[analysis] Party of Socialism and Liberty, Brazil: Chavez’s call to form the Fifth International and the world situation
Lost Control & Economic Mythology
Global economy en route to a rocky recovery: Special international edition
INEOS postpones plans for IPO
Truth from Power? Merkel on the Fed
Google's Troubles in Foreign Markets: First China, Now France?
Financial ethics - Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ...
Chile votes for the (center-)right
Kid Stuff at the Devon
Sunday Morning Blogging: Someone Has Said Something Foolish on the Internet!
Corus Bank "Critically undercapitalized"
From an SEC 8-K filed this morning: As of June 30, 2009, Corus’ subsidiary, Corus Bank N.A. (the “Bank”) had preliminary Tier 1 capital of negative $157 million with a ratio of (2.1)%, and preliminary Tier 1 risk-based capital and total risk-based capital of negative $157 million with a ratio of (3.1)%, as reported in its June 30, 2009 Report of Condition and Income (“Call Report”) filed on July 30, 2009. As of June 30, 2009, the Bank was considered “critically undercapitalized” under the regulatory framework for prompt corrective action (“PCA”).
From a classical-liberal, Austrian, and free-market perspective, many will agree with the general framework that the Pope has outlined above, particularly those who accept an Aristotelian, Thomistic, and Rothbardian approach to the ethical foundations of voluntary exchange. However, when Benedict transitions from a philosophical framework to specific economic analysis and policy recommendations, particularly as he tries to carefully maintain a “middle of the road” approach to the logic of the market and economic crises, many will take exception. FULL ARTICLE
Restaurants: 22nd Consecutive Month of Traffic Declines in June
Note: Any reading below 100 shows contraction for this index. From the National Restaurant Association (NRA): Restaurant Industry Outlook Remained Uncertain In June as Restaurant Performance Index Declined for Second Consecutive Month The restaurant industry’s economic challenges continued to persist in June, as the National Restaurant Association’s comprehensive index of restaurant activity declined for the second consecutive month. The Association’s Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) – a monthly composite index that tracks the health of and outlook for the U.S.
How to Use Methodological Individualism: A Dissent
In a Mises Daily Article entitled ” How to Use Methodological Individualism ,” Guido Huelsmann makes a provocative claim regarding this fundamental principle of social analysis. According to Huelsmann, “while methodological individualism is properly applied in history, it is not a method that we use in [economic] theory.” His argument is that methodological individualism, although indispensable for explaining the contingent and complex events of history, e.g., the causes and consequences of the Iraq War or of the bailout of the U.S. financial system, is unable to aid us in demonstrating the time-invariant and necessary propositions that constitute economic theory
WaPo: Foreclosures Frequently Best Alternative for Lenders
Note: I covered this research a few weeks ago: Researchers: “Few Preventable Foreclosures” , but this is worth repeating … From the WaPo: Foreclosures Are Often In Lenders’ Best Interest Government initiatives to stem the country’s mounting foreclosures are hampered because banks and other lenders in many cases have more financial incentive to let borrowers lose their homes than to work out settlements, some economists have concluded
A friend draws to my attention a new CBO report on the House healthcare reform effort. Noting that a reduction in the long-term fiscal imbalance was allegedly a prime motive for the bill, he thinks this paragraph from CBO will (and should) force the would-be reformers back to the drawing board: Looking ahead to the decade beyond 2019, CBO tries to evaluate the rate at which the budgetary impact of each of those broad categories would be likely to change over time. The net cost of the coverage provisions would be growing at a rate of more than 8 percent per year in nominal terms between 2017 and 2019; we would anticipate a similar trend in the subsequent decade
Gary Becker says the answer is no : A recent excellent unpublished study by Samuel Preston and Jessica Ho of the University of Pennsylvania compare mortality rates for breast and prostate cancer. These are two of the most common and deadly forms of cancer–in the United States prostate cancer is the second leading cause of male cancer deaths, and breast cancer is the leading cause of female cancer deaths. These forms of cancer also appear to be less sensitive to known attributes of diet and other kinds of non-medical behavior than are lung cancer and many other cancers
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Health Minister Nicola Roxon released a report on the nation’s hospitals today by the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC) which recommends a $1.2 to 1.9 billion spend on e-health. (Credit: Surgeons at work, by salimfadhley , CC2.0 ) The report endorsed the recommendations of the National e-health strategy completed by Deloitte last year . Its figure for rolling out a National e-health agenda of $1185 to $1865 million roughly mirrored the consultant’s original reported amount for implementing its national strategy .
The good Powerful graphics card and quad-core CPU Full-sized keyboard 1680×1050 resolution Turbo mode allows for overclocking Plenty of ports and options The bad Poor mouse buttons Keyboard flexes a little Hot air vent on right-hand side 32-bit Windows can’t use the full 4GB RAM Battery obstructs power adapter movement You really don’t want to unplug this one from the wall Touchpad driver still not included or offered on MSI website Design The GT725 is most definitely a desktop replacement with an eye on budget-focused gamers.
FDR Chickened Out from Making REAL Economic Reform
Americans are taught that Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted massive economic reforms and regulations which tamed the banking hooligans. True, FDR helped pass a boatload of legislation, including Glass-Steagal and many other laws which helped reign in some of the worst abuses of the robber barons of the day. But Ellen Brown points out that FDR chickened out from making the most important, most fundamental reform: taking the power to create credit and “print” new money away from the private banksters and give it back to the federal government, as the founding fathers intended
Virtually every large technology goods and services provider in Australia has thrown their hat in the ring as the Northern Territory Government prepares to overhaul its ICT contracts in an $80 million whole of government purchasing initiative. The list of companies that have downloaded the tender documents (posted online in the territory’s tendering system) reads like a who’s who of Australia’s technology industry. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, Oracle, Dell, Cisco, Avaya, Telstra and Optus are just some of the names on the list.
Indiana Payday Loan Firms Consider Affiliations with National Banks – Payday Loan – Press Release – EASY WAY TO APPROVAL LOAN
By Kevin Corcoran, The Indianapolis Star Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 4–BATESVILLE, IndSituated beside the Day-Nite Food Mart on Ind. 46, the storefront office of Express Cash Advance — touting payday loans of up to $200 in five minutes with no credit check — might seem an unlikely Publication: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News..
Time to Think about a New Vehicle? Two Models from Hyundai Chicago that Drivers Love and Some Hints for Financing
It’s an ideal time to get a Hyundai. Nowadays automobile manufacturers and dealers are offering tons of deals on great automobiles in order to keep them moving. So, if a Hyundai Sonata or Elantra is suitable for you Chicago dealerships have the perfect price for the clever shopper.
Being a bankruptcy lawyer in Dallas TX has its good and bad points. The good is that each Dallas TX bankruptcy lawyer is doing their best, client-by-client, to help the economy get back on its its collective feet. It’s not an easy job. Though most attorneys report being very busy, they are witness every day to the misery that the Great Recession has caused. Every client has a sad story, and all the lawyers can do is try to help them gather up the pieces, pay creditors if possible, and go
The Street: Goldman Stakes Pays Off for Buffett. No Duh.
The Street : Big investments in Goldman Sachs ( GS Quote ) at the height of the financial crisis made a lot of money for Warren Buffett and much less for the federal government, but those results are actually not that surprising. A college professor’s recent analysis showed that Buffett’s preferred stake in Goldman has been much more profitable than the Treasury Department’s. The results provided ammunition for critics who view big banks on Wall Street and wealthy counterparts elsewhere —
What’s selling in the Maricopa County real estate market?
Short Sales represent 24% of the homes currently for sale in Maricopa County, and a whopping 44% of our “pending” inventory, but “pending” is about as far as many short sales get. Since January, only 10% of homes closed in Maricopa County were short sales. I’ve heard the banks are starting to try to get these short sales closed and last month we did see a slight improvement with 14% of our closed sales coming from short sales. ACTIVE LISTINGS There are 26, 839 active Maricopa County
Smack down: it seems the Independent Oversight Group (IOG) set up to keep an eye on Telecom NZ’s regulatory undertakings as part of the operational separation of its business takes its task seriously. Over the past few months, there have been rumblings in NZ telco land over a loyalty discount scheme introduced by Telecom Wholesale. Put at least 90 per cent of your business with us, Dear Wholesale Customer, and we’ll slash your costs, was the siren song from Telecom Wholesale
Obama’s Health Care plan can punish you, even kill you. Oh well.
The Husband sent me this FWD that is comprised of Peter Fleckstein (aka Fleckman) comments on twitter as he reads the full Health Care bill that sits in the House of Representatives.Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill – THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benes u getPg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill – YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!Pg 42 of HC Bill – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose UR
New Home Sales, Single Family Starts and Housing Market Index
New Home sales for June are scheduled to be released on Monday morning by the Census Bureau. The consensus forecast is for 350 thousand sales on a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) basis, up slightly from the 342 thousand SAAR in May. Since we already have the NAHB Housing Market Index (HMI) through July and single family housing starts through June – and since both series have increased recently – I thought it might be interesting to compare all three series.
One of the many myths today receiving retrospective support from today’s servants of power is that adherence to the gold standard caused the economy in countries that did so in the 1930s to recover more slowly from the Depression. Probably the leading proponent of this apology is Barry Eichengreen, author of the very-successful “Golden Fetters.” As this article in the Economist reports, he has now produced a paper showing that, with one enormous exception, countries “clinging” to the gold standard too long adopted protectionist policies more than did countries that did not. Duh…
From Bloomberg: Taylor Says Fed Gets Rule Right, Goldman Doesn’t Economists from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and even the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank argue the Taylor Rule, a pointer for finding the correct level for interest rates, suggests the Fed should be doing a lot more to stimulate the economy. Taylor said his measure shows just the opposite: that Fed policy is appropriate, that central bankers are right to be considering how to withdraw their unprecedented monetary stimulus and that critics who say otherwise are misinterpreting his rule
Brand new torrents containing all the content on Mises.org are now available for download, as part of the continuous effort to open-source Mises.org . (Content on Mises.org is available under the Creative Commons license to redistribute and republish anywhere.) The people behind the Mises Institute are doing their best to produce great content – now it is up to you to spread the message of liberty, property, and peace around the world – to immortalize the idea of freedom, beyond the ability of anyone to silence them. Download the multimedia archives (80GB), books (7GB), journals (2.3GB), PDFs (290MB), the Mises Blog (1GB), ReasonPapers (1.5 GB), and LibertarianPapers (10MB)
update Long-time Alcatel-Lucent veteran Mike Quigley has been appointed executive chairman of the National Broadband Network Company and is expected to eventually be its chief executive officer and managing director. Mike Quigley (Credit: Alcatel-Lucent) Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the move in Tasmania today, saying Quigley was an example of an Australian executive who had reached the top of their profession globally, and was now able to bring the benefit of that experience home. “The Government is continuing the process to appoint other directors to the board of the company, and expects to be in a position to make further announcements shortly,” the pair’s statement said
Bank Failures 59 through 64: Six Bank Subsidiaries of Security Bank Corporation, Macon, Georgia
Jones, Bibb, North Metro Gwinnett, North Fulton, Houston, A Cat. Six Fail Storm by Soylent Green is People From the FDIC: State Bank and Trust Company, Pinehurst, Georgia, Assumes All of the Deposits of the Six Bank Subsidiaries of Security Bank Corporation, Macon, Georgia The six bank subsidiaries of Security Bank Corporation, Macon, Georgia, were closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver.
Leveraged and Inverse Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) Are Dangerous to Investors Financial Health
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that use leverage or perform inversely (opposite) to an index or benchmark they track are growing in number and popularity. The controversy and danger surrounding these products was featured in recent articles in the Wall Street Journal (“FINRA Urges Caution on Leveraged Funds,” by Daisy Maxey), and InvestmentNews (“Leveraged ETFs: Handle with care”), and in Regulatory Notice 09-31 published by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
The NSW Government’s decision to consolidate 160 of its agencies into 13 super-departments has not spooked the departments from one cluster, according to their chief information officers. (Merge image by scazon , CC2.0 ) The unconcerned cluster, Human Services, will be formed by rolling together the Departments of Community Services (DoCS); Ageing, Disability and Home Care (DADHC); Housing; Juvenile Justice; and Aboriginal affairs into one unit.
Just last week, I was moaning and groaning like a whiny little so and so that SSD hard disks were too expensive. “If Intel brought down its prices by half,” I complained, “I’d have to say I would seriously look at buying one of its top of the line SSDs, but that’s unlikely to happen.” Little did I know that my wish would be granted, and in spectacular style. Just five days later, on Wednesday this week, Intel issued a press release noting it would shortly start selling what it said were the industry’s first 35 nanometre SSDs, simultaneously lowering prices “by up to 60 per cent”.
Corporate Media Spotlights Distortion of Market by High Frequency Trading
The corporate media – after ignoring the fact that high frequency trading skews the market – is now starting to spotlight it. Bloomberg interviewed the former head of Nasdaq, who says that high frequency traders account for 73% of the volume on the stock market, and skews the market when it gets out of balance. The New York Times hits the issue pretty strongly, writing: Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks like Goldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed
