ENRON COLLAPSE = 2899
Number of Enron Execs in handcuffs = 19
ENRON EXECS CONVICTED = 10
Enron execs conveniently deceased = 3
Other Arrests of Execs = 54

---

U.S. FUTURES &
MARKETS INDICATORS>
NASDAQ FUTURES-----------------------------S&P FUTURES

---

AT THE CLOSING BELL WHEN BUSH TOOK OFFICE on January 22, 2001
Dow - 10,578.24
Nasdaq - 2,757.91
S&P 500 - 1,342.90
Oil - $27.69/bbl
Gold - $266.70/oz.
$1 USD = EUR 1.06678
$1 USD = JPY 116.6200

In recognition of those prescient of the Dow's precipitous return of Bush values (9/29/08): JuneBourder and AnneD

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON December 12, 2008

Dow... 8,629.68 +64.59 (+0.75%)
Nasdaq... 1,540.72 +32.84 (+2.18%)
S&P 500... 879.73 +6.14 (+0.70%)
Gold future... 820.50 -6.10 (-0.74%)
30-Year Bond 3.06% -0.03 (-0.81%)
10-Yr Bond... 2.59% -0.06 (-2.23%)






GOLD,EURO, YEN, Loonie and Silver

---

PIEHOLE ALERT

Heads Up!
Preliminary info on appearances by Bush & Co. throughout the country. Details & links are added as they become available so check back. And if you know more, are organizing something, or would like to, contact [e-mail]

For information on protests and other actions Citizens For Legitimate Government

---

Read more: du

[ozymandius]

1. Market WrapUp BY TIM W. WOOD

Ehhh... more about trend analysis

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

[ozymandius]

2. Today's Reports

08:30 NY Empire State Index Dec
Briefing.com -28.0
Consensus -27.0
Prior -25.4

09:00 Net Foreign Purchases Oct
Briefing.com NA
Consensus NA
Prior $66.2B

09:15 Capacity Utilization Nov
Briefing.com 75.8%
Consensus 75.9%
Prior 76.4%

09:15 Industrial Production Nov
Briefing.com -0.6%
Consensus -0.5%
Prior 1.3%

http://www.briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

[Hugin]

5. Looks like it's the SMW's turn to recite "A Christmas Carol".

But, are TPTB listening?

Maybe it's time to send in the Ghosts!


Very fitting 'toon today.

[ozymandius]

16. Great idea.

Maybe we could scare up some Ghosts of Republican Past: Rhenquist, Atwater, Helms and Thurmond. They probably will not need the white sheets they wore, metaphorically or otherwise, in life since they're ghosts. These four also appear ideal to represent the Republican Present and Future.

[radfringe]

18. I nominate HERBERT HOOVER to play the part of Christmas Past....n/t

;)

[Hugin]

19. Ken Lay as Jacob Marley?

"Link by Link and Yard by Yard, I forged this chain in life."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y48PQGbdY60

[AnneD]

96. Frankly......for the ghost of the future.......

I'd send Herbert Hoover because they will now and forever be remembered as the party of Hoover!

[Ghost Dog]

26. These are going to be very heavy numbers, today

(no matter how hard they try to 'massage' them).

[tclambert]

34. Shoe sales might be up.

[UpInArms]

47. U.S. Dec Empire State index -25.8 vs.-25.4 in Nov

02. U.S. Dec Empire State index -25.8 vs.-25.4 in Nov
8:31 AM ET, Dec 15, 2008

[ozymandius]

58. conditions for New York manufacturers deteriorated significantly

The Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicates that conditions for New York manufacturers deteriorated significantly in December. The general business conditions index, at -25.8, held near the record low set in November. The new orders and shipments indexes also remained near their recent record lows, and the unfilled orders index dropped to a new low. The indexes for prices paid and prices received fell below zero, and employment indexes remained deep in negative territory. Future indexes remained subdued, with the capital spending and technology spending indexes remaining well below zero.

In response to a series of supplementary questions (see Supplemental Report tab), manufacturers predicted that growth in prices paid in most budget categories would decelerate in calendar year 2009. Respondents indicated that across all categories, prices paid had risen 6.7 percent on average in 2008 but were expected to rise by a more moderate 3.5 percent in 2009. The most pronounced downshift in price increases was foreseen for commodities. A comparison of expected price changes from the December 2007 survey with the actual changes reported currently reveals that prices paid rose only slightly more in 2008 than had been expected in last year’s survey. Respondents were also asked to gauge the likelihood that the prices they paid overall would increase or decrease within certain specified ranges. The average respondent saw a roughly 12 percent chance that prices would rise by 8 percent or more and a 4 percent chance that prices would decline by 8 percent or more.


http://www.newyorkfed.org/survey/empire/empiresurvey_overview.html

[UpInArms]

59. wtf? U.S. Nov. capacity utilization falls to 754% vs. 76.0%

04. U.S. Nov. industrial production falls 0.6% as expected
9:16 AM ET, Dec 15, 2008

05. U.S. Nov. manufacturing production falls 1.4%
9:16 AM ET, Dec 15, 2008

06. U.S. Nov. capacity utilization falls to 754% vs. 76.0%
9:16 AM ET, Dec 15, 2008

07. U.S. Nov. industrial output down 1.5% ex-strike, ex-storms
9:16 AM ET, Dec 15, 2008

08. U.S. industrial production down 5.5% in past year
9:16 AM ET, Dec 15, 2008

Huh? did someone get a decimal out of place here?

[Ghost Dog]

62. 75.4% 'capacity' utilization.

Now, there's a statistic to ponder...

... and, um what is this line saying?: 07. "U.S. Nov. industrial output down 1.5% ex-strike, ex-storms"

[Viva_La_Revolution]

83. excluding losses due to strikes and the ice storms? nt

[Ghost Dog]

88. Yeah. Ice storm. Heavy (not to mention Strikes).

¿So why shouldn't such 'natural' factors be taken into account, in the accounts?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

93. makes the numbers look better than horrific.

that's my jaded opinion.

[ozymandius]

3. Oil steady near $46 as OPEC prepares output cut

SINGAPORE – Oil prices were steady near $46 a barrel Monday in Asia as investors anticipated OPEC will announce a large production cut at its meeting this week.

Light, sweet crude for January delivery was up 10 cents to $46.38 a barrel, after reaching $47.64 earlier in the session, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by late afternoon in Singapore. The contract Friday fell $1.70 to settle at $46.28.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for 40 percent of global supply, has signaled it plans to announce a substantial reduction of output quotas at its meeting Wednesday in Algeria.

...

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures rose 1.23 cents to $1.09. Heating oil gained 1.28 cents to $1.51 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery jumped 9.7 cents to 5.59 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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

[ozymandius]

4. Home values to lose well over $2 trillion during 2008: Zillow

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Homes in the United States have lost trillions of dollars in value during 2008, with nearly 11.7 million American households now owing more on their mortgage than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Monday.

U.S. homes are set to lose well over $2 trillion in value during 2008, according to an analysis of recent Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.

Home values declined 8.4 percent year-over-year during the first three quarters of this year, compared to the same period in 2007, the reports showed.

U.S. home values lost $1.9 trillion from the first of the year through the end of the third quarter, and will probably fall further in the fourth quarter. One in seven of all homeowners, or 14.3 percent, were "underwater" by the end of the third quarter, the reports showed.

....

The U.S. housing market is suffering the worst downturn since the Great Depression as a huge supply of unsold homes, tighter lending standards and record foreclosures push down home prices.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081215/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_housing

[DemReadingDU]

82. On CNN.com too (story from Zillow)

12/15/08 U.S. homes lose $2 trillion in value in '08
Home prices are have been hit hard, yet there is still no end in sight to the foreclosure crisis, according to Zillow.com.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/15/real_estate/underwater_borrowers_near_12million/index.htm

[radfringe]

6. GREAT TOON

the GOP has branded itself as the HOOVERcan Party


they have also won the GLOBALL MORAN award for 12/14/08: http://www.progressivesplayground.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=set_linear_mode&forum=106&page=&topic_id=&prev_page=show_topics

[ozymandius]

9. Someday we'll visit the zoo to view a self-proclaimed 'Republican'.

In years of late - the Republican party cannot help but reveal themselves to be the enemy of just about everybody.

And thank you for the compliment.

[Warpy]

89. I look forward to the day

when it's an animatronic display in the Smithsonian, maybe a pseudo Limbaugh spouting hate. Parents would take their mean little kids there to scare a little empathy into them.

[SpiralHawk]

67. Yes - great Toon !

Thank you

[ozymandius]

7. Not just super rich caught up in $50B Madoff case

...
Around the world, investors who sunk cash into veteran Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff's investment pool spent the weekend calculating how much exposure they might have. The 70-year-old Madoff, well respected in the investment community after serving as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested Thursday in what prosecutors say was a $50 billion scheme to defraud investors.

One thing was clear in the fallout from his arrest: The alleged victims span from the super rich, to pensioners and powerful financial institutions, to local charities. Some investors claim they've been wiped out, while others are still likely to come forward.

...

Charities across the country are expected to be directly affected by the collapse of Madoff's investment fund. The assets of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC were frozen Friday in a deal with federal regulators and a receiver was appointed to manage the firm's financial affairs.

...

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, entrusted his family's charitable foundation to Madoff. Lautenberg's attorney, Michael Griffinger, said they weren't yet sure the extent of the foundation's losses, but that the bulk of its investments had been handled by Madoff.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081215/ap_on_bi_ge/wall_street_arrest

[radfringe]

10. I don't think Madoff pulled this off entirely on his own

He may have masterminded and controlled the scam, but he would have also needed help

....waiting for the other shoe to drop (or be thrown ;) )

[radfringe]

13. Probe finds evidence Madoff ran unregistered unit: report

Probe finds evidence Madoff ran unregistered unit: report
By Simon Kennedy
Last update: 5:14 a.m. EST Dec. 15, 2008
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Probe-finds-evidence-Madoff-ran/story.aspx?guid=%7B610B6D98-BFD3-48C1-A15C-50D1FFB7C4A8%7D

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Federal investigators probing the alleged $50 billion ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff have found evidence he ran an unregistered money-management business alongside his firm's brokerage and investment-advisory subsidiaries, according to a Bloomberg report citing two people with knowledge of the investigation.

The report said clients of the unit may have included hedge funds and added that investigators are looking for indications of whether anyone else participated in the alleged fraud. It added the Securities Investor Protection Corp., which insures brokerages, plans to take over Madoff's operations as early as Monday.

[ozymandius]

17. I just saw that and thought this could be the evidence to bolster

your assertion. I wonder if this unregistered unit, if verified, has ties to that shadow banking and trading system.

[Ghost Dog]

31. Talk to his 'computer programmer' employees,

for example.

[Hugin]

14. Madoff was apparently consulted on 'regulation' of the Markets...

Or so I read in an article over the weekend.

"Madoff, 70, who had advised the SEC how to regulate markets and donated regularly to politicians, was arrested Dec. 11 and charged with operating what he told his sons was a long-running Ponzi scheme in the New York-based firm’s business advising rich people, hedge funds and institutions. His ability to avoid detection may fuel debate about the SEC’s effectiveness and the adequacy of its resources for policing money managers."

Quoted from... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVzCdm.m0txc&refer=home

[ozymandius]

20. Great. Just Great.

He was giving advice to the SEC about regulating markets when he was making a killing through the unregulated hedge fund sector with an alleged unregistered business.

[snot]

30. "Killing" -- a.k.a. looting.

[Ghost Dog]

33. Takes one to know one, Ozy.

(Thieves, that is).

[Danascot]

76. How soon before Madoff says

"Pardon me"?

[ozymandius]

27. Ritholtz agrees with you.

Madoff Story Smells Funny

Consider this: Running a billion dollar Ponzi scheme has to be very time consuming. Running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme by yourself, at age 70?

I don’t think it can be done.

Just generating the phony transaction receipts is a full time job. How did this son-of-a-bitch do it all by himself? Madoff HAD TO HAVE HELP.

I simply cannot believe he did it himself, all alone. His entire scheme was predicated upon finding another 1% of assets every month to payout to the prior investors. Between raising moeny and running operations, it was more than a 1 man job.

[MilesColtrane]

64. Cops need to look for the associate from Madoff's cell phone that has recently taken...

...an extended vacation out of the country.

[AnneD]

100. NOW can we have some regulation....

and transparency on Wall Strret. Can some of the crooks do Jail time? They were warned about this guy but no one acted. He was not alone in this scam.

[Dr.Phool]

108. !

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

We'll get some regulation when the last thief in Washington and Wall Street, gags on the last dollar bill he can swallow, trying to slither out of the country.

[Ghost Dog]

28. LLC. Limited liability company.

I suspect we'll be revisiting 'company law' before too long. 'Corporate Personhood' will only be the start of it.

[ozymandius]

32. That's where the Fourteenth Amendment went awry.

Just in its focus but dangerous in its scope, the Fourteenth Amendment introduced the idea of entitlement and "personhood" to many who deserved these protections. The scope drift, however, opened the gates leading to the ruinous path the we now see in corporations having more rights and influence than us mere mortals.

That aspect of law needs to be revisited, really demands such, because no person, entity or cause should wield so much power over our government.

[snot]

35. i hope you're right; but

i've seen a whole lot of posts on DU and elsewhere that infer we've now learned our lessons, "free market" reagan/greenspan-etc.-o'-nomics are dead, we can safely assume reform incl'g re-regulation's next up.

Having observed Dem performance during the last two years, I'm not so confident.

Do any Dem leaders actually have any re-reg leg. in the pipeline???

For starters, e.g., we definitely, desperately need not only to restore Glass-Steagall but to expand it to cover new kinds of companies. Is this in the pipeline???

[Dr.Phool]

41. Nothing I can think of.

The most I've heard of is Sen. Chris Dodd telling the banks that if they didn't straighten up on their own, they'd start passing regulations to do it.

I feel so much safer now.

[ozymandius]

48. Sabre-rattling only works when your sabre *isn't* made out of wood.

Chris Dodd reminds of the knight in a Far Side cartoon whose nightmare shows him in battle carrying a trashcan lid shield and a wooden sword. And he's naked.

Senator Dodd: Defender of the righteous populist. Heh-indeedy.

[Ghost Dog]

55. Heh heh

:rofl:

[MilesColtrane]

65. I've heard no one in Congress make a peep about restoring Glass-Steagall.

It's depressing.
I'm sure the giant banks are arguing that there investment and commercial divisions can't be split up because they wouldn't then be "globally competitive"-the old mantra we've heard driving the consolidation and takeover mania of the past 20 years.

I certainly hope somebody on Obama's team realizes that the old regulations need to be reinforced.

Until then, what's to keep the banks from chasing the next big investment bubble (and crash)?

[AnneD]

103. High time.....

to rip the veil off corporations. If they have person hood-they should have rewards and penalties-imagine a corporate death penalty right about now.

[tclambert]

38. As a lot of investments are retirment accounts of various kinds, you know there are retirees

who are now ex-retirees because of this. I know some people who were caught up in the Ed May ponzi scheme. They had to unretire because of it. And they may be required to pay back any profits they made. I was considering investing with them at one point. Pure luck it fell apart before I put the money together.

That one may have been based on legitimate business at first, supposedly supplying phone systems to hotels. (They have phones in every room, so it is a lot of phones in the big Las Vegas hotels.) Then one of the hotels they had a project in was demolished. But the investments kept paying off. That started raising questions. The scam literally blew up.

The SEC charges said the E-M Management fraud involved up to $250 million. It seemed big at the time.

[Roland99]

53. Friend of a friend was hit by this.

A couple hundred grand that was going to be from an inheritance and used to start a new business.

Not anymore.

[Ghost Dog]

78. Yup. Shit. Innocents getting hurt.

Me (because I have access to the 'system'), I put €15,000 into a stock that looked cheap, last month, and got out 5 days later with a €3000 gain. (about 5 times the minimum wage, around here).

I didn't have to do any work (well, plenty of thinking and paying attention (thanks, DU), yeah). Just operating this computer, here (I'm, like, a veteran: MSc computer science 1982 -and BSc Environmental Sciences 1973).

And, I'm still examining my conscience about that.

[specimenfred1984]

84. Gee, I guess I should've told some people how corrupt things are

1000 times wasn't enough? Maybe I should have screamed it in all caps? Seriously, it's your money so you and others will do what they want to with it. I'm just laughing at everyone's collective ignorance now.

[Dr.Phool]

86. Things are corrupt?

Who woulda thunk it? I'm Flabbergasted!

[Ghost Dog]

91. I knew that would get a reaction.

Most times, seriously, I pass up on such (edit: risky) opportunities.

But, we all have to try to keep body and soul together.

[specimenfred1984]

92. Here's a great "investment", buy some medical or insurance stocks

to perpetuate this kind of tragedy: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4655548

[Ghost Dog]

94. Yes. I hear you.

"She does not know how he got a gun" - look into that?

[AnneD]

104. Several teachers that were due to retire.....

have canceled their plans. Hubby has canceled his plans. We will still do the business on the side.

[Dr.Phool]

68. Have you ever seen the reports where Congressmen and Senators investments,

Always tend to outperform the average person, or the market?

I always chalked it up to the ultimate insider trading. I hope they were all loaded up on this scheme. I hope Schumer and Dodd had their first-born and their grand kids invested in it.

We might get some real regulation then.

[KoKo]

69. And this morning CNBC reporting Steven Spielberg and Mort Zuckerman added to list

of those who lost investments with Maddow along with Frank Lautenberg.

[Robbien]

77. The gawker has a post up about how Murdoch is crowing about Zukerman being taken

http://gawker.com/5109897/media-mogul-scammed-by-hedge+fund-hustler

Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman is the latest billionaire revealed to have fallen prey to ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. How many of Rupert Murdoch's papers does it take to cover the story?

At least two! The Wall Street Journal has the scoop, reporting that U.S. News editor and real estate mogul Zuckerman "had significant exposure through a fund that invested substantially all of its assets with Mr. Madoff, according to a person familiar with his investments."

No dollar figure is provided by the Journal, or by the Post, which carried its own summary of the Journal story, just to make sure the owner of the tabloid competition was suitably embarrassed among as diverse an array of New Yorkers as possible.

[Robbien]

70. CNBC is pushing the small investor being caught up in this. I feel a push for a bailout of the rich

CNBC put on an elderly couple who put in a hundred grand. The couple kept saying "I hope someone out there can help us". The couple lived in a very nice retirement village in a toney Florida location. Their son had the connections to get his parents into the Madoff deal.

Since Madoff usually only allowed the rich elite to invest with him, CNBC must have really been beating the bushes to find this couple.

Is this CNBC pushing a campaign to have a bailout for Madoff investors by using this elderly couple as a front?

[Dr.Phool]

72. Kramer's probably loaded up on it.

And the rest of the yammering idiots there, who pretend to know everything.

Sheep waiting for the fleecing.

[Festivito]

8. Debt: 12/11/2008 10,597,885,059,458.70 (DOWN 50,555,817,792.90) (20 FICA, 30 public)

(The prior 38B$ report a week ago Monday ... now reversed. FICA also moved big. I posted an easy reading primer on our nation's banking debacle
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4654290&mesg_id=4654290
Good day to all.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,390,881,581,542.01 + 4,207,003,477,916.77
DOWN 19,940,834,952.80 + DOWN 30,614,982,840.05
(NOTE: Excel 2007 cannot handle ten-trillion plus to the penny. It zeroes the penny.)

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

THINKING IN BILLIONS: 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 300-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.33 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: THEIR SHARE IS TEN BUCKS in 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 a 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)
(I hate those end to end dollars to the moon and back, or years to spend $100/second. Just say'n)
If you read this and have a suggestion or comment, good or bad, I'd love to see it.

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 to 31 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is -1,106,279,055.63.
The average for the last 30 days would be -811,271,307.46.
The average for the last 31 days would be -785,101,265.28.
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$/day.
There were 49 reports in 72 days of FY2009 averaging 11.70B$ per report, 7.96B$/day.

PROJECTION:
GWB** must relinquish the presidency in 40 days.
By that time the debt could be between 10.6 and 10.9T$.
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)
12/11/2008 10,597,885,059,458.70 GWB (UP 4,869,689,263,277.13 so far since Bush took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 573,160,162,546.30 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
11/20/2008 -000,189,695,810.14 ---
11/21/2008 -000,151,096,322.01 ---
11/24/2008 -000,086,920,504.20 ---- Mon
11/25/2008 +001,468,316,558.23 ------------*********
11/26/2008 +000,650,427,812.76 ------------********
11/28/2008 +000,783,239,406.89 ------------********
12/01/2008 +038,288,359,563.07 ------------********** Mon
12/02/2008 +000,199,375,927.74 ------------********
12/03/2008 -000,525,799,120.43 ---
12/04/2008 -022,902,653,130.86 -
12/05/2008 -000,187,074,568.06 ---
12/08/2008 -000,759,942,653.72 --- Mon
12/09/2008 +000,031,558,514.41 ------------*******
12/10/2008 +000,087,731,393.17 ------------*******
12/11/2008 -019,940,834,952.80 -

-3,235,007,885.95 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $933,253,256,199.63 in last 84 days.
That's 933B$ in 84 days.
More than any year ever, except last year, and it's 92% of that highest year ever only in 84 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 84 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(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=3642309&mesg_id=3642316

[Festivito]

111. Debt: 12/12/2008 10,597,068,737,927.10 (DOWN 816,321,531.60) (.6 FICA, .2 public)

(No borrowing for a month! How are they paying bills? Quietly taking it from retiring debt? Actual debt reduction average for a month (of course after running the debt very high, it now comes down a bit. Good day anyway.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,390,698,622,849.38 + 4,206,370,115,077.72
DOWN 182,958,692.63 + DOWN 633,362,839.05
(NOTE: Excel 2007 cannot handle ten-trillion plus to the penny. It zeroes the penny.)

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

THINKING IN BILLIONS: 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 300-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.33 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: THEIR SHARE IS TEN BUCKS in 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 a 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)
(I hate those end to end dollars to the moon and back, or years to spend $100/second. Just say'n)
If you read this and have a suggestion or comment, good or bad, I'd love to see it.

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is -974,540,666.25.
The average for the last 30 days would be -714,663,155.25.

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$/day.
There were 50 reports in 73 days of FY2009 averaging 11.45B$ per report, 7.84B$/day.

PROJECTION:
GWB** must relinquish the presidency in 39 days.
By that time the debt could be between 10.6 and 10.9T$.
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)
12/12/2008 10,597,068,737,927.10 GWB (UP 4,868,872,941,745.53 so far since Bush took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 572,343,841,014.70 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
11/21/2008 -000,151,096,322.01 ---
11/24/2008 -000,086,920,504.20 ---- Mon
11/25/2008 +001,468,316,558.23 ------------*********
11/26/2008 +000,650,427,812.76 ------------********
11/28/2008 +000,783,239,406.89 ------------********
12/01/2008 +038,288,359,563.07 ------------********** Mon
12/02/2008 +000,199,375,927.74 ------------********
12/03/2008 -000,525,799,120.43 ---
12/04/2008 -022,902,653,130.86 -
12/05/2008 -000,187,074,568.06 ---
12/08/2008 -000,759,942,653.72 --- Mon
12/09/2008 +000,031,558,514.41 ------------*******
12/10/2008 +000,087,731,393.17 ------------*******
12/11/2008 -019,940,834,952.80 -
12/12/2008 -000,182,958,692.63 ---

-3,228,270,768.44 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $932,436,934,668.03 in last 85 days.
That's 932B$ in 85 days.
More than any year ever, except last year, and it's 92% of that highest year ever only in 85 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 85 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(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=3645310&mesg_id=3645324

[ozymandius]

11. Northern Trust to cut about 450 jobs in 2009

(Reuters) – Northern Trust Corp (NTRS.O) said it plans to cut about 450 jobs in 2009, and take related charges.

The company, which provides private banking, investment management and global custody services, said it expects to take a pretax charge of about $20 million to $25 million, or 5 cents to 7 cents a share, in the fourth quarter related to the cuts and other costs.

Northern Trust is among the banks to have received funds under the U.S. Treasury Department's rescue package, which is intended to shore up balance sheets in response to the credit crisis.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081215/bs_nm/us_northerntrust_jobcuts

[ozymandius]

12. Goldman Sachs Shares Morgan Stanley’s Pain as Prospects Darken

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley may find that cutting more than 11,500 jobs, eliminating executive bonuses and reining in risk won’t help shareholders enough as the companies face another year of slumping revenue.

The Wall Street that the two New York-based firms dominated for decades vanished in September, when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. went bankrupt and Merrill Lynch & Co. sold itself to Bank of America Corp. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley became banks and took $10 billion each from the U.S. government. Reversing their revenue slide next year will be difficult as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression limits demand for investment banking services.

....

After plunging an estimated 43 percent in 2008, Goldman Sachs’s revenue from its core capital markets activities, including underwriting and merger advice, will drop another 8 percent in 2009, Michael Mayo, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in New York, wrote in a Dec. 9 report. Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., expects the volume of announced mergers and acquisitions to drop 25 percent next year and a further 15 percent in 2010.

The fourth quarter has capped a disastrous year, in which Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lost more than two-thirds of their market value. In the first nine months of the fiscal year, revenue at Goldman Sachs fell 32 percent from a year earlier and net income tumbled 47 percent to $4.44 billion. Morgan Stanley’s revenue dropped 20 percent in the same period, and earnings fell 41 percent to $3.96 billion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5K1c5FB7GRE&refer=home

[Tansy_Gold]

39. "slumping revenue"???

Can it be the ponzers have run out of ponzees to ponz?

If nobody's working, nobody's makin' any money, so they ain't got nothin' to be ponzed of, right?



Tansy Gold

[Ghost Dog]

42. Only the 'bourgeoisie', I guess.

You know, the people who make most things happen, including wars and revolutions, in this world.

[Tansy_Gold]

51. Yeah, but if the bourgeoisie is the ponzers, when they run outta

proles, er, ponzees, who they gonna ponz? Each other?

Looks like that's what Madoff did. wow what foresight!



TG

[ozymandius]

56. I imagine a modern Robin Hood doing this.

Though Madoff was far from this kind of brigand. He looks to be an equal opportunity thief.

[Ghost Dog]

57. Not quite. I reckon most of the 'bourgeoisie'

are little more than 'ponzees', 'ponzed' (and only now starting to feel somewhat angry about it. Lazy bastards).

Meanwhile, some of us we 'proles' (I'm one, though I've moved up the 'social scale' a bit, through hard work, luck, British post-war socialist education and having listened to my father's gritty accounts about what his father told him about everything that can go wrong in a socio-political economy...) are once again awakening, I hear...

[Ghost Dog]

15. Hi folks. I see the currency charts above have moved a bit more

this morning.

Jeesus. Wasn't long ago the Yen was trying to hold the 120 to the dollar level. Then broke the 100 to the dollar level. Now trying to not go above 90 to the dollar.

That's, um, a 25% 'adjustment' so far, isn't it?

Let's think about this, again. The Irish 'laissez faire' famine and mass emigration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGid0BMm7VA

[ozymandius]

23. Their central bank is the culprit.

They have no more room to maneuver with interest rates in the face of the U.S. Fed set to cut again. I expect more unwinding of the carry trade.

[Ghost Dog]

24. Yeah. Much more to come.

And a lot more 'leverage' to unwind, too.

Humm.

Just watched this video, over there, also: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x250222

[Ghost Dog]

45. (Here's another version of the song with a bit more rhythm).

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VCX-Zdz5qA&feature=related

[ozymandius]

21. This is what a really bad recession looks like

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- You know the economy is in trouble when you have to go back to Herbert Hoover's administration for an historical comparison, or when the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to 50-year lows, or when you run out of adjectives to describe how awful home building is.

We could see all of those in the coming week's economic data, (especially if I can't find my thesaurus). The calendar starts off with the Fed meeting on Monday and Tuesday, and wraps up with the weekly jobless claims data on Thursday. In between, we'll get the latest on consumer prices, industrial production and home building.

....

Almost everyone expects the FOMC to cut its target for overnight interest rates from 1% to 0.50%, but almost no one thinks the rate cut will do much good in the current environment of fear and risk aversion. Households and businesses aren't borrowing because interest rates are too high; they aren't borrowing because they are afraid the recession will worsen, and because they can't get a loan from banks that are even more afraid than they are.

....

What exactly is "quantitative easing"? Simply put, it's an attempt by the Fed to flood the financial system with so much cash that some of it will have to be lent out. The Fed would do that by "purchasing long-term Treasuries and agency debt and possibly financing a wider range of asset-backed securities," said economists for BMO Capital Markets.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/really-bad-recession-looks-like/story.aspx?guid={AB194334-CB9E-4B69-9AF4-9866D4E15E5B}&dist=TNMostRead

[ozymandius]

22. Uneasy mood on Wall Street

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks looked set for a weak start Monday, despite fresh hopes that Detroit's ailing automakers would be rescued soon.

At 5:01 a.m. ET, Dow Jones industrial average, Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were slightly lower.

....

Auto rescue: The Bush administration said Friday it might use taxpayer dollars set aside to bail out banks and Wall Street firms to keep troubled U.S. automakers out of bankruptcy.

Madoff case: Spreading losses from an alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme run by money manager and ex-Nasdaq chief Bernard Madoff weighed on confidence as the list of victims widened.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/15/markets/stockswatch/?postversion=2008121505

[ozymandius]

25. Tokyo sizzles, ignoring bad news; Karachi drops

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Most Asian markets ended higher Monday, spurred by hopes for a steep U.S. interest rate cut and after the Bush administration said it would step in to prevent a failure of U.S. automakers.

Japanese stocks led the charge, recovering most of the ground that they lost Friday, as investors brushed aside bad news, including a survey that showed a plunge in business confidence, Nomura Holdings' $302 million exposure to an investment firm run by Bernard Madoff and a report Toyota Motor Corp. could cut its earnings forecast.

...

Going the other direction, Pakistani shares tumbled after the country's stock market regulator lifted a floor on stock prices that they had imposed in August, with analysts expecting further steep declines in coming days.

...

The advance ignored Bank of Japan's tankan survey, which showed business sentiment dropped sharply, with the headline diffusion index for large manufacturers deteriorating at its fastest pace since August 1974, falling 21 points to minus 24. The reading was the worst in nearly seven years.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/tokyo-stocks-pace-gains-ignoring/story.aspx?guid={E2CBA0FA-94D2-4C26-9121-DA0403E7751F}&dist=msr_9

[Ghost Dog]

36. Europe shares up; commodities track crude, metals

Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:40am EST LONDON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - European shares advanced in morning trade on Monday as commodity stocks tracked firmer crude and metals prices, offsetting weaker banks led lower by BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

At 1022 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares was up 0.7 percent at 835.04 points after rising as high as 843.89. The benchmark has lost 44 percent in 2008, but has gained 11 percent since this year's low on Nov. 21.

"As we go into the Christmas period, investors will be looking to see if the so-called 'Santa rally' materialises over December," said Chris Hossain, senior sales manager at ODL Securities.

"The relative lack of volume often results in wild swings over December, but it's fair to say that investors have got used to volatility over the past six months."

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idCALF64948020081215?rpc=44

[Ghost Dog]

37. Crisis gnaws at Japan sentiment, China output

Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:02am EST TOKYO/LONDON Dec 15 (Reuters) - Japan reported its sharpest crash in business sentiment in three decades on Monday and industrial output in China grew at its slowest pace since 1999, the latest signs of damage done to Asian economies by the global crisis.

Asian markets rallied despite the gloomy data, buoyed by expectations that the White House would step in to prevent the collapse of the "Big Three" U.S. automakers. But gloomy forecasts from European carmakers and the fallout of an alleged Wall Street fraud held back European and U.S. stocks.

President George W. Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight from Iraq to Afghanistan on Monday that while some funds earmarked to shore up the U.S. financial industry could be diverted to save the automakers, no announcement was imminent.

"We're not quite ready to announce that yet," he said, adding that a decision would not take long.

Last week's collapse of auto bailout talks in the Senate sent world markets reeling as investors feared another ugly turn in global turmoil that began last year with the U.S subprime mortgage crisis and has now sent major economies into recession.

Investors fear a failure of any of the automakers would exacerbate a year-long recession and drag other companies under. Over the weekend carmakers, elsewhere produced dire warnings about the state of their sector.

Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Europe's biggest carmaker, Germany's Volkswagen (VOWG.F: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), told Monday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that its sales could fall about 10 percent next year in a global market expected to fall around 20 percent.

The joint general secretary of Britain's Unite trade union, Tony Woodley, said up to 40,000 car industry jobs could go in Britain in the next four weeks unless the government intervenes.

JAPANESE SENTIMENT DIVES Continued...

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINSP38288420081215?rpc=44&sp=true

(We're ahead of the curve, here in SMW. Won't be long now...)

[ozymandius]

29. NYT: Don’t Forget Shumer’s Role in the Mess

also from The Big Picture

Today’s New York Times has a damning article linking Senator Chuck Schumer to many of the radical deregulatory policies that underlie much of the current crisis.

I have assessed a lot of blame for the crisis on several people — Greenspan at the top of the list, followed by several others, including President Bush. Phil Gramm was a prime sponsor of all manners of ruinous legislation — which, I hasten to add, was signed into law by one President Clinton (he sure isn’t blameless in the mess).

In the Senate, on the other side of the aisle from Gramm was Chuck Schumer. The votes and support noted by the NYT shows Schumer was not much better than Gramm:

"But Mr. Schumer, a member of the Banking and Finance Committees, repeatedly took other steps to protect industry players from government oversight and tougher rules, a review of his record shows. Over the years, he has also helped save financial institutions billions of dollars in higher taxes or fees.

He succeeded in limiting efforts to regulate credit-rating agencies, for example, sponsored legislation that cut fees paid by Wall Street firms to finance government oversight, pushed to allow banks to have lower capital reserves and called for the revision of regulations to make corporations’ balance sheets more transparent.”

Schumer, nicknamed the jackhammer for his fund raiser technique, apparently drank deeply of the deregulatory Kool-Aid also.

There’s a full table of the legislation he supported here: Schumer’s Stands

-more at link-

[tclambert]

40. But the free market, Ozy!

It's supposed to mean ponies and lollipops for everyone! Businessmen can be trusted to do what's good for America and the world. They don't need no stinkin' regulations. Unless there turned out to be a profit in hurting other people. Then maybe they'd chase the profit and take advantage of the weak and elderly and financially savvy. (I almost went with unsavvy there, but then remembered there are some pretty sharp operators caught up in the Madoff scam.)

[ozymandius]

46. Market. Shmarket.

Never invest money that you are not prepared to lose.

Let me re-phrase that.

Never invest money that you are not prepared to lose by legitimate means. Say you invest in coach whips. But nobody is buying coach whips so your investment falls flat. Going... going.. gone.

But if you give a lump sum to a money manager to invest in a coach whip manufacturing company but then he turns around and buys himself liquor and prostitutes with it...

I am always amazed at how much reputation is everything in this business. Evermore amazing is how some can rehabilitate their reputations like Michael Milken. At the age of seventy Madoff does not have time to rehabilitate anything. He will be known as a ponzi operator and seller of crap forever. That former reputation was earned by those who were, as you say, solid and savvy investors. They right now are probably saying, "After fifty years you think you know a guy..."

[tclambert]

95. Most retirees are depending on their investments,

or social security, which a lot of right-wingers want to privatize, turning the management of Social Security funds over to trusted investment managers like, oh say, Bernard Madoff. The usual caveat is to diversify your investments. But where is there enough diversity to save anyone from what's happening now?

[UpInArms]

43. dollar watch

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=i

Last trade 83.711 Change +0.030 (+0.04%)

Dollar Losing Its Safe Haven Status As Risk Rises And Returns Plunge

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/currency/eur_fundamentals/Dollar_Losing_Its_Safe_Haven_1229133167756.html

Has risk sentiment taken a significant turn for the better or is the dollar losing its status as a safe haven currency? This is the fundamental question for dollar traders and even to those participants in other currencies and securities. This past week, month-long congestion patterns behind the major pairs finally broke down. Breakouts were inevitable; but considering the depressed levels of sentiment and the dour outlook for the global economy, the fundamental lean was towards a revival of the bearish trend that has found deleveraging favoring the world’s most liquid currency. So, was this reversal from the dollar represent a significant shift in the risk? Unlikely. The Japanese yen (the other key flight-from-risk currency of choice) actually rallied against its liquid counterparts after the US Congress struck down heavily debated rescue for the ailing auto industry. Next week, the market will have to see whether the Treasury will fulfill the White House’s proposal for a temporary bridge loan until a better solution can be found. However, looking deeper into the issue, figures that have been thrown out will not likely stabilize this teetering industry. What’s more, the car manufacturers are not the only one’s suffering, nor is the US the only nation that is seeing its rescue efforts coming up far short of turning economies and thawing credit.

The other question that the dollar’s reversal raises is whether the currency is losing its safe haven status. Initially, the distinct seizure of the financial markets beginning in October sparked a sense of panic and sent funds on the hunt for safety in the form of liquid, stable and essentially risk-free Treasuries. However, this extreme in sentiment has since clearly tempered - though caution is still holding to historical highs. A sense of stability has allowed investors the luxury of reassessing where their funds would be safest. Demand for treasuries is still at record highs as is seen in the negative yield in short-term T-bills recently. On the other hand, the outlook for growth in the US is particularly ominous and the need for bailouts from large industries compromises the sanctity of the government’s guarantee – not to mention the hope for any level of return on idle capital.

There is a third scenario for the dollar’s future that should be considered as it the most probable. With the majors coming to the end of their highly visible congestion patterns, their was a clear need for resolve. However, reviving the dominant bear trend would present a significant market shift just as liquidity was fading into the year end. The least evocative option was for a dollar reversal that broke with risk trends. At the same time, this could be a temporary divergence that lends itself to a congestion scenario for the market in general through the year’s end. This theory will be put to the test immediately next week with the Fed’s rate decision on Tuesday. Though heavily priced in, a 75 basis points rate cut to 0.25 percent (according to Fed Funds futures) will gauge the market’s sensitivity to the balance of risk/reward that will become more prominent when confidence returns. The other major mover could be any news on US bailout efforts. Should these events trigger a bigger move in the dollar, this could be a volatile holiday period.



...more...

All Yield to the Euro

http://www.bktraderfx.com/site/fx-weekly-reports/fx-weekly-1212-1908-all-yield-to-the-euro

The seminal event for the currency market this week happened on Tuesday. That’s when the four week T-bill auction produced in a negative yield
and suddenly the greenback did not look so green. As we told CNBC’s Patti Domm, “Basically, everybody woke up and decided yield was more important than safety.” And yield continued to be the dominant story of the week as EUR/USD powered on towards the 1.3400 handle.

We remain highly dubious of ECB’s ability to keep rate above 2% in the long run. We wrote on Thursday, “Despite the euro’s recent rise, we believe the market is far too optimistic about ECB’s hawkishness.Although the EZ monetary officials are much more reluctant to ease rates than their G-4 counterparts, they will inevitably have to follow their colleagues as economic growth begins to slow markedly.With demand already at record lows, unemployment in the region will begin to rise sharply forcing Mr. Trichet and company to become much more accommodative as 2009 progresses.”

But as Lord Keynes said, “In the long we are all dead.” In the meantime the flow is to the euro and next week’s FOMC meeting is unlikely to provide any support for the dollar as US rates could sink to 25bp giving the buck the dubious honor of having the lowest yield in the G-10 universe. Still 1.3500-1.3600 zone is likely to bring out some sellers, so while the rally in the euro may continue we believe it may be limited in scope given the difficulties on the other side of the Atlantic.

Next week will be the final full week of trade in the currency market for 2008 and as we approach the end of the year liquidity is sure to dry up as traders thoughts turn to Aspen and St. Moritz (although given this challenging year in finance - it may well be the Pocono Mountains and Austria for most). In any event, trade is likely to slow materially as we approach the holidays, unless we get hit with yet another wave of risk aversion as the year comes to a close.

...more...

[Ghost Dog]

49. Dollar extends losses, hits 8-week low vs euro

Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:58am EST LONDON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The dollar extended losses on Monday, hitting its lowest level against the euro and a currency basket in eight weeks as uncertainty about the fate of U.S. automakers prompted traders to dump the U.S. currency.

The euro <EUR=> climbed roughly 1 percent to $1.3510 according to Reuters data, hitting its highest since Oct. 20.

"The euro is capitalising the most on the dollar's decline," said Daragh Maher, currency strategist at Calyon in London.

The U.S. currency's losses against the euro helped to push the dollar index .DXY to low as 82.897, also its weakest since late October.

(Reporting by Tamawa Desai and Naomi Tajitsu)
/. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINLF68749020081215?rpc=44

______
Um,

[ozymandius]

54. Is the dollar losing its safe haven status? You bet, thanks to Chopper Ben.

Dollar Staggers as U.S. Unleashes Cash Flood, Deficit (Update2)

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The biggest foreign-exchange strategists and investors say the best may be over for the dollar after a four-month, 24 percent rally.

The currency weakened 5.9 percent measured by the trade- weighted Dollar Index after strengthening between July and November as investors bought the greenback to flee riskier assets and repay dollar-denominated loans from lenders reining in credit. Ever since peaking on Nov. 21, the dollar fell against all 16 of the most-widely traded currencies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

U.S. policy makers are flooding the world with an extra $8.5 trillion through 23 different plans designed to bail out the financial system and pump up the economy. The decline shows that the increased supply of money may be overwhelming investors just as the government steps up debt sales, the trade and budget deficits grow and de-leveraging by investors slows.

“The dollar will go to new lows as the U.S. attacks its currency,” said John Taylor, chairman of New York-based FX Concepts Inc., which manages about $14.5 billion of currencies.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3f._bJvEaZU&refer=home

[Ghost Dog]

61. "Lord Keynes"?

That was a sly dig.

Some people become "English Lords" on merit, you know. Not only through inheritance... Or violence.

[fedsron2us]

90. Keynes family was largely made up of academics

He was from the privileged classes but not a hereditary aristocrat. He received his peerage in 1942 during World War 2 while working on ways of financing the war effort and on plans for post war reconstruction. Unlike a lot of academic economists he was quite good at making money from his investments.

[Ghost Dog]

99. Cool. n/t

[UpInArms]

44. Noubini: 8 really, really scary predictions

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0812/gallery.market_gurus.fortune/index.html

We are in the middle of a very severe recession that's going to continue through all of 2009 - the worst U.S. recession in the past 50 years. It's the bursting of a huge leveraged-up credit bubble. There's no going back, and there is no bottom to it. It was excessive in everything from subprime to prime, from credit cards to student loans, from corporate bonds to muni bonds. You name it. And it's all reversing right now in a very, very massive way. At this point it's not just a U.S. recession. All of the advanced economies are at the beginning of a hard landing. And emerging markets, beginning with China, are in a severe slowdown. So we're having a global recession and it's becoming worse.

Things are going to be awful for everyday people. U.S. GDP growth is going to be negative through the end of 2009. And the recovery in 2010 and 2011, if there is one, is going to be so weak - with a growth rate of 1% to 1.5% - that it's going to feel like a recession. I see the unemployment rate peaking at around 9% by 2010. The value of homes has already fallen 25%. In my view, home prices are going to fall by another 15% before bottoming out in 2010.

For the next 12 months I would stay away from risky assets. I would stay away from the stock market. I would stay away from commodities. I would stay away from credit, both high-yield and high-grade. I would stay in cash or cashlike instruments such as short-term or longer-term government bonds. It's better to stay in things with low returns rather than to lose 50% of your wealth. You should preserve capital. It'll be hard and challenging enough. I wish I could be more cheerful, but I was right a year ago, and I think I'll be right this year too.

[DemReadingDU]

52. 7 more 'economists' share their view in your link

Noubini? must be Nouriel Roubini
:P

[UpInArms]

60. not enough coffee

:donut:

:D

[Ghost Dog]

85. Yeah, we heard what she said, what he said...

But, watch out. Mr. Roubini and his team are making plenty of money out of

"Selling the crisis".

... Think about it.

[tclambert]

98. "60 Minutes" last night had a story on "Alt-A's" and "option ARMs."

Whitney Tilson, an investment fund manager says the mortgage bubble is only half over. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/12/60minutes/main4666112.shtml We've seen the write-downs from the sub-prime mortgages. But the Alt-A and option Arm mortgages are going to start defaulting in large numbers this coming year. From the default rate on them up to this point, he calculates the future default rate as these mortgages transform into their higher-payment modes will create another round of foreclosures just as bad as the sub-primes did.

Sub-primes were loans made to people with questionable credit ratings. The term I love for them: NINJA loans (No Income, No Job, no Assets). Alt-As and Option ARMs are the mortgages made with "teaser rates" or interest-only payments for a short period of time, such as three to five years. Then they reset to a higher rate. The resets are going to start happening in large numbers in 2009.

A lot of people probably figured they'd take advantage of the lower payment window, then refinance or sell before the reset sends their monthly mortgage payment through the roof. But with home prices falling through the floor, many of these mortgages are upside down. Darn near impossible to refinance those. And with the credit industry suddenly trying to rebuild a firm foundation, it may be more difficult to refinance in general. Result: the economy hits another . . . (Okay, enough with the puns.)

[specimenfred1984]

105. I'll tell you what every "bargain hunter" is thinking right now in response

"It must be the bottom because look how gloomy everyone is". It's a conditioned response, the result of pure brainwashing that almost nobody wants to admit to have succumbed to. That is what makes this whole situation really bad, very few people will even address how this has happened and even fewer people are capable of understanding it.

[DemReadingDU]

50. GMAC extends tender deadline yet again

12/14/08 GMAC extends tender deadline yet again
But this time, with better terms, lender could meet target to become bank

GMAC Financial Services has once more extended the deadline for its offer to buy or exchange debt notes issued by it and its subsidiaries, as it seeks to qualify for federal aid under the Wall Street bailout program.
GMAC extended the delivery time to Tuesday 5 p.m. Eastern Time, in what it said was a "final" amendment to the offers.
This time, however, the company said that it has an "agreement in principle reached with representatives of a substantial portion of the outstanding notes."
That, in turn, "represents substantial progress toward attaining the estimated overall participation that would be required to satisfy the condition for a minimum amount of regulatory capital in connection with GMAC's application to become a bank holding company," although more buyers will still be needed.
Sweeter deal
In an effort to attract more participation in the private exchange and cash tender offers, GMAC said it was raising the annual dividend rate to 9%, though this would be cut to 7% after the lender has raised at least $2 billion of new Tier 1 capital.
The extended offer also adds "certain covenants relating to the new guaranteed notes, including restrictions on liens, subsidiary guarantees and asset sales."
The company had most recently extended the deadline to last Friday but said at the time it could likely fail to raise the $30 billion it would need to become a bank holding company. See full story on GMAC bid to become bank.
In announcing the latest extension Saturday, GMAC said about $6.8 billion worth of debt principal on old notes had been tendered, representing about 24% of the total.
ResCap, a unit of GMAC that used to offer subprime mortgages, is in a similar predicament, and GMAC said that about $2.4 billion, or 25%, of principal on the outstanding ResCap notes have been tendered in the subsidiary's offer.
Overall participation needs to be about 75%, the company said Saturday, in order to have enough funding to become a bank holding company under Federal Reserve rules.
GMAC said that General Motors Corp., for which it provides customer financing, can't help in the fundraising effort, even though the automaker still owns a big stake in GMAC.
GMAC is 51% owned by Cerberus Capital Management.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/gmac-extends-tender-deadline-again/story.aspx?guid=%7BBE968AC5-8616-48B9-9D38-87116FB274AC%7D

[JNelson6563]

63. Most excellent 'toon!

:toast:

Julie--motorcity girl

[Ghost Dog]

87. Hi!

:)

[AnneD]

66. Morning Marketeers.......

:donut: The news was so funny today. Finally, someone let Bush know how they felt. I don't know about you but I am ready to take up a collect to re-reimburse the guy for some more shoes. Bush is lucky it was just shoes. Lots of others would have given him far worse. As the countdown continues-my mood gets lighter.

Also in our news today was the back story that the Repug Senators that voted against the auto bail out were from states that manufacture Toyotas and Hondas. They are still covering up the union angle of the story-but they did mention that the Union auto workers would have had to get a pay INCREASE to have parity with non union workers (thus making Unions look bad-most folks don't understand the benefit of a contract). I still can't understand why folks vote against their best interests....I have give up folks voting for the general good!

Things are going well in our household. So far-daughter has made high passing on all the grades we know of (her area of study. We hope this translates into more scholarships-as it should. Our other student-the one we are gifting this Christmas-she is finishing her GED and is getting tested soon. I hope we can get her enrolled in the Spring quarter. It is so nice to here the excitement in her voice when she talks about it. Yesterday, she said- I can't wait til I can pay it back. Foreword, I said, you pay it forward. She loves theater and writing. I told her to remember me when her first play is performed-I want to be in the front row cheering. Since I told her we would help-a friend gifted her with an slightly older computer and everyone around her has been nudging her and encouraging her. One of her old teachers is a friend of mine and she and I are trying to get some scholarships for her. I will update you as the story progresses.

I have been doing gifting this year more than gifts. Only the little kids are getting gifts (and maybe an old friend or 2 gets a small something. Friends in church are getting honorariums to our food bank and I am tipping folks. My family is sending adults Christmas cards (Mom was so funny -she wished me a prosperous New Year-or at least a bail out). I will be sending her monopoly money and a get out of jail free card in return-our battles are family legend. Her birthday is in January and this year I think I'll send her a funeral spray this year. When we finally have her funeral, I won't be able to keep a straight face for all the jokes we have pulled on each other though out or lives.

Well, that's it from Houston...were it actually snowed last week. Treat your family with love and patience and remember that the really important gifts don't come from a store or are gift wrapped.

[Ghost Dog]

106. That's beautiful.

When I went back to (second rate British) university, during the early days of the "Thatcher/Reagan" revolution, I'd talked my way in. The academic commitee had accepted me. The papers were almost all signed. The only question was: How was I going to pay the fees (about $5000 for one year, back then). For the first time in my life I chose to go to my father, the hard man, to ask for a loan.

He agreed.

When I'd graduated, and was in relatively well-paid freelance software engineering work in the City of London, I went back to him, straight away, and said: "I can start to pay you back now". He said: "That's all right. Forget it".

Hard man.

Er, like: (protected copyright; not available at youtube (like Van Morrison) - edit, but here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGWr2i1f5s0 ) a very protestant man like Dick Gaughan. (edit: a link: http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/main.html ).

[Ghost Dog]

107. Eh, here's another beautiful one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AYAg9zPzc

(Although, not quite what I was looking for ("Redwood Cathedral").

Beauty is truth. Truth beauty. :hi:

[Ghost Dog]

109. (Dick Gaughan is a Scot.)

(and, I'm an Englishman). Celtic 'intelligence' knows me well; I've observed.

:very serious:

[Ghost Dog]

116. You could try ths one on, for size, also (Sandy Denny):

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

[ozymandius]

112. That's a sweet holiday story Anne.

Holiday season sounds fun around you folks.

[Dr.Phool]

71. Casinos rolling snake eyes in bad economy

It looks like Vegas and Atlantic City are ready to go bankrupt. I feel sorry for my sister, who lives in Vegas. She works in a casino, and her hours are now cut back to 2-3 nights per week. To make matters worse, her husband is still hanging on to a job at Countrywide.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28163581/

Scratch one axiom.

It appears that weathering the tough economy is enough of a gamble for most Americans. Casinos, lottery agencies and racetracks are losing tons of money as gamblers play it safe, laying to rest once and for all the old nostrum that gambling is a recession-proof industry.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board reported last week that revenue at the state’s casinos fell by 22 percent in October, compared with the same month last year. It was the 10th straight monthly decline — and the biggest ever. The story was even worse on the Las Vegas Strip, where the October take was down by 26 percent. The steep downturn has sparked a movement to lower the legal gambling age to 18.

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, to quote the city’s tourism slogan, but gambling business problems are hardly isolated to Nevada. Casinos in Atlantic City, N.J., also reported steep losses in November, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission said last week. Kansas is on the hook for a $25 million deposit it needs to refund to a joint venture that was left holding the bag when Harrah’s, citing its weak financial state, canceled plans to build a giant casino resort in Sumner.

Washington state casinos, meanwhile, reported a 30 percent drop in revenues so far this year, thanks to gamblers who aren’t willing to bet it all these days.

“They come in less often and spend less money,” said Scott Taylor, manager of the Classic Island Casino in Kennewick, Wash.

Randy Black Sr., majority owner of Black Gaming LLC, which runs three casino resorts in Mesquite, Nev., said, “Instead of coming two and three and four times and spending $200, $300 a trip, (gamblers are) coming one or two times and spending $20.”

(snip)

[tclambert]

102. Las Vegas, too? I thought sin was a growth market.

I have relatives who moved from Michigan to Las Vegas because the Michigan economy was hurting so bad while Vegas was booming. Now where do they move?

[DemReadingDU]

73. Martin Weiss: Deflation strikes hard! What to do

12/15/08 Martin Weiss: Deflation strikes hard! What to do …
The deflation we’ve been warning you about is here, and it’s striking hard.

Last week, the Fed released a report that sent chills down the spine of economists all over the world, revealing a sweeping destruction of wealth in America.

Just in the third quarter alone, U.S. households lost $647 billion in real estate; $922 billion in stocks; $523 billion in mutual funds; $653 billion in life insurance and pension fund reserves; plus $128 billion in private business interests.

Total destruction of household wealth in the third quarter: $2.8 trillion, the worst in recorded history. That’s four times more than the government’s entire $700 billion bailout package (TARP).
Total destruction of household wealth in the last year: $7.2 trillion or over TEN times more than the $700 billion TARP package.

Meanwhile, the Treasury reports that only $330 billion of the TARP funds have been committed so far. Worse, most of the funds that have reached the banks are sitting idle in their coffers. If as much as $30 billion has trickled down to households, I’d consider it a minor miracle.

See the contrast? The destruction of wealth is large and swift; the government rescues, relatively small and slow.

The critical question of our time: Will this deflation be less severe, equally severe or more severe than the 1929-1932 deflation? If I were you, and you’ve got your portfolio or your 401k in stocks or stock mutual funds, I wouldn’t stick around for the answer.

Certainly, you are well aware of the catastrophic events that have already happened. You must realize that these events are likely to lead to further economic declines. And if the economy falls, it should be clear that nearly all of us, yourself included, will be affected in some way.

rest of article...
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/deflation-strikes-hard-what-to-do-2-28734

[DemReadingDU]

75. Martin Weiss: Wednesday - online conference about deflation

12/14/08 Martin Weiss: Urgent Deflation Briefing Wednesday!

At 2 P.M. EST Wednesday, we’re holding an online conference regarding the new, virulent wave of deflation that’s sweeping the nation at this very moment. The urgency is unprecedented.

Emergency DEFLATION SURVIVAL BRIEFING
at 2 P.M. EST Wednesday, December 17.

I’m committed to making sure that you don’t have to go through the holidays without a clear understanding of the dangers and opportunities this new deflationary spiral poses for you and your family.

That’s why, at 2 P.M. EST Wednesday, I want you to join a very special conference call I’m going to have with Weiss Research’s Jack Crooks.

Why Jack? Simple: At its core, deflation is a dollar phenomenon — and for two decades, Jack has earned the reputation of being one of the world’s leading experts on the dollar’s value.

Earlier this year, when most analysts were saying that inflation was going through the roof, Jack publicly proclaimed that a new deflationary spiral was beginning … and that most prices would plunge.

Now, with Jack’s deflation forecast becoming a reality, he’s the ideal authority to help me give you the answers to survive and THRIVE in the year ahead.

For a full hour on Wednesday, Jack and I will do everything in our power to help you protect your income, savings, investments and retirement with frank, objective, timely and actionable recommendations — the answers you need most right now:


Attendance Is Free.
Registering Takes Mere Seconds.
It’s a free educational service for our readers. And it takes only a few seconds to register — the only way you can attend the event.


click to read rest of article, and instructions to register for online conference...
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/urgent-deflation-briefing-wednesday-2-28729

[Danascot]

79. There's solid evidence that

Benanke's cure for deflation could be currency devaluation, either the US going it alone or in concert with other nations. See:

Dollar Devaluation To Fix The Great Recession

A quick dollar devaluation would work wonders for submerged borrowers. Don’t kid yourself: It could happen.

What began as government social tinkering–with implied threats to banks and mortgage companies to extend home loans to even the most marginal of borrowers–led to a greed-blinded mortgage banking business and the meltdown we are experiencing today. Now we are asked by the same congressional leadership to go along with taxpayer-funded bailouts of the very banksters who, while making millions, created the mess.

Despite the trillions of dollars already expended recapitalizing banks, there is very little, if any, progress to show. Will a few trillion more do the trick? That seems to be the consensus among Congress and the banks. “They are simply too big to let fail,” or are they really just too big to save? We can go back to “Plan A” and buy the toxic assets. If so, at what price? What if a few trillion does not remove enough toxic waste from the system or doesn’t get credit flowing again and the economy bustling?

snip

The problem with all these ideas is the money is only directed at those who created or benefited from the problems. Why not attack the situation in a manner that will benefit most everyone, an approach that has been successful before and, when compared to the current course, has little downside?

Here it is. Stand back. World currencies should be devalued overnight.

http://www.forbes.com/finance/2008/12/09/dollar-devaluation-gold-pf-ii-in_fb_1209soapbox_inl.html

Brett Steenbarger at Traderfeed observes that deflation is a tool that Benanke spoke about in a 2002 speech, “Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here”. The speech has been a playbook for the steps the US has taken so far to deal with the financial crisis. (http://www.federalreserve.gov/BOARDDOCS/SPEECHES/2002/20021121/default.htm)

"How is a central bank to expand demand and economic activity in a deflationary, zero-interest rate world? “By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so,” Bernanke asserts, “the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.”

“Although a policy of intervening to affect the exchange value of the dollar is nowhere on the horizon today,” Bernanke assures listeners, “it’s worth noting that there have been times when exchange rate policy has been an effective weapon against deflation. A striking example from U.S. history is Franklin Roosevelt’s 40 percent devaluation of the dollar against gold in 1933-34, enforced by a program of gold purchases and domestic money creation. The devaluation and the rapid increase in money supply it permitted ended the U.S. deflation remarkably quickly.”

http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2008/12/competitive-devaluation-of-us-dollar-on.html

More on deflation and devaluation:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3629806/Deflation-virus-is-moving-the-policy-test-beyond-the-1930s-extremes.html

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/12/humpty-dumpty-on-inflation.html

[DemReadingDU]

80. Thanks, bookmarking for later reading

[bain_sidhe]

97. "will benefit most everyone"?? Not those of us who saved for things

instead of piling on debt.

:grr:

You try to be responsible, and then some asshole comes up with a plan to turn your life into shit to save the stupid and/or irresponsible.

**edited to refine the point...**

[54anickel]

74. With some of the union bashing going on recently (yes even here on DU) I found

this Moyers discussion with Steve Fraser from June quite applicable.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06132008/watch3.html

Here's a snippet>

STEVE FRASER: Right. And the thing about that is that it's not new. This has been said about what's happening now, as recently as the early 1990s by a variety of people who are watching these tendencies, which already accelerated under the during the Reagan years. And if you go back to the first Guilded, there's always a there's a comment by Henry Demarest Lloyd, who was a great political journalist and public intellectual of the late 19th century. A leader of the anti-trust movement and so on. And he once said that liberty produces wealth. And that wealth destroys liberty. And what he meant by that was two things. First of all, that the amassing of great wealth would stifle the economic opportunity for millions of other Americans. And secondly, that it was putting in jeopardy political democracy. Because the amassing of that wealth gave enormous power and influence to a very tiny business elite back then. And it does again today.

BILL MOYERS: You know, I just read the other night a long piece to that effect in, of all places, "The American Conservative," which is a conservative magazine. It's not just liberals or progressives or people on the left who are concerned about this. It's intriguing to me that over on the right, people are beginning to make, in some way, the same argument about these wide disparities that you're making.

STEVE FRASER: Yes. This is this is true. And it was true again in the in the late 19th century. You had the denunciation of this amassing of wealth and the kind of callous cold blooded lack of concern for the poor and working people by all kinds of Evangelical Christians. Something we find so amazing today. Here we live in a society that's saturated in a kind of a Christian moralizing of our family values and other matters. But it never says a word, or rarely says a word, about the iniquities and inequities of this mammon worship that has produced all of this inequality.

snip>

STEVE FRASER: The greatest single difference between the first Gilded Age and the second is what I call the great silence. That is to say, the first Gilded Age was informed by enormous resistance to this amassing of wealth and political power in the hands of the small elite.

There were labor uprisings. And very bloody ones. The Homestead Strike in 1892. The Pullman Strike of 1894. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The Great Uprising of 1886. Massive uprisings with whole communities joining in resistance to the power of coal mine wealth and railroad wealth and other forms of industrial wealth.

BILL MOYERS: Having read in that period, I know what you mean when you talk about the general outrage, the sense of indignation that motivated political forces, union forces.

STEVE FRASER: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: Popular uprisings. Where is the outrage today?

STEVE FRASER: Where is the outrage today? I don't know. To some degree, it's what we've been talking about. It's the falling in love with the free market. The chance for every man to be a speculator, to quote myself. The get rich quick. But my own view is that this is changing. And I think 2006, the off year elections, already signaled a change where you began to hear the voices of the economic populism, and which used to be very loud within the Democratic Party. But were not if not silenced, very subdued during the last quarter of the 20th century. But you're beginning to hear them again. And now, the country is facing a profound set of crises, which I would suggest will open the door to this kind of …

[Ghost Dog]

81. Ok, Here's the song for today (Leonard Cohen):

(a bit slow loading, just now): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_drEFOaPaK8

Lyrics ( http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/THE-FUTURE-lyrics-Leonard-Cohen/A77873BA639BF30D48256AF0002911C7 ):

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant.

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I was the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's RIDING crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide ...

There'll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and a white man dancing
You'll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'.

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide ...

When they said REPENT REPENT ...

[specimenfred1984]

101. Here's what I posted on another board, I suggest everyone listen

70% of Americans are "invested in the Military complex. We're a fascist country that sells death. We create wars to sell our products in, create crisis to fuel hatred, perpetuate violence and sell to both sides, promote cheap labor slavery, have torture camps, have a huge propaganda network, have a corrupt crony government and rigged elections, have a for-profit health care industry, a criminal insurance racket (AIG for example), a paid-off corporate media, the list goes on and on and on.

"Investing" in America at this time is investing in crime.

I'll add that the huge corrupt funds like Madoff's know no international boundaries as evidenced by the numerous foreign governments involved in his fraud. You can take your money and "invest" it directly into this mess but just know that you, yes you, are perpetuating worldwide horror.

[Ghost Dog]

114. Very well said, specimenfred1984.

Nothing to add to that, except, maybe, you still have some foreign ("alien") also deeply-hurt friends.

[ozymandius]

110. End of the day stuffs.

Dow 8,564.53 Down 65.15 (0.75%)
Nasdaq 1,508.34 Down 32.38 (2.10%)
S&P 500 868.57 Down 11.16 (1.27%)
10-Yr Bond 2.533% Down 0.056
NYSE Volume 5,020,730,500
Nasdaq Volume 1,693,853,625

4:25 pm : Stocks struggled as investors grappled with ongoing uncertainty and the threat of continued losses from the financial sector.

The fate of the Big Three automakers remains uncertain, even though the White House signaled that a more thorough relief plan for automakers is on the way. While the comments aim to reassure investors, details remain absent. There has been no detail on timing, amounts, or terms. General Motors (GM 4.08, +0.14) and Ford (F 3.18, +0.14) both finished higher.

Financials (-4.0%) made up the session's worst performers, thanks to notable weakness in major banks like JPMorgan Chase (JPM 28.63, -2.31) and Bank of America (BAC 14.14, -0.79). JPMorgan had its shares downgraded to Underperform by analysts at Merrill Lynch, citing exposure to lending markets. Shares of Bank of America suffered on related weakness. Reports indicated Bank of America is laying off top executives, which follows announcements last week that the bank will cut between 30,000 and 35,000 employees from its workforce.

Investors also sent shares of Goldman Sachs (GS 66.46, -1.28) and Morgan Stanley (MS 13.64, -0.21) lower. Shares of the former investment banks have been shunned in recent sessions as investors anticipate heavy losses from the pair when they report quarterly results Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

Losses stemming from the financial sector have wreaked havoc on the broader financial system and, in turn, the economy. November industrial production slipped 0.6%, which was about in-line with expectations, but reflects the underlying weak trend. In November, manufacturing output fell a sharp 1.4%.

The recent drops suggest business retrenchment is underway as production is now down 5.5% over the past year. Declines of about 0.5% per month are likely in the immediate months ahead.

Such trends have the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) fighting to kick-start lending in order to induce economic growth. As such, fed funds futures imply a reduction to the fed funds target rate is certain. There is currently a 66% implied probability the target rate will be cut to 0.25% from 1.00%. There is a 34% implied probability the rate will be cut to 0.5%.

The expected drop in interest rates combined with weak economic conditions has currency traders rotating out of U.S. dollars. The greenback slipped roughly 1.6% against a basket of major foreign currencies.

The dollar's slide helped fuel an early advance in commodities such as natural gas, gold, silver, and crude oil. Crude was up as much as 8.2% during the session, but came under pressure as the threat of a production cut from OPEC was no longer a surprise. Crude prices already advanced more than 10% last week alone. OPEC meets Wednesday and is expected to cut daily production by 2 million barrels.

The initial gains helped the energy and materials sectors stand out as early leaders. Energy was up 2.7% at its session high, while the materials sector was up 2.2% at its session high. However, the gains turned to losses as sellers extended their reach and oil went on the slide. Energy finished 0.3% lower, while materials shed 0.4%.

All 10 of the major economic sectors settled lower, which contrasts with the broad-based gains sported shortly after the session's opening bell.

European stocks also traded with weakness, despite sporting gains through the first half of their session. France's CAC shed 0.9%, while Germany's DAX dropped 0.2% and London's FTSE fell 0.1%.

Asian markets fared far better, though their markets were closed before weakness crept into U.S. markets. Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 2.0%. Japan's Nikkei climbed 5.2%.DJ30 -65.15 NASDAQ -32.38 NQ100 -2.1% R2K -3.4% SP400 -2.6% SP500 -11.16 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 679/1.68 bln/2074 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 818/1.21 bln/2309

[tclambert]

117. For a moment I thought that said, "End of Days stuff"

and I thought, "Darn, I missed the Rapture again?"

[DemReadingDU]

113. PBGC Agency that protects pension plans may be in jeopardy

12/14/08 Agency that protects pension plans may be in jeopardy
Federal agency may need a bailout, too
BY SUSAN TOMPOR

As the Detroit Three wrestle with survival, the odds are good that the federal agency that protects pension plans at auto companies and elsewhere could one day need billions in taxpayer dollars to bail it out, too.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. was already in the hole before the stock market meltdown and the credit freeze shut down U.S. economic growth this fall.

More public companies are expected to file for bankruptcy next year. And who knows how many pension plans will fail?

"There's tremendous uncertainty as to what the PBGC might get hit with," said Frank Todisco, senior pension fellow for the American Academy of Actuaries in Washington.

Disaster is not right around the corner. So, retirees don't need to worry if they're collecting a pension check from Michigan's long-gone companies, such as Hughes & Hatcher stores, McLouth Steel Corp. or Diamond Reo Trucks. Since the 1970s, the pension agency has taken over about 310 defined benefit plans for companies based in Michigan.

About 43,000 people covered by all plans nationwide that were turned over to the PBGC have Michigan addresses, including about 22,000 retirees collecting benefits now. The rest can apply for benefits when they reach their plan's retirement age.

Last year, auto supplier Collins & Aikman Corp. had its plan taken over by the PBGC.

Ultimately, though, the PBGC could see more troubles.

more...
http://www.freep.com/article/20081214/COL07/812140472/1002/BUSINESS

[Dr.Phool]

115. Well, they might as well take the rest of mine.

They've already cut me so many times, I wouldn't miss it.