TEOTWAWKI Bug Out Bag Infographic

Federal Reserve Refuses to Submit to an Audit of Germany’s Gold Held in U.S. Vaults

Federal Reserve Refuses to Submit to an Audit of Germany’s Gold Held in U.S. Vaults
 

The German government has been storing about half of its gold supply with the US FED, apparently in the NYC FED vaults. Germany decided to bring home all its gold, but the FED has said that isn’t possible to do, and it would need until 2020 to be able to accomplish the transfer.
The German government then asked to visit the FED vaults to inventory the gold and determine its actual existence, but the FED refused to permit Germany to examine its own gold. The reasons given were “security” and “no room for visitors”. And nothing else.
Germany did finally send some staff to the FED, and they were permitted only into the vault’s anteroom where they were shown 5 or 6 gold bars as representative of their holdings, and were permitted nothing else.
They apparently came a second time, and the FED did open only one of 9 rooms and let the Germans look at the stack of gold, but were not permitted to either enter or touch. And they returned home.
There has been speculation for a long time, that the FED doesn’t actually have much gold, that it has either sold it off, lent it out, or used it as collateral for borrowings. Either case, there are many claims that the gold that is being stored on behalf of many nations, doesn’t actually exist.

CME Chairman On Gold: “People Don’t Want Gold Certificates, They Want the Real Product”

 “People Don’t Want Gold Certificates, They Want the Real Product”

What’s interesting about gold, when we had that big break two weeks ago we saw all the gold stocks trade down significantly, we saw all the gold products trade down significantly, but one thing that did not trade down, was gold coins, tangible real  gold.  That’s going to show you, people don’t want certificates, they don’t want anything else.  They want the real product .

Terrence Duffy, President and Executive Chairman of CME Group Inc,. on Bloomberg TV

I’m actually still in a state of shock that the head of the CME Group would make such an observation and in such blunt terms.  I mean the guy admits that volume on his exchanges suck, yet basically claims paper gold (one of their marquee products) is becoming irrelevant.  In my mind there are two likely explanations for this.  1) This is how he has started to feel personally and he is loading up on physical gold rather than his company’s paper products and would like some cover if that is ever unearthed. 2) This is what people close to the gold market are telling him and he’d rather make it clear he understands that paper is paper and gold is gold and that there is a big difference.  So “caveat emptor” if you are hanging around the COMEX.

Truly a stunning admission or just a Freudian slip?

Who Is Really Behind the Internet Sales Tax?

It's big box operators, who don't like the internet competition. OpenSecretsBlog reports:

Supporters of the proposed Internet sales tax like to make it sound as though they just care about the little guy, the shopkeeper still intrepid enough to keep the doors open at her bricks-and-mortar store on Main Street. And in fact, the matching bills in the House and Senate -- which would require online retailers to collect sales tax on all transactions and hand the money over to state and local governments -- are called the Marketplace Fairness Act.

But, like many things in Washington, especially those that suddenly start to move through Congress quickly, very big business has thrown its weight behind the proposal[...]

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told the Times he was motivated to support the Internet sales tax in part by the owners of a local bridal shop, who complained to him that many customers browse in the store, then buy online for a better deal.

“They use the parking lot. They use the sidewalk. They benefit from police protection, and then the local merchant who pays for all of that doesn’t get the sale,” he told the Times. 

Blunt didn't tell the Times that three other supporters of the Internet sales tax with much deeper pockets than the bridal shop -- PACs run by Home Depot, Walmart and Target -- each gave $5,000 to his leadership PAC, Rely On Your Beliefs, earlier this year. And Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) who told the Times about a local shop in his state that lost customers looking for better deals on rifle scopes, took $5,000 from Home Depot on March 31. 

Home Depot's PAC also gave $2,500 to Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who was quoted in the Times as saying he had "some concern about the legislation" but was more worried about "the fairness issue" for bricks-and-mortar businesses. Goodlatte also collected the same amount form Wal-Mart's PAC. 

The legislation's sponsor in the House, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) told the Times that his constituents have reminded him that Norquist didn't elect him, and "Members that come to Washington and kowtow to special interests end up contributing to this very polarized government. These are tough decisions we have to make up here."

In the first three months of 2013, Womack received $10,000 from Walmart's PAC, $2,000 from the PAC run by Best Buy and $1,000 from the PAC run by Lowe's, the home improvement big box store. All of those companies are supporters of the Internet sales tax. 

The legislation's sponsor in the Senate, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), picked up $5,000 from Home Depot and $1,000 from Walmart's PAC. However, one of his three original co-sponsors, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), seems to have attracted the most attention from supporters of the idea. Between March 20 and March 31, according to the FEC's most recent filings, he received at least $41,000 from PACs run by supporters of the Internet sales tax:

$9,000 from Home Depot, March 31

$5,000 from AutoZone, March 31

$5,000 from the Retail Industry Leaders Association PAC, March 26

$3,500 from the PAC of lobbying firm Patton Boggs (which represents Amazon and other clients that support the proposal), March 20

$2,500 from Best Buy, March 26

$2,500 from Lowes, March 20

$2,500 from JC Penney, March 26

$2,500 from Target, March 26

$2,500 from Walmart, March 31

$2,000 from Amazon, March 26

$2,000 from Lowes, March 26

$2,000 from Safeway, March 31

The Chinese People Are Buying Massive Amounts of Gold

Gordon Chang reports for Forbes:

Mainland Chinese purchasers have been ferocious.  First, they emptied stores in their own country.  Caibai, Beijing’s largest gold merchant, had a queue 30 feet out the door on the morning of the 19th.  “So many people in line,” remarked a customer in Nanjing, where one person splashed out 2.9 million yuan on ten gold bars each weighing a kilogram.  Retailers ran out of stock in Guangzhou.  The China Gold Association reported that on the 15th and 16th retail sales of gold tripled across China.  Daily sales soared to five times the usual level at one retail chain.

Volume on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, considered a proxy for the metal’s demand in China, surged, setting consecutive records of 30.4 metric tons on the 19th and 43.3 tons on the 22nd.  The previous record was 22.0 tons on February 18 of this year.

As Chinese emptied the shelves in their own country, they also went south and swarmed shops in Hong Kong, sometimes in groups.  Chow Tai Fook, the world’s largest jeweler by market capitalization, said some stores popular with Mainland Chinese ran out of gold bars and that demand had not been as strong since the late 1980s.

Demand for “9999” bullion—99.99% pure gold—was five times normal according to Haywood Cheung Tak-hay, president of the Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society.  His organization effectively ran out of holdings as members tried to meet supply shortfalls.  “In terms of volume, I haven’t seen this gold rush for over 20 years,” Cheung told the Financial Times.  “Older members who have been in the business for 50 years haven’t seen such a thing.

Another Major Police Lie About the Boston Bomber Search

They locked down major parts of Watertown, Massachusetts and conducted warrantless searches, yet police somehow skipped the street Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnev was on. Only later, did  a private citizen discover him. 

Police originally said that Tsarnaev was captured outside the perimeter that police had set up to encircle Tsarnaev. It turns out that is a lie.

Tsarnaev was found hiding by a private citizen only  8 blocks from where Tsarnaev and his brother initially engaged in a gun battle with police.

Bloomberg news reports:

Sue Lund lives about five blocks from where police engaged in a wild shootout April 19 with the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects and about eight doors down from where the one who escaped alive was found 18 hours later.

Yet, during the all-day manhunt, she said police never searched her Franklin Street home or garden shed in Watertown, Massachusetts. Ten other neighbors had the same story and said they didn’t know of any homes that had been searched on Franklin, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was discovered by someone on the street about 30 minutes after an area lockdown was lifted[...]

It has been more than a week since police were hailed as heroes in Boston, eliciting cheers and hugs in the aftermath of the death of one suspect and capture of the other in the April 15 bombing that killed three and injured 260. As more details of the bombing and the subsequent search for Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar emerge, some residents and officials are expressing skepticism about the police work.[...] 

Authorities initially said Tsarnaev was found outside the 20-block area that was supposed to be subject to the most intensive part of the manhunt, including searches of the inside and outside of every house. Edward Davis, Boston’s police commissioner, last week said that in fact, the younger suspect had been found inside that zone.

Caribbean bank accounts are next IRS target

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/04/30/caribbean-bank-summons/2123861/

Opening a new front in the U.S. crackdown on offshore tax evasion, federal investigators late Monday won court approval for a summons that will force a Caribbean bank to turn over account data for wealthy American clients.
Investigators planned to serve the summons on Wells Fargo, the San Francisco-based bank that maintains correspondent accounts for CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank. FCIB is a Barbados-based bank with 18 branches in the Caribbean but no operations in the U.S.
The Justice Department said a federal court in San Francisco approved the summons, which requests account data for Americans who had CIBC accounts from 2004 through 2012.

Dear IRS

#1600 Pennsylvania Ave. 535 individuals  voted  unanimously to allow themselves to commit insider trading, so the Internal Revenue Service and SEC are doing what about this?

Sincerely

No confidence

Democrats lose sequester battle: Glenn Harlan Reynolds 1:18 p.m. EDT April 29, 2013

Democrats lose sequester battle: Glenn Harlan Reynolds 1:18 p.m. EDT April 29, 2013

Problem was, when the spending cuts came, nobody noticed.
The whole sequestration gambit has failed, to the point where even the Washington Post's Ezra Klein admits that "the Democrats have lost on sequestration." The idea was that even the comparatively minor cuts in spending caused by the sequester would be so painful that voters would demand higher taxes rather than endure cuts in spending.
Problem was, when the spending cuts came, nobody noticed. This led the Obama administration to try to up the pain by focusing cuts in places where people might feel the pain: canceling White House tours for schoolchildren, or furloughing air traffic controllers.
That didn't work either. The tour-canceling just looked mean, and the problem with targeting air travel is that members of Congress, and their top donors, fly a lot. Huge bipartisan majorities in Congress thus quickly passed legislation forcing the FAA to make cuts elsewhere instead.
The whole thing was a bust, and has me thinking that someone in Congress -- or, if he's smart, President Obama -- ought to propose more across-the-board cuts as a means of addressing our swollen deficit and national debt.

Digital Cash Replacement from Royal Canadian Mint in the Works

http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/spending_saving/2013/04/30/digital_cash_replacement_from_royal_canadian_mint_in_the_works.html

The Royal Canadian Mint has been pushing forward with its “MintChip” prototype, a digital cash replacement aimed at transactions under $10, since it surfaced a year ago. The Crown corporation is factoring in developer feedback, hiring a product manager and consulting with the financial sector.
“I would look on it very much as an alternative, and hopefully a replacement, for physical cash,” said David Everett, the British cryptographic expert hired years ago to work on the MintChip. “Today, people obviously use coins. They use bits of metal and bits of paper. The future is obviously going to be much more electronic.”

Head of Saxo Bank: There Will Be More Wealth Confiscation

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10027101/There-will-be-more-wealth-confiscation-without-a-doubt-Saxo-Banks-Lars-Christensen.html

Savers and investors face further “wealth confiscation” in Europe as the continent struggles to resolve the single currency’s problems, a bank chief has said.
European politicians will take the “easy option” of taking money from the rich rather than raising taxes and cutting spending to deal with the continent’s debt problem, Lars Christensen, the head of Saxo Bank, said.
Asked if the raid on uninsured savings in Cyprus would be repeated, he told City AM: “There will be future bail-ins [loss of deposits] and other types of confiscation of wealth in the eurozone, without a doubt.
“There’s no other realistic way forward if politicians continue to fail to deal with the basic indebtedness problem across Europe. They will either have to raise taxes and cut spending, or politicians will take the easier route and take money from the rich.”

Tsarnaev Family Received $100K in Benefits

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/tsarnaev_family_received_100g_in_benefits

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.
“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

Cypriot Parliament Approves Bailout

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-30/cypriot-parliament-approves-bailout

And with that, the resulting depression that is about to be unleashed in Cyprus is nobody else's fault but of the country itself, its politicians and ultimately, its people. So dear Cyprus, you may have a 20% GDP drop every year for the foreseeable future and triple digit unemployment, but at least you will have the EUR and your Stockholm Serf Syndrome.

US Homeownership Rate Drops To 1995 Levels | Zero Hedge

US Homeownership Rate Drops To 1995 Levels | Zero Hedge
04/30/2013

"When it comes to the US housing market there appear to be three groups of people: those who who have either unlimited cash and/or access to credit, and like the most rabid of bubble-chasing speculators, are perfectly happy to engage in a game of Flip That House for a short-term profit pending the discovery of a greater fool (often times converting the house into rental properties as numerous hedge funds have been doing on cost-free basis courtesy of the government's REO-To-Rent program) - they are the vast minority of speculators; then there are those who currently rent and are opportunistically looking at home prices, willing to dip their toe at the right price - these too are few and far between and mostly represent a function of the natural growth of the US household offset by the availability of jobs; and then there is everyone else.

Ottawa can’t account for $3.1-billion in anti-terror funding, auditor finds - The Globe and Mail

Ottawa can’t account for $3.1-billion in anti-terror funding, auditor finds - The Globe and Mail

Federal departments and agencies are spending only a part of the money allocated by the government to combat terrorism, the Auditor-General has found.
In his spring report released Tuesday morning, Auditor-General Michael Ferguson said the government had set aside about $12.9-billion to 35 departments and agencies between 2001 and 2009 to pay for activities related to public security and anti-terrorism.

Moody's downgrades Slovenia to 'junk' bond rating

Moody's downgrades Slovenia to 'junk' bond rating

 Moody's Investors Service cut Slovenia's government bond rating by two notches to Ba1, its highest "junk" bond rating, from Baa2 on Tuesday and said the outlook for the rating remains negative. The ratings firm cited three factors: the health of the country's banking sector, the marked deterioration of the government's finances, and uncertain funding prospects that heighten the probability that external assistance will be needed. The government had been seeking to raise cash through a bond sale, but called it off earlier Tuesday ahead of the ratings announcement.

CFTC Demands Banks Prove Dodd-Frank Act Swaps Compliance

CFTC Demands Banks Prove Dodd-Frank Act Swaps Compliance

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has given the world’s largest banks until May 3 to prove they are complying with a part of the Dodd-Frank Act.
The 2010 law requires swaps brokers to accept or reject a trade for clearing in less than 60 seconds. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Bank of America Corp., Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN), UBS AG (UBSN), Barclays Plc (BARC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) were among the banks that received the April 17 letter, a copy of which was given to Bloomberg News. The CFTC in November granted three-month delays to at least eight banks for implementing the time standard.
The CFTC is writing and implementing rules mandated by Dodd-Frank, which overhauled U.S. financial regulation in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis. The act gave regulators oversight of the over-the-counter swaps market for the first time, including requirements that most trades be sent to clearinghouses to reduce systemic risk. To help the market move to electronic trading, the CFTC said cleared trades must be accepted “as quickly as would be technologically practicable if fully automated systems were used.”

Report: U.S. manufacturing costs are now equal to Mexico and will be equal to China by 2015 - Article from Supply Chain Management Review?

Report: U.S. manufacturing costs are now equal to Mexico and will be equal to China by 2015 - Article from Supply Chain Management Review?

Punchline:

In another sign that America is becoming more competitive in manufacturing, the U.S. is now equal to Mexico in “attractiveness” as a source for manufacturing operations and is on track to achieve cost parity with manufactured imports from China by 2015.

Treasury Chief Warns of New World If US Defaults on Any Bills

http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/US-default-debt-ceiling/2013/04/25/id/501411?s=al&promo_code=134AA-1

Lew was responding to questions about a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would prioritize payments on government bonds and Social Security if the United States hits its debt limit, in order to avoid a credit default.''

UNPRECEDENTED Shortages Of Ammo, Physical Gold And Physical Silver

http://www.worldviewweekend.com/news/article/unprecedented-shortages-ammo-physical-gold-and-physical-silver?utm_source=MailingList&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INTERMARKETS+-+NMH+-+0430

Meanwhile, the takedown of paper gold and paper silver has unleashed an avalanche of "panic buying" of physical gold and physical silver all over the planet.  In the United States, some dealers are charging premiums of more than 25 percent over the spot price for gold and silver and they are getting it.  People are paying these prices even though they are being told that delivery will not happen for a month or two in many cases.  Some dealers are feverishly taking as many orders as they can, and they are just hoping that they will be able to get the physical gold and silver to eventually fill those orders.  Personally, I have never seen anything like this.  If things are this tight now, what is going to happen when the next major financial crisis strikes and people really begin to panic?

Arizona law forces cities to resell guns from buy-back programs

Arizona law forces cities to resell guns from buy-back programs

A spokesman for Brewer could not immediately be reached for comment late on Monday.

The bill had the support of the National Rifle Association and Arizona's Republican-controlled legislature. It cleared the state Senate earlier this month by an 18-12 vote. The state House approved the bill in March.

Supporters of the measure said municipalities were wasting taxpayers' money by not realizing the revenue from reselling turned-in weapons.
Opponents argued that it sent the wrong message and that the state needed to focus on the broader issue of gun control.

FBI Wants Power to Fine Internet Chat Providers That Don't Comply With Real-Time Spy Orders

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/29/calea_reform_fbi_wants_power_to_fine_internet_chat_providers_that_don_t.html

Bad news for telecommunications companies: New details have emerged about the FBI’s efforts to upgrade its surveillance powers—and the feds’ latest idea is to heavily fine firms that don’t comply with eavesdropping requests.
Last month I reported that the bureau said it was having a hard time monitoring services like Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time when attempting to spy on criminals. The FBI’s general counsel Andrew Weissmann revealed in a speech that a “top priority” for the bureau in 2013 was to reform surveillance laws in order to force email, cloud services, or online chat providers like Skype to provide a wiretap function. The 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act already allows the government to mandate Internet providers and phone companies to install surveillance equipment within their networks. But it doesn’t apply to third-party providers—like Google or Facebook—which has led the bureau to claim that its ability to monitor suspected criminals’ conversations is “going dark.”

Chicago purchasing-managers report slumps to 3 1/2-year low

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chicago-pmi-slumps-to-35-year-low-in-april-2013-04-30

Chicago PMI slumped to a three-and-a-half year low of 49.0 in April, down from 52.4 in March and at a reading indicating contraction. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 52.5 reading. Order backlogs were particularly weak, falling to 40.6 from 45.0. The Chicago PMI is the last of the regional manufacturing indexes to be released before the national Institute for Supply Management manufacturing index for April.

Are You Just A Believer Or Do You THINK?

http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/are-you-just-a-believer-or-do-you-think/41807

If you lose both your legs from explosive trauma half your blood is gone in one minute via the femoral arteries, you’re dead after two. Bleeding out is worse with blunt force trauma (like shrapnel) because flesh is torn rather than cut, exposing more arterial and vascular tissue. The human body holds 5 to 6 LITERS of blood. If that really happened you would see blood EVERYWHERE, the guy would be drenched in it. You would also see whats called arterial spurting from the injury. Most likely he would vomit after turning ghost white from shock, then turning delirious or passing out. As for the “tourniquet”…

Adding up the financial costs of the Boston bombings

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/30/17975443-adding-up-the-financial-costs-of-the-boston-bombings#comments

 In a matter of moments, the Boston Marathon bombings inflicted as much as $333 million in damage to the local economy in lost wages, retail sales and infrastructure damage, according to preliminary estimates. But the effects of the April 15 attack, which killed three people and injured 264 others, continue to send shock-waves far beyond Boylston Street.

$333 million huh? no kidding...

Pretty amazing to pull off, but they did. And most if not all Americans bought it hook line and sinker. Boston Strong looks more to me like Boston Wrong.

You be the judge.

Views of U.S. fiscal situation ‘strongly negative,’ index finds

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/election/2013/04/30/views-of-u-s-fiscal-situation-strongly-negative-index-finds/

Public sentiment on the U.S. fiscal situation was “strongly negative” in April, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s Fiscal Confidence Index, which measures opinion about the national debt.
The index, released Tuesday morning, combines data on respondents’ concerns about the debt; how high a priority it should be for leaders; and expectations about whether the U.S. debt will worsen or improve. For April, the index was at 44, slightly lower than March’s 46. Values below 100 show negative sentiment. Throughout 2013, sentiment has been between 40 and 46.
The survey was taken between April 22 and April 25, before the Treasury on Monday said it would pay down the debt for the first time in six years.

But hey  Housing values are up, which means our Property taxes ( scam ) will go up or stay the same. Funny how that happens, again ( scam ). In my neck of the woods I'm paying more and receiving less services for my money, gee it almost sounds like Healthcare.. / snark /

Foreclosures rise in March: CoreLogic

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/04/30/foreclosures-rise-in-march-corelogic/

The number of completed U.S. foreclosures rose in March from the prior month, but were below the level of 12 months earlier, signaling a housing market that continued to heal over the past year, according to data released Tuesday by CoreLogic.
There were 55,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in March, up 6% from February, but down 16% from March 2012, according to CoreLogic’s national foreclosure report. In March about 1.1 million U.S. homes were in some stage of foreclosure — representing 2.8% of all homes with a mortgage — down from 1.5 million during March 2012.

Home Prices Rise in February 2013 According to the S&P/Case- Shiller Home Price Indices

http://www.standardandpoors.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobheadername3=MDT-Type&blobcol=urldocumentfile&blobtable=SPComSecureDocument&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3Ddownload.pdf&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobheadername1=content-type&blobwhere=1245350915749&blobheadervalue3=abinary%3B+charset%3DUTF-8&blobnocache=true

Gold Rush From Dubai to Turkey Saps Supply as Premiums Jump

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/gold-rush-from-dubai-to-istanbul-drains-supply-as-premiums-jump.html

Premiums paid by wholesalers and bulk buyers in Dubai to secure a 1 kilogram bar of bullion are being quoted between $6 an ounce and $9 an ounce over the London cash price, said Frederic Panizzutti, global head of marketing and sales at the Swiss-based bullion refiner. That compares with about 50 cents before the rout, Panizzutti, also chief executive officer of MKS Precious Metals DMCC, said in an interview from Dubai.
Gold fell to the lowest in more than two years this month on speculation that the global economy is recovering, unleashing a purchasing frenzy among coin and jewelry buyers from China to the U.S. Consumer demand for jewelry, bars and coins in Turkey and the Middle East represented about 9.4 percent of the global total last year, according to the World Gold Council. Bars have been cleared from display in the souks, according to Gerry Schubert, head of precious metals at Emirates NBD PJSC.

WSJ: ObamaCare Shocks Will Impact 30 to 40 Million

If Obamacare is not stopped, the damage that it will do to the economy will be massive. Healthcare costs will go up for millions and for many it will result in working at two part time jobs, instead of one full time job. And that's only what is obvious, the 906 page Act is sure to have many more surprises.

The Act really reads as though it was put together by a Marxist pot head, who cut a deal with Big Health Insurance, Big Pharma and Big Healthcare to get the anti-free market plan imposed on the masses. Fortunately, even some Democrats are finally beginning to realize that ObamaCare, if implemented, is going to have  major blowback against them.

Daniel Kessler a professor of business and law at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution writes at WSJ:


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324874204578441032081716170.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

In recent weeks, there have been increasing expressions of concern from surprising quarters about the implementation of ObamaCare. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat, called it a "train wreck." A Democratic colleague, West Virginia's Sen. Jay Rockefeller, described the massive Affordable Care Act as "beyond comprehension." Henry Chao, the government's chief technical officer in charge of putting in place the insurance exchanges mandated by the law, was quoted in the Congressional Quarterly as saying "I'm pretty nervous . . . Let's just make sure it's not a third-world experience."

These individuals are worried for good reason. The unpopular health-care law's rollout is going to be rough. It will also administer several price (and other) shocks to tens of millions of Americans.

Start with people who have individual and small-group health insurance. These policies are most affected by ObamaCare's community-rating regulations, which require insurers to accept everyone but limit or ban them from varying premiums based on age or health. The law also mandates "essential" benefits that are far more generous than those currently offered.

According to consultants from Oliver Wyman (who wrote on the issue in the January issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries), around six million of the 19 million people with individual health policies are going to have to pay more—and this even after accounting for the government subsidies offered under the law. For example, single adults age 21-29 earning 300% to 400% of the federal poverty level will be hit with an increase of 46% even after premium assistance from tax credits.

Determining the number of individuals who will be harmed by changes to the small-group insurance market is harder. According to the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, around 30 million Americans work in firms with fewer than 50 employees, and so are potentially affected by the small-group "reforms" imposed by ObamaCare[...]

Higher premiums are just the beginning, because virtually all existing policies in the individual market and the vast majority in the small-group market do not cover all of the "essential" benefits mandated by the law. Policies without premium increases will have to change, probably by shifting to more restrictive networks of doctors and hospitals. Even if only one third of these policies are affected, this amounts to more than five million people.

In addition, according to Congressional Budget Office projections in July and September 2012, three million people will lose their insurance altogether in 2014 due to the law, and six million will have to pay the individual-mandate tax penalty in 2016 because they don't want or won't be able to afford coverage, even with the subsidies.

None of this counts the people whose employment opportunities will suffer because of disincentives under ObamaCare. Some, whose employers have to pay a tax penalty because their policies do not carry sufficiently generous insurance, will see their wages fall. Others will lose their jobs or see their hours reduced.

Anecdotal evidence already suggests that these disincentives will really matter in the job market, as full-time jobs are converted to part time. Why would employers do this? Because they aren't subject to a tax penalty for employees who work less than 30 hours per week.[...]

In total, it appears that there will be 30 million to 40 million people damaged in some fashion by the Affordable Care Act—more than one in 10 Americans. Just keep believing that this is " Affordable " the " I told you so's " will be self gratifying.

Gunmakers aim for greener pastures as states pass new firearms laws

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/29/gun-manufacturers-start-leaving-states-that-passed-new-gun-control-laws/?test=latestnews

“With a heavy heart but a clear mind, we have been forced to decide that our business can no longer survive in Connecticut – the former Constitution State,” PTR said in a statement earlier this month.
AR-15 manufacturer Stag Arms could soon follow suit, along with Colt's Manufacturing and Mossberg & Sons. The moves could cost the Nutmeg State 3,000 jobs as well as the estimated $1.75 billion in annual taxable revenues.

Nice! for every action a reaction...Enjoy the revenue loss Connecticut I laugh and spit in you're direction.

European Unemployment Sets Another Record

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/global/european-unemployment-sets-another-record.html?_r=2&

The euro zone jobless rate rose to a record 12.1 percent in March, a sharp reminder that unemployment remains among the region’s biggest problems.

The unemployment rate in the 17-nation currency union ticked up by one-tenth of a percentage point from February, when the previous record was set, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, reported from Luxembourg. A year earlier, euro zone joblessness stood at 11 percent.

A separate report Tuesday from Eurostat showed inflation dropping sharply in the euro zone, well below the European Central Bank’s target of 2 percent a year. The annualized rate of inflation for consumer prices was just 1.2 percent in April 2013, down from March, when inflation stood at 1.7 percent.

Employment cost index rises 0.3% in first quarter

Employment cost index rises 0.3% in first quarter

 The employment cost index, which measures the price of U.S. labor, rose 0.3% in the first quarter. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected a 0.5% gain, which would have matched the fourth-quarter increase. Over the past 12 months, employment costs have climbed 1.8%, down from the fourth-quarter rate of 1.9%. The ECI is a closely followed gauge that reflects how much companies, governments and nonprofit institutions pay their employees in wages and benefits. Wages - some 70% of employment costs - rose 0.5% in the first quarter. Benefits edged up 0.1%.

Parliament decides on bailout, likely to vote yes

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/bailout/parliament-decides-bailout-likely-vote-yes/20130430

PARLIAMENT was meeting on Tuesday on whether to back a bailout imposed by its EU partners, with approval likely from a thin majority against mounting calls for the island to exit the euro.
Lawmakers were meeting in an extraordinary session to ratify the terms of the aid, which is conditional on Cyprus winding down its second-largest bank and imposing heavy losses on uninsured depositors in another. Voting was expected on Tuesday afternoon.
No single party has a majority in the 56-member parliament, and the government is counting on support from members of its three-party centre-right coalition which has 30 seats in total. It needs 29 votes for the bill to pass.
"We have had enough of delusions. We don't have another choice. Whoever has one should tell us what it is," Cypriot government spokesman Christos Stylianides told state radio earlier in the day.
Communist AKEL, in government until it lost presidential elections in February, said it planned to vote against the bill. It has 19 seats in parliament. The socialist EDEK party, with 5 seats, also said it would reject it.

Possible Market mover today, watch carefully.

UPDATE 2-Spain's economy shrinks for seventh straight quarter | Reuters

UPDATE 2-Spain's economy shrinks for seventh straight quarter
| Reuters

Spain fell deeper into recession in the first three months of the year, the seventh straight quarter it has seen its economy shrink, data showed on Tuesday.
Rising exports and weaker imports, reported separately, provided some relief by cutting the trade deficit.
The data showing further contraction will add to a Europe-wide debate about whether countries should tone down austerity programmes intended to cut debt in favour of more growth-focussed policies, particularly given concern about rising unemployment.
Euro zone member Spain's jobless rate is 27.2 percent.

Fed Mortgage Subsidy Drives Buying Panic In Existing Homes To Bubble Levels

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/2013/04/29/fed-mortgage-subsidy-drives-buying-panic-in-existing-homes-to-bubble-levels/

The NAR Pending Home Sales data for March is a measure of current sales as of the date of the contract. It’s the closest thing we have to a real time measure of sales activity in the existing home market. The NAR’s “Existing Home Sales” represents the closing, that is the cash settlement of the sale reflected in Pending Home Sales, usually two months later on average.  Existing sales represent historical data that’s two months old, plus the lag of the release, which is another month, so the NAR’s existing home sales data is 3 months stale. The release of that data simply confirms what we already knew from the pending home sales data.

Italy can't change its 2013 deficit commitment -foreign minister | Reuters

Italy can't change its 2013 deficit commitment -foreign minister
| Reuters

"Italy cannot re-negotiate the 2.9 percent," Emma Bonino told reporters in parliament in reference to the 2013 budget deficit target of 2.9 percent of gross domestic product.
Earlier on Tuesday, Industry Minister Flavio Zanonato said Italy had to talk to the EU to allow it to exclude investment spending from deficit calculations. That view was echoed by regional affairs minister Graziano Delrio.
Centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, a crucial stakeholder in the coalition government then said Italy "must go to Europe ... to re-negotiate the deficit commitments that we made."

If the Italian foreign minister is making statements about deficit commitments amid "a range of views", you know that a damage control operation is under way.

STUDY: Government is Not Good for Your Health

  Austerity is having a devastating effect on health in Europe and North America, driving suicide, depression and infectious diseases and reducing access to medicines and care, researchers said, reports HuffPo.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/austerity-health-reduces-healthcare-increases-depression_n_3175576.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Detailing a decade of research, Oxford University political economist David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, an assistant professor of medicine and an epidemiologist at Stanford University, said their findings show austerity is seriously bad for health.

In a book to be published this week, the researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression have been diagnosed during what they call the "Great Recession" and its accompanying austerity across Europe and North America.

The problem is real but the researchers identify the problem "austerity," when it should more accurately be identified as government intervention overall that is causing the decline in health and climbing suicides. It the result of  higher taxes and more regulations which make it impossible for an economy to operate fluidly.The researchers try to spin the problem as partly being lack of government healthcare, but it is really government interference that makes healthcare expensive and inefficient.

Obamacare is going to make things much worse.

Weaponized America: Sturm, Ruger Backlog Doubles; Gun Production, Shipments Surge

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-29/weaponized-america-sturm-ruger-backlog-doubles-gun-production-shipments-surge

Whether it is due to the recent governmental attempt to enforce assorted gun controlling measures in the aftermath of the Newtown, CT shooting, or, merely driven by the same catalyst that saw a surge in gun sales four years ago, namely the presidential election, one thing is certain: America is weaponizing itself at an unheard of pace, with both Sturm, Ruger shipments and units produced surpassing 500,000 each in one quarter for the first time in history.

Shipments:

Units Produced:

Shipped and Produced - over 1 million in one quarter for the first time ever:

Hedge fund fined $21.5 mln for insider trading

Hedge fund fined $21.5 mln for insider trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday fined Greenwich, Conn.-based hedge fund Level Global Investors $21.5 million to settle charges that a co-founder and analyst at the firm allegedly engaged in "repeated insider trading" in the securities of Dell Inc. DELL 0.00% and Nvidia Corp. NVDA +1.16% . The settlement comes after the SEC filed insider trading charges in January 2012 against Level Global's co-founder Anthony Chiasson

Influential economist says Wall Street's full of 'crooks'

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/wall_st_criminal_behavior_Rg3GqOXPwjJqrYFWV0tyEJ

“It’s financial fraud on a very large extent,” the adviser to the World Bank and IMF added. “There’s also a tremendous amount of insider trading — you can even watch when you are living in New York how that works.”
In his live remarks, via video teleconference from New York, an emotionally charged Sachs also ripped into practices at Goldman Sachs and into the political classes on both the left and right. (The Post listened to the audio.)
“We have a corrupt politics to the core, I am afraid to say, and . . . both parties are up to their neck in this. This has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans,” Sachs told the Philadelphia conference, “Fixing the Banking System for Good.”

U.S. to pay off debt for first time in six years

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-to-pay-off-debt-for-first-time-in-six-years-2013-04-29

The U.S. Treasury expects to pay off $35 billion of debt in the third fiscal quarter, compared to an earlier projection, given in February, that it would have to borrow $103 billion, the government said Monday. This will be the first quarter that Treasury has paid off debt since April - June 2007. In a statement, Treasury said the changed projection related to higher receipts and lower outlays. For the fourth fiscal quarter, which begins in July, the government expects to borrow $223 billion. This assumes quarter-end cash balances of $75 billion on June 30 and $80 billion on September 30.

DoJ Granted Immunity to Companies Participating in NSA Surveillance Programs

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57581161-38/u.s-gives-big-secret-push-to-internet-surveillance/

Justice Department agreed to issue “2511 letters” immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws.
The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors’ Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.
“The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to CNET this week. “Alarm bells should be going off.”

SEC Charges City of Victorville, Underwriter, and Others with Defrauding Municipal Bond Investors; Release No. 2013-75; April 29, 2013

SEC Charges City of Victorville, Underwriter, and Others with Defrauding Municipal Bond Investors; Release No. 2013-75; April 29, 2013

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged that the City of Victorville, Calif., a city official, the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority, and Kinsell, Newcomb & DeDios (KND), the underwriter of the Airport Authority’s bonds, defrauded investors by inflating valuations of property securing an April 2008 municipal bond offering.
The SEC alleges that the Airport Authority loaned KND Affiliates more than $60 million in bond proceeds for the hangar project and agreed that as compensation for the project, KND Affiliates would receive a construction management fee of two percent of the remaining cost of construction. However, Kinsell and KND Affiliates took an additional $450,000 in unauthorized fees to oversee the construction and took $2.3 million in fees that the Airport Authority was unaware of and never agreed to, purportedly as compensation to “manage” the hangars. The SEC alleges that Kinsell and KND Affiliates hid these fees from the Airport Authority representatives and from the auditors who reviewed KND Affiliates’ books and records.

At $72.8 Trillion, Presenting The Bank With The Biggest Derivative Exposure In The World (Hint: Not JPMorgan)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-29/728-trillion-presenting-bank-biggest-derivative-exposure-world-hint-not-jpmorgan

Moments ago the market jeered the announcement of DB's 10% equity dilution, promptly followed by cheering its early earnings announcement which was a "beat" on the topline, despite some weakness in sales and trading and an increase in bad debt provisions (which at €354MM on total loans of €399.9 BN net of a tiny €4.863 BN in loan loss allowance will have to go higher. Much higher). Ironically both events are complete noise in the grand scheme of things. Because something far more interesting can be found on page 87 of the company's 2012 financial report.
The thing in question is the company's self-reported total gross notional derivative exposure.
And while the vast majority of readers may be left with the impression that JPMorgan's mindboggling $69.5 trillion in gross notional derivative exposure as of Q4 2012 may be the largest in the world, they would be surprised to learn that that is not the case. In fact, the bank with the single largest derivative exposure is not located in the US at all, but in the heart of Europe, and its name, as some may have guessed by now, is Deutsche Bank. The amount in question? €55,605,039,000,000. Which, converted into USD at the current EURUSD exchange rate amounts to $72,842,601,090,000....  Or roughly $2 trillion more than JPMorgan's.

GOP slams Obamacare rollout, works to repeal law

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57581511/gop-slams-obamacare-rollout-works-to-repeal-law/

The rollout of a new national health care program is sure to hit some bumps in the road. But after one of the Affordable Care Act's authors and proponents called the implementation a potential train wreck, Republicans in Congress seized the opportunity to point out the law's shortcomings and revive their arguments for repealing it.
After Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who helped draft the health care law, used the phrase "train wreck" to characterize the potentially rocky implementation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday penned an op-ed for Reuters arguing that President Obama should explain to the public the what hardships they'll face after the law is implemented.

Not that I have much hope for the GOP as it stands, let me make one thing perfectly clear to all my readers THERE IS NOTHING AFFORDABLE  in the so called Affordable Care Act. Most people are already paying higher costs. As we go forward it will cost even more for Healthcare and the quality of the care will be much less than what you're receiving now.

Stay healthy my friends.

Why the Jobs Outlook Just Got a Whole Lot Worse

Why the Jobs Outlook Just Got a Whole Lot Worse

Such weak profit growth generally equates with low hiring.
"The loss of momentum in the U.S. economy has been palpable, but what looks to be a soft patch in yet another 2 percent year for real economic growth now has the potential to morph into something more painful," RBC Capital Markets economists Tom Porcelli and Jacob Oubina said in a report.
In such an environment, companies unable to expand their top lines likely will focus on cutting expenses to achieve profits.

Pension fund deficits jump in March - industry data | Reuters

Pension fund deficits jump in March - industry data
| Reuters

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) calculated that the aggregate deficit of 6,316 so-called defined benefit (DB) schemes - representing about 12 million members - shot up to 236.6 billion pounds in March from 201.5 billion in February

Bill Seeks Steel Cents, Nickels, Dimes, and Quarters

http://news.coinupdate.com/bill-seeks-steel-cents-nickels-dimes-and-quarters-1952/

On April 25, 2013, Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio introduced a bill in the House of Representatives which seeks to immediately alter the metallic composition of the one-cent, five cent, ten-cent, and twenty-five cent coins. The legislation would require all four coins to be minted in American steel, with the cent coated in copper to preserve the current appearance. The bill H.R. 1719 has two cosponsors, Rep. Tim Ryan and Patrick Tiberi, both from Ohio, and has been referred to the House Financial Services Committee. Ohio is ranked among the top three states for steel production and processing

 Although the text of the bill is not yet available, a press release from Rep. Stivers notes that the majority of the copper, nickel, and zinc used to produce the cent, nickel, dime, and quarter is imported from Canada. The bill would specifically require the coins be made of American steel going forward. The appearance of the coins would not change, just the materials used to make them. The press release states that according the the House Financial Services Committee, the United States would save up to $433 million over 10 years by changing the composition of the coins to steel.

In my world we call this DEBASEMENT!  of the currency.

I hope you have been hoarding those Nickels. This bill passes and the ( NON-debased )Nickel will disappear like the 90% Silver Dimes and Quarters of the past. Which means it will rise in value.

Follow you're daily routine and watch your change, you will be amazed at how many Nickels you ( DO NOT ) receive as you go about you're weekly spending habits. At times you will notice that you have received no Nickels at all! even after a weeks worth of casual spending.

Just another way to accumulate a savings for pennies, with hopes of a rise in value, all one has to do is sit and wait... :)

Canadian Government To Tax Bitcoins

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/canadian-government-intends-to-tax-bitcoins-114651

http://www.newbitcoinworld.com/2013/04/this-is-huge-gold-20-can-code-and.html

Take for example Bitcoin's most advertised feature, its supposed anonymity. Everyone from the mainstream media to Wikileaks to the now-disbanded hacker collective LulzSec has trumpeted Bitcoin as "anonymous." But the truth is that researchers have long since proven it's anything but, since every bitcoin transaction appears on a public ledger distributed to everyone in the network (called the "block chain"), tracking bitcoins back to individuals is often trivial.

The Growing Trend That Should Terrify Walmarts Everywhere

Growth in Texas Manufacturing Activity Stalls

Growth in Texas Manufacturing Activity Stalls

Texas factory activity was flat in April, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell from 9.9 to -0.5. The near-zero reading indicates output was little changed from March levels.

Mortgage re-defaults increasing at an 'alarming rate'

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/mortgage-re-defaults-increasing-at-an-alarming-rate-042913.html

The U.S. housing market all but collapsed in 2009 because of an avalanche of foreclosures. People with subprime mortgages found they couldn't make the payments when rates reset. Even people with prime mortgages found they were unable to keep up when they lost their jobs.
In response, the Treasury Department created the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) to help homeowners avoid preventable foreclosures by encouraging servicers to modify mortgages to reduce monthly payments to sustainable levels. When it passed a stimulus bill, Congress specifically directed the Secretary of the Treasury to “maximize assistance for homeowners.”

America's Indebted Consumers - An Explanation for Poor Economic Growth

http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2013/04/americas-indebted-consumers-explanation.html

Consumer spending is the driver behind economic growth in today's economy.  Since consumer spending in the U.S. makes up roughly 70 percent of GDP (including spending on health care), rises and falls in spending by Main Street has a significant impact on overall economic growth.  

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased by 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.  The biggest increase was seen in the purchase of durable goods, up 8.1 percent in Q1, down from an increase of 13.6 percent in Q4 2012.  It's buy, buy, buy time as you'll see on the next graph.

Here's a graph from FRED showing how real PCE has performed since just before the beginning of the Great Recession:

Pending home sales rise 1.5% in March

Pending home sales rise 1.5% in March

Pending sales of homes rose 1.5% in March, reversing February's decline, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday. The pending-home-sales index increased to 105.7 in March from 104.1 in February, and was up 7% from March 2012. "Contract activity has been in a narrow range in recent months, not from a pause in demand but because of limited supply," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. "Little movement is expected in near-term sales closings, but they should edge up modestly as the year progresses." By region, March saw pending home sales rise 2.7% in the South, 1.5% in the West, and 0.3% in the Midwest. There was no change in the Northeast. On Monday, NAR revised U.S. pending home sales for February to a decline of 1% from a prior estimate of a 0.4% slip. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed. Typically, sales are finalized within two months of signing

China Goes Gold Crazy. Why Now?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2013/04/28/china-goes-gold-crazy-why-now/

Spurred by a sudden drop in prices, Asians in the last two weeks have gone on a gold-buying binge. The Indians, the world’s largest net importers of the yellow metal, have been snapping it up of course, and so have the Japanese, now concerned about a falling yen and rising inflation. Hong Kong residents descended on the stores, but none have been so enthusiastic in stocking up on the commodity as Chinese from the Mainland.
…As Chinese emptied the shelves in their own country, they also went south and swarmed shops in Hong Kong, sometimes in groups.
…It’s probably not a coincidence that the Chinese were the biggest buyers of gold in the last two weeks and, aside from North Korea, China has the most fragile economy in East Asia at the moment. The concern about the economy is evident throughout Chinese society.

German Inflation Rate Plunges to Lowest in More Than Two - Bloomberg

German Inflation Rate Plunges to Lowest in More Than Two - Bloomberg

The inflation rate in Europe’s largest economy, calculated using a harmonized European Union method, fell to 1.1 percent from 1.8 percent in March. That’s the lowest since August 2010. Economists predicted a slowdown to 1.7 percent, according to the median of 19 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. Prices dropped 0.5 percent in the month.

Greece to Cut 15,000 Jobs for Bailout

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/28/world/europe/greece-bailout-layoffs/index.html

The vote clears the way for 15,000 civil servants to be fired by the end of 2014, the first time Greece's cash-strapped government has said it will cut its workforce of about 700,000.

The right to a permanent position once hired by the public sector had been protected by the Greek constitution before Sunday, and about one in four Greeks is on the public payroll. Cutting that figure is part of the loan agreement between the government and its creditors, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

But the layoffs will be coming when unemployment has skyrocketed to more than 27%. Previous austerity measures have cut pay for public workers as much as 30% and reduced pension benefits.

Median Household Incomes: The "Real" Story

Median Household Incomes: The "Real" Story

The Sentier Research monthly median household income data series is now available for March. Nominal median household incomes were down $25 month-over-month but up $736 year-over-year. Adjusted for inflation, real incomes rose $69 MoM but are down $13 YoY.

Latest Financial "Services" Scam: Stealing Your Pension

 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/28/1205463/-What-s-left-to-steal-our-coffins

You think that after they took your house, and your job, and your personal savings, you've been squeezed dry? You think milking your meager IRA for fees, which nets Wall Street billions every year, would keep the monster fat and happy?  You think manipulating every market metric and stacking the deck in every way imaginable would be enough?
Sorry, folks.
Now they're after your pensions, and it ain't pretty.

Which States Collect the Most Income Tax?

http://t.co/m2XG1zG2RJ

The Tax Foundation has released a map of state income tax collections per capita for 2011—the most recent data available.toThe Tax Foundation has released a map of state income tax collections per capita for 2011—the most recent data available.

The of the list includes:

1. New York, with $1,864 per capita

2. Connecticut ($1,808)

3. Massachusetts ($1,765) and begging for more, for so called education, roads and bridges, which is comical to say the least. ( But Liberal Dems are for the little people, sure they are.)

4. Oregon ($1,424)

5. Minnesota ($1,404)

6. California ($1,346)

At the bottom of the list are the states that don’t levy an income tax: Washington, Nevada, Wyoming, South Dakota, Texas and Florida.

Of states that levy an income tax on wages, Arizona ($444) collects the least per capita.

Student Loan Bubble Cracks With Pulled Sallie Mae Bond Deal

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-29/student-loan-bubble-cracks-pulled-sallie-mae-bond-deal

In 2007 a small number of French hedge funds imploded over sudden losses stemming from highly leveraged bets made on the unstoppable subprime mortgage market. At the time, a few saw the writing on the wall; but many simply wrote it off as just another over-levered hedge fund and the subprime mortgage market was 'fine'. Fast forward six years and as we have discussed numerous times (most recently here and here) there is a bubble, potentially far bigger than subprime, in student loan debt. As one of the last remaining outlets for state-sanction credit creation, this is a big deal; but, of course, the popping of the bubble (or even a slight leak) is eschewed since there is so much 'reach for yield' and the Fed's got your back. That is until this week. As WSJ reports, Sallie Mae (SLM), the nation's largest non-government student lender just cancelled a $225 million debt offering as investors  decided they simply were not getting paid enough for risk - amid rising student loan defaults. Simply put, there's a limit to what investors will tolerate.

U.S. consumer spending rises 0.2% in March

U.S. consumer spending rises 0.2% in March

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose 0.2% in March to mark the smallest increase since December, providing more evidence that the economy has slowed. Personal income also rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% last month, the Commerce Department said Monday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.1% rise in spending and a 0.4% increase in income. Since income and spending grew at the same pace, the personal savings rate held steady at 2.7%, just slightly above a five-year low. Inflation-adjusted disposable income rose 0.3% last month. Inflation as gauged by the core PCE price index was unchanged in March. The core rate, which is closely followed by the Federal Reserve, has risen just 1.1% in the past 12 months, down from 1.3% in February

The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for March

Nullification Movie Trailer: "The States Can Nullify Obamacare!"

Spain Is Beyond Doomed

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/spain-is-beyond-doomed-the-2-scariest-unemployment-charts-ever/275324/

Spain is in a great depression, and it is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen.

Five years after its housing boom turned to bust, Spanish unemployment hit a record high of 27.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013. It's almost too horrible to comprehend, but 19.5 percent of the total workforce has not had a job in the past six months; 15.3 percent have not in the past year; and 9.2 percent have not in the past two years. You can see this 1930s-style catastrophe in the chart below from the National Statistics Institute.

Baby taken from parents who wanted 2nd doctor's opinion

http://www.ksdk.com/news/world/article/377456/28/Baby-taken-from-parents-who-wanted-2nd-doctors-opinion-

For example, one day Anna asked why a nurse was giving her son antibiotics.
"I asked her, for what is that? And she's like, 'I don't know.' I'm like, 'you're working as a nurse, and you don't even know what to give to my baby for what,'" Anna explained.
According to Anna, a doctor later said Sammy shouldn't have been on the antibiotics.
Anna said Sammy suffers from a heart murmur and had been seeing a doctor at Sutter for regular treatment since he was born. After Sammy was treated for flu symptoms last week, doctors at Sutter admitted him to the pediatric ICU to monitor his condition. After a few days, Anna said doctors began talking about heart surgery.

Obama care, or shall we say Government care will be a monstrosity of Epic proportions. Obama care is not about cheap health care or even free care, its about Orwellian control.  Warrant less entry into said home, kidnapping, child endangerment, false statements, no court order for removal of child...This would be a Multimillion dollar law suit if this we're my child so much so that it would Bankrupt the city of  Sacramento ( x2 ) as well as Sutter Hospital.

Fed considers extending stimulus as inflation ebbs

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2013/apr/28/fed-considers-extending-stimulus-as-inflation/

Debate among Federal Reserve policymakers is shifting away from the timing of a reduction in bond buying to the need to extend record stimulus as inflation cools and 11.7 million Americans remain jobless.
At their meeting last month, several members of the Federal Open Market Committee advocated slowing purchases and stopping them by year-end. Since then, seven have voiced support for maintaining the current pace, including five who vote on the policy making panel: Governor Daniel Tarullo, New York Fed President William C. Dudley, James Bullard of St. Louis, Chicago’s Charles Evans and Boston’s Eric Rosengren.

The CIA Gave Millions in Cash to Afghan President for Over a Decade

In order to gain access to Afghan president Hamid Karzai's inner circle, the CIA secretly sent tens of millions of dollars to Karzai's office each month for over a decade. The money, all cash, was delivered packed in suitcases, backpacks, and plastic bags, reports NYT.




http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0


More from NYT:

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.[...]

The United States was not alone in delivering cash to the president. Mr. Karzai acknowledged a few years ago that Iran regularly gave bags of cash to one of his top aides.

California lawmakers weigh first statewide ban on lead ammo

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/28/california-lawmakers-weigh-first-statewide-ban-on-lead-ammo/

In November, one of the oldest condors in Central California died from lead poisoning after being found with tiny bullet fragments and a .22-caliber slug in his gullet that he apparently swallowed with a mouthful of meat.
The 9-year-old giant was one of the earliest released in a condor recovery program along the Big Sur coast. His death -- and the recent death of a golden eagle near Sacramento -- are being highlighted by health and environmental groups who want California to become the first state to impose a statewide ban on the use of lead bullets for hunting.
While supporters say the future recovery of the prehistoric birds hangs in the balance, that issue alone hasn't been enough to get statewide lead bullet bans in the past.
Now health-care advocates are taking a different tack, arguing that lead bullet fragments in game such as venison are neurotoxins that can harm children and developing fetuses.

How The Fed Holds $2 Trillion (And Rising) Of US GDP Hostage Tyler Durden's picture

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-28/how-fed-holds-2-trillion-and-rising-us-gdp-hostage

When it comes to the real measure of a nation's economic output, one can rely on "flexible", constantly changing definitions of what constitutes the creation of "goods and services" as well as transactions thereof, goalseeked to meet the propaganda of constant growth no matter what (and which it appears will now, arbitrarily, include intangibles such as iTunes), or one can go to the very core of "growth" (just ask the anti-Austerians for whom debt and growth are interchangeable) which is and has always been a reflection of the increase (or decrease) in broad and narrow liquidity or money supply, which in turn means how much money is created through loans, either via commercial banks or the central monetary authority, also known as the Federal Reserve.

Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official

http://www.madcowprod.com/2013/04/26/boston-bombers-uncle-married-daughter-of-top-cia-official/

The discovery that Uncle Ruslan Tsarni had spy connections that go far deeper than had been previously known is ironic, especially since the mainstrean media's focus yesterday was on a feverish search to find who might have recruited the Tsarnaev brothers.
The chief suspect was a red-haired Armenian exorcist.  They were fingering a suspect who may not, in fact, even exist.
It was like blaming one-armed hippies on acid for killing your wife.

This article is full of wow.

Keep an open mind.

“Police State” Registry System Being Set Up to Track Your Vaccination Status

http://vactruth.com/2013/04/26/police-state-registry-system/

The Centers for Disease Control has been quietly rolling out a nationwide program called the Immunization Information Systems (IIS), registering your vaccine information into a database. [1] This effort has been run in parallel with state vaccine registry implementations.
What is the intention of such programs?
My colleague Leslie Manookian, writer and director of the movie The Greater Good, wrote in a recent article, the “CDC has openly stated that vaccine registries are a tool to identify areas of ‘undervaccination’ so that they can be ‘addressed’ and brought into ‘compliance.’” [2]
I would also add to Leslie’s statement that since the government purchases a large bulk of the vaccines (for example, the Vaccines for Children program), it is in their financial interest to make sure vaccines are consumed regularly.
If you exempt your child from being vaccinated, your refusal is also being tracked and put into the database. If you want to know why this is a big deal, read on.
But first, what does tracking every vaccine you or your children have ever been injected with look like?

Jordan Won’t Rule Out Future SNB Gold Purchases

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-26/jordan-won-t-rule-out-future-snb-gold-purchases.html

President Thomas Jordan won’t exclude increasing the central bank’s gold holdings at some point and said most of its reserves are held domestically.
“As part of a good diversification of currency reserves, a certain proportion of gold can help reduce the balance sheet risk,” Jordan said in Bern today, according to a copy of his speech. “We have therefore never ruled out the possibility of future gold purchases.”
The SNB owns 1,040 tons of gold. More than 70 percent are held in Switzerland, with about 20 percent at the Bank of England and 10 percent at the Bank of Canada, he said, for the first time disclosing where the physical assets were stored.
Germany’s Bundesbank in January announced plans to repatriate 674 metric tons of gold from vaults in Paris and New York by 2020. As a result, 50 percent of the German central bank’s gold will be stored in its home city of Frankfurt by the end of the decade.
The SNB’s gold holdings are the target of a popular initiative, which demands that at least 20 percent of the central bank’s assets be in the form of gold. The measure would also block the sale of such holdings and require all SNB gold to be located in Switzerland.
In his speech at the central bank’s annual general meeting in the Swiss capital Jordan said the initiative, were it to go through, would be counterproductive.

Italy forms new government after 2-month stalemate – Salt Lake Tribune

Italy forms new government after 2-month stalemate – Salt Lake Tribune

Letta, 46, is a moderate with a reputation as a political bridge-builder. He is also the nephew Berlusconi’s longtime adviser, Gianni Letta, a relationship seen as smoothing over often nasty interaction between the two main coalition partners.

Serving as deputy premier and interior minister will be Berlusconi’s top political aide, Angelino Alfano. He is a former justice minister who was the architect of legislation that critics say was tailor-made to help media mogul Berlusconi in his many judicial woes.

The creation of the coalition capped the latest political comeback for Berlusconi, a former three-time premier who was forced to resign in 2011 as Italy slid deeper in to the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis.

On Monday, Letta is expected to lay out his strategy to Parliament, before required confidence votes from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.