coolhand's Account Talk

[coolhand]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38451.html

Last week, it seemed, environmentalists were finally ready to let loose on President Barack Obama over the Gulf oil spill.

Actress Q’orianka Kilcher chained herself to the White House fence while her mother slathered the “Pocahontas” star in black paint meant to look like oozing crude.

Kilcher’s cause? Not the Gulf spill at all but oil-related abuses of indigenous people in Peru, whose president was visiting Obama that day.

As the greatest environmental catastrophe in U.S. history has played out on Obama’s watch, the environmental movement has essentially given him a pass — all but refusing to unleash any vocal criticism against the president even as the public has grown more frustrated by Obama’s performance.

About a dozen environmental groups took out a full page ad in the Washington Post Tuesday — not to fault Obama over the ecological catastrophe but to thank him for putting on hold an Alaska drilling project. “We deeply appreciate your decision. ...” the ad says to Obama.

President Obama is the best environmental president we’ve had since Teddy Roosevelt,” Sierra Club chairman Carl Pope told the Bangor Daily News last week. “He obviously did not take the crisis in the Minerals Management Service adequately seriously, that’s clear. But his agencies have done a phenomenally good job.

Some say there’s little doubt that if a spill like the one in the Gulf took place on former President George W. Bush’s watch, environmental groups would have unleashed an unsparing fury on the Republican in the White House. For their liberal ally, Obama, they seem willing to hold their tongues.

These guys have bet the farm on this administration,” said Ted Nordhaus, chairman of an environmental think tank, the Breakthrough Institute. “There has been a real hesitancy to criticize this administration out of a sense that they’re kind of the only game in town. … These guys are so beholden to this administration to move their agenda that I think they’re unwilling to criticize them.

 

[coolhand]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7148555.ece

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.

“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defence source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”

Sources in Saudi Arabia say it is common knowledge within defence circles in the kingdom that an arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch the raid. Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a mutual loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” said one.

 

[WorkFE]

CH,
As a kid from PA living around the steel industry for the first 18 years of my life and watching it disappear I can identify with those from Detroit. Cities needed to be working on this problem 25 years ago but chose to ignore it. Now it is going to take years of work from dedicated folks to reshape these cities. That's where visionaries and entrepreneurship is born.
I am somewhat excited to see what the next generation can accomplish. Some don't share my enthusiasm, and that's OK. Those that work with young adults see our future as a nation much differently.

 

[coolhand]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37679815

Banks are likely to lose a key lobbying battle in the US over whether they will be forced to spin off their lucrative swaps desks, according to people familiar with financial reform negotiations in Congress.

Defeat, which would be a further blow to Wall Street, has been made more likely by Paul Volcker, the influential former Federal Reserve chairman, softening his opposition to the provision.

Blanche Lincoln, the Senate agriculture chairman, is the lead proponent of the plan, which would force banks to create a separately capitalized subsidiary to house the derivatives dealing operations – a significant source of profits for big banks, such as JPMorgan Chase.

The expensive restructuring could drive activity out of the largest Wall Street banks and into more lightly regulated rivals and overseas competitors, according to the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which oppose the plan.

 

[nnuut]

You've gotta be kidding me?!?

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/ob...ram-mandating-behavioural-changes-within-us-s

Last week, with little fanfare, among the ever deteriorating oil spill crisis, the White House quietly noted the issuance of an executive order "Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council", in which the president, citing the “authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America” is now actively engaging in "lifestyle behavior modification" for American citizens that do not exhibit "healthy behavior." At least initially, the 8 main verticals of focus will include: smoking cessation; proper nutrition; appropriate exercise; mental health; behavioral health; sedentary behavior; substance-use disorder; and domestic violence screenings. Eventually we fully anticipate that the program will also target such wholesome activities as screening for precious metal holdings, monthly minimum usage of available revolving credit (and a minimum threshold thereto) and the susceptibility of an individual to stay current on one's mortgage. Additionally, the president will establish yet another Advisory Group, composed of "experts" picked from the public health field, and one which tracks the successful uptake by the US population of the precepts for a better functioning society that the president deems important. Cosmo culture has just been adopted by the White House, where Big Brother is now in the business of counting calories, and soon, your bars of gold.

Another step in the wrong direction, get out of my personal life, just who in the helll do they think they are!! Where is UNCLE TED?:nuts:

 

[crws]

well, that's a mind full, other than the President's Council on Physical Fitness the "self-help" story seems like it peeled off "The Onion".
A partly cloudy mornin' to ya CH!

 

[coolhand]

I think this post by robo over in Bear Cave regarding year 2 of the administration is in the money. I will be working that direction right after bewitching week.
http://www.tsptalk.com/mb/showthread.php?p=275575#post275575

However.... and this is purely speculation, I don't believe CBOE's ipo during quadruple witching week is a coincidence!:nuts::nuts:
Of course, yours truly is the host and MC!:laugh:
"Goldman Sachs & Co is leading the underwriting."
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=38537

I got in on the unexciting flat IPO of MapQuest back in the day, and did pretty well. Not spectacular, but well worth the risk.
I think VIX index stock, as this will be, is going to be a barn-burner and lite it up this week. After all, what Bear could resist investing in a sure bet of positive return for what they use ALL THE TIME?? PAAAARTY!!!
However, the mood will almost assuredly be short lived, as Robo pointed out, http://www.tsptalk.com/mb/showthread.php?p=275597#post275597 the week following is virtually guaranteed to be a dog.
Of course that would make all the investors of CBOE stock jump for joy as the VIX shot through the roof.
I say (speculating again) it will be a stock of self-fulfilling prophecy, and couldn't happen at a better time before November comes and the Bulls get serious about making some money.
In & Out, baby, just like Reno.

I was not aware of this. Thanks for sharing. This will make this week that much more interesting.

 

[crws]

on the IPO, I wasn't either until last night...
as they say-
Tru Dat!

 

[coolhand]

That Stickan astro post is in the back of my mind though.

Let me say that every time Stickan makes a post, I share it. I know astro stuff is not mainstream, but it's stickan making the post. He's very respected over on Trader's Talk. Do I believe it? Let's just say I'm watching how the cards fall. Astro is not my thing, but his TA post earlier this year was more my style, and it points down too.

 

[coolhand]

Spoiling for a fight?

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-49287520100614

Iran is sending aid ships to blockaded Gaza, state radio said on Monday -- a move likely to be considered provocative by Israel which accuses Tehran of arming the Palestinian enclave's Islamist rulers, Hamas.

One ship left port on Sunday and another will depart by Friday, loaded with food, construction material and toys, the report said. "Until the end of (Israel's) Gaza blockade, Iran will continue to ship aid," said an official at Iran's Society for the Defence of the Palestinian Nation.

Iran has sent aid to the coastal territory in the past via Egypt. It was not immediately clear if the latest shipments would do the same, or try to dock in Gaza itself.

In January 2009, an Israeli warship approached an Iranian aid boat heading for the Mediterranean territory and told it to leave the area, 70 km (45 miles) from Gaza. The ship went on to Egypt, which borders Gaza, but was refused permission to unload.

Iran lodged a protest over the issue with Egypt, which has a peace agreement with the Jewish state.

Israel has long suspected Iran of supplying weapons to Hamas. Tehran says it only provides moral support to the group.

The deputy head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards played down reports that the Guards would provide a military escort to aid ships headng to Gaza something which would be sure to escalate tensions in the region.

"Such a thing is not on our agenda," Hossein Salami was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

ENEMIES

The Islamic state has refused to recognise Israel since its 1979 revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah, and some Iranian leaders have called for the demise of the Jewish state.

In another sign of reluctance to risk high-level confrontation with Israel, a delegation of parliamentarians who plan to travel to Gaza will do so via Egypt, rather than on any aid ships headed directly to the enclave.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security committee, said Egyptian authorities were "positive" about the lawmaker's proposed visit, but had yet to issue formal consent.

Up to a quarter of Iran's 291 lawmakers have expressed their wish to go to Gaza, Iranian media reported.

The actions are in response to Israel's boarding of a flotilla of Turkish aid ships heading to Gaza on May 31 in which troops killed nine pro-Palestinian activists after they were set upon by some passengers with metal rods and knives.

An official of the Iranian Red Crescent Society's youth organisation said some 100,000 Iranians had volunteered as potential crew for aid ships, daily newspaper Iran reported.

In the past, similar numbers have registered as potential fighters for any conflict with Israel.

Israel is the most vocal opponent of Iran's nuclear enrichment programme, which it fears is aimed at developing atomic bombs -- something it sees as a threat to its survival.

Iran says its nuclear programme is meant solely to yield electricity or isotopes for medicine and agriculture. It accuses the West of hypocrisy for taking little action against the nuclear arsenal which many believe Israel to have.

 

[coolhand]

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/14/obama-jobs

The Obama White House, stung by criticism of the recent May employment report, which showed virtually no job growth beyond the 411,000 temporary census workers, is attempting to find ways to put as many of the 411,000 in permanent government jobs.

According to White House sources, the Labor Department is spearheading efforts to identify government jobs created or enabled by federal stimulus programs, as well as unfilled bureaucrat jobs, where the temporary workers might be placed.

"There are policies in place that would allow us to put those people into federal or possibly stimulus-related jobs fairly quickly," says one White House source. "They are already in the pipeline given the employment forms they filled out for the census work."

Federal hiring rules quietly eased and adjusted by the Obama Administration over the past year will further enable the administration to place those temporary workers, according to the White House source. For example, the Obama Administration has cut back the number of forms job seekers must fill out, ended the practice of a skills and knowledge essay, allowed the hiring process to take place with only the use of a résumé and writing samples, and, perhaps most important, eased hiring rules based on the "most qualified" requirement, so that less experienced prospective employees might be hired over better qualified or more experienced competitors.

Another byproduct of the census hiring? "It's essentially a new job created if these volunteers move back to the unemployment rolls [and then back to a fulltime job in the federal government]," says a Senate Democrat leadership staffer.

ALL THE RIGHT THINGS

There were peels of laughter coming out of the offices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable when President Obama claimed that speaking to the CEO of British Petroleum would have been unhelpful because "when you talk to a guy like the BP CEO, he's going to say all the right things to me."

"Apparently the President hasn't been listening to all those CEOs he's been meeting with over the past 15 months," says a senior executive with the U.S. Chamber. "Unless all those ladies and gentlemen have been lying, those private White House lunches and dinners and coffees with the President have been fairly frank. Mr. Obama may just not like what he's hearing, but it's laughable for him to say that his experience is that executives only tell him what they think he wants to hear."

Obama has invited a number of CEOs to the White House for meetings, sometimes in groups as small as two to four and in larger groups, as well. The stated purpose of the meetings has been to discuss Obama administration efforts on employment, the economy, and legislative efforts like health care. Often times, the White House reaches out to the CEOs independent of the two large corporate associations -- BRT, but particularly the U.S. Chamber, where relations between it and the White House have been less than warm -- but after the fact, a number of CEOS or their Washington representatives will pass along the content of the discussions.

"Our impression is that our member CEOS have been respectful, but honest and often blunt when speaking with the President," says the Chamber source. "These are highly accomplished individuals and I think some have gone into these meetings viewing them as 'teachable moments' for an administration that appears to neither like nor trust the business community."

 

[crws]

I've got it!
Lets sink the Iranian ship with a N Korean torpedo!
That should start the fireworks just in time for the 4th.

 

[coolhand]

I've got it!
Lets sink the Iranian ship with a N Korean torpedo!
That should start the fireworks just in time for the 4th.

I like it!

 

[coolhand]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...11725173500.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

The BP oil spill is already a calamity for the Gulf Coast ecosystem and economy, but now that Washington is looking to deflect all political blame it could also became a disaster for the rule of law. Exhibit C, or perhaps it's now D, is the new White House demand that BP pay into an escrow account controlled by government to pay for the economic costs of the spill.

Exhibit A was the public announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that his Department had opened a criminal probe of the spill, a fact usually kept under wraps to protect the innocent.

Then came the President's suggestion that BP suspend its dividend, which is crucial to the retirement of thousands of shareholders. BP may decide it is prudent to suspend its dividend while it gets a better handle on its ultimate liability. But the White House has no legal basis to compel such a decision. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are preparing to lift their own $75 million liability cap and apply that retroactively to BP, another move of dubious legality.

No wonder Britain's Prime Minister and other officials are alarmed about the fate of one of their country's foremost corporations. This is the kind of treatment that Americans would protest if it were applied to U.S. companies by Venezuela or Russia.

 

[coolhand]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/2389224,CST-NWS-stein14.article

We're Americans, we don't do austerity. Oh, we like conservation -- we embrace the idea of limiting ourselves, voluntarily, of being lean and mean and not wasting quite so much of our bounty, if we so choose.

But the idea of difficult economic conditions being imposed upon us, against our will, the notion of limits being reached and exceeded, confounds us. What, the cupboard's bare? Really? Nah, c'mon! Bare?

We've had years to get used to it, to adjust to Illinois being $13 billion in debt, our credit rating slipping, our bills unpaid. We clutch at any excuse for optimism. These hard times are just a passing dip, a bad patch. Look -- unemployment in Illinois has fallen from 11.5 to 11.3 percent -- happy days are here again!

In 2006 it hit 3.9 percent.

How completely we don't get our current predicament is demonstrated whenever key programs are being cut. What do the people directly affected do? They protest, they demonstrate, they get angry, as if we're still flush and the problem is merely one of allocating our plenty. They seem convinced that if only people understood -- if only the czar knew! -- then funding would immediately be restored. Everything's important, everything's untouchable. We can't cut and we can't raise taxes and we can't earn more -- so what can we do?

The idea that the money isn't there, that broke is the new normal, that a program's being vital and important isn't enough to save it anymore, has yet to sink in. Need isn't the deciding factor, money -- or, rather, lack of money -- is the deciding factor. Get used to it.

 

[coolhand]

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/61...oes-broke-becomes-next-aig-waiting-selling-bi

“If you were to have faxed me this balance sheet and asked me to guess who it belonged to, I would have guessed, Citadel, Magnetar or even a proprietary trading desk at a bank.” So begins a story by Alexandra Harris of the Medill Journalism school at Northwestern, which, however, does not focus on some exotic product-specialized hedge fund, or some discount window (taxpayer capital) backed prop desk (hedge fund) at a TBTF bank, but instead at the 61% underfunded, $33.7 billion Illinois Teachers Retirement System (TRS), which just happened to lose $4.4 billion in 2009 (a year when, courtesy of America's conversion from capitalism to socialism, the market rose 60%), and 5% in2008. Yet underperformance can be explained. What can not, is that the TRS has now become a shadow AIG. As Harris notes "TRS is largely on the risky side of the contracts, selling and writing OTC derivatives, including credit default swaps, insurance-like contracts that guarantee payment in the event of a default, that were blamed in part for the 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros. and bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc., or AIG." Demonstrating just how far the fund is willing to go in the "for broke" category, knowing full well that if it repeats AIG's implosion, the government will likely bail it out, is the disclosure that a stunning 81.5% of the fund's investments are considered risky - this means it is the fourth-riskiest investment portfolio for a pension fund in the U.S! All it will take is another Flash Crash-like event, or a liquidity crunch, and the 355,000 "full-time, part-time and substitute public school teachers and administrators working outside the city of Chicago" will likely end up with a big, fat donut in their retirement portfolios courtesy of some deranged lunatic, portfolio manager, situated externally at a bank like Goldman Sachs, who in taking a page straight out of Obama's bailout nation, has decided there is no such thing as risk. And to those naive enough to think the TRS is the only such fund which has now gone all-in on "no risk and infinite return", wait until such stories start emerging about every single massively underfunded pension and fully insolvent fund in the US.

 

[coolhand]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38518.html

Derivatives language in the Wall Street reform bill — once widely expected to become a casualty of the formal conference process — picked up significant momentum Monday, securing the endorsement of two regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents.

The Fed presidents in Dallas and Kansas City sent letters of support Monday to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), the architect of the controversial derivatives language, on the eve of the conference committee re-opening its negotiations Tuesday.

The two officials argued that the derivatives “swaps desks” should be spun off to other entities, because of the danger they pose to banks’ balance sheets, which are backed by what they called a federal government “safety net” that could put taxpayer funds at risk. “Such activities should be placed in a separate entity that does not have access to government backstops,” they wrote.

 

[coolhand]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-a-Black-Monday-style-collapse-BoE-warns.html

In a survey of markets, the Bank warned that widespread fear over the possible collapse of a sovereign debtor, including Greece and Portugal, had sparked a mass of bets on a 20 per cent fall in the FTSE 100.

The warning coincides with calculations from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) showing that Britain has major exposure to the Irish and Spanish banking systems, which many fear could be at risk in the next round of the financial crisis.

The Bank of England used its Quarterly Bulletin to warn that markets were under increased strain following the International Monetary Fund and European Commission's bail-out of Greece.

It said that investors had fled into safe haven assets, including Treasury bonds, gold and, to some surprise, UK government bonds.

However, it pointed out that the number of investors betting on a 20 per cent fall in the FTSE 100 index, based on their purchase of options connected to such a scenario, had risen from below 5 per cent to about 13 per cent in the past month alone.

Although this is below the 25 per cent level around the time of the Lehman implosion, the rate of increase is similar.

Share prices have been hit by the fears surrounding sovereign debt in recent weeks.

Some analysts fear problems surrounding government bonds could trigger a repeat of Lehman-style events.

The BIS used its own Quarterly Report to point out that, although the strain had worsened throughout the international banking system, banks' balance sheets were slightly healthier than in the early stages of the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the Lehman collapse.

However, it also pointed out that various countries in the euro area were particularly exposed to each other – both in terms of sovereign and private debt. Banks headquartered in Britain had larger claims on Ireland ($230 billion, £158 billion) than banks based in any other country. Britain has a $150 billion (£103 billion) exposure to Spain.

 

[coolhand]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...financial-crisis/story-e6frg8zx-1225879631946

THE powerful Bank for International Settlements has judged that the European sovereign debt crisis is shaping up as a repeat of the US subprime mortgage debt meltdown.

The Swiss-based institution, which acts as the official banker to the world's central banks, said wild swings in markets over the past three months had been caused by a global loss of investor confidence.

"The swift reversal in market confidence evokes painful memories of (the northern) autumn 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers brought money and capital markets to a virtual standstill," the bank said in its quarterly review of world financial markets, released yesterday.

"In both cases, market sentiment deteriorated rapidly . . . with problems in one region spreading globally through the network of interbank funding markets and counterparty credit exposures."

The bank said the European crisis in fact bore closer resemblance to late 2007, when the subprime crisis began, than to the Lehman collapse. Market volatility had been even greater in the past three months than it was in 2007, although the rise in bank funding costs had been lower.

It said worries about the safety of European banks meant they were finding it harder to get access to US dollars. "Faced with growing uncertainty, investors cut risk exposures and retreated to traditional safe haven assets."

BIS said Australia had been caught up in the turmoil with investors selling what they believed were risky assets, including the Australian dollar, which has fallen from US91.23c to US85.71c in the past three months. Australian stocks are down just over 10 per cent from the 18-month highs reached in mid-April.

The bank said investor nervousness was overwhelming positive developments in the economy. "Market participants focused on the deteriorating financial market conditions while often ignoring positive macro-economic news." It cited US sharemarkets falling by 1.5 per cent following the release of surprisingly good employment figures.

The E750 billion ($1 trillion) rescue package mounted by the members of the European Union had brought only temporary relief.

"Investor confidence soon deteriorated on worries about the possible interactions between public debt and growth."

Besides growing doubts about the sustainability of the sovereign debts of a number of European nations, BIS said: "Economic policy tightening in China, Brazil and India, among others, fuelled doubts that emerging economies could provide the necessary global growth momentum."

Although world sharemarkets rallied late last week on the continuing strength of the Chinese economy and good GDP figures from Japan, the European crisis will receive fresh attention this week as leaders try to settle their differences in policy response.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were scheduled to meet last night. This is to be followed by a summit of all 27 European members on Thursday.

British Foreign Minister William Hague has already ruled out any co-operation with a EU plan to require consultation on national budgets.

The BIS said the loss of investor confidence had postponed any move by the central banks to start returning interest rates to normal levels. The first tightening by the US Federal Reserve was not expected until the first quarter of 2011.

 

[nasa1974]

CH, Too many good posts. Will have to read later since I am heading off to training. Have a great day.