STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday November 5

[ozymandius]

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday November 5, 2009

Bush Administration Officials Convicted = 1
Name(s): David Safavian

Bush Administration Officials Charged = 1
Name(s): Richard Lopez Razo

Financial Sector Officials Convicted = 6

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON November 4, 2009

Dow... 9,802.14 +30.23 (+0.31%)
Nasdaq... 2,055.52 -1.80 (-0.09%)
S&P 500... 1,046.50 +1.09 (+0.10%)
Gold future... 1,087 +2.10 (+0.19%)
10-Yr Bond... 3.52 +0.06 (+1.62%)
30-Year Bond 4.40 +0.07 (+1.57%)

---

U.S. FUTURES & MARKETS INDICATORS
NASDAQ FUTURES..............................................S&P FUTURES

Market Conditions During Trading Hours

GOLD, EURO, YEN, Loonie, Silver and US$

---

Handy Links - Market Data and News:
Economic Calendar    Marketwatch Data    Bloomberg Economic News    Yahoo! Finance
    Google Finance    LayoffDaily    Bank Tracker    Credit Union Tracker

Handy Links - Economic Blogs:
The Big Picture    Financial Sense    Calculated Risk    Naked Capitalism    Credit Writedowns
    Brad DeLong    Bonddad    Atrios    goldmansachs666

Handy Links - Government Issues:
LegitGov    Open Government    Earmark Database    USA spending.gov

Handy Links - Videos:
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class    Charlie Rose talks with Roubini    Charlie Rose talks with Krugman    William Black: This Economic Disaster

---

This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.

Read more: du

[ozymandius]

1. Market Observation

The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA

The markets have corrected since peaking in the middle of October and there appears to be a decisive rift in the financial community between the bulls and the bears, with the bears calling for an end to the rally off the March lows while the bulls maintain that we remain in a cyclical bull market. Based on a few observations that will be shared below, I believe it is too soon to call an end to the current rally, though I believe a sizable correction is still in our future that may have begun from the October highs.

A Correction is Long Overdue

One tool to measure how extended the market in either direction is to measure its spread relative to its 200 day moving average (200d MA). Significantly oversold markets are identified by readings that are anywhere from 10%-30%+ below their 200d MA and overbought markets are seen with readings north of 15% from the 200d MA. You can see this in the image below in that it shows the spread of the S&P 500 to its 200d MA going back to 1928. In the span of less than a year the S&P 500 has moved from extremely oversold to overbought in vertical fashion. As the severely oversold market in March was warning of a stock market primed for a rally, the current overbought condition of the market is warning of the potential for a sizable correction. As bear markets are identified by a 20% or more decline, it would take a bear market to bring the S&P 500 back to its 200d MA from the October peak, which just underscores the risk of piling into the markets at this juncture.

.....

One Warning Flag, the USD

One thing that perhaps could lead to a decline in the markets is a rally in an oversold USD. When analyzing the USD I prefer not to use the USD Index (DXY) as it is heavily skewed by the Euro, which represents 57.6% of the entire index with the Japanese Yen coming in at a distant second place with a 13.6% weight. I’ve created equal weight USD indices to get a better feel for how the USD is stacking up against foreign currencies. I’ve created a G10 Index (composed of the 10 largest world economies) as well as an Asian USD index.

When looking at the various USD indices, while the USD Index (DXY) has still further to go before it retests its 2008 lows, my G10 USD Index has already touched its 2008 lows and looks to be tracing out a bottom, and my Asian USD index is also quite close to its 2008 lows. The 2008 lows are a likely place for the USD to stage an oversold rally that would likely correlate with a market selloff, and we may be closer to this point than most think.

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

[Hugin]

9. Thanks for today's cartoon, Ozy.

It brings to mind a thought I've been harboring lately...

I'm beginning to think Rand and Objectiveism are a manufactured phenomenon. A hoax generated at a point during the last century when the Capitalist Corporatist PTB desperately needed a counter to several certified geniuses like H.G. Wells, Verne, and even Einstein pushing what they saw as a more "socialist" view of the way society should operate... (and, the geniuses were winning.)

Let's be honest here, there is nothing in anything Rand ever wrote in any of her works that even remotely warrants the amount of philosophical and economic attention that those works have received over the years... NOTHING. (Much less using them as a foundation for a fiscal economic paradigm) She was at best a hack. I've read many many cheap science fiction books over the years which were much better reading, but, they weren't used to justify misery for the masses and 'Greed is Good'.

Based on this, I can only come to the conclusion that Rand is a convenient manufactured front for an agenda.

There it is... My seed of suspicion.

[ozymandius]

11. Thank you.

If a cartoon could be produced that ties past and present together - this is one.

As for your take on Randian philosophy: I agree that Rand, what little I have read and seen of her work, feeds a need among people who are predisposed to feel selfish, emotionally stunted and pathologically greedy. I also believe that she was a product of her time and arrived in America at a moment in history when her ideas would be celebrated by anyone who opposed the seed and exponential growth of FDR's New Deal.

I view it in terms of a scenario in which someone finds a chunk of fool's gold; then triumphantly declares that if pyrite exists here, real gold is nearby. Rand as a social philosopher represents a failure to understand the gestalt of the human condition. She is feel-good reading that celebrates the exuberance of the human spirit expressed in remarkable ambition. To celebrate her core beliefs as the be-all, end-all nutshell of human behavior reveals willful ignorance.

In the end: she was only a fiction writer.

[Tansy_Gold]

14. Very much a product of the times

Atlas was published in 57, right after the McCarthy hearings. There was still a HUGE portion of the country that desperately feared the Reds, while knowing virtually nothing about them. The WW2 victory was still fresh, and so was the non-victory in Korea.

Khrushchev was on the rise, and Sputnik had shocked the US into recognizing that the Russian peasants had produced at least some technology that was superior to our own.

And greed, as a survival mechanism for those who had gone through the Depression barely 20 years before, is a strong instinct.

In the 1950s and even into the 60s, science fiction as a genre was not given a whole lot of respect. Bug-eyed monsters, little green men, etc. were not addressing social issues. ("The Day the Earth Stood Still" was an anomaly; Ed Wood was closer to the standard.) And really, in the early post-war years, social issues were not much in the fore in popular culture. The privations of the Depression were giving way to the prosperity of TV and TV dinners, Lucy and Ricky and Sid and Red and Ed. And most popular science fiction was packaged as inexpensive paperbacks appealing to a younger, less cerebral audience. Atlas didn't appeal to them. No space ships, no aliens. And since Rand didn't/couldn't get into the technology behind the generator, there was little to interest the geeks.

But Atlas also came out in a time of growing social change -- right after the Montgomery bus boycott and Brown and Little Rock. There was a pervading sense among a lot of even reasonably educated people that there were a lot of "peasants" out there who were disrupting the status quo.

So yes, Atlas filled a huge vacuum. And no one countered it. It's like, I wonder how influential a book like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" would have been if someone had immediately come out with "Gone With the Wind," rather than 80 years later. I actually had the BF suggest some months ago that there was "a lot of truth" in GWTW's romanticized ante-bellum South (based only on a viewing of the movie, because he's never read the book), and I laughed in his face. "Yeah, the truth of a battered wife sitting at her window and dreaming of a past that never was. Get real!

Atlas is not an easy book to read if you can't suspend a whole lot of disbelief. It's very long and doesn't lend itself to, say, an annotated/debunked version. But it desperately needs a counter.

I tried to read it again, cover to cover, a year or so ago, and it's like trying to swim through asphalt. But I think the left (which includes the center by comparison) has dismissed it as "mere" wingnuttery for too long.

TG

[Warpy]

54. You have to read Rand when you're young

and the loveless sex, miraculously without procreation, keeps your interest up. Otherwise, "swimming through asphalt" is exactly it.

The counters had already been written by the time Rand came along, from Steinbeck to Upton Sinclair, to a myriad of other writers of greater intellect and lesser service to the plutocracy. I'm sure there are beautiful novels being written even now, only to be turned down by publishers looking for lesser best sellers they can bank on by known writers in fluffy genres.

But the cartoon is perfect. I'm passing it along.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. Any writer of pot-boilers would be brighter than her. She was as mad as a meat-axe. I should

think Myra Hindley could have written as well; though probably less pretentiously. See the thread on the renditions to Uzbekistan. It's not so far-fetched.

[tclambert]

16. Yes, very nice cartoon today.

Let me just add how proud I am that we bailed out a company and it still went bankrupt and we no doubt won't get the bailout money back. Nothing like an unsuccessful bailout to prove our economic brilliance. Go, Team America! F&#* yeah!

[Joe Chi Minh]

23. I would worry for you, Hugin, if is no more than a seed of suspicion.

For crying out loud, they co-opted Palin for their VP candidate! Nuff said?

[ozymandius]

2. Today's Reports

08:30 Productivity-Prel Q3
Briefing.com 6.4%
Consensus 6.5%
Prior 6.6%

08:30 Initial Claims 10/31
Briefing.com 525K
Consensus 522K
Prior 530K

08:30 Continuing Claims 10/24
Briefing.com 5730K
Consensus 5750K
Prior 5797K

http://www.briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

[UpInArms]

20. Initial Claims @ 512,000 - last wk rev'd up 2k - 3Q unit labor costs -5.2% - productivity up 4.3%

8:30a U.S. jobless claims fall 20,000 to 512,000

8:30a U.S. 3Q productivity soars at 9.5% pace

8:30a U.S. productivity up 4.3% in past year

8:30a U.S. unit labor costs off record 3.6% in past year

8:30a U.S. 3Q real hourly compensation up 0.2%

8:30a U.S. 3Q unit labor costs fall 5.2%

8:30a U.S. 3Q manufacturing productivity up record 13.6%

8:30a U.S. 3Q productivity rises at 9.5% annual rate

8:30a U.S. initial jobless claims lowest since January

8:30a Total nonseasonal adjusted claims up to 9.53 mln

8:30a U.S. continuing claims fall 68,000 to 5.75 million

8:30a U.S. initial jobless claims fall 20,000 to 512,000

[Dr.Phool]

53. Unemployment distortions: Denninger

The unemployment claim release looked good. Here's the headline:

In the week ending Oct. 31, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 512,000, a decrease of 20,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 532,000.

Sounds good, right? So does this:

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Oct. 24 was 5,749,000, a decrease of 68,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 5,817,000.

Now let's talk truth:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 480,178 in the week ending Oct. 31, a decrease of 14,216 from the previous week. There were 466,341 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The rate of firing is higher than it was this week last year - a really, really bad time, if you remember. This was immediately post-Lehman and AIG, when firms were shedding employees like water off a duck's back.

So why the disconnect?

States reported 3,459,148 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Oct. 17, an increase of 90,239 from the prior week.

68,000 people came off the rolls and found jobs, right?

Wrong.

90,239 fell off the government's "official statistics" and rolled into "extended programs." That means that net-on-net the picture got worse by 22,239.

It gets even better than this, however, as we are now far enough into the mess that people are rolling off even the extended benefit programs in many states! There is no current tabulation of that count, but any number greater than zero simply adds to the malaise.

The bottom line:

*
Unemployment continues to get worse, not better. The "official" numbers used for the headline don't count you once you "roll off" the original unemployment program - "extended benefits" and those who have rolled off even the extended programs are not counted as "continuing claims."

*
More people were fired the last week of October this year than were fired the last week of October last year, and last year was directly in the blast zone from Lehman and AIG.

You want to cheer these numbers?

The market might, but Main Street, where most of us live (myself included) has a somewhat different view.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

[Roland99]

25. U.S. Worker Productivity Jumps, Costs in Record Drop

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6KkQs8eE8ks&pos=2

The productivity of U.S. workers surged in the third quarter at the fastest pace in six years as companies squeezed more from remaining staff to boost profits.

The measure of employee output per hour jumped at a 9.5 percent annual rate, topping the highest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Labor costs fell at a 5.2 percent rate, capping the biggest 12-month drop since records began in 1948.

...

“It’s a favorable environment for profits,” said Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, who had the highest productivity forecast among economists surveyed. “Business are being extraordinarily cautious on costs. Employment will have to go up before long.”

...

Unit labor costs, which are adjusted for efficiency gains, were projected to fall 4.2 percent and followed a 6.1 percent drop in the prior quarter that was larger than previously estimated, according to the survey median.

Paying us less to work more.

Great way to live!!

[burf]

37. But at least

we aren't like those socialist Europeans with their health care and their eight weeks of vacation!

How anyone can defend the status quo in this country is way beyond my comprehension.

Good day to all!

[rfranklin]

40. China has the formula worked out...

Slave wages for workers, no pollution controls, and contracts that are a joke. Profits above all!

[Demeter]

70. Not to mention the counterfeiting of things like infant formula and pet food

[ozymandius]

3. Oil slips below $80 as US dollar strengthens

SINGAPORE – Oil prices slipped below $80 a barrel Thursday in Asia as the U.S. dollar strengthened.
.....

Crude has traded near $80 a barrel for the last few weeks as investors watch a volatile dollar and mixed signs on the strength of the U.S. economy. Oil has jumped from $32 in December as traders have used crude and other commodities, which are priced in dollars, as a hedge against a weakening dollar and inflation.
.....

U.S. crude inventories unexpectedly fell last week, a sign demand could be improving. The Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that crude stocks fell 4 million barrels while analysts had expected a rise of 1.3 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
.....

In other Nymex trading, heating oil fell 1.63 cents to $2.07 a gallon. Gasoline for December delivery dropped 1.72 cents to $2.00 a gallon. Natural gas for December delivery rose 1.2 cent to $4.74 per 1,000 cubic feet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

[ozymandius]

4. Congress set to clear aid to jobless, homebuyers

WASHINGTON – Congress is one vote away from sending the president legislation that continues aid to more than a million jobless people and extends tax breaks to hundreds of thousands of prospective homebuyers and struggling businesses.

The legislation, recognizing the lingering distresses of the recession, passed the Senate Wednesday on a 98-0 vote and could come up in the House as early as Thursday, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.
.....

The bill, with a price tag of some $24 billion, would provide every American running out of unemployment insurance benefits this year with an additional 14 weeks. The out-of-work in states with jobless rates at 8.5 percent or greater would get six weeks on top of that.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091105/ap_on_go_co/us_jobless_benefits_homebuyers

---

The housing boost will not do anything to strengthen the nation's economy, IMO. Anyone who can feasibly buy a house, will buy one. The $8k is a nice incentive but it remains a marginal consideration for those who can actually afford a home under current conditions of tight credit, stingy banks and a return to the practice of applying large down payments on a home purchase. To me - this is just an attempt to re-inflate the housing bubble. It has worked this way in many areas around the country. But for what purpose?

[Demeter]

32. So Timmy Can Sell His Overpriced House!

[ozymandius]

5. Chrysler must get buyers to hang on

After eight hours of presentations Wednesday about Chrysler's future, the biggest question remained unanswered: How does the automaker get from here to there?

Bold projections of growing U.S. sales, billion-dollar profits and showrooms full of modern and fuel-efficient new vehicles based on Fiat engineering all depend on Chrysler's ability to revive interest in crippled vehicles like the Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Avenger and Nitro.

The first job Chrysler and Fiat engineers face as they try to create a prosperous union boils down to convincing American buyers to take another look at those vehicles until a fleet of new Fiat-based models begins rolling out of Chrysler plants in 2012 and 2013.''
.....

Based on the five-year plan the automaker revealed at its Auburn Hills headquarters Wednesday, Chrysler will have to struggle on largely with mildly reworked versions of its current vehicles until a flood of new Fiat-based models and technologies begin to arrive in 2012 and 2013.

http://www.freep.com/article/20091105/BUSINESS01/911050452/1206/BUSINESS01/Chrysler-must-get-buyers-to-hang-on

[Festivito]

6. Debt: 11/03/2009 11,978,591,612,480.95 (UP 3,853,897,264.84) (Tue)

(Small move. Good day to all.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 7,580,074,149,065.03 + 4,398,517,463,415.92
UP 189,596,548.58 + UP 3,664,300,716.26

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 308-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.25 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.74, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 10 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 307,881,501 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 09/27/2009 07:13 -> 307,558,299
Currently, each of these Americans owe $38,906.5.
A family of three owes $116,719.5. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 to 32 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 2,756,495,950.50.
The average for the last 30 days would be 2,021,430,363.70.
The average for the last 32 days would be 1,895,090,965.97.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 24 reports in 34 days of FY2010 averaging 2.87B$ per report, 2.02B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 1,174 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 13.6 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
11/03/2009 11,978,591,612,480.95 BHO (UP 1,351,714,563,567.87 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +0,068,762,608,969.20 ------------* BHO
Endof10 +0,738,186,831,581.13 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
10/14/2009 +000,250,135,805.15 ------------********
10/15/2009 +040,455,301,335.22 ------------**********
10/16/2009 -000,034,671,440.79 ----
10/19/2009 +000,169,101,777.19 ------------******** Mon
10/20/2009 +000,084,506,561.85 ------------*******
10/21/2009 +000,260,615,642.06 ------------********
10/22/2009 -054,881,746,021.15 -
10/23/2009 -000,105,634,856.79 ---
10/26/2009 -000,680,933,964.04 --- Mon
10/27/2009 +000,626,474,250.98 ------------********
10/28/2009 +000,798,039,832.64 ------------********
10/29/2009 -019,769,093,363.09 -
10/30/2009 +031,206,306,633.43 ------------**********
11/02/2009 +091,997,621,963.98 ------------********** Mon
11/03/2009 +000,189,596,548.58 ------------********

90,565,620,705.22 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4131935&mesg_id=4132079

[Festivito]

63. Debt: 11/04/2009 11,978,953,722,825.90 (UP 362,110,344.95) (Wed)

(Mixed, small. Good day to all.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 7,579,989,372,018.96 + 4,398,964,350,806.94
DOWN 84,777,046.07 + UP 446,887,391.02

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 308-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.25 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.74, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 10 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 307,890,141 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 09/27/2009 07:13 -> 307,558,299
Currently, each of these Americans owe $38,906.58.
A family of three owes $116,719.75. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 23 reports in the last 30 to 33 days.
The average for the last 23 reports is 2,652,392,228.52.
The average for the last 30 days would be 2,033,500,708.53.
The average for the last 33 days would be 1,848,637,007.75.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 25 reports in 35 days of FY2010 averaging 2.76B$ per report, 1.97B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 1,173 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 13.6 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
11/04/2009 11,978,953,722,825.90 BHO (UP 1,352,076,673,912.82 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +0,069,124,719,314.20 ------------* BHO
Endof10 +0,720,872,072,848.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
10/15/2009 +040,455,301,335.22 ------------**********
10/16/2009 -000,034,671,440.79 ----
10/19/2009 +000,169,101,777.19 ------------******** Mon
10/20/2009 +000,084,506,561.85 ------------*******
10/21/2009 +000,260,615,642.06 ------------********
10/22/2009 -054,881,746,021.15 -
10/23/2009 -000,105,634,856.79 ---
10/26/2009 -000,680,933,964.04 --- Mon
10/27/2009 +000,626,474,250.98 ------------********
10/28/2009 +000,798,039,832.64 ------------********
10/29/2009 -019,769,093,363.09 -
10/30/2009 +031,206,306,633.43 ------------**********
11/02/2009 +091,997,621,963.98 ------------********** Mon
11/03/2009 +000,189,596,548.58 ------------********
11/04/2009 -000,084,777,046.07 ----

90,230,707,854.00 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4133249&mesg_id=4133261

[ozymandius]

7. Intel-Dell Dealings Under Fire

It was called the Mother of All Programs, or MOAP for short. That was the code name Intel (INTC) bestowed on a series of payments it made to Dell (DELL), one of its largest customers, over a five-year period through January 2007.

Now that $6 billion in payments has become the mother of all predicaments for Intel, the world's largest computer-chip maker. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, in a federal antitrust lawsuit, says Intel wielded those payments to coerce computer makers into using its chips instead of those made by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Over several years, Intel used payments to a host of computer makers including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and IBM (IBM) as part of a "systematic campaign of illegal conduct" intended to harm AMD, according to the lawsuit. Cuomo's suit follows legal action by antitrust regulators in Europe, Japan, and South Korea who also allege that Intel used the payments to gain an unfair advantage over AMD.

.....
At the crux of Cuomo's case, in an 87-page complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Delaware, are payments Intel labeled as "rebates" to companies using its chips. Cuomo alleges the payments gave Intel leverage to induce PC makers to limit the use of AMD chips in personal computers and servers. Cuomo argues that these payments "bore no genuine relationship to pro-competitive volume-based discounts or reasonable efforts to meet specific competitive offers."

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2009/tc2009114_975298.htm

[Tansy_Gold]

8. +25 just for the cartoon!

"You asked for it, brother."



Giving virtually unlimited funds to the people who have robbed you and expecting that to change their behavior is just plain stupid.

'Nuf said.


:hi:



Tansy Gold

[ozymandius]

12. Thanks!

See my post #11 as it would apply here.

[ozymandius]

10. More Signs of Consumer Retrenchment

It was curious to see the immediate complacent stock market reaction to the FOMC remarks that the Fed is going to keep rates low for an extended period (although it did crumble right before the close of trading). Yes, the central bank will have a tricky balancing act when it has to mop up liquidity, so there is a lot of hand-wringing about inflation down the road. But the subtext is that the big risk is deflation. And Japan has never had to worry about mopping up liquidity, it had and still has to worry about creating demand.

Some new sightings on the “where have all the consumers gone” front. The Financial Times reports that Americans are cutting back at the grocery store, even on pet food. That tells me that despite the effect of cash for clunkers and a pick-up in luxury spending, the average consumer is belt-tightening, literally and figuratively:

Tights, sunglasses and boneless chickens have joined the list of casualties of America’s economic crisis, as the era of impulse shopping gives way to more wary behaviour in the nation’s grocery aisles.

Americans unwilling to pay extra for their food to be prepared bought $65m more whole frozen chickens in the third quarter than a year earlier, and $50m fewer boneless birds…

The complex interchange of financial and emotional impulses is being felt even by the nation’s cats and dogs as consumers traded down from “wet” pet food, but then supplemented their animals’ more basic diets with snacks “so they still feel good about it for their animals”, Ms Thompson said…

A trend away from eating out led to a 70 per cent jump in the number of ice cream cakes sold, as more children’s birthday parties took place at home. Ready-to-eat popcorn purchases were up 55 per cent and sausage dinners up 27 per cent as more evenings were spent in front of the television.

Another factoid courtesy DoctoRx is that 63% of Americans expect to spend less on holiday presents this year than last year. And remember, last year people had just witnessed the meltdown.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/11/more-signs-of-consumer-retrenchment.html

[boomerbust]

13. Makes sense

I know what I do with my grocery money. I keep a couple of bags of Walmart chicken breasts and 4 or 5 loaves of $1 bread for the end of month chow.

[DemReadingDU]

15. Americans expect to spend less on holiday presents this year than last year

Well, duh. More people are unemployed, have less money. But yet, the media would want us to believe the holidays were good last year, and it was the beginnng of the meltdown. The holidays really must going to be bad for retail this year.

[Roland99]

17. I feel guilty almost at finally being able to live better than paycheck-to-paycheck

Still not buying anything on credit, though. If I don't have the cash, I don't buy.

[AnneD]

44. Morning Marketeers.....

:donut: and lurkers. Survivors guilt, Roland, survivors guilt. I watched last week's Front Line about a hair stylist on Manhattans lower east side-very tony. I could see how some of these folk got into trouble, but in all honesty I felt that some things were out of their hands. These folks were pillars in their communities, solid upper middle class. They face months and years of unemployment. Getting a job is like winning the lottery. There is no room for error in regards to your financial decisions and even if you do make all the right moves, you can lose it all any way. I was saddened by the way some folks lacked any compassion for these folks.

Roland, as strange as it seems, we had layoffs early enough in our lives when we could train and learn survival skills. As bad as I thought it was when I was lay ed off in the 80's, I was young enough to retrain and learn the skills that help me survive. Those awful times turned out to be a blessing. I was young enough to recover. If the same thing were to happen today, I would have a harder time to recover. This knowledge and experience is what gives me sympathy, even for those that most can't muster sympathy for. I have never forgotten how rough it was before I got that part time job and Mom seeded me the money for nursing school.

I have some useful skill sets that now will always enable me to get by in this world. I'll be anything from a nanny to a companion or sitter if a Nursing job isn't available to me and I will gladly do them-I am not too proud. And if I can, before I retire-I will be starting my own business so I should never have to be so worried. I have learned to have faith in my ability to provide for myself, and that gets harder to do as we get older.

Don't laugh too hard but I liken our situation today to that movie that came out several years ago, Chicken Run. I know it was a cartoon and geared toward kids-but we are like those chickens. Years in the chicken coop have made us soft and we have forgotten how to fly. Well now we face the prospect of being made into meat pies and we will if we don't learn to fly and jump the fence soon, even fewer of us will survive. And contrary to Ann Rand-we stand a better chance if we work together-it has truly been the only way to survive. That philosophy only serves to keep us divided and makes it easier for the foxes to pick us off one at a time.

Think on it.

Happy hunting and watch out for the bears.

[Roland99]

49. There was a great post in GD a few days back. Something like, "We are not needed"

broke it down pretty bluntly. We aren't needed. We are expendable. We can be replaced by a machine or cheaper labor in South America or Asia or cheaper (read: younger) labor here in the U,S.

I learned after my long-term unemployment in 2002 to not overextend myself financially. I've finally reached the point I'm not paycheck-to-paycheck (would have been a few months ago but some travel and my daughter's wedding coming up next May have taken a heavy toll ;-) )

I, as most other SMWers, have been warning friends/family about this day and it finally arrived with a bang last year. Now I'm living by example and hoping that pays off for someone (anyone) with whom I'm in contact on a regular basis.

[AnneD]

55. This is the deconstruction of the Industrial Revolution in this country...

I don't know what you remember from your history, but Industry was screaming for labour. America's doors were open for immigrants. We have been trained and educated to be a cog in the wheel of that machine for so long and now that we have forgotten how it once was. I am lucky to have many farmers and independent worker sorts in my background. We are closer to our past than most folks and my family members have a whole different take on this.

This is another major revolution-maybe the Computer Revolution is taking hold at last. As the Boss once sang..these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back. Some things like health care, education, will be harder to out source but I can see that coming too one day. It's going to be a brave new world, with lots of chaos until we try and figure out what we are going to do and which direction to head in. The world we have known is fading away before our eyes. I could be all Darwinian or Rand on us-but I don't believe that is our best alternative and I hope the suffering doesn't get to great before even some of our densest wake up.

Think I will re read my Industrial Revolution tomes-I think that is were some answers are....

[bread_and_roses]

18. OK, I'll be brave and ask a really stupid question that's been nagging at me

So, I've admitted I don't invest, don't understand half the terminology I read here, don't "follow the market" in the way some of you do, with analysis and an eye on currencies, debt, etc. etc. My interest is simply part of a lifelong study of power - what it is, how it works, who has it, what it does, how people adapt, accept, or defy it. But in this case I'm just curious about what I suppose is a technicality.

Particularly over the last few months, the numbers - I just mean the ones reported on NPR and the little boxes on newsites (Dow, etc.) have looked like a child's drawing of mountains. The last few days it seems to have accelerated - so that instead of days that run +100/-100/+100/+100/-200, now we have +150 -120 = net +30 in one day (#s are just rough rounded from sketchy memory).

So my questions are:
1. Is my perception based in any sort of reality (I don't really keep track or make charts or anything)?
2. Is this normal? (I know - what's "normal?" In this case meaning would this be a reasonable "market behavior" in, say, a relatively stable environment where for instance people are trading stock backed by something in some sense "real" - like a factory making actual goods, for instance?)
3. Is it as blatantly artificial as it looks to me?

So, I'm already embarrassed to be asking this, but what the hey, you're a kind group. And I'm not asking for a long, deeply technical response - just a sort of reality check, if anyone is so inclined to respond.

[UpInArms]

21. welcome to the SMW, bread_and_roses!

you've come to the right place with your questions. There are some really way smarter than me folks that post here daily -

jmho - I say the volatility that you are seeing is mostly generated by the very big players - and that almost all of the weaker hands have left the casino

so... blatantly artificial would be my choice.

:hi:

[Tansy_Gold]

22. What a dumb question!!! (ONLY KIDDING, since I asked the same)

I dunno. I don't understand much of "the market" either.

But in a world that follows anything remotely resembling sanity, this is not normal.

And I for one think it's ENTIRELY (or at least 87.5%) artificial.

But I know nothing, nothing at all.

:hi:


Tansy Gold

[Roland99]

27. The VIX has been toying with levels considered to be quite volatile but steadying a bit here now

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^vix


There is definitely jitters galore out there.

Commercial real estate is just waiting for the bubble to finally burst and then all hell will break loose.

Jobs aren't coming back yet.

Consumers are getting squeezed via credit and higher prices (if we're in a deflationary period, *I'm* not seeing it!)

[DemReadingDU]

30. Deflation isn't necessarily lower prices

Some prices do come down, but still could be expensive relative to what people can pay in cash.

I think of inflation as a time when just about anything can be purchased with a credit card. Deflation is a time when hardly anything can be purchased using credit, everything needs to be purchased via cash. Banks have been lowering credit limits, if not outright cancelling cards, so I believe we are in the beginnings of deflation. Prices of things can go up and down, in both inflation and in deflation, supply and demand.

[Roland99]

31. True. And I wonder how much weighting is given to housing prices?

If a house drops 40% in value (but the mortgage and/or rent remains the same) but bread, sodas, meat, milk, gas, etc. are going up, then is it not really inflation we're seeing?

[DemReadingDU]

35. Supply and demand, speculation, any number of reasons for pricing

I think we have to look at the overall picture. Prices of some things increase and some decrease. But when people look at the amount of credit that is disappearing, limits on credit cards are being lowered or the card is canceled, that is deflationary.

Stoneleigh at The Automatic Earth, has a primer that can explain this better

"Inflation" deflated

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2008/11/debt-rattle-november-29-2008-inflation.html

[Roland99]

36. Thank ya kindly for that link.

Decreasing credit limits doesn't affect me so directly as I live on a cash basis (other than my car payment but that's winding down in a year or so)

[DemReadingDU]

38. Look for more TAE primers

Stoneleigh is really good explaining various monetary concepts, energy, more on inflation, how to build a lifeboat. Check on the right side of the page over at The Automatic Earth

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

Edit - First check the 'Primer' of Primers, that explains all the primers, and to see which one you might like to read first

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-23-2009-prime-rhyming-times.html

[4dsc]

45. Damn interesting read here: Thanks for the link

[DemReadingDU]

48. TAE is a great site

Ilargi writes the Intro followed by related articles from around the world. Always a picture at the top and a comments section at the bottom. Occasionally Stoneleigh writes a primer explaining various concerns of the readers. Ilargi and Stoneleigh have been co-authors since the site began in January 2008.

Stoneleigh was interviewed at the ASPO conference in Denver, October 2009. Lots of charts and graphs to better explain deflation.

October 30 2009: An interview with Stoneleigh - The case for deflation
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/10/october-30-2009-interview-with.html

[Tansy_Gold]

39. Looking at the overall picture and the credit availability thing

Again, the disclaimer that I'm just going on gut feeling and natural (?) instinct --

VALUES are going down, in the sense that real estate is worth less and jobs are worth less. The job deflation has been going on for a long time, as wages for working people have stagnated over a period of 30-35 years. The real estate bubble and increasing credit availability masked that deflationary element, as did (to a certain extent) increased productivity.

But if you add in the decrease in union membership, the breaking of union contracts, the "hiring" of cheap foreign labor, there's been a serous deflationary effect with regards to earnings.

Both real estate prices and fuel prices -- which are other elements of the production/distribution sector -- are subject to manipulation for profit, as we've seen. Those have gone up, fueling (pun intended) increases/inflation in consumer goods.

CPI figures are blatantly manipulated and should be taken with a 40# bag of Morton's pellets. But we've also seen huge amounts of play money thrown into the system -- TARP etc, C4C, extended unemployment. It's my personal and uninformed opinion that these have prevented -- or rather postponed -- what would otherwise have been a massive deflationary crash a year ago. Eventually it's all going to unwind, there will be no more play money, and after visible and painful consumer inflation, things will go back to having their real, uninflated values.

So whatever stability we have is artificial, and it's only maintained by countering the natural deflation after a bunch of bubbles with the huge injection of inflationary cheap dollars. We already know RE values are plummeting, jobs are gone or wages cheapened, and the fuel bubble that burst last year hasn't yet reinflated. So the deflationary potential exists, and when it will start is anyone's guess.



Tansy Gold

[DemReadingDU]

46. real, uninflated values

What we've been seeing is manipulation to keep the party going. Eventually, the party will end. We've been drinking to excess, and now we will all have the worst hangover.
:hangover:

Deflation has already begun with the decrease in credit in the system. Some people have already seen that with their limits lowered or cards canceled. We will all see deflation when none of us have access to credit cards. That's when we will see the real values of things. Expect to see the things we need to be expensive, relative to what we have in cash (or barter) to pay for them. Deflation is something that most of us have never experienced.

[Roland99]

47. Guess I was thinking in more micro terms when it's really a macro term.

[DemReadingDU]

51. That's easy to do when we've been led to believe rising prices is inflationary

So we think that deflation would be lower prices. But as Stoneleigh explains in her primers, the terms really don't indicate 'prices'. There is so much more involved. Reading The Automatic Earth has given me a different perspective in the times we are living, and what is coming. It is not easy to explain to others. My family still thinks of me as the nutty sister who reads blogs.

[DemReadingDU]

28. I'm not into the markets either

Who knows what is 'normal' nowadays.

But it appears to me the big guys are manipulating the markets for their maximum profits, before it plunges downward.

[Loge23]

29. It's a casino

The MSM still perpetuates the myth of the stock market as a bellwether of economic activity - and in some instances it still is.
But the market, and include commodities and oil in this, has become a function of "work" unto itself. By "work", I mean instead of serving as a true marketplace for value exchange, it is now a casino. It is a place where people actually substitute economic activity and value for artificially created numbers and make a living doing it.
Is co. XYZ trading for $20? Let's bet that the price goes down to $12 and short it. Or let's pile in and move it up to $30. Co. XYZ is now worth whatever the market bears and their true value is no longer based on sales, cash flow, and debt.
Look at oil. What makes oil $80 a barrel when a few months ago, under similar supply and demand, it was $40? Yes, the dollar's deterioration has contributed, but the barrel price has no real bearing on either supply, demand, or true value to the economy. It's all about speculation.
The market has become it's own economy. It used to be based on the whole economy. That's the biggest difference. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the activity of this casino does affect everyone in some way.

(edited for my usual lousy spelling)

[DemReadingDU]

52. Dow almost at 10,000

:woohoo:

Let's gamble at the casino! Will the Dow go over 10,000 today? Place your bets.

[ret5hd]

58. Well, the DOW has kinda established 10,000 as a ceiling while...

gold has kinda established 1000 as a floor.

Think I'll stick with gold.

[Demeter]

33. In Engineering We Would Call It Signs of Instability

Which means that pretty soon your whole machine is going to blow up and catch fire.

I think this principle applies even more here.

[tclambert]

50. OK, bread_and_roses, here's my take on it.

Some investing is based on real value and things like company earnings. I personally recently bought a few shares of an electric company, Integrys, just for the dividends.

Some investing is based on hoped-for future value. My wife recently bought some A123Systems, a Lithium ion battery maker that just had an IPO. The company has yet to make a single cent of profit, but we hope the car battery market will grow a lot in the coming years. I think most investing right now is this speculative hoped-for future value type, since so few companies are making money during the recession. But a lot of us are hoping the economy recovers, and we're trying to bet on the winners.

An awful lot of investing is based on expert advice. Professional analysts and some TV pitchmen recommend some investments and create a "fashion trend." There are people who invest in companies just because they heard Warren Buffett invested in it. (That's not the most terrible strategy I've ever heard of, either.) A herd instinct can kick in, with everybody playing follow-the-leader or follow-your-neighbor. That can lead to stupid bubbles. Look up tulip mania sometime. I have heard that you can make more money going AGAINST the expert advice than following it.

The volatility you see in the market now looks small compared to a year ago. When people are confused and/or panicky, it seems like the fluctuations increase in violence. But if it smooths out and all heads one way, that doesn't mean they are right.

I would like to believe that there is an underlying rationality to the market masked by a lot of emotional noise that can make it hard to see the underlying trends. But the emotional noise can become deafening and can overwhelm common sense for surprisingly long periods of time. The housing bubble lasted years before it came crashing down and hurt everything else. The fact that the Dow lost 25% during the eight years Bush was President is far more telling. That's not just one bubble bursting. During Reagan's 8 years, the stock market doubled. During Clinton's 8 years, the stock market tripled (and that includes the bursting of the dotcom bubble toward the end of his 2nd term).

There are those who try to manipulate the market. I don't think they are very successful. It seems to me the patterns that emerge in market behavior come more from the unintended consequences of many investors acting according to whatever is influencing them at the time. (I expect some disagreement on this point.)

The trick to making money in the stock market is, as always, successfully predicting the future--not calculating what the future should be according to any set of rules, but predicting what will happen in real life. That involves predicting the emotional atmosphere of the crowd perhaps more than estimating price to earnings ratios. It's psychology mixed with economics.

Caveat: I'm not a recognized authority, or any kind of scholar on the subject. I like to think I am an expert, though. I made a fortune and lost a fortune in the market. I hope I learned some lessons along the way so I can make my next fortune faster and safer.

- TC Lambert

[AnneD]

57. My best advice.....

is that of Will Rogers. The best way to double your money is to fold it and put it in your pocket.

[tclambert]

68. Ah, the origami school of investing!

[bread_and_roses]

73. Thank you for taking so much time in that thoughtful response (n/t)

[mullard12ax7]

64. You are correct, the "markets" are a total load of manipulated lies

They have been since 2005, before that they were only about 50% manipulated. I used to scream about it but nobody listened, greedy people want to hear the lies. When it smashes down on their heads again they'll ask "who ever saw it coming" like a duped idiot always asks. A good study of corruption in the U.S. is reading about Soviet corruption, it explains it pretty well, i.e. placing criminals in political positions etc..

[UpInArms]

19. dollar watch

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?acs=NYBOT_DX&v=i

Last trade 75.683 Change +0.040 (+0.05%)

Oil, Metals Positioning Points to Weaknes. Jobless Claims Key Ahead of NFP

http://www.dailyfx.com/forex/fundamental/forecast/daily/2009-11-05-1148-Oil__Metals_Positioning_Points_to.html

Technical positioning hints that oil, gold and silver are likely to retrace recent gains. US intial and continuting jobless claims are key to watch ahead of Friday's all-important NFP report.

Commodities – Energy
Crude Oil Retests $80 Once Again, Jobless Claims in Focus Ahead of NFP

Crude Oil (WTI)       $79.95        -$0.45       -0.56%

Oil continues to consolidate in familiar ranges, with prices once again testing resistance just below the psychologically significant $80/barrel level. Negative divergence on the RSI oscillator hints at a move lower from here, with initial support at $78.28. Fundamentally, US Initial Jobless Claims and Continued Claims data is likely to command the markets’ attention as traders brace for tomorrow’s all-important NFP jobs report from the world’s largest crude consumer. As always, broad trends in risk sentiment and with the trajectory of the US Dollar will be important as well, and to that effect, traders will be on the lookout for any relevant reverberations from the ECB and BOE interest rate decisions.



Commodities – Metals
Metals Push Higher as Fed Keeps Dovish Posture, Jobs Data Key Ahead

Gold       $1090.19       -$2.00       -0.18%

Gold prices pushed higher to break out a minor rising channel, clearing triple top resistance just below $1070 to test new record highs near the $1100 level. Prices are now re-testing resistance-turned-support at the channel’s top with negative divergence on the RSI oscillator pointing to a likely turn downward. A break below current support opens the door for a test of the channel’s bottom below $1080. Fundamentally, the outlook for the US Dollar and things that affect it are likely to be of greatest interest, which primarily amounts to the US jobless claims data and to a lesser extend the ECB and BOE rate decisions.

Silver $17.41 -$0.05 -0.26%
Silver followed gold higher out of the narrow range between $16.11 and $16.75 to find resistance before $17.50. On the fundamental front, the outlook for the greenback and the overall trajectory of risky assets will likely prove most market-moving, putting the onus once again on US data.


...more...

The Fed Slowly Trims Stimulus but the Dollar is still Caught up in Risk

http://www.dailyfx.com/forex/fundamental/article/what_fed_watches/2009-11-05-0039-The_Fed_Slowly_Trims_Stimulus.html



The Economy and the Credit Market



The dollar was on the decline after the FOMC’s rate decision today; but was this a direct reflection of the event itself or merely a sign that FX traders’ interests lie elsewhere? Considering risk appetite was on the rise before the central bank’s announcement was released, it is safe to say that the currency was still taking its cues from underlying market sentiment (where the dollar is relegated to its status as a safe haven and therefore funding currency). This is the resistance the world’s most liquid asset must overcome should we expect it to determine its own path in the future. One of two things can happen in the short-term to alter the greenback’s fortunes: either market-wide optimism will falter and boost its safe haven appeal; or the beleaguered currency will make a meaningful break from its place at the bottom of the risk spectrum. For timing, risk appetite is the more flexible and volatile dynamic; so a meaningful correction in the speculatively-driven rally of the past eight months is the more likely catalyst for dollar advancement. Yet, we should not write off the measured changes to its role in the market. The Fed announced today that it was reducing its agency-debt purchasing program from $200 billion to approximately $175 billion. This joins the end of the Treasury purchases, banks paying off their bailout loans and tests for withdrawing cash from the system through the money markets as a decisive step towards easing stimulus and coming closer to a hawkish policy stance.

...more...

[bread_and_roses]

26. Thank you, Up In Arms and Tansy

UIA, I'm a long-time lurker here and at WE - but I scan, mostly, don't read it all carefully. Very infomative though, good to be around reality-based posters! Helps keep me sane these days.

[Demeter]

34. Depressed, but Sane

If you aren't depressed, you aren't paying attention!

[Demeter]

41. I think we need this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybVaAOurY0&feature=related

Nothing like a little Allan Sherman rendered by a Cockney (I guess copyright prevents the original).

[Demeter]

42. Here's another you may not have seen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybVaAOurY0&feature=related

[Demeter]

56. Three's the charm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1phr_MLnIM&feature=related

You know I'm hurting when I have to distract on Thursday.

[bread_and_roses]

43. Thanks again to all, and Demeter, love the engineering analogy. perfect! (n/t)

[DoBotherMe]

59. K&R n/t

[Dr.Phool]

60. Bankers look to Jesus for cover.

Who would Jesus use for an investment banker? It's really past due, pulling out those pitch forks.
-----------------------------------------------------------


http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/11/04/bankers_praise_jesus/index.html?source=newsletter


Editor: Andrew Leonard
Updated: Today
Topic:
Bank Bailouts
Wednesday, Nov 4, 2009 11:27 PST
How The World Works
Bankers look to Jesus for cover
Love others as yourself is a holy endorsement greed, says Goldman exec. Where's the hellfire?
By Andrew Leonard

It has come to this: desperate bankers are appearing in churches in order to make the claim that Jesus would have had no problem with million-dollar bonuses and subprime mortgage-backed securities.

OK -- maybe, that's a slight exaggeration. But what else is one to make of that news, reported by Bloomberg, that Barclays CEO John Varley told the "packed pews" of St. Martin-in-the-Fields on London's Trafalgar Square last night that "profit is not satanic."

The 53-year-old head of Britain's second-biggest bank said banks are the "backbone" of the economy. Rewarding high-performing bankers with more pay doesn't conflict with Christian values, he said. Varley was paid 1.08 million pounds ($1.77 million) and no bonus in 2008.

Varley's comments came just two weeks after Goldman Sachs International advisor Brian Griffiths told an audience at St Paul's Cathedral that "the injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest."

It is tempting to make some comments here about having the money-changers getting expelled from the temple, but that would be too easy. There's also that little problem about rich people encountering difficulties getting into heaven, but the Conservabible has already fixed that.

What the bankers are somehow missing, however, is that part of the gospel in which Jesus preaches: If we the taxpayer bail you out, saving your bank and your job, we also have a right to condemn you to eternal damnation when you get a big fat bonus, while we stand in line for our unemployment checks. Is that really so hard to understand?

[Tansy_Gold]

62. So when are they gonna love/pay us the way they been

lovin'/payin' themselves?

goddamn fucking asswipe greedy hypocrites. I wish the goddamn Jesus would come down and strike these wankers dead in their tracks.



Tansy Gold

[Roland99]

66. "the injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest."

These people are as batshit-insane as Kristol and Ledeen!!!!


:banghead:

[Demeter]

71. Where Do You Think They Got It From?

Ayn's been dead a while, after all.

[Roland99]

74. But her spirit lives on in the diseased brains of her followers.

[tclambert]

69. Didn't Jesus chase the investment bankers out of the temple?

The only time he got really mad about anything.

[Joe Chi Minh]

75. Jesus could not have been more extreme in his warnings against undue

concern for money.

Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and Mammon;"

"Blessed are the poor," in the Beatitudes;

The extraordinary parable of the farmer who built another barn to store the excess from his bumper harvest;

His berating of his followers, accusing them of followng him for the certainty of meal, rather than to hear his "words of life".

Then, there were his instructions to his Apostles concerning the very scant provision for themselves they were to make for their travels, as they spread the Gospels.

And, just as the homeless poor today are sometimes reviled by insensate thugs, Paul says they, the Apostles, were looked upon by everyone as the dregs, doubtless on that very account - their indigent condition.

[TheWatcher]

61. So Far, So Good. The US Consumer is Jobless, and Wall Street is Partying.

As I predicted earlier, Wall Street is once again having a huge self-congratulatory, masturbatory circle jerk over the Employment Numbers, a Roman Like Orgy that should continue into tomorrow.

Days like today are when I begrudgingly agree with one of DU's most annoying and smarmy apologists. The "average guy" really COULD make a killing buying Index Futures every Thursday Morning or Wednesday Overnight, because it almost works like clockwork now.

Wall Street gets very sexually excited and almost goes into heat when they see the results of their hard work to make the common people suffer, and they are thoroughly enjoying themselves today. I might make a suggestion for some of these guys to buy themselves security details with all of their ill-gotten profits, if I actually cared a shred for their well-being and safety.

Fortunately I'm sane.

For those who might be scratching their heads over today's spin, I would suggest reading Denninger, who was already posted in this thread.

You might also check out this post from Wall Street Bear Forum's legendary mannfm11, which I will Cross Post here.

*******************************************************************************************************

More bull nonsense on unemployment
mannfm11 - Thu, Nov 5, 2009 - 10:53 AM

The unemployment claims are a disaster, but they spin them against something they call expectations. The truth is we had a small head on the claims above 600 K for about 5 months and the rest has been in the area between 512K and 600K. In retrospect, the high up to the end of June 2008 was 405K and there wasn't a number over 500K until November 7th with only a dip for New Years under 500K (the office was probably closed). So, with a trillion in stimulus, free money from the Fed, stimulus all over the world, unemployment claims are still worse than at any time during the first 11 months of the recession, a year later. Claims in 2007 ranged from a low of 295K to a high of 349K. Remember they say the recession was going in late 2007. Also remember corporations are never slow to cut employees.

In other news, more people shifted over to the longer term unemployment than got off the shorter term. We had a decrease in the shorter term of 70,000 and an increase of the longer term of 115,000. The program has a 26 week time limit, that is the one that has number put out every week. For comparatives, 605K went in on May 1, 512K came out October 31, a difference of 93,000. This is an indication that in the process, fewer eligible people are getting jobs than are going into the system.

There have been Federal Reserve reports that there are no jobs relative to the number looking, that the number is at a all time low. Yet, we are told that unemployment claims of 200,000 a week in excess of what we have in a fully employed economy where jobs are plentiful is only generating an increase in unemployment of 200K? So, we are piling about 900,000 extra people a month into the worst job search in history and we are only losing 200,000 jobs?

There is clearly a job counting problem and clearly a problem with when recessions begin and end. I have to believe we are looking at a government that produces statistics to manage expectations and not to report the truth. I focus on the unemployment claims data because it has a history in the charts that Bloomberg has with it so one can see what a normal growing economy looks like. I find it doubtful that a growing economy sheds an additional 900,000 employees a month in excess of an employed growing economy. So, they spin the expectations number, which is more nonsense in managed expectations than relevant. What is relevant is the number itself. Seems a trillion buys so little these days.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aVeiDHqJOlO8

If you click on unemployment benefits, it will take you to a page that has a charts link on top of it. This shows the data on an interactive chart.

http://wallstreetbear.com/board/view.php?topic=62896&post=209994


******************************************************************************************************

Let's see the apologists spin THAT one.

We'll see if this silliness continues tomorrow.

They desperately have to get the Dow above 10,000, before the Sheep start to smell this rally for what it is.

A bunch of unadulterated BULLSHIT.

As for bread_and_roses post earlier, it is very interesting that you bring up how artificial the charts look from the past year.

If you look at the charts from the past two weeks you would find two of the most severe looking "head and shoulder" formations that I have seen in awhile. Whenever this formation happens, it usually signals a sizable correction, but through manipulation they have managed to put TWO of these formations BACK TO BACK at the inflection point where the correction should have begun.

With the nonsense today, they are working on a third apparently.

The Market Fundamentally WANTS to collapse. The natural forces of market flow are TRYING to work, but the criminals in control keep making the excesses, dislocations, and distortions WORSE by doing what they are doing.

Those who are cheering this on, and taunting and inviting the "average guy" to join in the profits and fun are simply out of their minds. Fools who are eager to part with their own "perceived built wealth", while encouraging other well-meaning rubes to do the same.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL MARKET ACTIVITY.

Even a child could figure this out at this point.

Well, you know, lots of people complainin' that there is no work.
I say, "Why you say that for
When nothin' you got is U.S.-made?"
They don't make nothin' here no more,
You know, capitalism is above the law.
It say, "It don't count 'less it sells."
When it costs too much to build it at home
You just build it cheaper someplace else.

Well, the job that you used to have,
They gave it to somebody down in El Salvador.
The unions are big business, friend,
And they're goin' out like a dinosaur.
They used to grow food in Kansas
Now they want to grow it on the moon and eat it raw.
I can see the day coming when even your home garden
Is gonna be against the law.

Well, it's Sundown On The Union
And what's made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
'Til greed got in the way.

-Bob Dylan

[Roland99]

65. DJIA +204 today! Over 10,000! Free ponies have returned! YAY US!!

[DemReadingDU]

67. Bob Prechter: Bear Market Rally Is Over, Stocks Headed For New Lows

11/5/09 Bob Prechter: Bear Market Rally Is Over, Stocks Headed For New Lows
Posted Nov 05, 2009 01:50pm EST

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average once again marching closer to 10,000, many investors, especially those who missed the rally since March, must be asking themselves: Is now the time to finally pull the trigger?

Robert Prechter, founder of Elliott Wave International, implores retail investors stay away… for now. Prechter, who was bullish near the lows in March, now says the stock market "is in a topping area."

Why?

Several factors:

* Slowdown in upside momentum. Recent intraday rallies are petering out before the close.
* Bullish Sentiment. Investors who were bearish near the lows, are now just as bullish after a 60% run in the S&P 500. To Prechter, "that's a dangerous place to be."
* General overvaluation of stocks.

Prechter, the author of Conquer the Crash, says this is akin to the market in 1966-74 or 1929-32, where massive bear rallies gave way to another "big leg down."

He's predicting another crash in 2010 that will bring stocks below this year's low. His word to the wise, "be patient, don't rush it" keep your money in cash and cash equivalents for now and wait out this bear market.

He thinks it'll be another 5 or so years before we turn the corner but the good news is when we do, it'll be the buying opportunity of a lifetime.

watch video at link
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/367008/Bob-Prechter-Bear-Market-Rally-Is-Over-Stocks-Headed-For-New-Lows?tickers=spy,qqqq,dia,^gspc,^dji,uup,udn&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=

[bread_and_roses]

72. That is fascinating stuff - and there's a parallel on those UI #s

in the way "poverty" is calculated to keep the #s lower than they would be if the formulas actually reflected the current costs of basic needs - including things like child care, which these days are a basic need since it generally takes at least two jobs, if not more, for families to even keep a rented roof overhead. Which is why I found the figure I read somewhere about Obama or Congress extending Medicaid to those "up to 250% of the poverty level" to be a big fat whoop - not. Anyone who takes a look at the poverty $ figures used for calculating gov't benefits (available on census site) will see what I mean. (I can't swear to where that % came from - simply can't remember, or if it was a good source or not, but I generally don't read crank sites).