University of California

• As reported here first a month ago: The $9 Trillion Short That May Send the Dollar Even Higher (BBG)
• As an instant target for foes, Clinton may struggle to get message heard (Reuters)
• Emerging Stocks Rally 11th Day as Aussie Weakens on China (BBG)
• Puerto Rico, Investors Enlist Ex-IMF Officials (WSJ)
• Dollar’s Rise Reshuffles Global Economy (BBG)
• Indonesia eyes regular navy exercises with U.S. in South China Sea (Reuters)
• Banca Monte dei Paschi Breaches Exposure Limits to Nomura (WSJ)
• European Bond Buyers Find Negative Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Bad (BBG)

The drought in California is getting a lot worse. In fact, California has been losing more than 12 million acre-feet of groundwater a year since 2011, and wells all over the state are going dry. Once the groundwater is all gone, what are people going to do?

"Approximately 10 percent of ozone pollution in California’s San Joaquin Valley is estimated to be coming from outside of the state’s borders, particularly from Asia," a study by UC Davis notes, as evidence mounts that China may be "exporting" its abundant supply of smog.

University of California President Janet Napolitano wants students' voices to be heard — unless it means "listening to their crap."

"The boom years of the past decade and a half were the exception and not the rule. Australia and Canada will have a bit of rough patch in the years to come, but will manage through as they always do. The much touted growth prospects of many of the BRICs will prove to be nothing more than a commodity-boom-fuelled mirage."

"We have to rethink our world just about from scratch. Or else. We’ve lived chasing the recovery carrot for years now, but the economy won’t recover; it can’t. There hasn’t been any real growth since at least the 1980s, the only thing there’s been is increasing debt levels that we mistook for growth." We need to do a lot more thinking, and take a far more critical look at ourselves, than we do at present. We’re not even playing it safe, we’re only playing it easy. And that’s just not enough.

Because you can always bet on the "stupidity of the American voter" and win.

"Give me your corrupt, your crony, your oligarch masses yearning to launder money free,

The criminal masterminds of your destroyed environment and police state.

Send these, the pampered, the private jet setter to me, I open my hands to your golden yuan."

The absurdity of taxing us to health is obvious - as is the unlimited greed and avarice of local government for more tax revenues, by any means available. Eat sugar, go to jail. The local Gulag would love it.

And then there is BusinessWeek, which quite to the contrary, is urging its readers in its cover story, ignore common sense, and do more of the same that has led the world to dead economic end it finds itself in currently. In fact, it is, in the words of NYT's Binyamin Appelbaum, calling the world governments to become the slaves of a defunct economist.  And spend, spend, spend, preferably on credit. Because, supposedly, this time the resulting crash from yet another debt-funded binge will be... different?

• "Soaring consumer confidence" - How the Economy Is Stoking Voter Anger at Incumbent Governors (WSJ)
• Euro zone deflation worries shield German Bunds from upbeat Fed (Reuters)
• Greece’s Euro Dilemma Is Back as Minister Sees Volatility (BBG)
• Ukraine gas supplies in doubt as Russia seeks EU payment deal (Reuters)
• Sterling Lads Chats Show FX Traders Matching Fix Orders (BBG)
• NATO Tracks Large-Scale Russia Air Activity in Europe (WSJ)
• U.K. SFO Charges Ex-Tullett Prebon Broker in Libor-Rigging Probe (BBG)
• Jerusalem on edge after shooting of rabbi (FT)
• Israeli police kill Palestinian suspected of shooting far-right activist (Reuters)
• Samsung seeks smartphone revamp to arrest profit slide (Reuters)

Ever since the April 2010 disaster on the BP-operated Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, there was one big outstanding question: where did the bulk of the oil gol? Now, thanks to a research team led by David Valentine, a microbial geochemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, sampled more than 534 locations near the spill site, gathering more than 3,000 individual samples, we know the answer: the oil spill - some 10 million gallons of coagulated oil - left an oily "bathub ring" on the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico, about 25 miles from the well, that's about the size of Rhode Island.

One would think that Janet Lee Dupree, 72, a self-professed HIV-infected alcoholic, would be slowly putting aside material worries as she prepares to set the intangibles in her life in order for one last time. One would be wrong.As she admits, "I am an alcoholic and I have HIV," she tells the BBC. "That's under control." What is the cause of most if not all consternation in the final days of Dupree's life? "I was sick and I didn't worry about paying back the debt." As a result, Dupree defaulted on her loan, and since she turned 65 she has had money withheld from her Social Security benefits. "Just recently I received a notification that they are going to garnish my wages because I am still working," says Dupree, who works 30 hours a week as a substance abuse counsellor. The debt in question: Dupree owes $16,000 in student loans she acquired in 1971 and 1972.

"I will never live long enough to pay off my loan."

• British PM begs Scots: Don't rip apart our UK 'family of nations' (Reuters)
• Obama has become Bush: Obama’s Task: Rally U.S. Public, Allies in Terror Fight (BBG)
• Alibaba's record IPO covered after first few roadshow meetings (Reuters)
• Ferrari chairman Luca Di Montezemolo to quit after 23 years (BBC)
• Combat Reversals Pressure Assad (WSJ)
• Top LBO Fund Investors Pile on Leverage to Boost Returns (BBG)
• BOJ's Iwata upbeat on economy, unfazed by post-tax hike slump (Reuters)
• Carney Can’t Escape Housing as Debt Colors BOE Policy (BBG)
• Detroit Clears Crucial Hurdle on Bankruptcy (NYT)

The chart below shows the civilian employment to population ratio: a convenient indicator of the real state of the US labor market which does away with the labor force entirely, and the associated rhetoric of why it may or may not be plunging, and merely focuses on two simple things: total population and the total civilian population of the US. One thing is clear: the ratio crashed when the depression started and has flatlined since. Which, incidentally, may be all you, and the Fed, needs to know about the recovery.