Thursday
Aug302012
Beige Book: Fed Says Economy Grew 'Gradually' In July
Sara Eisen reports for Bloomberg.
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve said the U.S. economy continued to expand “gradually” in July and early August as improvement in housing and retail sales helped outweigh weakness in manufacturing.
More Beige Book release details...
---
Related:
Start watching at the 1-minute mark.
Sara Eisen caught making embarrassing wardrobe adjustment on camera
Screenshots
Reader Comments (14)
http://www.bloomberg.com/personalities/sara_eisen/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9492834/Egypt-asks-IMF-for-4.8bn-in-aid.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fdic-bank-profits-decrease-in-second-quarter-2012-08-28
Banks on FDIC problem list fell to 732 in second quarter
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/was-facebook-a-set-up-for-morgan-stanley-2012-08-24
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-eyes-delay-for-mid-sized-bank-stress-tests-2012-08-27?Link=obinsite
MFG, Injustice, & Your Bank Account w J Koutoulas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrbUqDl3uls&feature=youtu.be
Freeh Calls for Peace in Fight Over MF Global Money
snip
"But even as the trustees opened the door to a settlement, Mr. Freeh criticized Mr. Giddens for recently suing Jon S. Corzine and other top MF Global executives. Mr. Corzine, a former New Jersey governor, was MF Global’s chief executive. In the filing on Wednesday, Mr. Freeh formally objected to Mr. Giddens joining a lawsuit filed by the firm’s customers.
He accused Mr. Giddens of “attempting to assign claims that belong to and benefit the general estate to representatives of the customers.” Mr. Freeh is also considering legal action against some executives, which could be complicated by Mr. Giddens’s lawsuit. Some people close to Mr. Freeh would have preferred that Mr. Giddens join their case rather than teaming up with the customers.
But Mr. Jarrell argued that Mr. Freeh has “some inherent conflicts in opposing” Mr. Giddens’s actions. Some of the executives named as defendants in the case, including the chief financial officer, are currently employed by Mr. Freeh."
in full
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/freeh-calls-for-peace-in-fight-over-mf-global-money/
Related
Report: Cronyism, political donations likely behind Obama, Holder failure to charge any bankers after 2008 financial meltdown
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/07/report-cronyism-political-donations-likely-behind-obama-holder-failure-to-charge-any-bankers-after-2008-financial-meltdown/#ixzz252hzkrEO
FDIC STATISTICS: READ 'EM AND WEEP
snip
Just following up with citations and illumination on the whole propaganda meme that is the FDIC, because, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of people think that the FDIC is a magical, omnipotent entity that has infinite resources and will magically swoop in to "take care of them" like a magic flying unicorn.
This is what happens when you have a civilization filled with emotional children with exactly ZERO critical thinking skills. You have to hand it to the Communist infiltrators. They did a damn good job of brainwashing and psychologically destroying four generations of human beings.
Per the Q4 2011 FDIC Chief Financial Officer's report to the Board, published on March 30, 2012, the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund had a balance of $11.8 billion dollars.
HERE'S THE LINK.
Bank deposits in the United States at the same time are estimated to be between $8 TRILLION and $10 TRILLION. Let's be conservative and say the number is $8TTT.
11,800,000,000 divided by 8,000,000,000,000 equals 0.001475, which I will round UP to 0.0015.
That is read as "fifteen hundredths of one percent". It isn't one percent, it is fifteen hundredths of one percent. That is how much the FDIC is carrying to back all of those little signs on the teller windows that say "Each Depositor insured to at least $250,000. Backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government."
more
http://barnhardt.biz/
http://www.arabianmoney.net/us-dollar/2012/08/30/bill-gross-still-thinks-qe3-will-come-soon/
Or it's an Uzi.
Regards, LC
The financial system rests on quicksand
snip
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/826e5056-f120-11e1-a553-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz253sdzqI5
If anything is calculated to cause despair about the prospects of making the financial system safer, it is the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission to tame the $2.6tn US money market fund industry. Mary Schapiro, the SEC chairman, has tried her best but she was stymied last week.
The stakes are so high that reform now needs to be taken out of the hands of the SEC’s commissioners, who have shown themselves to be fatally susceptible to industry lobbying, and led by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Failing that, international regulators should limit the dependence of banks on these shaky foundations.
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/826e5056-f120-11e1-a553-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz253sn82tg
What are the chances of the other US authorities succeeding where the SEC has failed? Sadly limited, given the poisonous climate in Washington, acrimony over the Dodd-Frank Act and the presidential election. These form dispiriting obstacles to reform of the shadow banking system, of which money market funds form one of the oldest parts.
Reform of money market funds ought to be an open-and-shut case, given the events of 2008. The first evidence of the distress triggered by the Lehman Brothers collapse was when the Reserve Primary fund “broke the buck” because it held $785m of Lehman securities. That led to a rapid run on its deposits and official intervention to stop other funds toppling.
As Ms Schapiro observed in June, “we do not know what the full consequences of an unchecked run on money market funds would have been”, but it is safe to say: not good. The funds, established in the 1970s as competitors to banks, have become one of the primary short-term funding mechanisms of both US and European banks.
more
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/826e5056-f120-11e1-a553-00144feabdc0.html#axzz253s00diY
Still Think That Money Market Fund Is “Cash”?
http://dollarcollapse.com/capital-controls/still-think-that-money-market-fund-is-cash/
Your posts about the S.E.C. got me thinking about a couple of issues, the 1st of which is this quote from one of the articles:
(1) "What are the chances of the other US authorities succeeding where the SEC has failed?"
The odds are probably close to nil. At this point, taxpayers would undoubtedly get more bang for the buck by hiring a special investigator from a law firm outside D.C. to get to the bottom of, say, MF Global or Sentinel or PFG Best, than from continuing to rail against the criminally lazy S.E.C., CFTC, DOJ, etc., etc.
A good investigator armed with reasonably broad jurisdiction and powers (e.g., subpoenas, document productions, and depositions) could do a lot more in a year than any one of the foregoing black holes of cash have done in over a decade.
The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy examiner produced a 2200 page report that shocked nearly everyone with the stench from the dirty laundry it aired, at a cost of about $40 million (if memory serves). The question is which law firm could do the work without a massive business conflict of interest that's nullified the entire DOJ since January 2009. The firm that did the Lehman bk, Jenner & Block is one option (though its clients includes financial firms like GE and GM). Another is Quinn Emanuel.
(2) Which if any law firm is preparing the bankruptcy report for MF Global, Sentinel, and PFG Best?
(3) When does Koutoulas expect to file the first criminal case in state court? Which state?