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Frontrunning: March 30
- A morbid, reverse Robin Hood: Ben Bernanke is stealing from the old to give to the rich (WSJ)
- Greek credit spreads deteriorate rapidly post 7 Year GGB Issue: The yield on the new notes rose to 6.32 percent, up from 6
percent when they were issued yesterday, ABN Amro Bank NV prices
show. Yields move inversely to bond prices. The yield premium on the Greek seven-year security widened
about 5 basis points to 339 basis points over benchmark German
debt. The 10-year
Greek bond yield jumped 15 basis points to 6.47 percent, and the
difference in yield, or spread, with benchmark 10-year bunds
widened 14 basis points to 330 basis points. (Bloomberg) - The drop occurs even as first day trading picture is supposed to determine need for full EU bailout (Bloomberg)
- Stocks: a rally that defies gravity (BusinessWeek)
- Beijing gears up to reform equity trades (FT)
- Time for Obama to put Americans back to work (NYT)
- Downtown New York towers empty empty as best office market falters (Bloomberg)
- Tomorrow QE ends. Will investors take over the Fed's mortgage market making dominance? (Bloomberg)
- Social security is running out of money (IBD)
- Ireland tackles bank problem (WSJ)
- The last temptation of risk (National Interest)
- The good news for our RBS friends don't end - RBS gets record fine over pricing leak (Bloomberg)
- Why the future of good news is not free (TimesOnline)
- New York airports accounts for 41 of 50 most-delayed flights (Bloomberg)
- Healthcare reform has passed. What now? (Alhambra)
- New iPhone may end AT&T's US monopoly (WSJ)
»
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That should calm the non-AT&T masses for some time and pull the cloth over their eyes just for the time the debt hits 20 trillion and unemployment goes to (real) 25%.
reverse Robin Hood, too right!
And not only rob from the elderly prudent savers but also raise any borrowings interest charges for those who can least afford it.
This whole scenario is only rewarding the greedy banksters and still nothing is done to stop them doing it all over again and again and again
The higher this market goes, the more afraid the working class investor is of it.
We got burned once, for the majority of us, it won't happen again. Like the article from BW says, people are pulling their money out. We recovered some of our losses, and we are not about to hang around for the next down leg.
More and more money will be pulled from mutual funds, the higher this market goes. We are a lot of things, however stupid is not one of them.
I thought Greece didn't "need" a bailout. Wasn't the whole point to bring down the cost of Greek debt?
The Macro View
http://themacroview.wordpress.com
front-run this too;
new health care bill privides for an implanted microchip of your health record.
http://www.infowars.com/reconciliation-act-h-r-4872-brings-microchipping...
I read the part pertaining to Class II devices. It is simply stating that the record of their use on a patient must included in the information database. I did not see anywhere where it (((provides))) for the use of implantable ID chips. The referenced article also makes strong assumptions and draws very long lines to very small dots.
So unless there is some other evidence of this lets please not post anymore of this nonsense. Although some of the information provided on this site can at times be a stretch, normally there is sort of actual match to back it up.
During the thorough coverage of H.R.3590 America thought it was free of a ‘Healthcare System’ that allowed a national medical registry to be created and the population to be tagged with implantable RFID chips. But a second heath care related bill called “The Reconciliation Act of 2010” (2300 pages) was recently passed by the Senate on March 25th after being passed by the House on March 21st. This bill has been cleared for the White House and awaits the signature of the Dictator and Chief. Buried in the text of the 2300 page monstrosity in section 2521, the creation of a National Medical Device Registry is enacted. This is portrayed as a registry to collect safety data on medical devices such as pacemakers and to put the safety data in a publicly accessible national electronic database. ~ Infowars
Here is more background info on the “National Medical Device Registry” from Daily Paul back on 8/30/09…
Microchiping included in Healthcare Bill?Submitted by celeste on Sun, 08/30/2009 - 12:27 in Current Events
"Buried deep within the over 1,000 pages of the massive US Health Care Bill (PDF) in a “non-discussed” section titled: Subtitle C-11 Sec. 2521— National Medical Device Registry, and which states its purpose as:
“The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that—‘‘(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; and ‘‘(B) is a class III device; or ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable.”
In “real world speak”, according to this report, this new law, when fully implemented, provides the framework for making the United States the first Nation in the World to require each and every one of its citizens to have implanted in them a radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling who is, or isn’t, allowed medical care in their country.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/105079
Additional info:
The Obama Health care bill under Class II (Paragraph 1, Section B) specifically includes ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable." Then on page 1004 it describes what the term "data" means in paragraph 1, section B:
14 ‘‘(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to in15
formation respecting a device described in paragraph (1),
16 including claims data, patient survey data, standardized
17 analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of
18 data from disparate data environments, electronic health
19 records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the
20 Secretary"
"A morbid, reverse Robin Hood: Ben Bernanke is stealing from the old to give to the rich (WSJ)"
There is only one explanation for why the average Joe doesn't rise up and revolt against the terribly destructive ZIRP the Fed is still pushing. We all act as if we're battered spouses, with horrific co-dependency issues combined with a battered and bruised self respect. We have completely bought into the notion that whatever is good for the abusive spouse is good for me. Because our initiative and drive has been beaten out of us, we can't imagine what life would be like without the constant beatings and terrorism.
Our heads have been slammed into the wall so many times that if it were to stop, we would probably head butt the wall ourselves so that we would feel "normal" and safe. Every time I think about the passive and apathetic population, I see parallels to battered spouses and a drug or alcohol addicted personality. Average Joe and Jane are demoralized and immobilized.
CD, thank you for your relevant observations!
Bruce E. Levine wrote a timely article back in
December on alternet.org/story/144529 that
parallels your thoughts nicely, entitled 'Are
Americans A Broken People?' You might find it
interesting.
I saw that article when it first came out. My biggest complaint was that it didn't discuss any of the items we are in denial of, only that we are this way. Of course, no (battered and abused) self respecting citizen would ever be caught dead looking at the Alternet web site (unless their abuser said it was OK) which as we all know is a bastion for commies and lefties and terrorists. As long as articles such as that are kept out of the mainstream media nothing will change. When you are insane and are deliberately surrounded by others who are insane, there is no hope for sanity.
As long as no one talks about the fact that our crazy Aunt May is locked away in the attic, we can all safely remain in our denial. That's key, to avoid speaking about the obvious, to ignore the dead body directly in front of you when you're walking down the street. The severely in denial among us (which is the majority) will actually time their steps as they approach the dead body so that they can step over the body in a manner that doesn't change their cadence, thus reinforcing that there is no dead body there.
Only those who have pushed back from the death spiral of deep deep denial are willing to talk about it. Everyone else is in denial about their denial. First you deny, then you deny you were ever in denial. If we don't speak the truth, talk about the obvious all the time and in every way possible, the masses will simply slip deeper into the mind numbing comfort of denial. My small hope is that what I talk about is an irritant to those who wish to remain in denial.
It should be obvious by now to all that Bernanke and company's plan for us is the slow starvation of the middle class. Just enough money will be created to keep Wall Street alive and kicking, and just enough tax increases will be enacted to keep the currency from collapsing. The net result of this is the slow, steady destruction of the middle class economy, while steadily making up for the losses to Wall Street caused by middle class defaults. The formal seperation of the country into two distinct economic classes ("Rich, Connected and Powerful" and "Poor, Landless and Powerless") will occur over the nest decade.
The essence of central planning is the selection of winners and losers. Central bankers, to provide funds for their friends, must take the money where they can find it. In this case, it was the savings accounts of people who have worked their lives believing that labor and assets equal value. Dog to dog, it doesn’t take a ‘Lassie’ to discover who the bankers picked for losers and who the bankers picked for winners.
The fiat system is a giant monopoly game where the central bank ends up with all the houses, hotels, and railroads and the other players are continuously sent back to “Start."
Savers and sound money people and homeowners and dotcom 401Kers, you want to get ahead in this Fed-run economy? Start over.
LOW INTEREST RATES ARE SQUEEZING SENIORS
The Fed's help to big banks comes at a big cost to savers | Charles R. Schwab
Today's historically low interest rates may be feeding banks' profitablity, but they are financially starving our seniors.
In February 2006, when Ben Bernanke was first sworn in as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the federal-funds target rate stood at 4.5%. That same year, the average yield on a one-year certificate of deposit was 5.4%. A retiree who diligently saved for a lifetime and had amassed a nest egg of $100,000 could count on an added $5,400 in retirement income per year. That may not sound like much to the average Wall Street Journal subscriber, but for a senior on fixed ...Is the full version of the WSJ article free anywhere? It sounds like he's hitting on one of the most immoral parts of ZIRP - forcing seniors to chase yield because they can't get by on 2%. We have an economic central planner who is willing to throw honest people who saved a modest retirement under the bus just so that everyone at Citigroup keeps their job. Fabulous...
Low Interest Rates Are Squeezing Seniors by Charles R. Schwab
Today’s historically low interest rates may be feeding banks’ profitability but they are financially starving our seniors.
In February 2006, when Ben Bernanke was first sworn in as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the federal-funds target rate stood at 4.5%. That same year, the average yield on a one-year certificate of deposit was 5.4%. A retiree who diligently saved for a lifetime and had amassed a nest egg of $100,000 could count on an added $5,400 in retirement income per year. That may not sound like much to the average Wall Street Journal subscriber, but for a senior on fixed incomes that extra money improved the quality of his life.
Today’s average rate for an identical one-year CD is roughly 1.3%. On the same nest egg, that retiree will now get annual payout of just $1,300—a 76% decline in four years.
Some would argue that today’s low inflation rate offsets the decline. But even at an inflation rate of zero, a 76% decline in spending power is painful. And we’re already seeing signs of inflation this year. The first two months of 2010 showed an annualized inflation rate of 2%, further exacerbating the spending power problem for retirees by eroding the value of their principal.
To be sure, the country’s recent financial crisis required unprecedented action by the Fed, including lowering rates to levels not seen in more than 50 years. In particular, the infusion of capital into the banking system through historically low fed-fund target rates pulled may banks from the precipice of collapse. By that measure it has been a resounding success.
Yet these unprecedented low rates have now been in place for almost 18 months. As a result, banks have enjoyed virtually free access to money while retirees have been deprived of any meaningful yield on their fixed-income portfolios. For a large segment of our population—people who worked long and hard, who followed the rules by spending less than they earned and putting the remainder away to keep themselves independent in retirement—the ultra-low interest rate is more than a hardship. It’s a potential disaster striking at core American principles of self-reliance, individual responsibility and fairness.
To put the scale of this problem in context, consider the fact that more than $7.5 trillion in American house-hold wealth is held today in short-term, interest-bearing products such as checking and savings accounts, retail money funds and CDs. At today’s low interest rates, the return on those savings is hundreds of billions less than it would have been at 2006 interest rates. Retirees feel the consequences disporportionately, but because much of that income would have made its way into the economy, spending and job creation also suffer.
I see the pain that low interest rates have caused very directly. My company, Charles Schwab, serves millions of individual investors, many of whom are 65 and older. These people depend on cash savings for their financial well-being.
Many in this age group are being forced to stretch for income one of three ways. One is to take on more risk just as they are progressing through retirement. Another is to go longer in maturity with their fixed income investments, locking them into a situation where inflation will bite further into their principal and purchasing power. And the worst is the slow erosion of principal that is already occurring as people cash out of savings to make up for needed income.
It’s not just retirees on fixed income we should be concerned about. Let’s not forget that savers of all ages—even the young person opening his first savings account—need some incentive of future reward for saving. Today, there is none.
The large banks are well on the mend. Profits are improving and they’re doing just fine. Our seniors are not. Those in Washington should keep their plight in mind as they consider Fed monetary policies going forward. (emphases mine)
Mr. Schwab is founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation.
(The Wall Street Journal - OPINION - p. A19)
To put the scale of this problem in context, consider the fact that more than $7.5 trillion in American house-hold wealth is held today in short-term, interest-bearing products such as checking and savings accounts, retail money funds and CDs. At today’s low interest rates, the return on those savings is hundreds of billions less than it would have been at 2006 interest rates.
Why didn't Schwab go just one step further? Those hundreds of billions of dollars represented cost of borrowing to the Wall street banks. Those now-avoided costs mean that this very real hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed, instead of to retirees as income on their hard-earned savings, directly to the bottom line of the banks. This was enabled directly and purposefully by the banks' agent, the Federal Reserve, and its head, Ben Bernanke. This is theft, plain and simple. It is theft by a non-government agency and protected by the government itself.
Definition of "conversion of funds" Fraudimproper use of somebody else's money the act of using money that does not belong to you for a purpose for which it is not supposed to be used
Thanks for the straight, undiluted truth. I could weep over the lies, cover-ups, distractions and silence on issues of this kind from the jackals in the so-called American press. Awesome, SWR.
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there…
God help us.
Potential hearsay:
Am I hearing right about a Greek 12-year bond issue today that had an auction failure?
0.5 to 1 bid/cover.
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