Business Summary Links By Day

 

 

Spain is Greece… Only Bigger and WorseApril 20, 2012 By gpc1981   http://gainspainscapital.com Spain on the Precipice http://albertpeia.com/spainontheprecipice.htm  ‘On the Surface, Spain’s debt woes have many things in common with those of Greece:1)Bad age demographics 2)A toxic bank system  However, you’ll note that as we tackle each of these, Spain is in fact in far worse fiscal shape than Greece.Currently there is one person of non-working age (65 or older) for every four people of working age (15-64) in Spain.  This is expected to worsen to one person of non-working age for every three people of working age by 2025 and an astounding more than one person of non-working age for every two people of working age by 2040.These demographics alone set Spain up for a sovereign debt Crisis. According toJagadeesh Gohkale of the Cato Institute Spain would need to have 250% of its GDP sitting in a bank account collecting interest forever in order to meet its unfunded liabilities without raising taxes or cutting government outlays.That, in of itself, is bad news for Spain. But Spain’s banking system are what really set it apart. Let’s consider the following facts about Spain’s banking system: *Total Spanish banking loans are equal to 170% of Spanish GDP. *Troubled loans at Spanish Banks just hit an 18-year high of over 8%. *Spanish Banks are drawing a record €316.3 billion from the ECB (up from €169.2 billion in February). However, even these don’t paint the real picture. Thanks to a property bubble that dwarfed the US in relative terms, Spain’s economy and corporate arena are now literally saturated with debt. Consider the following: *Spanish non-financial corporations’ gross debts outstanding are equal to 196% of Spain’s GDP (this is worse than that of Greece, Portugal, even Japan) *Spanish non-financial corporations sport debt to equity ratios of 152% (only Greece and Japan are worse here) *Spanish household debt is equal to 90% of the country’s GDP: much higher than the EU average of 70% and roughly inline with that of the US which has been running a credit bubble for 30+ years. In simple terms, Spain is like Greece, only bigger and worse…’ , Dave’s Daily: http://www.etfdigest.com OPTIONS EXPIRATION DISTORTIONS 4-20-13 ‘Beating much lower expectations can lead to a short squeeze and this was evident the past few days with some financials and Friday with Microsoft (MSFT) which beat earnings estimates by 3 cents. Remember, MSFT is one of the largest hedge fund holdings so pumping it higher seems easily job one. MSFT was up nearly 5% after the report which may strike some as an outsized gain. But the spin was the company reported good gains from the corporate sector meaning CFOs are loosening their purse strings. How long can you run XP anyway? The boys in the options pits must be chasing down options in MSFT and those silly bets made on Apple (AAPL) calls.The other big news on the day was that the IMF (mostly controlled by U.S. taxpayers) will pony-up another $400 billion in freshly minted dollars to rescue the euro zone once again. Even the Bank of Japan admitted this gesture (thank you America!) will only buy some time if austerity and reforms aren’t implemented. And, right on cue, we have French elections on deck this weekend with polls indicating Sarkozy is toast. This makes his deals with Merkel & Co toast as well. So with the socialists back in control of Europe’s second largest economy don’t expect much in the way of austerity and reform. That’s not on any socialist’s agenda. Also the IMF has secured some “pledges” from BRIC countries for some contributions. Brazil wants a larger role without necessarily a larger commitment. Perhaps Argentina’s Fernandez de Kirchner will pledge the minority balance of Spain’s YPF she hasn’t seized yet. Anyway, the bottom line for bulls is that the eurozone is fixed again if only for the trading day and week.The dollar (UUP) fell sharply (more IMF dollars make them cheaper?) gold (GLD) did little but other commodities (DBC, USO & JJC) with the weakening dollar were higher. All this brings us to options expiration which is day most investors should just take off. Most of what takes place reminds me of packs of wolves chasing down strike prices to exercise them to the disadvantage of the poor victims. Funny how this isn’t the feature of those trashing leveraged ETFs wishing to rename them. What could we rename the options game I wonder? I was an options principal and I always thought of them as death traps…’ , NSA Whistleblower Speaks Live: "The Government Is Lying To You"   http://albertpeia.com/nsawhistleblowerspeaks.htm  Just a month ago we raised more than a proverbial eyebrow when we noted the creation of the NSA's Utah Data Center (codename Stellar Wind) and William Binney's formidable statement that "we are this far from a turnkey totalitarian state". Democracy Now has the former National Security Agency technical director whistleblower's first TV interview in which he discusses the NSA's massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001, he has warned that the NSA’s data-mining program has become so vast that it could "create an Orwellian state." Today marks the first time Binney has spoken on national TV about NSA surveillance. Starting with his pre-9-11 identification of the world-wide-web as a voluminous problem since the NSA was 'falling behind the rate-of-change', his success in creating a system (codenamed Thin-Thread) for 'grabbing' all the data and the critical 'lawful' anonymization of that data (according to mandate at the time) which as soon as 9-11 occurred went out of the window as all domestic and foreign communications was now stored (starting with AT&T's forking over their data). This direct violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country was why Binney decided he could not stay (leaving one month after 9-11) along with the violation of almost every privacy and intelligence act as near-bottomless databases store all forms of communication collected by the agency, including private emails, cell phone calls, Google searches and other personal data…’ , NASDAPPL Crumbles Amid Sideways Volatile Week , Guest Post: Presenting The US Government’s Infographic Of Its Own Insolvency  http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2012/04/20120420_info1.png  , Does The I In IMF Stand For Idiot? , Guest Post: The Market's Getting A Wedgie , FoodStamp Nation First and foremost, there are 46.5 million Americans in the program as of the most recent information available (January 2012), comprising 22.2 million households.  That’s 15% of the entire population, and just over 20% of all households.  Moreover, despite the end of the official “Great Recession” in June 2009, over 10 million more Americans have been accepted into the program since that month, and the year-over-year growth rate for the program is still +5%. , Guest Post: Why The Left Misunderstands Income Inequality , Europe Is Now Red For The Year A sea of red is flowing from European equity markets and it seems they are unable to stem the flow as IBEX (the Italian Spanish equity index) nears March 2009 lows (down 18% YTD)…’

 

Miscellaneous Business Headlines

20-Apr-12 05:07PM  Next Week's Tape: Wild Cards, Apple, and The Fed at The Wall Street Journal 04:55PM  Citi's Pandit Sued Over Excessive Compensation at Forbes 04:43PM  Train Reading: Stocks Are Cheap? at The Wall Street Journal 04:39PM  Former Fed Official Sketches Out Inflation Surge at The Wall Street Journal 04:23PM  Time To Start Thinking About Fed, BOJ Meetings Next Week at The Wall Street Journal 04:19PM   STOCKS RISE, APPLE DIVES AGAIN: Here's What You Need To Know Business Insider 03:58PM  U.S. Airways Labors to Get American Onboard at The Wall Street Journal 03:49PM   Apple Shares Down 10%; It's a Correction at The Wall Street Journal 02:58PM  U.S. Economy: Maybe It Was the Weather After All at The Wall Street Journal 02:52PM  Apple Shares Down 10%; It's a Correction at The Wall Street Journal 01:50PM  Technical Signs Point to Higher Prices for Gold and Oil at Minyanville 01:24PM  Bank of America: Shares Hit Stall Speed at The Wall Street Journal 01:14PM  Manufacturing States Post Drops in Unemployment at The Wall Street Journal 01:02PM  Nevermind the Short-term Choppiness - What's the Long-term Outlook for Stocks? ETFguide 12:59PM  Fed Names Outside Experts to Review Stress Tests at The Wall Street Journal 12:03PM  ECRI Still Driving the Recession Bandwagon at The Wall Street Journal 12:00PM  Here's Why Microsoft Shares Are Surging at The Wall Street Journal 11:50AM  Here's Why Microsoft Shares Are Surging at The Wall Street Journal 11:36AM  Index, ETF option volumes near midday optionMONSTER 11:26AM  Index, ETF option volumes near midday optionMONSTER 11:14AM    Notable ETF Inflow Detected - SPY, JNJ, PFE, JPM at Forbes 10:54AM  When Factories Close, the Pain Lasts for Decades at The Wall Street Journal 10:33AM  Microsoft, McDonald's Push See-Saw Market Higher at The Wall Street Journal 10:10AM  Secondary Sources: 2011 Repeat?, Earth's Deficit, Bank of England at The Wall Street Journal 09:20AM  Stocks to Watch: Microsoft, McDonald's, SanDisk at The Wall Street Journal 09:16AM  Morning Links: Logic Says Stocks Aren't Cheap at The Wall Street Journal 09:12AM  General Electric Earnings Cheat Sheet: Booking a Profit Again at Wall St. Cheat Sheet 09:10AM  Pre-Market Primer: German Business Confidence Shines Despite Iberian Gloom at Minyanville 09:07AM  General Electric Beats the Street, Again at The Wall Street Journal 08:52AM  General Electric Beats the Street, Again at The Wall Street Journal 08:49AM  General Electric Earnings Cheat Sheet: Booking a Profit Again at Wall St. Cheat Sheet 08:47AM  World Needs to Create 200 Million Jobs at The Wall Street Journal 08:44AM  General Electric Earnings Cheat Sheet: Booking a Profit Again at Wall St. Cheat Sheet 08:27AM  Vital Signs: Tax Revenue Growing at The Wall Street Journal 07:23AM  Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News at Seeking Alpha 07:21AM  10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell Business Insider 07:18AM   Morning MarketBeat: Volume Equals Validity at The Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

 

New federal agency Office of Financial Research stirs ‘Orwellian’ fears

Fox News | It is the most powerful federal agency you’ve never heard of.



The Mother Of All Infographics: Visualizing America’s Derivatives Universe

Zero Hedge | A paper equivalent of bailing out the US derivatives market would look like.



Misleading Chart Understates U.S. Debt

Infowars.com | Debt owed to the bankers and “foreign investors” is actually $211 trillion.

 

 

Goldman Sachs facing a new insider trading probe

Reuters | Federal prosecutors in California are investigating a Goldman Sachs employee for insider trading.



Food Stamp Rolls to Grow Through 2014, CBO Says

Wall St Journal | The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007.



BIS: Asian Central Banks Are Pretty Good!

Daily Bell | What kind of snow are they eating in Switzerland? Monopoly private/public central banking has been a failure wherever it has been tried.



Chimps Throwing Poop And 29 Other Mind Blowing Ways That The Government Is Wasting Your Money

The Economic Collapse | Why do chimpanzees throw poop? The federal government would like to know and is using your tax dollars to investigate the matter.

 

 

One Nation Under Debt With Endless Debt Slavery For All  http://albertpeia.com/anddebtslaveryforall.htm

 

 

 

 

 

AP Business Highlights 

...Yahoo Market Update…

Metal News for the Day

 

 

 

Impeach Obama 2012. Join the National Campaign

Infowars.com | Now is the time to put an end to Obama’s treasonous and tyrannical behavior.

http://albertpeia.com/impeachobama.htm

Nancy Pelosi Wants to Amend the First Amendment Kurt Nimmo | When Pelosi says “special interests,” she means interests opposed to establishment Democrats. [ Here’s a look at the pelosi / wobama styled new california  ( 16 Reasons To Move Away From California  http://albertpeia.com/16reasonstomoveawayfromcalifornia.htm  ) . pelosi’s incompetent / senile in that chronological order. At this point, wobama the b for b***s*** is just incompetent but acts and seems as if he’s senile, particularly with regard to previous things he’s said and prior promises that he’s made. ]

 

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                                                                       { some prior links of current interest }

 

A Warning Sign For The World  http://albertpeia.com/warningsignfortheworld.htm, Inventor of World Wide Web Savages Government’s Big Brother Plans  http://albertpeia.com/bernersleeantibigbrotherwebintrusion.htm , 16 Reasons To Move Away From California  http://albertpeia.com/16reasonstomoveawayfromcalifornia.htm  ,  20 Signs You Might Be A Typical American Worker  http://albertpeia.com/20signsoftypicalamericanworker.htm , 10 Signs That America Is Decomposing Right In Front Of Our Eyes   http://albertpeia.com/10signsamericadecomposing.htm , 8 Reasons Why The Greek Debt Deal May Not Stop A Chaotic Greek Debt Default   http://albertpeia.com/8reasonsgreekdebtdefaultstillcoming.htm , 55 Interesting Facts About The U.S. Economy In 2012   http://albertpeia.com/55factsaboutus2012economy.htm  ,  http://albertpeia.com/debtpercapita.jpg  , Double-dip recession setting in across eurozone: EU , America 1950 vs. America 2012    http://albertpeia.com/downhillslideofamerica.htm , Society’s Five Stages of Economic Collapse  http://albertpeia.com/5stagesofcollapse.htm ,  No Housing Recovery - Case Shiller Shows 8th Consecutive Month Of House Price Declines, Goldman: Germany Is Now On The Hook By €1 Trillion (Or 40% Of GDP), 20 Economic Statistics To Use To Wake Sheeple Up From Their Entertainment-Induced Comas  http://albertpeia.com/20ecostatstowakesheeple.htm  , Central bank balance sheet expansion since end 2007  Mar 1st, 2012 by News (ZeroHedge) — SNB +230%; Fed +222%, BOJ +125%, BOE +87%, PBOC +93%, ECB +51%. USA Gold / PG View: Pretty strong evidence that the rally in bonds — and by extension the rally in stocks — is nothing but a charade. , 10.7 Percent: Unemployment In Europe Is Worse Than It Was At The Peak Of The Last Recession  http://albertpeia.com/europeunemploymentworsethanrecession.htm , Inflation Is A Tax And The Federal Reserve Is Taxing The Living Daylights Out Of Us   http://albertpeia.com/inflationisatax.htm  , 15 Potentially Massive Threats To The U.S. Economy Over The Next 12 Months  http://albertpeia.com/15massivethreatstoeconomy.htm , 1 Through 30 – The Coming U.S. Financial Crisis By The Numbers http://albertpeia.com/1-30usfinancialcrisiscoming.htm Greece Has Defaulted - Which Country In Europe Is Next?    http://albertpeia.com/greecehasdefaultedwhonext.htm , Five Charts That Prove We’re in a Depression and That the Federal Reserve and Washington Are Wasting Money gpc1981  http://albertpeia.com/usindepressionfedandgovwastingmoney.htm  , Broken Promises: Pensions All Over America Are Being Savagely Cut Or Are Vanishing Completely .http://albertpeia.com/uspensionscutorvanishing.htm  , America Is Being Transformed From A Wealthy Nation Into A Poor Nation At Breathtaking Speed   http://albertpeia.com/ustransformedfromwealthytopoor.htm , ECRI Stays with Recession Call  New American | The vicious cycle is starting where lower sales, lower production, lower employment and lower income [leads] back to lower sales…BOB ADELMANN New American Tuesday, March 13, 2012 http://albertpeia.com/ecricallsrecession.htm , Consumer prices rise on high gas costs But outside higher pump prices, inflation stayed mild. (Washington Post) [ Wake up! They’d have a hard time denying what’s in plain sight for everyone to see. Yet, apparently they’ve not gone grocery shopping lately; you know, all that catered food for fools in Washington.  , Financial Crisis Phase II Is Ahead at Forbes Bert Dohmen In late 2007, I wrote the book Prelude To Meltdown, predicting the global crisis that occurred the following year.  I now see a similar confluence of events that warns of phase II of the global crisis… My work shows that “the new recession has started.”… Over the past 33 years, we have called the start of every recession, often on the exact month, or within one month, of the official start as determined one year later by the official arbiter of recession, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)… However, inflation is far understated for political reasons. Currently, the GDP deflator is 1.8%, which hardly reflects the true rise in prices. Therefore, what is counted as “growth,” is actually price increases. Actual inflation, according to free market economists who calculate inflation as it was done in 1980 before the politician re-engineered it, is now more than 11%. Using that to adjust GDP for inflation, would show that the economy is now in a very sharp contraction…’ , Conned 2012: Joseph Kony Is A CIA Contractor  [ Yeah, cia, mossad, kony, they look like and are a bunch of spooks. ] Saman Mohammadi | Former European MP, journalist, and author Richard Cottrell says Lord Resistance Army is backed by CIA and Mossad. , 11 Reasons Why America Would Be A Better Place Without Goldman Sachs [ If only it was just 11 and not an endless number of reasons why the aforesaid is true! And, though america particularly, not just america, but the entire world as well! ] http://albertpeia.com/americabetterwithoutgoldmansachs.com  , The Obama Flag: Who Decided That It Was Okay To Replace The Stars On The American Flag With The Face Of Barack Obama? http://endoftheamericandream.com http://albertpeia.com/monkeyflag.htm   [Aside from the desecration issues, from a purely aesthetic perspective, that picture on the flag of that ugly monkey obama is an absolute disgrace and affront to any rational person’s aesthetic sensibilities!] , Who Decided That It Would Be A Good Idea.... http://albertpeia.com/misplacedfaith.htm , Chimps Throwing Poop And 29 Other Mind Blowing Ways That The Government Is Wasting Your Money  http://albertpeia.com/whydochimpslikeobamasthrowpoop29waysgovernmentwastesmoney.htm  , Failed Wobama model illustrated: 16 Reasons To Move Away From California  http://albertpeia.com/16reasonstomoveawayfromcalifornia.htm  , No Housing Recovery Until 2020 In 5 Simple Charts
http://albertpeia.com/nohousingrecoveryuntil2020in5charts.htm
, The Mother Of All Infographics: Visualizing America's Derivatives Universe   Fasten Your Seatbelts: High Frequency Trading Is Coming To The Treasury Market    [ , As US Rakes Largest Monthly Deficit In History, 2012 Tax Revenues Net Of Refunds Trail 2011Guest Post: Money from Nothing - A Primer On Fake Wealth Creation And Its Implications (Part 1)What is fraud except creating “value” from nothing and passing it off as something? Frauds interlink and grow upon each other. Our debt-based money system serves as the fraud foundation. In our debt-based money system, debt must grow in order to create money. Therefore, there is no way to pay off aggregate debt with available money. More money must be lent into the system to make the payments for old debts. This causes overall debt to expand as new money for actual people (vs. banks) always arrives at interest and compounds exponentially. This process is called financialization. Financialization: The process of making money from nothing in which debt (i.e. poverty, lack) is paradoxically considered an asset (i.e. wealth, gain). In current financialized economies “wealth expansion” comes from the parasitic taxation of productivity in the form of interest on fiat lending. This interest over time consumes a greater and greater share of resources, assets, labor, and livelihood until nothing is left., Guest Post: Money from Nothing - A Primer on Fake Wealth Creation and its Implications (Part 2) Only in a debt-based money system could debt be curiously cast as an asset. We’ve made “extend and pretend” a quaint phrase for a burgeoning market for financial lying and profiteering aimed toward preventing the collapse of a debt- (or lack-) based system that was already doomed by its initial design to collapse. , Guest Post: The Audacity of Bonuses At MF GlobalIn the spirit of George Orwell’s Animal Farm commandment: “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal then others” comes the galling news that bankruptcy trustee, Louis Freeh, could approve the defunct, MF Global to pay bonuses to certain senior executives. This, despite the fact that nearly $1.6 billion of customer funds remains “missing” or otherwise partially accounted for, yet beyond the reach of those customers, perhaps forever, since before the firm declared bankruptcy on October 31, 2011... ,