STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday December 31

[ozymandius]

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday December 31, 2008

DAYS REMAINING IN THE * REGIME = 20

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 who predicted the Dow's precipitous return on Bush values (9/29/08): JuneBourder and AnneD

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON December 30, 2008

Dow... 8,668.39 +184.46 (+2.17%)
Nasdaq... 1,550.70 +40.38 (+2.67%)
S&P 500... 890.64 +21.22 (+2.44%)
Gold future... 870.00 -5.30 (-0.61%)
30-Year Bond 2.58% -0.04 (-1.60%)
10-Yr Bond... 2.09% -0.01 (-0.43%)

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

Market Conditions During Trading Hours

GOLD,EURO, YEN, Loonie and Silver

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Read more: du

[ozymandius]

1. Market WrapUp

Assorted Tidbits
BY FRANK BARBERA, CMT

As we close 2008 and get ready to ring in the New Year, I thought that in today’s abbreviated WrapUp I would point out a few important technical markers for the various markets. While the trading action in the stock market has been lack luster of late, with low volume dominating the end of year trade, the overall chart configuration for the S&P still has at least some near term promise. As I see it, key resistance for the S&P is well defined at the 915 to 920 area and any move above that zone would be a recipe for higher prices in the early going of 2009. Mind you, I am still very cautious with regard to the stock market as the outlook for the first half of 2008 is bound to be one of continued turmoil and a down market. Yet, I believe that the counter trend rally that began in late November could possibly extend itself into the early to middle portion of January.

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

-lotsa charts-

[ozymandius]

2. Today's Report

08:30 Initial Claims 12/27
Briefing.com 560K
Consensus 575K
Prior 586K

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

[UpInArms]

30. Initial Claims @ 492,000 - last week unchanged

01. U.S. weekly initial jobless claims fall 94,000 to 492,000
8:31 AM ET, Dec 31, 2008

02. US 4-week average claims down 5,750 to 552,250
8:31 AM ET, Dec 31, 2008

03. U.S. continuing jobless claims rise 140,000 to 4.51 million
8:31 AM ET, Dec 31, 2008

04. U.S. 4-week avg continuing claims up 103,750 to 4.42 million
8:31 AM ET, Dec 31, 2008

05. U.S. insured unemployment rate at 25-year high
8:31 AM ET, Dec 31, 2008

[ozymandius]

56. Don't pay much attention to these numbers this week.

The holiday skews the sampling. Next week's numbers will be unreliable as well.

[ozymandius]

3. Oil falls below $39 in light New Year's Eve trade

SINGAPORE – Oil prices fell below $39 a barrel Wednesday in Asia in light New Year's Eve trading as investors pondered a global economic slowdown that's dragged crude down some 60 percent this year.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery fell 70 cents to $38.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Singapore. The contract overnight fell 99 cents to $39.03.

....

One gauge of U.S. oil demand, the weekly oil inventories report by the U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Administration, is expected to show on Wednesday that oil stocks fell 1.75 million barrels last week, according to the average of estimates in a survey of analysts by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

....

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures fell 0.38 cent to 88 cents a gallon. Heating oil dropped 1.65 cent to $1.27 a gallon while natural gas for February delivery decreased 2.4 cents to $5.64 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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

[ozymandius]

7. Gasoline buying down 2.9 pct in Christmas week

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. retail gasoline demand dropped sharply during the normally travel-heavy Christmas holiday week as economic gloom continued to cut into consumer spending, according to a MasterCard SpendingPulse report released Tuesday.

Gasoline demand averaged 9.134 million barrels per day during the week ending December 26, down 2.9 percent from the previous week and down 3.8 percent from the same week a year ago, according to the weekly report.

....

The four-week moving average for gasoline demand, which is often more indicative of long-term trends, was down 3.0 percent compared to year-ago levels, according to MasterCard. Year-to-date, gasoline demand was running 3.2 percent below 2007, the report said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081230/us_nm/us_usa_gasoline_demand

[Roland99]

57. How many were snowed in, though?

[ozymandius]

4. World markets closing out 2008 with a whimper

LONDON – European stock markets opened higher Wednesday following Wall Street's rally in the previous session but were on course to end 2008 sharply lower following unprecedented turmoil in the financial markets over the last 12 months.

In very modest New Year's Eve trade, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 45.32 points, or 1.0 percent, at 4,438.00, while France's CAC-40 rose 32.79 points, or 1.0 percent, at 3,249.92. Both indexes will be open only half the day, while Germany's DAX was closed for the New Year holiday.

Earlier, the handful of markets open in Asia ended the year mixed. In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 152 points, or 1.1 percent, to end at 14,387.48 — 48 percent lower than when the year began. Australia's key index added 1.9 percent but stock averages in Mumbai, Shanghai, Malaysia and Singapore fell modestly. Markets in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand were closed for the holiday.

In the U.S., Wall Street was set to close the year with a whimper, with futures markets mixed slightly after Tuesday's advance on the news that General Motors Corp.'s troubled financing arm received $5 billion of financing through the U.S. government's bank rescue program. The Dow Jones industrial average was predicted to open 6 points lower at 8,634 while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index was set to open 0.2 points higher at 888.40.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081231/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

[snot]

83. Do non-U.S. markets have Plunge Prot'n Teams?

I'm wondering if they're a better indicator of real expectations . . .

[ozymandius]

5. More economic pain seen in 2009

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Investors said good riddance on Wednesday to one of the worst years on record and prayed that massive government rescue plans will pull the global economy out of its fierce tailspin later in the new year.

But more pain is expected in the near-term as bleak economic reports roll in, signaling more bankruptcies, bad debts and layoffs through at least early 2009, and more sleepless nights for everyone from central bankers to consumers struggling to pay off mortgages and credit card bills.

....

MORE BAD NEWS

Tuesday brought more dismal economic news in the United States, with single-family home prices down 18 percent in October from a year earlier and consumer confidence plunging to a record low due to severe job cuts.

....

The new year will also mark attempts by global policymakers to overhaul outdated regulatory systems to head off future crises and give them more power to oversee increasingly complex financial products such as derivatives, which have complicated efforts to fix the latest financial mess.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081231/ts_nm/us_financial

[ozymandius]

6. December consumer confidence drops to all-time low

NEW YORK – The outlook for the economy isn't expected be any sunnier with the government's release of weekly jobless claims on Wednesday.

While the Labor Department's tally of initial jobless benefit claims for the week ending Dec. 27 is expected to drop, new claims are still stuck at elevated levels.

The data follow separate reports Tuesday confirming the grim economic view, showing consumer confidence and housing prices have plummeted to all-time lows.

Illustrating the depths of the recession, consumer confidence hit a more than 40-year low in December in the face of rising layoffs, while home prices in 10 major U.S. cities dropped in October by the sharpest amount in 21 years.

....

The Consumer Confidence Index measured by the Conference Board, a private research group, fell to 38 in December from a revised 44.7 in November. That is its lowest point since the group began compiling the index in 1967, and below the previous low of 38.8 in October. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected the index to rise incrementally to 45.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081231/ap_on_bi_ge/economy

[Demeter]

8. First Rec! Good Morning, Ozy!

What fresh hell awaits? I've got 5 inches to shovel...In a 10F windchill. I think I'm canceling today.

[ozymandius]

10. Good morning Demeter!

:donut: :donut: :donut:

It's just cold and crisp down here. I think the outside temperature is a good metaphor for today's markets: numbing. The sentiment that I gather says that everyone is just waiting for this poo-pie of a year to be done.

[ozymandius]

9. UBS of Switzerland Sells Shares in Bank of China

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank, sold its stake in Bank of China Ltd. to raise cash as a three-year lockup period ended today.

Zurich-based UBS said in a statement that it sold 3.4 billion H-shares to professional investors. UBS earned a profit of approximately $400 million from the sale today, said a person familiar with the terms, who declined to be identified.

The bank “remains committed to its business relationship with Bank of China and to its business in China as a whole,” it said in the statement. “It’s a normal action” by UBS after the lock-up period expired, said Wang Zhaowen, Bank of China’s Beijing-based spokesman. The sale “shouldn’t affect the bank’s share price since all its operations are doing well.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJK9z9Tqx.Vw&refer=home

---

How much was the need for cash attached to all that good advice Enron Phil gave to UBS?

[ozymandius]

11. Home Prices Fell at Their Sharpest Pace in October

How bad has the housing market gotten? With home values dropping by faster rates each month, a real estate agent near Detroit said that if houses weren’t priced as low as foreclosures, they simply would not sell.

That grim assessment underscored numbers released Tuesday showing that home prices in 20 metropolitan areas across the country dropped at a record rate of 18 percent in October from a year earlier as the fallout from the financial collapse reverberated through the housing market.

According to the measure, the Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller Home Price Index, all 20 cities surveyed reported one-year price declines in October. Prices in 14 of the 20 metropolitan areas fell at a record rate.

....

Prices in every metropolitan area in Case-Shiller’s 20-city index dropped from September to October, and six of them — Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington, Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla. — posted record one-month declines. The index excludes many midsize metropolitan areas and some large cities, like Houston and Philadelphia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/business/economy/31econ.html?bl&ex=1230872400&en=c1bcc051da7314bf&ei=5087%0A

[ozymandius]

16. Falling House Prices: It's Worse Than It Looks (lag time in reports)

It is important to remember that the index averages sale prices over the three months from September through November. Sales contracts are typically signed 6-8 weeks before sales are closed. This means that the contracts for the homes sold during this period were mostly written up in the months July through September. Most data show the economy turning sharply lower in September, which means that two of the three months in which the contracts in the October index were signed preceded the sharp downturn.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=12&year=2008&base_name=falling_house_prices_its_worse

[ozymandius]

27. Atrios evokes the name "Dr. Doom"

I've not exactly been Mr. Positive on the economy, but I'm starting to enter Dr. Doom territory.

[Demeter]

12. Dave Lindorff: A Car Dealer Explains Why the Bailout is a Raw Deal

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lindorff/177

A brief conversation I had earlier this week with a car dealership executive while standing in a post office line demonstrated simply both why the bank deregulation and consolidation process of the past two decades has been a screw job for ordinary people, and why the Washington bailout has been both a taxpayer rip-off and a failure (if it was even intended to work!)...I was chatting with the guy standing behind me who works at one of the 14 dealerships in a Philadelphia-area regional family-owned chain of GM dealerships called Bergey's. Noting that a number of big dealers such as Knopf (a Chrysler dealer) and McGarrity's (Ford) had been closing, I asked this Bergey's manager if the problem was that the banks had frozen lending, making it hard for people to buy new cars.

He laughed. "There's no problem getting car loans from the small community banks around our dealerships," he said. "They've got plenty of money to lend, and they're happy to lend it to car buyers. The problem is that people are too worried about the economy and about their jobs to go out and buy a new car."

And that's it in a nutshell. The so-called "credit freeze" is a problem afflicting the giant national and global banks, such as Citibank and Bank of America, which went on a tear with all of those derivative investments and loans, such as CDOs and subprime mortgages, and which have been pushing credit on consumers with usurious rates that could only lead to default eventually. Most smaller community banks, many of them family owned or privately held, credit unions, and S&Ls (which were suitably chastened by their own disastrous scandals of two decades ago), have been lending responsibly and are fully solvent and happy to extend credit to people who are credit-worthy. The big banks may be technically insolvent, and in desperate need of federal bailouts lest they go under and leave their investors holding the empty bag, but the small banks that serve most of the nation's ordinary folks have a different problem. They themselves aren't insolvent, but their clients are -- or at least they are worried that they might become that way.

That's why they aren't buying houses and seeking mortgages, and it's why they aren't buying cars.

What's needed, clearly, is not money for the big commercial banks that got greedy and ran into a ditch. It's support for the American people, so that they don't have to hunker down into a crouch and not continue to participate in the economy.

When you see foreclosed signs going up along your own street, it makes you start worrying about making your own mortgage payments. When one in eight people are losing their jobs, just about everyone with a job starts to have friends and relatives who are out of work, and that paycheck starts to seem pretty precarious.

The hundreds of billions of dollars paid to and invested in big commercial banks that don't do much for the little guy anyway is doing nothing at all to ease that pain and anxiety among the grassroots. Instead, it's just being pocketed by bank managers and rich investors to be put to a "higher" use somewhere else than on a depressed "Main Street." (Note that the government has put no strings on the money, much of which is being used to buy other banks, or even to lend overseas.)

That's why all those car dealerships are folding.

This brings me to that feeding frenzy of bank deregulation I mentioned earlier. The whole idea of allowing the creation of national banks such as Citibank and Bank of America and Wells Fargo, and of going one step further and allowing banks to merge with brokerages and insurance companies, which began in earnest during the Clinton Administration and went ballistic in the Bush Administration, was deceptively marketed to the public as being "good for the consumer." The come-on was that by allowing state and regional banks to merge into national institutions, and by allowing them to add investment banking and insurance operations, consumers would get more services from their bank and have the supposed "advantage" of "one-stop shopping" at their bank.

Anyone who watched it happen, however, saw how bogus that claim was. I lived in New York City as it was going on, and as banks such as Citibank bought up their competitors, fees began to appear for services that had no fees before, such as checking and even passbook savings, savings accounts began to require minimum deposits, CD interest rates fell as penalties proliferated, and small loans became harder to get. Some banks actually began to state, at least to analysts and to reporters in the financial press, that they were no longer interested in serving "small" clients, and were instituting measures designed to discourage them or drive existing small clients away.

Soon, it was impossible in many neighborhoods of New York to find a bank to serve ordinary people.

As a matter of fact, these big banks don't even help when it comes to "big bank"-type stuff. Consider international finance activities such as foreign currency exchange. When my wife, a harpsichordist, came home last week from a month-long tour of performances in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, she had with her $1,000 worth of Taiwanese currency -- the fee for a gig that she had not had time to change into U.S. currency while in Taiwan or Hong Kong, where such transactions are commonplace and inexpensive. Back in Philadelphia, we called around to the big commercial banks -- all global institutions -- to see if they could change the money. They could, but at an absurd cost. Take Citibank. That institution said it would only change up to $700 worth of bills unless my wife had an account with them, and in any event, it was offering a rate of 39.5 Taiwanese dollars to one U.S. dollar -- way worse than the posted rate that day of 33.5/1. In other words, they were willing to change up to $700 worth of currency, but at a cost of 18%, plus a $10 fee! That means they're making 35% on a two-way conversion of currency! Thanks a lot! The other banks were no better.

Want another example? Bank of America was a big recipient of taxpayer funded bailout money from the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank. But it has refused to lend money to Republic Windows & Doors Co., a factory in Chicago, that has been forced to close and lay off its 300 workers with only three days' notice, foregoing the legally required 60-days' pay and earned vacation pay. This is a story that will be repeated more and more. At Republic, the workers, members of the United Electrical Workers union, are fighting back with a sit-down strike demanding their money. If you want to support them, go to Union Voice Campaign.

It's all been a scam, and now we're seeing the result: banks have become so huge and their tentacles have been allowed to reach into so many parts of the economy, that all of the national ones are deemed "too big to fail." Hence the outrageous bailout, which now has the government pledged to back over $8 trillion in bank debts. (We're talking about a government, remember, that is itself was already technically insolvent).

So back to my car dealer in the post office line. "We're not going to see things get better until people are confident enough in their incomes to invest in a new car," he said.

How will we get there? Certainly not by keeping Citibank or Bank of America afloat. Those big banks should all be busted up, with the fragments left to compete, and to sink or swim along with the rest of the nation's banks. No bank should be national in scope, and no banking institution should be able to extort federal aid by claiming it is "too big to fail."

Instead of bailing out the big banks and their investors, the government should be expanding and making more generous the nation's unemployment compensation program, which has always been scandalously inadequate both in the percentage of the unemployed who are covered, and in the size of the checks paid out, as well as the duration of the benefit. It should be expanding welfare benefits. It should be establishing a program to help people in danger of foreclosure to stay in their homes (note: only the wealthy get tax subsidies, in the form of 100% deductibility of mortgage interest rate payments -- those too poor to use itemized deductions get no help). And it should be establishing a major program of publicly funded jobs for those whose employers have gone bust.

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

[ozymandius]

15. Couple of things:

One-stop shopping for financial services: That's code for putting every egg you own in one basket. Businesses make a killing from marketing to people's sloth. One-stop shopping curbs a major hassle known as the 'thought process' from making a reasoned and compared decision.

The car dealer is right. Nothing will improve until money, a.k.a. 'confidence', reaches the hands of those who will use it.

[Hugin]

26. It's that 'Jobs and Wages' crisis I was discussing earlier this week.

This crisis will continue until that major issue is addressed.

I'm beginning to think that TPTB like it this way and that's why there is no discussion
of addressing the issue among 'Business Leaders' and 'Politicians'.

[tclambert]

77. That's right. It's all about jobs.

How can somebody without a job buy a new car? Why would somebody afraid they might lose their job buy a new car? Who is confident enough about their future job prospects to commit to a three-year car loan?

[tclambert]

78. And you're right. TPTB like an indecently high unemployment figure.

I remember reading years and years ago that the business community doesn't like unemployment to be too low. Then they might have to compete with other companies for workers. Why, they might have to pay their workers more! And provide better benefits and working conditions. They might even have to treat lowly workers with respect. Oh, the horror!

[Tansy_Gold]

19. Lindorff's only error

C'mon. You knew it was coming.


He rightly advocates increasing unemployment compensation and public project employment, but nothing is mentioned about bringing jobs, real jobs, back into the American economy.

How can we do that?

1. Return the income tax on upper level incomes to pre-Reagan levels, so The Rich pay more. Restore higher taxes on short-term capital gains so those who are making a killing (of us, of our jobs, of our economy) on Wall Street pay for the damage they're doing.

2. LOWER the income taxes on lower incomes. You can pick your spot; Obama seems to have settled on $250,000. If you like that, that's fine. It allows for incentive and still keeps the economy solvent.

3. Establish meaningful income tax levies on corporations, especially those that are based outside the U.S. Require that corporations receiving tax breaks from communities as incentives to locate declare such tax breaks as income for federal income tax purposes. (David Kay Johnston ought to be speaking out on this.)

4. Restore the inheritance tax as a tax on unearned income. That's what it is. You can have exemptions for surviving spouses. You can have exemptions for operating businesses (including the sacrosanct family farm). And knowing that the inheritance is going to be taxed, financial plans can be established well in advance of the death.

What all this does is keep the money circulating, keeps it from stagnating in the hands of a few parasitically wealthy.

It does not eliminate private property or private investment. It does not restrict innovation and entrepreneurship. Instead it funds government and keeps the economy healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Americans, much like the elephant in the opening cartoon, have had it very good for a very long time. A lot of "them" may have to go through a painful period of adjusting to consuming less, especially less cheap plastic crap from china (CPCC??). We need to sober up and pay the bar tab.



Tansy Gold, who will only be drinking Sprite tonight.

[Demeter]

20. Morning, Tansy!

Lindorff has addressed that issue before, too. He's a grassroots type.

It's the end of an era. You should at least have a little caffeine. Maybe chocolate?

[ozymandius]

22. I like this plan.

I also would add that we should lower FICA deductions on lower income individuals and raise the cap on maximum taxable income from $90k (thanks to Greenscam for this policy decision) to "unlimited". The deduction will put more money in the hands of people who spend it and the cap removal will provide greater support for the Social Security (always one of Greenscam's favorite targets) and its related services.

[Tansy_Gold]

28. ITA on SS, Ozy

Not only should FICA taxes be more equitable, but they can then be used partly for expanded health care coverage. I'm sorry, but the person raking in $25million in 90 days can AFFORD to fund health care for a few more people.

But that's another whole issue, and FICA funds should be in a (virtual) lockbox, not related to jobs and taxes and so on.

HOWEVER, if the whole issue of medical insurance were addressed and the goddess-damned-to-the-deepest-pit-of-non-existent-hell insurance companies were abolished, what kind of improved system would we have?

Well, the whole issue of "profits" on health insurance would be eradicated. All those layers of skimming would go away, so $100 would buy $100 worth of health care, not $10 of health "insurance."

What we've done in this country is elevate unearned wealth to the status of God's grace, quite literally. Thank you Jim Bakker and "God don't like junk" when defending his gold-plated bathroom hardware. We need a cultural awakening to the point that real work isn't denigrated to the status of pariah.

speaking of which, I need to get back to my "real work."



Tansy Gold

[Hugin]

31. Seconded! (Thirded?)

On the "Job Security Crisis", I'm sure not going to sign any papers obligating myself to
pay on anything for more than a Week under the current conditions.

3 years for a car? 30 years for a house? :sarcasticguffaw: No way.

[ozymandius]

35. Please pardon my ignorance - but what does ITA mean?

It's not in the DU glossary.

Speaking of unearned wealth - I've heard that some vultures who made a killing on the S&L crisis in the late 80's to early 90's are circling again to tear scraps from the banking bailout money.

[Hugin]

37. "I Totally Agree"... Like totally, man!

:D

http://www.internetslang.com/ITA.asp <--- Might want to bookmark this link, dude!

Slammin'

[ozymandius]

40. Thanks!

Suddenly, I feel a generation has lapped me.

[Hugin]

41. YW! NP!

TMAI!

LOL

EOM

[snot]

85. Tansy, if you don't have your own column/featured blog somewhere, you should.

[Tansy_Gold]

89. Oh, my goodness! Thank you, snot!

What a wonderful treat to wake up to on the first day of the new year!

No, I don't have a featured column or even blog, and right now I'm up to my eyes in alligators trying to keep my financial house together so I don't have nearly the time to write that I would like, but I'm so grateful for your kind words of appreciation and encouragement.

The Happiest of New Years to you and yours, snot!



Tansy Gold, not hung over because she stuck to Sprite

[Roland99]

39. mmmm... I loves me some Trickle Down

Scrumptious to the last drop (of blood from the consumer)

[dixiegrrrrl]

69. Lots of "shoulds" there.

And golly gee, here is an "if"..
IF we had a government ( read: congress critters, DOJ, and other gov't agencies)
that gave a damn about the citizens, then all this in-broad-daylight bank robbing would not be tolerated.
But...as a rule....all us Dems have been so civilized and like to talk TO and ABOUT the problem so much, it is easy for the thieves to nod and give lip service and lie and then blatantly go ahead and steal.
Not enough people seem to realize we are truly dealing with sociopathic behavior in Government.
And sociopaths could care less about being talked to.
They only understand force, power, and handcuffs.
Period.

[snot]

84. Wish I cd rec this.

[ozymandius]

13. SEC Study Defends Fair-Value Accounting Rule

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday rejected calls by banks to suspend an accounting rule blamed for exacerbating the financial crisis, saying the "fair- value" standard should instead be improved.

"Fair-value accounting did not appear to play a meaningful role in the bank failures that occurred in 2008," the regulator said in a statement. The SEC study, ordered by Congress, recommends changing accounting for so-called impaired securities and giving companies more guidance on determining the value of investments in inactive markets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/30/AR2008123003035.html

---

more info here from the WSJ

[Demeter]

14. $1.6B Of Bank Bailout Went To Execs

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/21/business/main4680508.shtml

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2008(AP) Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well-paid in the first place."

The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help.

AND IT GOES INTO EXCRUCIATING DETAIL AT THE LINK....

[Demeter]

18. US bank chiefs pressured to waive bonuses

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b285dd10-ca12-11dd-93e5-000077b07658.html

By Saskia Scholtes, Deborah Brewster and Francesco Guerrera

Published: December 14 2008 19:22 | Last updated: December 14 2008 19:22

Top bank executives are facing growing pressure to forgo bonuses this year after dismal earnings and infusions of capital from the US Treasury have made such payments increasingly controversial.

The majority of banks that have accepted government money under the Treasury’s capital purchase programme will decide in the coming weeks on executive bonuses for 2008. But many executives admit that bonuses would be regarded as inappropriate at banks that have suffered losses, particularly if they have also accepted government capital infusions.

See Table at Link

US bank chiefs’ bonuses

Rick Waddell, chief executive of Northern Trust, said: “I have to say, it will be very difficult for me to accept a bonus in this environment,” although he added the year was not yet over and the final quarter still had to be taken into consideration.

Northern Trust, which recently reported its first quarterly loss in 21 years, applied for and received a preferred stock capital infusion from the US Treasury although the bank is well capitalised.

Mr Waddell said: “Compensation is an area that needs to be looked at in the light of the government money.”

Executives at several large banks, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, have said they will give up their bonuses amid calls for highly paid executives to share the pain of the financial crisis...

AND THE BREAST-BEATING GOES ON AND ON AT LINK...

[Demeter]

17. Australian lawyer serves papers via Facebook

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2173bf7c-cb57-11dd-ba02-000077b07658.html

By Peter Smith in Sydney

Published: December 16 2008 09:52 | Last updated: December 16 2008 19:21

An Australian court has allowed a solicitor to use Facebook to serve legal documents on a couple who defaulted on a housing loan in what the social networking site believes is the first case of its kind.

Mark McCormack, a Canberra solicitor – and keen Facebook user – who is acting on behalf of the lender, said the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court had allowed him to serve the papers after more conventional attempts to leave documents at the couple’s last known address had failed.
Australian courts have previously allowed judgments to be delivered via e-mail, while a rugby league star who walked out early on his contract with a Sydney club to play for Toulon this year was notified of proceedings via SMS text message.

However, Facebook said the use of the networking site in the Australian case was thought to be the first of its kind.

Mr McCormack said using Facebook to contact people who had fled was a logical next step for solicitors and it had been easy to track down the couple.

“In their loan application document, they provided an e-mail address. We typed the address of one of them into the Facebook search engine and it came back with only one Facebook profile matching that address.

“We then entered that profile and some of the information on it matched the information in the loan application,” he said. This included their names, dates of birth and listing each other as “friends”, which also persuaded the court the right people had been found.

Facebook, whose 140m active users make it the world’s most popular social networking site, said users could adjust optional privacy settings to prevent anyone from outside their personal network contacting them, a move that would close off a legal manoeuvre such as Mr McCormack’s.

Users can also choose to keep their existence on Facebook secret from internet search engines, though that would not stop someone who is already a member on Facebook from searching for them on the site.

Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said the case was “an interesting indication of the increasing role that Facebook is playing in people’s lives”.

“We’re pleased to see the Australian court validate Facebook as a reliable, secure and private medium for communication,” Mr Kelly said.

[Hugin]

32. So long Facebook.

:hi:

It's long been Virtual Conventional Wisdom that once the use of the Internet or an
Internet Service moves to being a Self-conscious act, it has jumped the shark.

3rd Edit: Ah! I found it. "Notes on the Synthesis of Form" by Christopher Alexander.

Check out the whole book Here... http://books.google.com/books?id=Kh3T3XFUfPQC

[Soylent Brice]

21. proud to be the 5th rec

keep on rockin' Ozy

[ozymandius]

23. Thanks!

We all here appreciate that boost to be among "The Greatest".

:toast:

[Soylent Brice]

first thing i read every morning

everybody should be watching this shit.

[UpInArms]

24. dollar watch

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

Last trade 81.273 Change +0.565 (+0.73%)

Taking Advantage of Risk Aversion

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/topheadline/Top_Forex_Trades_for_2009_1229714797330.html

n 2008, a perfect storm hit the world financial markets, flooding hundreds of firms to the level of bankruptcy and forcing many investors to liquidate their leveraged positions. Many were quick to blame Wall Street, but only history will tell what was the real cause behind such a terrible year from an economic stand point. The truth is that the biggest housing and credit bubble in history continues to threat the entire global financial system and the once resilient global economy is slowly succumbing to tight credit conditions. In fact, I expect more pain in 2009, possibly triggered by a second wave of de-leveraging in the financial sector and by more payment defaults in the U.S. mortgage sector. Having said that, I expect risk aversion to dictate most of next year’s price action in the currency market which will probably help lower yielding currencies like the Japanese yen and safe-heaven currencies like the U.S. dollar. On the other hand, with the global economy slowing down is reasonable to think that the demand for commodities will also begin to slow down which could make the Australian and the Canadian Dollars very vulnerable going forward. I have been short AUD/JPY since the beginning of October 2008 and I expect the Australian dollar to fall to 50 yen in the first half of 2009.

...more...

Pound Finds Support Despite Looming BoE Rate Cut

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/bio1/Pound_Finds_Support_Despite_Looming_1230719265625.html

The Pound found some support as the curtain is about to close on European markets for 2008 rising over 100 bps from its session low of 1.4420. Early price action was subdued as a half day for equity markets, the pending New Year and an empty economic calendar was a recipe for a quiet end to the year. However, the thin volume has left the cable susceptible to swings due to institutional buying.

The New Year will start with a slew of event risk for the Pound with mortgage approvals on the first day of trading and a BoE rate decision the following week. The housing market is expected to continue to show weakness as new loans are expected to remain at a record low of 32,000. Also, the U.K. PMI manufacturing indicator is due out next week with expectations that tot will set a fresh record low of 33.6. The deepening recession for the country has increased expectations that the central bank will continue its aggressive easing policy with a 50-100 bps rate cut. Therefore, we may see the Sterling come under pressure as we near the policy decision.

After some initial volatility attributed to selling from a medium sized German house which sent it as low as 1.4050, Euro trading has quieted down ahead of the Holiday. Markets are still expecting more easing from the ECB at their January 15th meeting despite recent comments from ECB president Trichet. In an interview with the German financial daily Boersen Zeitung, saying: "We are concentrating at present on the impact of our previous decisions", the central bank leader tried to temper expectations for additional rate cuts. However, with inflation falling at an accelerating rate the threat of deflation looms and further easing may be needed to maintain the MPC’s mandate of price stability.

U.S. initial jobless claims will provide the final piece of event risk of 2008. Forecasts are that they will remain above 500,000 for a seventh week. Although we are still far from the early eighties which saw claims above 600,000 for months at a time, it doesn’t bode well for next week’s NFP report which is forecasted to show job losses of 475,000 for December. Therefore, another week of increasing unemployment rolls could provide one last bout of volatility for the dollar. However, with the New Year upon us, we will most likely see limited price action.

...more...

US Dollar Ends Day Down as Consumer Confidence Falls to Worst Level Since at Least 1967

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/dailyfx_reports/daily_fundamentals/US_Dollar_Ends_Day_Down_1230672221313.html

The US dollar ended the day down against its major counterparts as the Conference Board's consumer confidence survey reflected its worst readings since record-keeping began in 1967. Indeed, the index plunged to 38.0 in December from 47.7, with a breakdown of the survey showing a gloomy picture of the US economy. Consumers judged that business conditions had worsened, and that employment had been either less plentiful or just plan hard to get. This data suggests that consumption will weaken further in coming months, and also that the January 9 employment reports are bound to be disappointing. Adding to this sentiment, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) said that sales fell 1.8 percent in the week ending December 27 from a year earlier while sales fell 1.5 percent from the week prior. Furthermore, the group said that they expect November and December sales to fall from the first time since ICSC began tracking holiday sales in 1969 at a rate of -1.5 percent to -2 percent. Nevertheless, the direct impact of this data on the US dollar has generally been limited as the Federal Reserve has already brought interest rates to record lows, leaving the central bank with little room for maneuver.

Looking ahead through the end of the week, Wednesday’s initial and continuing jobless claims are likely to hold near their highest levels since late-1982, signaling that the unemployment rate is steadily climbing higher. On Friday, the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) index of manufacturing conditions during December may fall to the lowest levels since 1982, while the record low of 29.4 reached in May 1980 looming close below. The latter report is likely to have greater implications for the greenback, but only if liquidity picks up enough following Thursday’s market closures for the New Year’s holiday.

...more...

[UpInArms]

25. Henry Kaufman, economist latest hurt in Madoff scheme-reports

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSBNG22135620081231

Dec 31 (Reuters) - A prominent Wall Street economist, (and) Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon and his wife are the latest people to have lost money on investments connected to accused swindler Bernard Madoff, according to media reports.

Economist Henry Kaufman lost several million dollars, which he had in a brokerage account with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities for more than five years, the Wall Street Journal said, citing Kaufman in an interview on Tuesday.

The president of financial consulting firm Henry Kaufman & Co said his Madoff loss was no more than a couple of percent of his entire net worth and immaterial to his financial well-being, the paper said.

Kaufman became known for correctly forecasting higher inflation and interest rates when he was chief economist with Salomon Brothers in the 1970s and 1980s, when he acquired the moniker "Doctor Doom."

Bacon and his actress wife, Kyra Sedgwick, also lost money with Madoff, the New York magazine said on its website on Tuesday, citing Bacon's representative, Allen Eichorn.

Henry Kaufman and Kevin Bacon could not be immediately reached for comment.

...more...

this article was so poorly titled and parsed that I had to make changes - it made it sound as though Kevin Bacon was the economist in the title - and the first paragraph? argh!

[Hugin]

29. I see a Dorm Game in the works here...

Three degrees of Bernie.

Should prove popular with Economics Majors.

[Pale Blue Dot]

33. Democrats May Curtail Minimum Tax on Municipal Bonds

Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Congressional Democrats are seeking to expand funding for airport runways, housing projects and sewage-treatment plants through a new tax break for municipal bondholders.

The proposal is designed to make so-called private-activity bonds more attractive by exempting the interest on them from the alternative minimum tax. Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee that drafts tax measures, wants to include the plan in economic recovery legislation that President-elect Barack Obama has made a top priority.

“I am hopeful that my bill, which will increase demand and lower costs for state and local governments, will be a central feature of our stimulus bill next month,” said Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Neal’s proposal would reverse 23 years of policy. It aims to increase demand for private-activity bonds by mutual funds and individual investors who often avoid them because of the higher taxes and complicated paperwork under the alternative minimum tax. The legislation would apply to both newly issued bonds and those traded on the secondary market.

Neal’s bill is one of at least three proposals favoring the municipal bond market gaining steam as Democrats seek ways to fulfill Obama’s promise to steer federal funding to infrastructure projects as part of a stimulus package worth as much as $850 billion over two years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601071&sid=aFR4svM8OEVA&refer=usgovernment

[Pale Blue Dot]

34. ‘Original Sin’ Returns as Emerging Markets Plan Bonds

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Developing nations plan to sell the most dollar-denominated bonds since 2005, reversing a shift into local debt, as commodities prices fall, foreign reserves diminish and emerging-market currencies weaken.

International sales may rise 68 percent to $65 billion next year, according to estimates by ING Groep NV. Mexico raised $2 billion in a Dec. 18 offering. Peru’s Finance Minister Luis Valdivieso met with investors in New York, Boston, London and Madrid this month to drum up interest for the country’s first foreign sale in almost two years.

Governments are growing more dependent on international markets after the six-month drop in raw materials reduced earnings from exports and caused budget deficits to widen. Dollar borrowing will increase foreign-exchange risk, a pattern that led countries across Latin America to default in the 1980s, said Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Countries will be forced to issue in dollars,” said Hausmann, a former Venezuelan planning minister who called developing nations’ reliance on foreign markets the “original sin” in a 1998 article in Foreign Policy magazine. “Debt structures will deteriorate again.”

Dollar bond sales fell 43 percent in the past three years from $68 billion in 2005 as a 134 percent surge in commodities, as measured by the UBS Bloomberg CMCI Index, helped countries repay foreign obligations, according to Amsterdam-based ING. Local-currency debt offerings rose 23 percent annually since 2005, according to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aYmztmKNI68k&refer=latinamerica

[Pale Blue Dot]

36. 1,000 city employees get notice of layoffs (Toledo, OH)

The Finkbeiner administration sent out more than 1,000 layoff notices yesterday to city employees for a citywide shutdown that could last for up to a week of all nonsafety service employees.

"The number of days has yet to be determined, but the first workday would be Tuesday, Feb. 17, since that Monday is a holiday," said Robert Reinbolt, Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's chief of staff. "It will certainly be through that week. Whether it extends into the next week is yet to be determined."

The move is expected to save the city $2 million, Mr. Reinbolt said.

Mayor Finkbeiner on Dec. 23 announced the weeklong layoff of nonessential city workers. The mayor said he disagreed with a decision that week by arbitrator Robert Stein, who ruled three one-day furloughs - Nov. 26, Dec. 26, and Dec. 31 - violated city contracts with American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Locals 7 and 2058 and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 20.

The arbitrator's ruling blocked the mayor's effort to furlough city workers for those three days to save an estimated $300,000.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081231/NEWS16/812310382/-1/NEWS

[Pale Blue Dot]

38. 2009: Nowhere to go but up

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As 2008 comes to a close and stocks mark their worst year ever, 2009 will be the start of a very slow and very painful recovery.

Investors should brace for wild market swings as companies and the economy struggle to rebound. This past year was marred by horrid corporate results, record high oil and gas prices, dismal housing news and a full-blown shakeup on Wall Street.

"A fair amount of damage has been done, and earnings needs to stabilize first," said Tobias Levkovich, chief investment strategist for Citigroup. "Before the patient gets better, let's make sure his condition doesn't worsen."

On many days, analysts predict markets could tumble on poor corporate earnings and sour economic news. But optimism about the new administration and apparent success of government interventions will help stocks skyrocket on other days.

That sounds just like 2008, which witnessed four of the five worst market days ever in the Dow Jones industrial average - but also the three largest increases.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/30/markets/2009_look_ahead/index.htm

That's a very misleading title for a pretty pessimistic article.

[Tansy_Gold]

42. Did someone forget the sarcasm thingy?

:rofl:


yeah, right.



TG

[DemReadingDU]

46. That headline is definitely a chuckle

but I do think the market will go up during the first few months of Obama's administration, then decline more and more throughout 2009.

[ozymandius]

47. I'm staying really still in preparation of the 4Q economic data.

I bet that will be a stunner.

[Hugin]

49. On that... You, me, and the Chimps agree.

Although, I do feel there will be a brief honeymoon during the talk of a 'Stimulus Package'.

However, unless the package includes strong "Jobs and Wages" incentives... It won't stimulate
for long.

[ozymandius]

54. Let me see if I work this thing correctly: ITA

These new-fangled letters...

Sustained income generation is essential.

[Hugin]

58. Well done!

Now, if teh DU had an adequate array of emoticons we could dispense with language all together.

A crying shame as it took several million years to evolve a means of written communication
allowing the sharing of detailed abstract concepts and information.

Hieroglyphics... It's the Future, baby! :)

http://www.quizland.com/hiero.htm <--- Online Hieroglyphics Translator.

[AnneD]

62. Morning Marketeers......

:donut: and lurkers. Prag-thanks for my new toy. It is nice to translate 2009 is going to suck in hieroglyphics. Will work for food came out nice too. Other site to help the SWT regulars

http://freegan.info/

http://people.howstuffworks.com/freegan.htm


to get off the grid and be self sufficient

http://www.lehmans.com/sitemap/sitemapmain.jsp
my fav for hard to find supplies

food sources

http://www.budget101.com/dehydrated_foods.htm

http://www.waltonfeed.com/
staples but a lot of work

http://www.internet-grocer.net/
has promise, good variety and little cooking needed on some items-gets my hurricane experienced approval. I would ask or order a sample first to make sure it meets your palate preference.


I also recommend a good Amish or Mennonite cook book-even now. The recipes are simple but sticks to your ribs. I figure the Amish and Mennonite have been surviving for a while now without many of our amenities. They know how it's done.

[Mojorabbit]

65. Hi AnneD

I use all those sites but not internet grocer. He is a rabid right winger. I had to stop him from sending me his newsletter it was so hate filled. I asked politely and he cursed me out via email.
I use http://www.bulkfoods.com/
and a lovely person runs this site. http://www.mredepot.com/servlet/Categories?category=Freeze+Dried+Dehydrated+%26+Air+Dried+Foods

[AnneD]

68. Oh my.....

was going to give them a try as I wanted some canned items and they had MRE's. Thanks for the heads up-he's off my list. Sorry guy I do recommend Walton though. Costco has some stuff too. They are on my list to try too.


It is not unusual to run into RW nuts when you look for preserved food...RW, Mormons, and the Amish or Mennonite. I have folks I know or have met in all categories. I was treated the kindest by some Mennonite in Canada and one of my close work buddies is Mormon (we roomed together on a trip so we were up close and personal. The survivalist, esp when they get into overthrowing the government and white supremacy-are as scary as terrorist, if not more. It is holy war for them.

[Dr.Phool]

55. Hey, it's CNN.

Fox thinks we're in the land of milk and honey.

[Warpy]

63. Obviously the editors don't expect people to read the article

or they'd never have stuck such a happy talk headline on it.

Or maybe the editors couldn't be bothered to read the article.

In any case, they're going to be cleaning a lot of egg off their faces, I'm afraid. The second and heavier shoe of mortgage defaults is set to fall through 2009 and into 2010.

There is no way the economy can do anything but suck.

[tclambert]

79. Now that's how you do the "psychic" prediction thing.

"Investors should brace for wild market swings as companies and the economy struggle to rebound." So many vague terms blended with some obvious sure-fire hits, it can't help but come true.

[ozymandius]

43. 2008 Investment Guides Are HILARIOUS

Via New York Magazine, comes this amusing collection of bad forecasts for the 2008 year:

• Jon Birger, senior writer, Fortune Investors Guide 2008
Smart investors should buy (Merrill Lynch) stock before everyone else comes to their senses.”

Merrill’s shares plummeted 77 percent.

• Elaine Garzarelli, president of Garzarelli Capital, Business Week’s Investment Outlook 2008
Buy some of the most beaten-down stocks, including those of giant financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch.

As of January 1, none of these firms will still exist.

....

• Jon Birger (AGAIN!), senior writer, in Fortune Investors Guide 2008
Our bet is that in a stormy market investors will gravitate toward, GE, the ultimate blue chip.

GE’s stock price tumbled 55%, and it’s on the verge of losing its triple-A credit rating.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/2008-investment-guides-are-hilarious/

So much more...

[Hugin]

45. I've said it once and I'll say it again...

Chimps are better at picking stocks.

And Kindergardners... According to one study.

Nationalize the rating agencies!

EOL

[ozymandius]

44. Journal of a Plague Year: Faith in Markets Cracks Under Losses ($30T in losses)

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- It has been a year of record misery: the largest bankruptcy, bank failure and Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; $720 billion in writedowns and losses by financial institutions; $30.1 trillion in market valuation wiped out.

The biggest loss and the hardest thing to recover, though, may be something that can’t be precisely measured -- confidence in the markets and the firms that rely on them.

....

The price tag has been transcendent, too. Global stock markets lost about half of their value in 2008, or $30.1 trillion dollars. In the U.S., $7.2 trillion of shareholder value was wiped off the books, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 39 percent through Dec. 30 and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 42 percent.

....

The wave of writedowns and losses that swamped financial institutions around the world reached $720 billion this year. It also eroded employment: 221,360 job cuts in the financial- services industry were announced.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ataVotdLreS0&refer=exclusive

[antigop]

48. The Beautiful Machine (first of 3 parts-- gives background on attempts to manage risk)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801916.html
Greed on Wall Street and blindness in Washington certainly helped cause the financial system's crash. But a deeper explanation begins 20 years ago with a bold experiment to master the variable that has defeated so many visionaries: Risk.

Howard Sosin and Randy Rackson conceived their financial revolution as they walked along the Manhattan waterfront during lunchtime outings. They refined their ideas at late-night dinners and during breaks in their busy days as traders at the junk-bond firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert.

...
They combined forces with Barry Goldman, a Drexel colleague with a PhD in economics and a genius for constructing complex financial transactions. "Imagine what we could do," Sosin would tell Rackson and Goldman as they brainstormed in the spring of 1986.
ad_icon

The three men had earned plenty of money through short-term deals known as interest-rate swaps, a clever transaction designed to protect banks, corporations and other clients from swings in interest rates that threw uncertainty into the cost of borrowing the money necessary for their business operations.

They believed their revolution could never happen if they stayed at Drexel. Swaps in those days typically lasted no longer than two or three years. The trio envisioned deals lasting decades that would lock in profits and manage risks with unprecedented precision. But the junk-bond firm's inferior credit rating sharply raised its borrowing costs, making it a dubious and risky partner for such long-term deals.

Sosin and his team needed the backing of a company with deep pockets, a burnished reputation and the very top credit rating, a Triple A institution as unlikely to default as the U.S. Treasury itself. One name topped their wish list that fall: American International Group, or AIG, the global insurance conglomerate considered one of the world's safest bets.

[DemReadingDU]

51. here is link to the whole series

and more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/risk/index.html?hpid=topnews

[snot]

90. Great stuff, thanks!

[DemReadingDU]

50. WSJ: How Iceland Collapsed video

12/26/08 How Iceland Collapsed 13 minute video
WSJ's Andy Jordan examines how Iceland's economic miracle came to an abrupt end and explains why the world should care about the collapse of the small country's financial system.
http://online.wsj.com/video/how-iceland-collapsed/F7F0A5B0-EF8C-425C-96D0-6579D5955AFD.html

[Festivito]

52. Debt: 12/29/2008 10,554,113,905,232.00 (UP 1,338,026,004.90) (Ity-bitty.)

(Only FICA moved much, and that, not by much. Happy new year to all.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,322,709,858,350.73 + 4,231,404,046,881.30
DOWN 737,189,520.41 + UP 2,075,215,525.30
(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 21 reports in the last 30 to 31 days.
The average for the last 21 reports is -5,098,142,789.31.
The average for the last 30 days would be -3,568,699,952.52.
The average for the last 31 days would be -3,453,580,599.21.
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$/day.
There were 60 reports in 90 days of FY2009 averaging 8.82B$ per report, 5.88B$/day.

PROJECTION:
GWB** must relinquish the presidency in 22 days.
By that time the debt could be between 10.5 and 10.7T$.
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)
12/29/2008 10,554,113,905,232.00 GWB (UP 4,825,918,109,050.43 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: 529,389,008,319.60 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
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 ---
12/15/2008 +027,986,876,028.13 ------------********** Mon
12/16/2008 +000,172,636,444.49 ------------********
12/17/2008 -000,200,107,551.80 ---
12/18/2008 -057,877,925,051.10 -
12/19/2008 -000,369,261,235.72 ---
12/22/2008 -000,588,542,244.94 --- Mon
12/23/2008 +000,074,940,615.00 ------------*******
12/24/2008 -000,121,597,338.38 ---
12/26/2008 -036,328,594,643.92 -
12/29/2008 -000,737,189,520.41 --- Mon

-88,753,210,890.22 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $889,482,101,972.93 in last 102 days.
That's 889B$ in 102 days.
More than any year ever, except last year, and it's 87% of that highest year ever only in 102 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 102 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=3664421&mesg_id=3664511

[Festivito]

70. Debt: 12/30/2008 10,553,014,664,691.60 (DOWN 1,099,240,540.40) (Ity-bitty again.)

(Happy new year to all.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,322,765,588,713.41 + 4,230,249,075,978.19
UP 55,730,362.68 + DOWN 1,154,970,903.11
(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 32 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is -4,916,374,505.27.
The average for the last 30 days would be -3,605,341,303.87.
The average for the last 32 days would be -3,380,007,472.38.
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$/day.
There were 61 reports in 91 days of FY2009 averaging 8.66B$ per report, 5.81B$/day.

PROJECTION:
GWB** must relinquish the presidency in 21 days.
By that time the debt could be between 10.5 and 10.7T$.
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)
12/30/2008 10,553,014,664,691.60 GWB (UP 4,824,818,868,510.03 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: 528,289,767,779.20 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
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 ---
12/15/2008 +027,986,876,028.13 ------------********** Mon
12/16/2008 +000,172,636,444.49 ------------********
12/17/2008 -000,200,107,551.80 ---
12/18/2008 -057,877,925,051.10 -
12/19/2008 -000,369,261,235.72 ---
12/22/2008 -000,588,542,244.94 --- Mon
12/23/2008 +000,074,940,615.00 ------------*******
12/24/2008 -000,121,597,338.38 ---
12/26/2008 -036,328,594,643.92 -
12/29/2008 -000,737,189,520.41 --- Mon
12/30/2008 +000,055,730,362.68 ------------*******

-87,937,537,873.82 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $888,382,861,432.53 in last 103 days.
That's 888B$ in 103 days.
More than any year ever, except last year, and it's 87% of that highest year ever only in 103 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 103 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=3666032&mesg_id=3666273

[Hugin]

53. Online holiday sales fall 3 percent (Reuters)

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Online sales for the holiday period up to December 23 fell 3 percent from the same period last year, marking the first decline in online spending since comScore Inc started tracking online sales in 2001.

Online spending reached $25.5 billion between November 1 and December 23, the company said, noting this was below its expectations for flat sales on the same period a year ago."

More specifics here... http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE4BU01R20081231

[ozymandius]

59. For ye history buffs: The Great Depression, Pt. I

There are remarkable parallels to our times.

This article is the first in a series on the Great Depression. I am writing this with the help of New Deal Democrat (who blogs over at Economic Populist). The purpose of this series is simply to talk about the Great Depression. The reason for writing this article is the emergence of the "FDR made the Depression worse" talking point from the Right Wing Noise Machine -- econ division. While none of the stories using this line have any facts to back them up -- no charts, no graphs no data -- they continue to spew this talking point. So, let's get some data -- as in facts -- to see that actually happened.

....

And one thing the Republicans and the plutocrats of the day were sure of, was that government should do absolutely nothing to help its destitute citizenry. When in 1930 a long summer drought killed cattle and crops in the southwest, Hoover asked Congress to appropriate money for government loans to enable farmers to buy seed, fertilizer, and cattle feed. But when Democratic senators sough to apply the same program to human beings in addition to livestock, Hoover "reaffirmed his unwavering opposition to such proposals." (Schlesinger, p. 170)
Hoover appointed Walter S. Gifford, president of AT&T, to the "President's Organization on Unemployment Relief." Appearing before a Senate committee,

"Gifford disclosed imerturbably that he did not know how many people were idle, that he did not know how many were receiving aid, that he did not know that the standards of assistance were in the various states, that he did not know how much money had been raised in his own campaign, that he knew nothing of the ability of local communities to raise relief funds ,, that he did not consider most of this information as of much importance to his job....

But on one question Gifford was clear: he was against federal aid."...that it would reduce the size of private charity." His "sober and considered judgment" was that "federal aid would be a 'disservice' to the jobless."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/31/73320/435/904/678462

[Hugin]

60. I'll be bookmarking this.

Ammo.

:)

[tclambert]

81. I thought we settled this argument in the 1930s.

The best course of action during the Great Depression is for the government to "do nothing?" while people are starving? Don't help jobless people get jobs? Let them die? THAT was the Republicans' plan? Earth humans are stupid. Did they not pay attention to the Russian Revolution? Or the French Revolution?

Imagine if the Republicans had won the election of 1932. Stalin would have been running America by 1934.

[MilesColtrane]

61. Measuring the Madoff Madness

Scott Burns frames the scale of the Madoff ripoff, and requests submissions for a fitting punishment.

http://assetbuilder.com/blogs/scott_burns/archive/2008/12/26/measuring-madoff.aspx


Media accounts immediately labeled the disappearance of $50 billion, masterminded by Bernard Madoff, as "the largest fraud in history." It is a greater wealth loss than having a household name company -- such as Walt Disney, Anheuser-Busch or Boeing -- vanish without a trace.

The loss is mind-boggling. But the figure does nothing to convey the damage this man has done.

-snip-

One way to measure the extent of the damage is to compare the $50 billion to measures of loss in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. In 2007 there were 9.8 million crimes against property in the United States. This included about 2.2 million burglaries, 6.6 million larceny-thefts and 1.1 million car thefts.

-snip-

Add the three years ('05,'06,'07] and you get $51.7 billion. Using that value, Bernard Madoff has caused losses equal to all the losses caused by all the conventional thieves in America for nearly three full years.

[Dr.Phool]

64. Talk about an overachiever.

[tclambert]

82. OK, let's suppose the average take when robbing a 7-11 is $250

You'd have to rob 7-11 200,000,000 (200 million) times to match one Madoff. I wonder how many times convenience stores have been robbed in the entire history of convenience stores?

Jesse James. John Dillinger. Al Capone. Vito Corleone. All small timers.

[Karenina]

86. I was a member of Locals 802 & 47 way back when...

:patriot:

[MilesColtrane]

88. Local 72-147 member here

:hi:

[Pale Blue Dot]

66. Pimco Delays Dividend Payment on Two Closed-End Funds (Shouldn't this be bigger news?)

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Pacific Investment Management Co., which runs the world’s largest bond fund, said it is postponing two dividend payments to investors in a pair of closed-end municipal bond funds.

Proceeds from the Pimco Municipal Income Fund and the Pimco New York Municipal Income Fund II were due today and on Feb. 2, Newport Beach, California-based Pimco said in a statement.

“The funds intend to resume paying and declaring dividends as soon as possible,” the company said. Pimco said continuing problems in the capital market caused the values of the funds’ portfolios to decline and led to the decision.

Auction-rate preferred shares, with which the funds borrowed money to boost returns, must be backed by underlying assets worth at least 200 percent, the company said. When that threshold was missed, dividends couldn’t be paid.

The funds may redeem some of the auction-rate shares so dividends may resume, Pimco said. Shares in the funds are sold to investors and are exchange traded.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ak7nLbjfY0lE&refer=home

This seems a little earth-shattering, yet the media and the markets are reacting with a shrug. Am I missing something?

[antigop]

67. Fed names four firms for MBS purchase program (Surprise! Guess which ones?)

http://financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081231/REG/812319983/1036

The Federal Reserve has hired BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, PIMCO and Wellington Management to purchase a total of up to $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, a Fed news release Tuesday said.

The managers will employ “a passive buy-and-hold investment strategy in accordance with investment guidelines prescribed by the Federal Reserve,” according to the release.

The Fed is also expected to announce the hiring of a custodian for the acquisition program, but a contract is “not yet final,” according to the news release.

The federal acquisition program, intended to reduce the cost and increase the availability of credit for housing purchases, is expected to be launched in early January, the release said.

"Nice work if you can get it", says Josh Marshall:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2008/12/nice_work_if_yo_2.php

A short while back the Fed announced a new program to buy up to $600 billion worth of mortgage backed securities. Remember, this was what the TARP was originally supposed to do. But then Paulson decided to invest money directly into the banks to recapitalize them. And then the Fed decided on its own to do basically the same thing on its own. They've already bought up $100 billion worth and they've now hired BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, PIMCO and Wellington Management Company to purchase and manage $500 billion more worth of the stuff.

Why did these four companies get the contract? That's none of your business. The Fed just decided. Says the Fed, "The selection criteria were based on the institution's operational capacity, size, overall experience in the MBS (mortgage-backed securities) market and a competitive fee structure." In other words, these guys are the ones who know how to do it. But no public process, criteria or anything else.

Their purported knowledge, which I'm sure is true in a sense of technical experience, is somewhat belied by the fact that these were the firms that helped build up the mess in the first place.

And, think you get a decent commission for managing half a trillion dollars of assets? Yeah. Me too.

[ozymandius]

71. The final word on a wormy, rotten 2008:

Have a wonderful evening everyone! See you Friday as we continue the countdown to Bush's eviction day.

:toast: :woohoo: Ozymandius

Dow 8,776.39 Up 108.00 (1.25%)
Nasdaq 1,577.03 Up 26.33 (1.70%)
S&P 500 903.25 Up 12.61 (1.42%)
10-Yr Bond 2.244% Up 0.157
NYSE Volume 4,410,954,000
Nasdaq Volume 1,606,416,500

4:30 pm : The stock market finished 2008 on a positive note, gaining 1.4% this session, and 3.9% over the past two sessions. The advance comes amid light trading volume, though, suggesting a lack of conviction behind the move.

Still, investors welcome the gains after the stock market plummeted 38.5% this year. That was the worst annual decline since 1937, when the stock market fell 38.6%. The stock market advanced almost 25% in the year following that record decline, so investors are hoping gains in recent sessions will lead the way to a better 2009.

Trading volume and news flow were relatively light in the final trading session of the year. Just 1.3 billion shares traded hands on the NYSE as market participants remain on vacation during the holiday season. Though that was the highest volume in the last seven sessions, it remains below long-term trends.

Without any major news items, participants were left to focus on a better-than-expected weekly jobless claims report. Claims for the week ending Dec. 27 totaled 492,000, down 94,000 from the prior week. The decline was largely treated as an aberration.

That notion was supported by word continuing claims increased to a multiyear record of more than 4.5 million, which was higher than expected.

Weekly crude inventory data also hit the wires this session. Inventories increased by 549,000 barrels. That contrasted with the consensus forecast, which called for a draw of 1.45 million barrels.

Crude oil prices advanced in the face of the bearish data. After spending most of the session trading lower, crude rallied to close roughly 14% higher at around $44.60 per barrel. At its session high, crude was up nearly 17%. It was down nearly 5.4% at its session low.

Despite the advance, crude prices remain pressured by weak demand, which has stemmed from economic headwinds.

To help counter such headwinds, President-Elect Obama is hatching a massive economic stimulus plan. However, The Wall Street Journal reported such a plan may not reach Congress until late January. Many were hoping a plan would arrive sooner.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury announced further detail surrounding its Automotive Industry Financing Program, which will apply to automakers, auto finance companies, and any other firms it views as important to the industry, according to Reuters.

The announcement provides further clarity around the $17.4 billion bailout package the White House previously approved for U.S. automakers.

Shares of General Motors (GM 3.20, -0.60) still slumped, but Ford (F 2.29, +0.00) finished unchanged.

Overall, stocks finished the session with broad-based gains. All 10 of the major economic sectors closed higher after spending virtually the entire session in the green, though there wasn’t a true leader among them.

U.S. stock and bond markets are closed tomorrow, Jan. 1, in observance of New Year’s Day. Markets will reopen Friday, Jan. 2.

End of Quarter Update: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell roughly 19% this quarter; Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 25% quarter-to-date, and; S&P 500 fell almost 23% this quarter.

End of Year Update: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 34% this year; Nasdaq Composite dropped roughly 41% for the year, and; S&P 500 shed about 38% for 2008.DJ30 +108.00 NASDAQ +26.33 NQ100 +0.9% R2K +3.5% SP400 +2.6% SP500 +12.61 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2193/1.59 bln/676 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2651/1.31 bln/491

[Hugin]

72. Happy New Year!

:party:


and a good night to Louis Rukeyser, wherever you are.

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

EOM

[Tansy_Gold]

73. Here's to a better '09 than '08!

For all of us. . . . ...

[DemReadingDU]

74. I'll toast to that!

:toast:


May we all celebrate the end of the Bush administration

:party:

[Tansy_Gold]

76. Indeed!

I recall reading somewhere a number of years ago that it wasn't so much the dates as it was specific events that marked the "true" beginnings of various decades. For example, the 60s didn't really start with the election of JFK in 1960 but rather with his assassination in the fall of 63. The 70s began with Nixon's resignation, etc. And I'm not even sure if those were the exact events cited, but the point was that cultural "generations" rely less on the calendar than we think.

So I would venture to guess that the 21st century will REALLY start 1/20/09,

We shall indeed celebrate the end of the boooosh regime. And toast our best wishes to Obama, Biden, and (please the goddess) REAL CHANGE.


:party: :toast: :party: :toast: :party: :toast: :party: :toast: :party: :toast: :party: :toast: :party: :toast: :party: :toast: :party: :toast:

[Hugin]

75. ...

:toast:

[ozymandius]

80. 2008 was fartastic. 2009 stands to be a whole lot better.

Blessings to you, Tansy, and everyone. Shall a bright Socratic light of justice and ethic shine on our republic.

[Karenina]

87. Or stinkier, as the case may be...

To YOU, Ozy! :toast: Happy New Year to all!! :party: