Durable Goods New Orders Down -3.6% for Advance Report, April 2011

New Orders in Durable Goods decreased -3.6% for April 2011, after last month's +4.4% increase, which was significantly revised. New orders dropped $7.1 billion to $189.9 billion in a month. That's not good news and the biggest drop since October 2010.

Core capital goods new orders decreased -2.6%, after increasing 5.4% last month. Core capital goods is an investment gauge for the bet the private sector is placing on America's future economic growth.

 

 

For all transportation equipment, new orders plunged -9.5%. While nondefense aircraft plunged -30%, motor vehicles, which is not nearly as volatile as aircraft, decreased -4.5%. Even when factoring out transportion, durable goods new orders declined -1.5%. We cannot blame air-o-planes this time.

New orders have declined three of the last three months. New orders in machinery, down -3.4%; computers, down -4.4%; communications equipment, down -3.4%; electrical, appliances, down -4.9%. We have across the board declines and generally, a dismal report.

 

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Farrell and Stockman - Latter Day Prophets of Doom

Michael Collins

Paul Farrell of MarketWatch caused quite a stir with his recent article, Reagan insider [David Stockman]: GOP destroyed U.S. economy, Part 2, May 24. Farrell breaks some new ground in the strident critique of long standing policy trends and offers a highly functional description of the destructive personalities controlling Wall Street. This article describes the several high points of the Farrell-Stockman thesis, a frontal assault on the modern Republican Party. It also provides important cautions on key information absent from the Farrell-Stockman broadside. (Image: Art & Perception)

Farrell makes his case by using Stockman's July 2010 New York Times OpEd, Four Deformations of the Apocalypse, New York Times and his recent book, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.

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Q1 2011 GDP 2nd Estimate - 1.8%

Q1 GDP 2011 came in at 1.8% for the second revision, same as the advance report. Here is the original BEA GDP report.

 

 

The decrease of Q1 GDP growth is once again, due to the never ending increasing trade deficit, a slow down in personal consumption and a drop in government spending.

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SCOTUS Rules Arizona Can Punish Businesses Who Hire Illegal Workers

Score one for Arizona. The Supreme Court gives States the right to close businesses who knowingly hire illegal workers.

Now in spite of the rhetoric one will hear from special interest groups, this is actually a huge win for U.S. labor and workers.

The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a state has the right to revoke the license of a business that knowingly employs illegal immigrants, in a case watched for implications on related judicial battles.

The top US court in a 5-3 decision upheld Arizona's 2007 law, saying the state was within its rights under a 1986 federal immigration reform measure.

Like it or not, flooding the U.S. labor market with illegal workers does undermine wages, and in this economy, does cause U.S. worker displacement.

The law "expressly reserves to the states the authority to impose sanctions on employers hiring unauthorized workers, through licensing and similar laws," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

"It uses the federal government's own definition of 'unauthorized alien,' it relies solely on the federal government's own determination of who is an unauthorized alien, and it requires Arizona employers to use the federal government's own system for checking employee status."

It was a 5-3 decision, with the left of the court dissenting. Business licenses can be revoked and at last, the Supreme court upheld the use of E-verify, an electronic database to verify social security numbers used by workers are valid and their own.

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Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Spain Erupts

Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

 

Spain Erupts

The people of Spain are protesting over this never ending taking from the poor and giving to the rich, now with the IMF and austerity heading their way. It's getting violent.

 

 

Here are some pictures of the violence and why are the police causing 121 injuries? To clear the square over a soccer match:

The demonstrators, who call themselves los indignados -the indignant ones -began gathering on May 15, in a movement known variously as "M-15", "Spanish Revolution" or "Real Democracy Now," to register dissent at the country's economic crisis, which has pushed youth unemployment to 45 per cent. Inspired by the Arab Spring revolts, the protests swelled ahead of regional elections last Sunday, in which Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero's socialist party suffered a resounding defeat.

 

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Good Economic News... If you're a Turk

Turkey elected a new government in 2002. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became Prime Minister after his AK Party gained an absolute majority in the nation's unicameral legislature. Erdoğan and AK have governed continuosly from 2002 through the present.

The annual change in gross national product (Graph, Turkish Review, January 2011) developed through Turkish management of the economy.

During the critical period that included the global recession, Turkey fared better than most industrial nations. (Trading Economics)

Negative growth hit Turkey in only three quarters, with a solid rebound starting in 2009. Forth quarter 2010 economic growth was 9.2%. Only China led Turkey during that time with 9.8% growth.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced an end to its formal agreement with Turkey in 2010. In fact, the Turks ended IMF involvement with economic management in 2007 when they rejected IMF's "austerity" requirements for a stand by loan. Since that time, Turkey has paid off 75% of its IMF debt and managed the economy without IMF help.

Highlights - How they did it

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Sunday Morning Comics - IMF Strauss-Kahn Edition

^{Brought to you by Civil Penalties - We Slap the Wrists of All Who Bring the World to its Economic Knees.}

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the money funnies.

 

SNL Does IMF Strauss-Kahn

 

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"Old Europe" Backs French Finance Minister Lagarde for IMF Head

"
Michael Collins

The Financial Times reported that French Finance minister Christine Lagarde was the leading candidate for Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She would replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now charged with sexual assault in New York City. (Images: Wiki Commons)

Christine Lagarde, France’s finance minister, has emerged as the leading contender to run the International Monetary Fund after being strongly endorsed by her German and British counterparts, eager to extend Europe’s 65-year grip on the global financial institution. Financial Times May 22

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Banks Hoarding Homes

The New York Times is accusing banks of hoarding residential real estate they foreclosed upon, creating a glut of shadow inventory.

They own more than 872,000 homes as a result of the groundswell in foreclosures, almost twice as many as when the financial crisis began in 2007, according to RealtyTrac, a real estate data provider. In addition, they are in the process of foreclosing on an additional one million homes and are poised to take possession of several million more in the years ahead.

We all know the horror stories of banks foreclosing when people miss even just one mortgage payment, so why would banks be hording and stockpiling a massive housing inventory when excess inventory will only lower prices further?

The article reports banks can expect another $40 billion in losses due to depressed prices. The article goes onto blame a lack of staffing as the reason for the excess inventory of bank owned properties, yet buried is this:

Most of the major lenders outsourced almost every part of the process, be it sales or repairs. Some agents complain that lender-owned home listings are routinely out of date, that properties are overpriced by as much as 10 percent, and that lenders take days or longer to accept an offer.

Calculated Risk says RealtyTrac's inventory estimates are too high.

But with such great losses and a vicious cycle of lowering home values further, the real question is why banks have not helped home owners stay in their homes in the first place?

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Ben Bernanke Loses Control of the Fed

Originally published on The Agonist

It took a while, but the financial markets are starting to realize that Quantitative Easing will end next month, possibly once and for all. The unprecedented amount of monetary stimulus being pumped into the global economy by the Federal Reserve will come to a sudden halt. Commodity markets have enjoyed a bubbly expansion since the QE2 program was announced, and they were the first to crumble when the Fed began removing the monetary supports. Stock markets are now slowly beginning to follow suit.

One reason the markets took the news sanguinely was because the Fed engineered it that way. After the May meeting of the Fed Open Market Committee, at which it was decided not to renew QE2 when it expires in June, Ben Bernanke gave a first-ever press conference by a Fed Chairman following an FOMC meeting. The media thought it was a masterful performance – which it was, but not for the reasons cited in the press. Bernanke made it sound as if the end of Quantitative Easing was the most natural thing in the world, and that all the voting members of the FOMC agreed with him. The fact is, the FOMC decision was a defeat for Bernanke and his allies, which included the two other officers of the FOMC, Janet Yellen (Vice Chair of the Fed Board) and William Dudley (NY Fed President). Dudley, just a week before the meeting, had gone public with his desire to have a QE3 program standing by, ready to aid a struggling economy.

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New Residential Home Sales - April 2011

In April, New Residential Single Family Home Sales increased 7.3% from March's 8.5% increase, or 301,000 homes, with a April annual sale rate of 323,000 new homes. This is a -23.1% drop from a year ago. In April 2010, new home sales were 420,000.

 

 

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Residential New Construction April 2011

The April 2011 Residential construction report showed Housing starts dropped -10.6% from March 2011 to a level of 523,000. This is -23 9% below April 2010. We're back to April 2009 levels and this monthly drop was the biggest since 1984. March had a +12.9% increase in housing starts from February 2011.

 

 

Single family housing starts dropped -5.1% from March and is down -30.4% for the year. Single family housing is 75% of all residential housing starts. Housing of 5 or more units has a whopping -28.3% plunge for April, but is up 5.6% for the year.

Building permits, also dropped -4.0% to 574,000 and are down -12.8% from this time last year. Single family building permits dropped -1.8% from March and are at an all time low. Below is the St. Louis Federal Reserve FRED graph for Building permits. The graph shows building permits are not always a smooth line from month to month.

 

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Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?

Michael Collins

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times just published one of the few feel good stories in months following the 2008 financial crisis. She describes a possible day of reckoning for the perpetrators of the 2008 crisis and much of the pain that has followed.

The newly elected New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman (D), wants information from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. Among other things, the information concerns mortgage pooling and bundling. This may well include information on collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) and mortgage backed securities (MBS). New York state officials told Morgenson:

"The New York attorney general has requested information and documents in recent weeks from three major Wall Street banks about their mortgage securities operations during the credit boom, indicating the existence of a new investigation into practices that contributed to billions in mortgage losses." New York Investigates Banks’ Role in Financial Crisis New York Times, May 16

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NAR Existing Home Sales - Down 0.8% for April 2011

The National Association of Realtors released their existing home sales figures and give an April decrease of 0.8%, annualized rate, from March's increase. Existing home sales are now 12.9% below what they were one year ago.

 

 

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Healthcare Costs to Increase 8.5% in 2012

PricewaterhouseCoopers has a new report projecting health care costs to rise 8.5% in 2012 and 8% in 2011.

 

 

Insurance policies will have higher deductibles and less coverage, what the report calls a cost deflator. Obviously that's not deflator to you.

One of the most damning conclusions of the report is how health care reform is projected to have minimal impact on health care costs for 2012.

Providers are consolidating, providing less competition. Employer plans are using even higher deductibles, dumping the costs onto you. Medical services are now getting less from Medicare, 3.3% increases for 2012, so as usual, to make up the difference, these providers are dumping their losses by jacking up prices for the rest of us.

 

 

Even worst, they are projected a dramatic increase in stress related health care costs. Yes, losing your home and job affects your health.

Below is the CPI index annual change for health care costs:

 

 

and hospital related services CPI annual change:

 

 

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The Jobs of Tomorrow

The BLS released their occupational employment and wages report for May 2010.

 

 

While the data on what kind of jobs are being created is one year old, the report still gives insight on what kind of job growth has occurred since December 2007, the start of the Great Recession. What we have are low paying service jobs as the dominant job growth.

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It Would Hurt the Banks....

The latest request to restructure Greece's debt has been denied. with a quote from the ECB that should be classic:

A Greek debt restructuring is not the appropriate way forward -- it would create a catastrophe” because it would damage the banking system, ECB Executive Board member Juergen Stark said today in Lagonissi.

Look at this quote on their demand to privatize:

“Privatization makes a real difference,” said Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF’s Greek mission, which is in the process of reviewing the country’s progress on the bailout conditions. “If targets can be met, it will make a change to debt sustainability.”

Oh really? And that is why the US deficit is so small today, or other nations who privatized?

Seems The Greece Prime Minster, George Papandreou, is all for denying Greece any debt restructuring as well.

Greece must avoid debt restructuring and push on with budget cuts and privatisations to overcome its debt crisis, the country's Prime Minister George Papandreou and senior ECB officials said on Saturday.

Papandreou also said:

Henceforth, the European Union will escort Greece's privatisation programme as if we were conducting it ourselves

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Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement

An important history lesson in our time of decline... Michael Collins

Originally published in Scoop Independent News

By anaxarchos

Disclaimer: This is not a conspiracy story, though it has all the elements of one. Anonymous shadowy figures, international "societies", complete political "ideologies" created for convenience alone, social institutions corrupted through the mere distribution of cash (science, politics, universities, governments and even the Nobel Prize), and a global strategy designed to "rule the world" - no doubt about it, this one is better than a novel. But, don't get carried away. There are no secret ceremonies or lizard people in this tale. Nor is it a story about groups named after Italian light fixtures or German beer. It is instead the story of how "everyday conspiracies" work. (Image: DonkeyHotey)

Karl Marx wrote that the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of its ruling class. Looking backward, it is hard to dispute this observation, but how does it actually work? That is what our story is about. It starts with the businessman below and his simple frustration at the success of Marxism as an idea, first among his own workers and then amongst the American establishment whose wide-spread adoption of the appropriately conciliatory "New-Dealism" was entirely in response. In an economic system in which everything is reduced to a commodity, a man of means should be able to simply buy a counter-idea, shouldn't he? So it turns out...

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Strong Unions - The Worst Nightmare for the Financial Elite

Michael Collins

Man wouldn't pay you unless he had to. Chris Rock

The antiunion movement in the United States keeps us underpaid and represents a serious impediment to economic growth. Yet antiunion sentiment remains strong among the political establishment and their patrons. Why?

Worker rights and a decent wage represent a toxic brew to the ruling elite. In the past, they expressed their antiunion position in a crude fashion. From the 1870's through the 1920's, industrialists fought union growth with hired thugs and complicit law enforcement officials. Organizers and union members were harassed, maimed, and killed throughout the country for simply acting on the right to organize and participate in a union.

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Michael Collins

Michael Collins is a Washington DC area citizen journalist who writes about the corosive influence of money on politics, and other corruptions of the new millennium.  His ongoing series entitled The Money Party explores and exposes the bipartisan control of big money in the nation’s capitol and around the world.  Collins wrote Election 2004:  The Urban Legend which upended the mainstream media’s official story of the 2004 election results.  His articles appear at various news sites and frequently on the front page of BuzzFlash.com.  His web site is themoneyparty.org.

 

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Education Doesn't Pay

Put another nail in the American Dream Coffin. The Pew Research Center has a new study out on college. Guess what, over half of America thinks college isn't worth the money.

A majority of Americans (57%) say the higher education system in the United States fails to provide good value for the money students and their families spend, and about four-in-ten college presidents say the system is headed in the wrong direction

This year was a record for student debt, $22,900 and student indebtedness is rising faster than any other type of consumer debt.

 

 

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Zillow Says Housing Market Won't Bottom Until 2012

First it was 2009, then 2011, now it's 2012. That's when Zillow is predicting the housing market will bottom.

We’ve revised our forecast for the total home value decline nationally in 2011 to 7-9 percent (previously 5-7 percent) and our forecast of the bottom from late 2011 to 2012 at the earliest. As always, our expectation post-bottom (where we define the bottom as the end of consistent monthly depreciation) is for a long period of below-normal real estate appreciation during which time we work out the remaining overhang of excess housing supply.

Zillow's Q1 Housing report has more bad news.First, housing depreciated 3% in Q1 2011. In March 2011, foreclosure re-sales were 23.7% of all home sales. There are 2 million homes being foreclosed on and 1.5 million more in delinquency. The 3% Q1 decline in home values is as bad as 2008 and the cumulative drop in home values is now 29.5%.

Nearly three-quarters (74.5 percent) of homes in the United States lost value from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011. That’s up from Q4 2010, when 69.2 percent had lost value, but is down substantially from a peak of 85.5 percent in Q1 2009.

37.7% of homes were sold at a loss in March 2011. Negative equity, or mortgages under water, was 28.4% for Q1 2011.This is what happens when one has a never ending jobs, income crisis.

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Obama and Geithner - Back to the Future on Corporate Tax Breaks and Derivative Deregulation

Michael Collins

Speculation reigns supreme in your nation's capital. Who is next in line after the bin Laden operation? The bipartisan coalition directing the war on terror forgot one important fact about the security of the United States of America. It doesn't matter who they kill overseas, the assault on almost all citizens continues unabated at home. No one is doing anything to stop it. Only the financial and political elite remain immune. (Image-WikiCommons)

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the national economic collapse (aka recession) ended June 2009. That's news to the 55% of the public that believe we're in either a recession or depression (April 2011).

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Trade Deficit for March 2011 - $48.2 Billion

The March 2011 U.S. trade deficit increased $2.8 billion to $48.2 billion. The February 2011 monthly trade deficit was $45.4 billion. $31.3 billion of the March trade deficit is oil related, $8.8 billion more than 1 month ago, and 51.2% of the total goods trade deficit. Services have surplus of $13.9 billion and increased $0.2 billion last month.

 

 

In comparison to a year ago, the trade deficit increased $8.7 billion with exports increasing 14.9% and imports increased 16.4%.

Imports were 1.28 times larger than exports for February. In other words, for every dollar we export, we import $1.28 worth of stuff. This is on a Balance of Payments basis.

The United States basically has two major problems with the trade deficit, Chinese goods and Oil imports.

Below are imports vs. exports of goods and services from January 2007 to March 2011. Notice how much larger imports are than exports, but also notice the growth, or rate of change between months of U.S. exports.

 

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Structural Unemployment and "Skills gap" - RIP

Michael Collins

"The last unemployment report said that for the first time in my lifetime, and I’m not young…we are coming out of a recession but job openings are going up twice as fast as new hires. And yet we can all cite cases that we know about where somebody opened a job and 400 people showed up. How could this be? Because people don’t have the job skills for the jobs that are open." President Bill Clinton, September 2010

Former president Clinton took the lead in selling the notion of "structural unemployment" - a gap between employer job requirements and inadequate skills on the part of workers. Clinton's sales skills are considerable. The thoroughly unsupported notion stuck in the minds of the corporate media and some business leaders.

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Retail Sales - April 2011

Retail Sales increased 0.5% for April 2011 and are up 7.6% from the same time last year. March retail sales percentage change was +0.9%, revised.

 

 

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CPI for April 2011

The Consumer Price Index for April 2011 increased 0.4% from last month. For the year, not seasonally adjusted, the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) has risen 3.2%, the highest since October 2008. The March CPI monthly increase was 0.5%.

 

 

Gas was half of the CPI increase for the month, rising 3.2% for April. Gas is up 33.1% for the year. Fuel oil increased 3.2% for April and is up an astounding 35.1% for the year. Natural gas increased 1.9% this month but is still down -1.5% for the year. Below is the CPI-U Energy Index.

 

 

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Saturday Reads Around The Internets - All About the Banks

Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

 

Help For Homeowners Is Only Help For Banks

Whistleblowers are now speaking out on the scam HAMP really is. Instead of helping homeowners is pushing them into foreclosure Dylan Ratigan interviewed the Whistleblowers in the below clip.

 

 

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Head of IMF Arrested for Attempted Rape

Wow. I guess the IMF wasn't satisfied enough ravaging Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

The head of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn, was just arrested for sexual assault in New York.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested on Saturday, minutes before he was to fly to Paris from John F. Kennedy International Airport, the authorities said.

He was accused of a sex attack on a maid earlier in the day at a Times Square hotel, the authorities said.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a candidate for president of France, was taken off an Air France flight by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and turned over to Manhattan detectives, according to a Port Authority spokesman. He was expected to be taken to the offices of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit at P.S.A. 5 in Manhattan, another official said.

Wow, the attack was brutal according to the reports, on the hotel maid.

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Sunday Morning Comics - Asbestos Edition

^{Brought to you by Capitalism - It's all about the marketing, and let me sell you on that.}

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the money funnies.

 

Ored To Death

 

^{Cartoonist: Nate Beeler}

 

Breaking News! The GOP fixes entire economy by cancelling NPR funding:

Unemployment plummeted and stocks soared Tuesday after Republican leaders fulfilled their promise to cut funding for National Public Radio, a budgetary move that has completely rejuvenated the flagging U.S. economy.

 

^{Cartoonist: R.J. Matson}

 

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Unemployment 9.0% for April 2011

The April 2011 monthly unemployment figures show the official unemployment rate increased to 9.0% and the total jobs gained were 244,000. Total private jobs came in at 268,000 with government jobs dropping -24,000.

 

 

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More On The April 2011 Unemployment Report

Earlier we reviewed the April 2011 BLS unemployment report. This post goes into a more unemployment and jobs details not covered previously.

There are 13,747,000 people officially unemployed, and if one takes the alternative measure of unemployment, it's 24.4 million.

Below is a new graph, courtesy of the Saint Louis Federal Reserve, for the unemployment rate of just those unemployed 15 weeks or longer. 57.1% of the people who are officially counted as unemployed have been so 15 weeks or longer. The number of people unemployed 15 weeks or longer as part of the civilian labor force is 5.1%. Compare this to the official 9.0% unemployment rate. This means that it takes most people who are unemployed almost 4 months or more to find a job...if they do.

 

 

There are 242,000 more people who are unemployed for less than 5 weeks in April. People out of work 5 to 14 weeks dropped -7,000 and 15 to 26 weeks unemployed increased 49,000. Below is the graph of those unemployed for less than 5 weeks. We see an uptick, which is the wrong trend.

 

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Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Just Another $8.5 Billion Please

Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

 

China iPhone Manufacturer Foxconn's Horrific Working Conditions

Think the iPhone is made in America? Like most things these days, manufacturing is offshore outsourced to China. Out comes another report on the terrible working conditions at the iPhone/iPad factory.

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Oh Those Burdensome Rules

Here come the Banksters. It was not enough that so called financial reform is Swiss Cheese legislation, full of loopholes. What regulation is left, the banks are going after and seemingly with help from the Government.

Who is their biggest cheerleader? Why, Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke. From a regulation speech in Chicago:

No one’s interests are served by the imposition of ineffective or burdensome rules that lead to excessive increases in costs or unnecessary restrictions in the supply of credit. Regulators must aim to avoid stifling reasonable risk-taking and innovation in financial markets, as these factors play an important role in fostering broader productivity gains, economic growth, and job creation.

According to Reuters, Goldman Sachs is having a freak out over the Swiss Cheese Financial Reform bill.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) has just a few more months to put its stamp on the Volcker rule, and it is not wasting any time.

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Paul Craig Roberts: IMF Says the Age of America is Over

paul craig roberts

Today the Swiss franc made yet another new high against the super dollar, as it has been doing for 120 days. What you are reading in the graphs is less and less of the foreign currency that one dollar can buy. Of course, gold and silver also consistently hit new highs. Swiss franc:

As did the Australian dollar:

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Friday Movie Night - The End of Poverty

It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

Below is a fairly lefty film, The End of Poverty. We hear how America is rich, yet if these people got out more, one would see places all over the United States which look identical to poverty stricken regions in the 3rd world. That said, there is a lot of historical and current information that is accurate and really can apply to what's happening now o the United States.

 

The End of Poverty

 

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Geithner Exempts a $30 Trillion Derivatives Market From Regulation and Oversight

On Friday, the witching hour of government press releases they want no one to read, the Treasury Department announced they will block regulation of large classes of derivatives:

Treasury is today issuing a Notice of Proposed Determination providing that central clearing and exchange trading requirements would not apply to FX swaps and forwards.

This proposed determination is narrowly tailored. FX swaps and forwards will remain subject to Dodd-Frank’s rigorous new trade reporting requirements and business conduct standards. Additionally, the Dodd-Frank Act makes it illegal to use these instruments to evade other derivatives reforms. Importantly, the proposed determination does not extend to other FX derivatives, such as FX options, currency swaps, and non-deliverable forwards. These other FX derivatives will be subject to clearing and exchange requirements.

The entire press release is almost burying the announcement for no regulation of FX swaps and forwards. Multinational corporations use FX swaps to hedge on currency fluctuations. According to Better Markets, this will bring out the financial engineers for some sort of derivative trickery fiction:

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Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Thar's Gold In Them Thar...Well Somewhere

Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

Exxon Profits Soar 69%

Exxon Profits increased 69% from a year ago, or $11 billion in a quarter. Most oil companies profits also soared in Q1. President Obama blasted oil company U.S. taxpayer subsidies in his weekly address, as well as soaring gas prices. Below is great AP video coverage on gas prices.

 

 

Note how the oil companies claim speculators are the ones driving up prices. Well, gee if that's true Oil Multinationals, you sure are getting a nice happy ride regardless.

 

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Sunday Morning Comics - Correspondent's Dinner Edition

^{Brought to you by Donald Trump - Yes, China and Swear Words Go Together}

 

Good Morning! Rise and Shine! Get that Cup O' Joe...
break out the O.J....hang out with the pooch...time to check out the money funnies.

 

Seth Meyers, White House Correspondent's Dinner

 

Obama on Birthers

 

^{Cartoonist: Nate Beeler}

 

Slash Dance on the Budget

 

^{Cartoonist: R.J. Matson}

 

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Osama Bin Laden Is Dead - Breaking

Looks like they finally got him. This is breaking news Osma Bin Laden is Dead.

Seems they finally found him and managed to get close enough to kill him.

Shot and killed, congratulations!

This post will be updated with details. President Obama will be making a statement at 10:30 PM, EST and it is expected this will be the announcement.

CBS reports the U.S. has stepped up the efforts to get Osama Bin Laden for the past month and finally, it is confirmed, the U.S. was successful.

One source says that his body will be disposed of, in order to not give a grave site for other radicals to focus on. The body is in Afghanistan

Regardless, this will be a great blow to radical terrorist groups who want to kill regular Americans.

This should almost make Obama golden for the next election. Indeed, the conspiracy theorists tails are waggin' on timing already.

This was a CIA intelligence operation, which then moved into an U.S. military operation, and happened today. Here is Abbottābad, Pakistan, the location of the Osama Bin Laden compound.

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bin Laden Buried at Sea U.S. Decides

Denver Post, May 2, 2011 (AP)

"WASHINGTON—A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea."

The official said that "Islamic practice and tradition" called for "the body to be buried within 24 hours."

"The official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters, did not immediately say where that occurred."

There will be no further forensic examination.  The genetic testing announced will be the final word.

 

 

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Bankruptcy Hell - The Sequel to ForeclosureGate

Michael Collins

You're headed for bankruptcy court tomorrow. It's been a long and difficult road. You and your husband both worked. You made decent money. Then your husband became ill. There was no sick leave because he worked for himself. His disability insurance had a six-month delay and only covered half of the lost income. That was all you could afford. (Image Wikimedia Commons)

His condition was critical and required medication three times a day at a monthly cost of $2500. Your company plan covered your husband but it didn't cover the medication because the insurance company termed it experimental. It was the sole option for the crippling illness according to the three specialists consulted.

Your husband contributed 40% of the family income. The loss was a big hit but you persevered. You couldn't sell the house, even if you wanted to. It was $150,000 upside down. There was no federal or bank program to relieve that burden. After four months of cashing in a modest 401(k), it became obvious that you couldn't make it. You needed relief and time for your husband to get well.

You consulted your accountant. On his advice, you decided to file for bankruptcy.

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Manufacturing ISM for April 2011 - 60.4%

The April 2011 ISM Manufacturing Survey was released April 1st. PMI dropped 0.8 percent points to 60.4%, from 61.2% in March. This is the 4th month for the manufacturing index to be above 60%. The employment index is at it's highest point in 38 years for the first 4 months of 2011. We'll see if this translates to some manufacturing jobs later in the week.

 

 

The ISM has a correlation formula to annualized GDP, but they are now noting the past correlation, probably due to the meager 1.8% annualized GDP growth for Q1 2011.

The past relationship between the PMI and the overall economy indicates that the average PMI for January through April (61 percent) corresponds to a 6.5 percent increase in real gross domestic product (GDP). In addition, if the PMI for April (60.4 percent) is annualized, it corresponds to a 6.3 percent increase in real GDP annually.

New orders dropped -1.6 percentage points to 61.7%.

 

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