Monday, July 8, 2013

Wall St climbs after strong data, before Alcoa reports

By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Monday, putting the S&P 500 on pace for its third straight advance after a robust June payrolls report and before the start of quarterly earnings reports after the market's close.
The benchmark S&P index (^GSPC) rose 1 percent on Friday after government data showed the economy created more jobs than expected, pointing to growth. But many traders were away, extending Thursday's Independence Day holiday. Volume was light and trading volatile.
"Today we will get a better read, but we do have (Friday's gains) to work with, so we are already in the green on that data," said Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.
"Any shift lower from here would not necessarily be a vote of no confidence or a vote of caution for the market."
Dow component Alcoa Inc (AA), the largest U.S. aluminum producer, unofficially kicks off the earnings season after the market's close. The company is expected to report earnings of 6 cents per share on revenue of $5.83 billion. Alcoa shares edged up 0.4 percent to $7.84.
Goldman Sachs analyst Davis Kostin said in a note to clients that rising earnings, coupled with stable margins, should lift the S&P 500 by 8 percent to Goldman's year-end target of 1,750. The index ended at 1,632 on Friday.
The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) gained 74.89 points, or 0.49 percent, to 15,210.73. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (^GSPC) gained 7.52 points, or 0.46 percent, to 1,639.41. The Nasdaq Composite Index (^IXIC) gained 14.35 points, or 0.41 percent, to 3,493.73.
Analysts' expectations call for S&P 500 earnings growth to rise 2.9 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, while quarterly revenue is forecast to increase 1.6 percent from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.
"This earnings season the big question, more than it has been in four years, is going to be top line and revenue growth - not financial engineering, not cost savings, not cost cutting. Where is the organic growth that leads to not just stabilization but a sense there is a demand component to this?" said Kenny.
Later in the week, earnings are expected from JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC).
Dell Inc (DELL) climbed 2.2 percent to $13.31 after investment advisory firm ISS recommended shareholders vote for Chief Executive Michael Dell's $24.4 billion offer for the PC maker. The S&P technology sector (.SPLRCT) rose 0.3 percent.
Cytokinetics Inc (CYTK) shares slumped 6.6 percent to $11.97 after the company disclosed a study programming error in its amyotrophic lateral sceloris treatment, Tirasemtiv.
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kenneth Barry)

Oil & Gas Companies Are Setting ‘Our Democracy on Fire,’ Says Gasland Director

Three years ago documentary filmmaker Josh Fox shocked Americans with images of flaming faucets in his film “Gasland.” The movie, hailed by environmentalists, criticized by the shale gas industry and nominated for an Academy Award in 2010, exposed some of the potential environmental and health dangers of natural gas drilling or hydraulic fracturing (“fracking” for short).
Related: Fracking Is Good for the Economy... AND the Environment
Fox has quickly become the public face of the anti-fracking community and today, July 8, HBO will broadcast the controversial filmmaker’s follow-up film “Gasland Part II” at 9pm ET. Fox returns to the same communities in Texas, Pennsylvania and Wyoming that were profiled in “Gasland” to see if local residents’ attempts to secure clean water from local governments and the Environmental Protection Agency have been successful. A handful of energy experts are also interviewed including a former researcher for the gas industry who says “fracking can never be done safely.”
Opposition to fracking in the U.S. has increased over the past few years even as the country is experiencing an unprecedented oil and gas drilling boom. Mora County in New Mexico was the first county in the nation to pass an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing and Pittsburgh became the first U.S. city to outlaw fracking in November 2010. Las Vegas has halted fracking until regulations protecting public health are adopted and more than a dozen cities in the East have passed ordinances restricting or banning fracking activity. Several European countries have also barred the practice and German beer brewers recently urged government leaders to reject fracking over water contamination concerns.
Related: Fracking: Road to Energy Independence or Road to Ruin?
Last month President Barack Obama praised “cleaner-burning natural gas” as a way to address climate change, saying that advances in drilling have “helped drive our carbon pollution to its lowest levels in nearly 20 years,” and “we'll keep working with the industry to make drilling safer and cleaner, to make sure that we're not seeing methane emissions.”
In an interview with The Daily Ticker, Fox compares fracking to deepwater oil drilling and mountaintop removal for coal mining – methods that have been publicly denounced for their hazardous and deadly consequences. He refutes the economic benefits of fracking – “all those job creation statistics are inflated and created by the oil industry,” he says – and touts the financial advantages of green energy jobs: “Every $1 million that you invest in oil and gas creates 3.7 jobs but every $1 million you invest in wind or sun energy creates 9.5 or 9.8 jobs.”
Related: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Renewable Energy Is Key to U.S. Growth
Fracking of course has many supporters – both industry-wide and in communities that have benefited from local investment – and oil and gas companies hold enormous power in Washington. The expansion of nat gas drilling is “happening in concert with protections being rolled back from the government,” Fox says.
Gasland I was about watching people light their water on fire,” he explains. “Gasland II is about watching the oil and gas industry set our democracy on fire. And that is what’s happening.”
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Wall Street Searches for Growth as Earnings Season Begins

With the holiday weekend behind us it's time for Wall Street to buckle down for earnings season. As per tradition, Alcoa (AA) gets things started after the bell tonight when the Dow component is expected to report earnings of 8-cents a share on $5.92 billion in revenue compared to 6-cents on $5.96 billion in sales during the second quarter of 2012.
If Alcoa and other members of the S&P500 can achieve even a tiny bit of earnings growth this quarter most analysts would be thrilled. According to FactSet, analysts are expecting .8% total earnings growth in Q2, having taken down their collective estimated growth rate of 4.2% on March 31st. Materials, Information Technology and Industrial sectors have seen the most dramatic estimate reductions.
Mark Luschini of Janney Capital Management, says investors are likely to turn skittish as the bad news rolls in over the course of the next month. The best that can be said about the coming data is that expectations are low. In Q1 beating low expectations was good enough to drive stocks higher but eventually the stock market is going to need to see real growth. "The problem is the economy hasn't grown substantially from the first quarter so this could be a more valid reading going into the quarter than perhaps last quarter was," Luschini explains in the attached video.
The modest hope for Q2 is that the guidance provides evidence that the long-awaited recovery is starting to take shape. As is always the case in investing, "hope" is a terrible reason to buy stocks. Without strong guidance Luschini thinks the market could be in trouble.
"If they're [earnings] only growing in the low single digits that's hardly going to support the current multiple let alone provide any multiple expansion that would allow share prices to go up," Luschini cautions. In other words either guidance improves or stocks go lower. Regardless of how it plays out traders are advised to buckle-up; we're probably in for a bumpy ride.

It’s Here: The Stealth Collapse of the American Economy

The Economic Collapse….people envision bank runs, life WROL (without rule of law), piles of worthless currency, rampant homelessness, and breathless news reports on CNN and the network channels (if you happen to still have access to a television, that is). They imagine a grim, gray world, devoid of entertainment, with unwashed citizens digging desperately through the trash.
Because of this apocalyptic image, the idea of an economic collapse seems pretty far-fetched to most people. After all, we still see cars in every driveway, lights in every window at night, children going to school and parents going to work.  Everything’s fine, right?  The economic collapse is only a conspiracy theory, cooked up by those crazy libertarians and right-wingers, right?
Sadly, no. It’s a fact and it’s all around us, right now.  The economic collapse has occurred quietly and stealthily.  In fact, many people probably think that it has only happened to them, as job losses occur, utilities get cut off, and the pantry gets more sparse.  They don’t talk about it because poverty is a humiliating state – they suffer quietly, not realizing that the next-door neighbor is probably in the exact same situation.  They don’t realize that they aren’t alone.

Less than half of America is employed right now.

Despite the deceptively whitewashed claims of the Job Report that say that things are looking up,  Breitbart released an article on July 5 refuting their optimistic assertions.  While there are technically “more” jobs, this is because positions that used to be full time are now part time – meaning that two or more people hold what used to be one job.
According to the article, only 47% of Americans are employed full time. In an age where most families require two parents to work full time in order to make ends meet, this is a devastating economic blow.
The administration is careful not to divulge the entire story, instead playing with numbers and percentages to portray growth instead of dismal decline.
If today the same proportion of Americans worked as just a decade ago, there would be almost 9 million more people working. Just in the last year, almost 2 million Americans have left the labor force. With a majority of the population not holding a full-time job, it isn’t surprising that economic growth has been so weak.
In June, the number of Americans who wanted to work full-time, but were forced into part-time jobs because of the economy, jumped 352,000 to over 8 million.
The Jobs’ Report is increasingly measuring only a part of the American economy. While Friday’s report was better than expected, it only measures those who are working or actively looking for work. There is a growing number of Americans slipping through the cracks of the job market.  (source)

Meanwhile, as income drops, expenses increase.

Consumer spending is on the uptick, a sign that the government likes to say is positive. However, people are forced to pay more to get less, just to maintain a basic standard of living with food, utilities, and gasoline.  People aren’t spending money on goods – they are spending it on essential items and services.
Fuel:  The price of transportation has gone up dramatically. The price of gasoline has risen a staggering 294% over the past 10 years.  That’s right – 294%!!!! This, of course, affects anything that must be transported, which is, well….pretty much anything.  If your food comes from another country or continent, you can add high fuel prices to the cost of that item.  If your television was made in a factory on the other side of the globe, tack on some extra transit charges.  This one item – the price of fuel, is the catalyst that is making the price of everything else increase.
Food: Furthermore, if you are  a commuter, the price of getting back and forth to work is higher. So again – you are paying more for the basic essential supplies you need to live your life in your current fashion.
The price of food is climbing, and doing so rapidly.  Significant increases have occurred over the past two years, particularly in truly healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as organic products.  Deceptively, package sizes are getting smaller (or are staying the same size but containing less food).  The price, however, remains the same as before, in an attempt to trick consumers into believing that prices are not actually rising.  Apparently, 12 ounces is the new pound and 3 quarts is the new gallon.
Utilities:  Utility rates are climbing, making it increasingly difficult for struggling families to keep the lights on and the temperatures pleasant.
The Commerce Department said consumer spending advanced 0.2 percent last month after a 0.7 percent rise in February.
The increase, which beat economists expectations for a flat reading, was driven by higher spending on services as outlays on utilities posted a second straight month of hefty gains. Spending on goods, a key measure of underlying demand, fell.
“Utilities made up a pretty decent chunk of spending,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “When you extract from that, spending was less than impressive in March. The economy is slowing.”  (source)
The prices of electricity are rising dramatically.  Customers have been warned that they will face increases.  Smart meters have been installed nearly everywhere.  Many places are instituting time-of-day pricing, making it only affordable to do your laundry in the middle of the night.
Part of the reason Americans are facing higher prices is President Obama’s War on Coal.  (In his own words he promised to bankrupt the coal industry.)  If Obama can’t close down power producers through the front door, he does it through the back door, via the EPA.  Even though the climate change theory through CO2 emissions has been completely debunked, the EPA is still passing draconian laws to reduce our “carbon footprint” and thus raise the prices on power.   Obama has shut down 8 coal mines across 3 states, and he and his buddies at the EPA have plans to scale back production at over 200 coal-powered plants via a regulatory assault.

A welfare state

More than half of all Americans receive some form of government benefit: food stamps, supplements, health care, to name a few.  We are in big trouble because the people who work for a living are being outnumbered by those who vote for a living. Politicians buy votes with giveaways and freebies. (Who can forget the notorious Obamaphone video?)

The Economic Collapse….people envision bank runs, life WROL (without rule of law), piles of worthless currency, rampant homelessness, and breathless news reports on CNN and the network channels (if you happen to still have access to a television, that is). They imagine a grim, gray world, devoid of entertainment, with unwashed citizens digging desperately through the trash.
Because of this apocalyptic image, the idea of an economic collapse seems pretty far-fetched to most people. After all, we still see cars in every driveway, lights in every window at night, children going to school and parents going to work.  Everything’s fine, right?  The economic collapse is only a conspiracy theory, cooked up by those crazy libertarians and right-wingers, right?
Sadly, no. It’s a fact and it’s all around us, right now.  The economic collapse has occurred quietly and stealthily.  In fact, many people probably think that it has only happened to them, as job losses occur, utilities get cut off, and the pantry gets more sparse.  They don’t talk about it because poverty is a humiliating state – they suffer quietly, not realizing that the next-door neighbor is probably in the exact same situation.  They don’t realize that they aren’t alone.

Less than half of America is employed right now.

Despite the deceptively whitewashed claims of the Job Report that say that things are looking up,  Breitbart released an article on July 5 refuting their optimistic assertions.  While there are technically “more” jobs, this is because positions that used to be full time are now part time – meaning that two or more people hold what used to be one job.
According to the article, only 47% of Americans are employed full time. In an age where most families require two parents to work full time in order to make ends meet, this is a devastating economic blow.
The administration is careful not to divulge the entire story, instead playing with numbers and percentages to portray growth instead of dismal decline.
If today the same proportion of Americans worked as just a decade ago, there would be almost 9 million more people working. Just in the last year, almost 2 million Americans have left the labor force. With a majority of the population not holding a full-time job, it isn’t surprising that economic growth has been so weak.
In June, the number of Americans who wanted to work full-time, but were forced into part-time jobs because of the economy, jumped 352,000 to over 8 million.
The Jobs’ Report is increasingly measuring only a part of the American economy. While Friday’s report was better than expected, it only measures those who are working or actively looking for work. There is a growing number of Americans slipping through the cracks of the job market.  (source)

Meanwhile, as income drops, expenses increase.

Consumer spending is on the uptick, a sign that the government likes to say is positive. However, people are forced to pay more to get less, just to maintain a basic standard of living with food, utilities, and gasoline.  People aren’t spending money on goods – they are spending it on essential items and services.
Fuel:  The price of transportation has gone up dramatically. The price of gasoline has risen a staggering 294% over the past 10 years.  That’s right – 294%!!!! This, of course, affects anything that must be transported, which is, well….pretty much anything.  If your food comes from another country or continent, you can add high fuel prices to the cost of that item.  If your television was made in a factory on the other side of the globe, tack on some extra transit charges.  This one item – the price of fuel, is the catalyst that is making the price of everything else increase.
Food: Furthermore, if you are  a commuter, the price of getting back and forth to work is higher. So again – you are paying more for the basic essential supplies you need to live your life in your current fashion.
The price of food is climbing, and doing so rapidly.  Significant increases have occurred over the past two years, particularly in truly healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as organic products.  Deceptively, package sizes are getting smaller (or are staying the same size but containing less food).  The price, however, remains the same as before, in an attempt to trick consumers into believing that prices are not actually rising.  Apparently, 12 ounces is the new pound and 3 quarts is the new gallon.
Utilities:  Utility rates are climbing, making it increasingly difficult for struggling families to keep the lights on and the temperatures pleasant.
The Commerce Department said consumer spending advanced 0.2 percent last month after a 0.7 percent rise in February.
The increase, which beat economists expectations for a flat reading, was driven by higher spending on services as outlays on utilities posted a second straight month of hefty gains. Spending on goods, a key measure of underlying demand, fell.
“Utilities made up a pretty decent chunk of spending,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “When you extract from that, spending was less than impressive in March. The economy is slowing.”  (source)
The prices of electricity are rising dramatically.  Customers have been warned that they will face increases.  Smart meters have been installed nearly everywhere.  Many places are instituting time-of-day pricing, making it only affordable to do your laundry in the middle of the night.
Part of the reason Americans are facing higher prices is President Obama’s War on Coal.  (In his own words he promised to bankrupt the coal industry.)  If Obama can’t close down power producers through the front door, he does it through the back door, via the EPA.  Even though the climate change theory through CO2 emissions has been completely debunked, the EPA is still passing draconian laws to reduce our “carbon footprint” and thus raise the prices on power.   Obama has shut down 8 coal mines across 3 states, and he and his buddies at the EPA have plans to scale back production at over 200 coal-powered plants via a regulatory assault.

A welfare state

More than half of all Americans receive some form of government benefit: food stamps, supplements, health care, to name a few.  We are in big trouble because the people who work for a living are being outnumbered by those who vote for a living. Politicians buy votes with giveaways and freebies. (Who can forget the notorious Obamaphone video?)


Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog wrote last year, “A recent Forbes article by Bill Wilson estimates that over 165 million Americans are government dependents to at least some degree….”
New research from Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R-AL) reveals that this reality may already be here, with more than 107 million Americans on some form of means-tested government welfare.
Add to that 46 million seniors collecting Medicare (subtracting out about 10 million on Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid, and other senior-eligible programs already included in Sessions’ means-tested chart) and 22 million government employees at the federal, state, and local level — and suddenly, over 165 million people, a clear majority of the 308 million Americans counted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010, are at least partially dependents of the state.
The late Margaret Thatcher warned, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”  That is what we’re seeing right now – our insurmountable debt is multiplying faster than Bernanke can print $100 dollar bills, and eventually, this bubble won’t be able to hold anymore and it will pop.  That is the point at which the stealth collapse becomes big, real, and undeniable.

Surviving the stealth collapse

The goal for most of us is to maintain our independence while the powers that be try to return us to serfdom through limiting our access to affordable necessities.  You simply cannot rely on anyone else to bail you out of this (Silly peasant, government bailouts are just for billionaires!)  You must change your lifestyle and meet this head-on, using strategies like the following.  Stop looking for a dramatic news report to tell you that the collapse has arrived – it’s here.  Figure out how you’re going to survive it.
Cut your expenses.  Create your own austerity plan to reduce your expenses as much as possible.  This is not caving to the pressure – this is a way to assert your independence, by making your own cuts instead of government mandated ones.
Learn to provide for many of your necessities alone.  Grow food, join a co-op, raise chickens and rabbits.  Even a small salad garden in a kitchen window can help you to offset high food prices. Learn to sew, mend, repair, preserve, and build.  Decrease your dependence on consumer goods and services.  Embrace your frugal side and opt to be cheap by choice.
Reduce your dependence on the power grid.  Use rain barrels to collect water, direct the gray water from your washing machines to reservoirs, hang your clothes to dry, and use solar lighting whenever possible.  The less you depend on public utilities, the lower your bills will be, which could mean the difference between having some services or being totally without them.
Find other ways to stay warm.  This can be difficult if you rent but it can still be done.  Consider making modifications to allow for the use of portable wood heaters, look into different types of camping heaters and make your plans and purchase your supplies well before you need them.  Learn how to safely store fuel for these secondary devices. Invest in battery operated C0 monitors (and extra batteries). Get sleeping bags with a warmth rating for low temperatures, consider a small tent where you and family members can sleep in your living room to pool body heat, and stock up on cold weather clothing like hats, fingerless gloves, long underwear and heavy sweaters. Find ways to insulate and separate one main living area off from the rest of the house by closing doors, hanging curtains in doorways, etc.
Watch the prices of your utilities.  As the prices begin to rise, more and more people will be unable to pay their bills and eventually their power will be shut off.  Check your bill each month and as prices increase, use less power. Redefine necessities.  You can hand wash your clothing, cook on a woodstove or outdoor grill and can foods to preserve them instead of relying on a large chest freezer. None of these are the way things are commonly done these days, but if you can manage to keep power on for the most basic necessities, like running the pump for your well, running a refrigerator, and maybe powering up a laptop, you’ll be living in luxury in comparison to those who have no power, no heat and no running water.
Prep, prep and then prep some more.  The end of the American way of life is upon us.  Stock up on beans, bullets and band-aids. If you’re new to the idea of prepping, check out some sites like Ready Nutrition (especially the 52 Weeks to Preparedness Series), Survival Blog, Survival Sherpa, Prepper Website, Lew Rockwell, and SHTFplan. The clock is ticking, so buy as much as you can, while you can.  Despite what many veteran preppers may tell you, it’s NOT too late!
Stop looking for a huge, life-changing calamity.  In reality, the economic collapse is the culmination of many small events, rising prices,  lower (or lost) incomes, and the deliberate erosion of our self-sufficiency by those who would control us.

Government urged to act as food poverty hits 18% of UK

Charities last night urged the Government to act over the millions of tonnes of food wasted each year as a new report claimed the credit crisis has left nearly a fifth of population battling food poverty.

Government urged to act as food poverty hits 18% of UK: volunteers sorts through donations of food at the Hammersmith and Fulham food bank run by the Trussell Trust Volunteers sorts through donations of food at the Hammersmith and Fulham food bank run by the Trussell Trust

An estimated 18 per cent of the country were forced to skip meals, ask friends or family for food, rely on a food bank or go without so their kids could eat in the past year.
And the report, commissioned by supermarket giant Tesco, claims the problem will only get worse as rising bills force place an unprecedented squeeze on disposable income.
The report found that 70 per cent of parents rely on school meals to help feed the kids in term time and two-thirds of these fear the summer holidays will mean their children miss out on nutritious meals.
The research comes a month after Oxfam claimed foodbanks were now a lifeline for half a million people.
Tesco will launch an nationwide "food collection" with food charities FareShare and the Trussell Trust at every one of its UK stores this week, from hypermarkets to its Tesco Express convenience stores.
Lindsay Boswell, FareShare's chief executive, told the Daily Telegraph: "If every bit of food wasted by manufacturers and the food industry was diverted to charities such as ours, we'd be able to feed everybody.
"Around three millions is wasted, just thrown away, and there needs to be a co-ordinated plan. If we work together we could make a major dent in this problem and this crisis."
He insisted it was too simplistic to say families were cutting back on food so they could continue to pay for "Sky, cigarettes and alcohol."
He added: "The growing levels of hunger at the same time we are making more food than ever before. The juxtaposition is completely unacceptable."
Tesco launched its first food collection in December, in line with the supermarket's attempts to improve its image through carrying out far more community work. Customers are presented with a shopping list of goods, such as cereal, tinned pies, tinned tomatoes and rice. Customers buying these products then donate them to charity workers at the store.
In December, Tesco collected 2.4 million meals-worth of goods. This time, Tesco will "top up" the amount with its own financial donation.
The supermarket's report found food poverty was most acute in the East Midlands and Wales, with 24 per cent of households suffering some kind of cutbacks. The south-east was least affected.
Tesco chief executive Phil Clarke declared "war" on food waste in May, saying he wanted the group to cut back even if it meant they sold less.
Chris Bush, Tesco's UK managing director, last night said: "As a food retailer we want to do all we can to help tackle food poverty and support families facing serious financial pressures.
"This week's collection is a fantastic opportunity to help people in need across the UK and I'm hoping that as many of our customers and colleagues as possible get involved."

Do Walmart, Target and Home Depot Hurt the Economy?

Controversy around big-box stores like Walmart, Target, Lowes and Home Depot is nothing new, but communities are getting smarter about tackling these corporate giants — sometimes against considerable odds. In Cape Cod and a handful of other areas across the country, the Economic Impact Review is becoming a vital tool for handling development disputes and related issues. The review forces a detailed, thoughtful conversation on the true local economic impact of big-box construction. The result, reports Stacy Mitchell at Grist, can be empowering.
You might think opposition to big-box stores is limited to chichi communities with decided ideas about their look, feel, and “character” as evidenced in communities like California’s Sonoma, which has a long history of very rigid restrictions on development. It turns out, opposition to these stores is about more than whether they look attractive or preserve the historic heritage of a community. Many people are legitimately concerned about the local economy, and unfortunately, development review meetings commonly exclude this vital factor from the conversation.
While planning commissions can meet to discuss environmental impact, adherence to the building code, and a range of other topics, a conversation about the local economic impact may not be part of what’s allowed to take place in deliberations. The Walmarts of the world typically like it that way, because it keeps negative economic impacts from interfering with their profits. Such businesses often argue that they bring jobs and income into the community, when in fact, the opposite appears to be true — at least according to Economic Impact Reviews’ research.
Take Cape Cod, for example, which started integrating local economic issues into development policy in the 1990s. Mitchell notes that the Cape Cod Commission, a collective of 15 towns, has been embroiled in reviews for a new Lowe’s: “In a filing [PDF] with the commission, Lowe’s said the store would create 115 new jobs. But an analysis [PDF] by FXM Associates found that Lowe’s would not be adding to the economy, but rather siphoning off 10 to 20 percent of the sales at dozens of local hardware, lumber, appliance, paint, plumbing, and other stores. Declining revenue would force these retailers to lay off 163 people.”
Think that’s bad? “These threatened jobs pay about 25 percent more on average than Lowe’s does, meaning the store’s arrival would trigger a net decline in household incomes of $3.2 million annually. The drain on the region’s economy is even greater, the analysis notes, if you consider the fact that, unlike competing locally owned retailers, Lowe’s will purchase very little in the way of goods and services from other Cape Cod businesses.”
To look just at the Lowe’s report submitted to the planning commission that would be approving the development, it would seem like a boom for the local economy. But if you drill below the surface, you find that approving the development would actually be bad for local people, businesses and the economy overall.
Numerous cities across the US have considered moratoriums and other crackdowns on big box development, but the Economic Impact Review may be a smarter long-term solution when it comes to sustainable, smart and equitable development. It provides communities with the tools they need to fairly evaluate proposed developments and reject them if they don’t meet community needs. The more ways communities start talking about land use policy and sustainable development, the better. Because these are issues that are only going to grow in the coming years.
Republished with permission from: Truth Out

Credit unions have been snatching customers from banks - Call for repeal of credit unions' federal tax exemption

redit unions have been snatching customers from banks amid consumer frustration over rising fees and outrage over Wall Street's role in the financial crisis.
Now banks are fighting back by trying to take away something vital to credit unions — their federal tax exemption.
With fast-growing credit unions posing more formidable competition to banks, industry trade groups are pressing the White House and Congress to end a tax break that dates to the Great Depression.
"Many tax-exempt credit unions have morphed from serving 'people of small means' to become full-service, financially sophisticated institutions," Frank Keating, president of the American Bankers Assn., wrote to President Obama last month.
"The time has come to abolish this exemption," Keating said in the letter, which was part of a blitz that included print and radio ads in the nation's capital.
Bankers long have complained the tax break is an unfair advantage for large credit unions. Now they see an opportunity to get rid of it as lawmakers begin work on a major overhaul of the tax code that is aimed at eliminating many corporate exemptions and lowering the overall tax rate.

Regardless Of What Any So Called Expert Say, This Game, And Almost Certain Fraud, Of Having A Paper Price Dictate What An Actual Price Of A Commodity Is Mind-Numbing!!!

Isn’t it obvious that the issuer of a reserve currency has the most interest in keeping gold (commodity) prices low, by allowing legal manipulation of its market price through its exchanges? And…isn’t it obvious how the rest of the world is left holding an asset that fluctuates in price…at times devastating an initial investment made into it? What’s wrong with this picture…?
Regardless of what any so called expert say, this game, and almost certain fraud, of having a paper price dictate what an actual price of a commodity is mind-numbing!!! Worst yet, the world allows it!!! If I were, for example, a citizen of ‘x’ country holding gold, I would be outraged on how my personal purchases of gold are ‘played’ by the U.S. and traders all over the world.
Many in foreign countries do not have 401K plans or viable social security programs to rely on for retirement. These same many…rely on what is simply available to them…gold being one of these items to store wealth in. Simply said, not everyone has access, trust, and/or interest in stocks and bonds, or trading markets.
Here’s another problem. The minute a country (or in recent time…its dictator) tries to deviate from the current prescribed system of using dollars as the means of trade, hell breaks open and attempts to stop them come about.
We’ve seen this most recently in the Middle East.

Doesn’t it just makes sense, to best measure how much of a certain commodity there is…and base its price on that? Why allow an artificial price in gold, or any other commodity? Why not let demand and supply run its course and work here? In VERY basic terms, isn’t this how oil prices are set +/- production, +/- global (not economic) conditions? When oil eventually starts to diminish…shouldn’t we then see an upward slope with regards to its price? So why not have gold use this same formula? Of course…it’s not that simple, but everyone holding gold would have a true sense of their wealth, savings, retirement, and perhaps future. Problem is there is much money to made, by those who have access to trading, when commodity prices are allowed to be artificial and manipulated by trades and futures contracts. Problem is…this is legal. In this scenario, gold can be as transparent as air.
Fundamentally, there is something just wrong with how gold is priced…and the world allows it.
At the current national debt of the United States, Gold right now is worth $21,000. Per ounce and Silver is over $500.00 per ounce!
If you take into consideration the 89 trillion dollars that the US is in debt and can never pay off… the Above prices are accurate… The US dollar is not worth the paper it’s printed on’ – Koenig Russia!
Masters

The Central Banksters Blew The Bubble On Purpose: Bubble/Bust Operations Are How They “Magically” Turn Their Debt Money “Fiat” Into Real Homes, Land, Businesses, Farms, Toll Streets, Energy Companies, Etc

It is elementary.
They knew they were breaking Section 2A of the Federal Reserve Act (the mandate IS NOT to maintain low employment and stable prices, those are the expected results of following the SINGULAR MANDATE!) when they took credit and monetary aggregates exponential to GDP (actualized potential production):
Weapons of Mass Debt
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3324744/wmdebt-graph-3-79k?tr=77
Of course, there are no penalties for oligarch “laws” – they are more accurate deemed propaganda for the naive plebians.
The bust portion of this cycle is every bit as important a part of the bubble / bust, societal asset stripping operation as the bubble!
The international banking cartel is orchestrating the interest rate spike as the organic growth of the American economy is contracting $500 billion a year and dropping rapidly!
Central Banks Sell Record American Debt
http://www.dailypaul.com/290836/central-banks-sell-record-sums-of-us-debt
The third chart down is the one the one that depicts the $500 billion per quarter organic contraction and the rapid quarterly increases in that contraction (worse than going into 2008!)
Fed Z1: A SEVERE Storm Warning
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3216019
The Fed won’t tell you they are stabbing you in the back and twisting to hit every major organ they can.  Of course your economic assassine will blame something else as it does its dirty work.
We, as a society, have to stop being a perpetual Charlie Brown, ever kicking that field goal and having the ball pulled away…  but never quite able to figure our being played for a rube.
The “power of money” that is “gravely to be regarded” (Eisenhower’s own words as quoted from his farewell speech – read it!) controls the mega banks and their debt money tyranny Trojan Horse Federal Reserve System.
The Fed is independent of the government, but it is not independent of the international banking cartel’s private interests.
The people who run JP Morgan also control the Fed.  I believe Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, sits on the board of the Fed.
Got incestuous?
Why, might you ask yourself, woudl the power of money lend 30 year mortgages for sub 4% ahead of bout of serious monetary inflation?  The current price inflation is primarily due to speculation in commodities markets by mega-banks that are stealing trillions from the ignorant proletariat and then using it to gamble up the price of commodities.  This is nothing new…  The only thing new is they now pass off their losses to the ignorant “consumer” instead of the corporate bank structure: \
Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!
~From the original minutes of the Philadelphia committee of citizens sent to meet with President Jackson (February 1834), according to Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels - online PDF
There is nothing new under the sun – but guess whose mug those Vipers put on the $20 bill?
As for WHO tried to assassinate Andrew Jackson, I will defer to Andrew Andrew Jackson’s own opinion…
The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.
~ Said to Martin Van Buren (8 July 1832) and quoted in The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, published in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918, vol. II (1920), ed. John Clement Fitzpatrick, ch. XLIII (p. 625)
Referring to the Second Bank of the United States
This view of the central bank as hapless idiots is actual a Sun Tzu Art of War tactic.  Pretend to be weak and dumb so your victim will think they are strong and not sense the imminent danger as you destroy them.
Stop falling for it.  The international banking cartel has used debt money systems, deception and fraud to murder more people in human history than any other group of people – and no other group is even close.  Most of the 30 million starvation deaths fall right at their feet – doing as Hitler did in the ghettos by denying resources and energy to people.  Except it was a small walled ghetto, these are nation state sized international banking cartel ghettos.
Its even worse when you realize that their competition in the mass murder game were almost put into power with their help!
So stop being so gullible.  Mises has some great ideas, but his meme that central bankers are idiots is probably why the central bankers brought Mises to America and funded his work through the Rockefeller Foundation.  The money power doesn’t do that unless they deem it is in teir self interest.
Why have they inflated up until now?  Because they are using inflation as the pretext to rip off our nation’s financial face.  Would you consider 20% inflation a good tradeoff for stealing $5 trillion from society?
So do they.  The problem is that they can’t continue to do that without eventually damaging the monetary wealth they’ve already stolen.  When the cost benefit of looting the American childlike minded people turns against them, they will stop it, bust the system and use their trillions in debt paper to seize the hard assets of the American people and the world.  They will then use the trillions in money they looted from everyone else to mop up whatever is left.

But that will collapse the economy, you argue.  Of course.  The economy will collapse no matter what.  The question is whether the “money power” that is “gravely to be regarded” will destroy their trillions in monetary wealth in the process of if they try and mop up society’s *ss in the process.
If you have to think about their choice for more than an instant then you don’t understand the money power.
Even Jesus had to bust out the whip and kick over tables to deal with these criminals.
You also fail to understand they’ve already sold the establishment gobemouches in society that their front corporations are TBTF&Jail.
They can’t fail – GOT THAT?  Real estate falls 90% – so what?  THEY CAN’T FAIL.  That’s what TBTF&Jail means.
Their economic incentive IS TO BUST EVERYONE ELSE AND ROLL IT ALL UP UNDER THEIR TBTF&JAIL FRONT CORPORATIONS.
“Competition is sin.”
~Rockefeller
Indeed – so why not wipe it off the map once his front corporations are TBTF&Jail?
This is elementary.  To believe they will hyperinflate and destroy their own wealth while bailing out debtors is to not understand human nature at all.
The government is not sovereign, it is controlled by the money power.  Napoleon understood this well…
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte
One day, gold in the hand might be worth a $1 million in the bank that is Cyprussed.  But that gold may be worth a lot less in dollar terms than it is today.  But it will exist – something that eventually 90% of banks accounts likely won’t be able to claim. Cash is King at some point in the near to medium term, but it will not be easy to keep that cash out of the hands of the “money power” that is “gravely to be regarded.” BTW, the banksters knew this point would come over 100 years ago and have 100 years to prepare and plan for it.  You think 911 was an accident?  It was used to set up their police state ahead of this event and implement what Brzezinski claimed was the bankste rplan in 1970… “The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ”
~Zbigniew BrzezinskiBetween Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era That was published in 1970… it has been the plan all along.  Oh, and Brzezinski created the al Qaeda that eventually was used as a pretext to implement his plan. He claims it is all random chance…  and politicial King Makers would never lie to the establishment gobemouche’s right? “History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy” ~Zbigniew Brzezinski …says the chief conspirator…  but, hey, if the people are that gullible, why not milk them like cows? Debt Money Tyrranny
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/4768883/debtmoneytyranny-6-1-pdf-60k?tr=… Solutions are listed on the second page.  I’d also add keeping excess cash in Treasury Direct and then siphoning it out and buying hard assets as the deleveraging sharpens its teeth and strengthens its bite. Gaining control over the necessities of life in a positive community environment should be goal #1.
How to be a Crook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oHbwdNcHbc
Poverty is not a Choice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeIS0QyMXvo
Debunking Money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_yh4-Zi92Q
Renaissance 2.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96c2wXcNA7A&src_vid=7_yh4-Zi92Q&feature=i…
Secret of Oz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI
Tragedy and Hope Part 7, Chapter 19 – Inflation and Reflation (must read to understand how the central bankers ARE THE GOVERNMENT in this financial empire that rules over us)
http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/07.html
PS – hyperinflation is likely the end game, but you have to survive with assets in hand between now and then.  Most will not be able to do this – especially if one is situated for hyperinflation without any control over the necessitites of life.  Hyperinflation will occur after the banksters have traded in their worthless fiat and worthless debt for real assets – exactly as most hear intuitively understand needs to be done.  They are TBTF, though, so they aren’t worried about prices or being bankrupt.  They can’t fail.  When they’ve asset stripped society, they will then hyperinflate to “balance their books” and proclaim capitalism as a failed policy.  They will then sell the following to the starving, broke masses held in check at gunpoint and through their potential starvation:
“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”
~David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991.

All Risk No Reward

Marc Faber – Brace For Financial Destruction & Sovereign Defaults, A Lot Of Problems Are Coming… Revolution… Social Strife… The Biggest Danger Is Gov’t Interventions…. Central Banks Will Always Print More Money

Marc Faber – This Will End In Disaster
“They are not going to tighten monetary policies any time soon.  They are in the driver’s seat in the sense that they will always find an excuse to print more. 

They will say, ’OK we have to increase the purchases of assets because now the yield on Treasury bonds has gone up substantially, from less than 1.5% on the 10-Year note a year ago, to 2.68% as of today.’  So they will say, ‘That may damage the economy, so we have to buy more assets.’

And if they do that then the inflation rate may pick-up, and real wages may decline even more.  Then they will say, ‘Well, we didn’t do enough because the population isn’t doing well.’  They will always find an excuse to print more.  And as you said, it will end in disaster.  There is no doubt about that. 
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/7/5_Marc_Faber_-_This_Will_End_In_Disaster.html

Faber – Brace For Financial Destruction & Sovereign Defaults
On the heels of Friday’s gold and silver smash, Marc Faber warned King World News about the extraordinary dangers that will cause destruction in the global financial system. This is part II of a series of written interviews that will be released today on KWN in which Faber discusses the end game, government theft, how investors can protect themselves, gold, silver, bail-ins, central planner actions, global markets, and much more.

Eric King: “What is the biggest danger in the financial world as you see it?”
Faber: “I think we have many dangers. The biggest danger is governments themselves with their interventions into free markets, and their fiscal policies….
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/7/6_Faber_-_Brace_For_Financial_Destruction_%26_Sovereign_Defaults.html
Dr. Doom: “A Lot Of Problems Are Coming… Revolution… Social Strife…”
Famed economist and investment guru Dr. Marc Faber of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report weighs in on global happenings.
He predicted the collapse of global financial markets in 2008, and pegged their subsequent rise to the day back in 2009.
If there’s someone out there with his finger on the pulse of the financial crisis and where we’re headed next, it’s Doctor Doom.
If you have ten minutes today, and are looking for some realistic insights into financial markets, the monetary machinations behind the scene, and the non-traditional investments you should be focused on going forward, take the time to listen to the good Doctor.

Anthony Tolda: America needs to arrest the banksters, and toss our criminal GOV Iceland style!


Investigators seek cause of deadly plane crash San Francisco

Firefighters spray water on Asiana Airlines flight 214 as it sits on the runway burning at San Francisco Airport International Airport in this July 6, 2013 handout from the United States Coast Guard Southwest. 

Rescue officials stand near an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 plane after it crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport in California on July 6, 2013.
 The wreckage of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport is seen in San Francisco, California, July 6, 2013.
By Sarah McBride

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. officials examined flight information recorders and began investigating the crash of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that burst into flames upon landing in San Francisco, killing two teenaged Chinese students and injuring more than 180 people, officials said on Sunday.
There was no immediate indication of the cause of Saturday's accident but Asiana said mechanical failure did not appear to be a factor. The airline declined to blame either the pilot or the San Francisco control tower.
Eric Weiss, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the plane's "black boxes" - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - had been recovered and were sent to Washington for analysis. The Federal Aviation Administration also was investigating and Asiana Airlines said on Sunday that Korean accident investigators were on their way to San Francisco.
NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said on Sunday there was no indication of a criminal act but it was too early to determine what went wrong.
"Everything is still on the table," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Investigators in coming days will interview the pilots and look at data from the black boxes, radar equipment and other information to determine the cause of the crash, she said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."
"It's really important to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together," Hersman said.
The plane was coming in from Seoul when witnesses said its tail appeared to hit the approach area of a runway that juts into San Francisco Bay. One witness said the plane appeared to be coming in too low and too fast.
The impact knocked off the plane's tail and the aircraft appeared to bounce violently, scattering a trail of debris before coming to rest on the tarmac.
SERIOUS INTERIOR DAMAGE
Pictures taken by survivors showed passengers hurrying away from the wrecked plane. Thick smoke billowed from the fuselage and TV footage later showed the aircraft gutted and blackened by fire. Much of its roof was gone.
Interior damage to the plane also was extreme, Hersman said on CNN.
"You can see the devastation from the outside of the aircraft, the burn-through, the damage to the external fuselage," she said. "But what you can't see is the damage internally. That is really striking."
The dead were identified as Ye Meng Yuan and Wang Lin Jia, both 16-year-old girls and described as Chinese nationals who are students, Asiana Airlines said. They had been seated at the rear of the aircraft, according to government officials in Seoul and Asiana.
The crash was the first fatal accident involving the Boeing 777, a popular long-range jet that has been in service since 1995. It was the first fatal commercial airline accident in the United States since a regional plane operated by Colgan Air crashed in New York in 2009.
"For now, we acknowledge that there were no problems caused by the 777-200 plane or (its) engines," Yoon Young-doo, the president and CEO of the airline, told reporters on Sunday at the company headquarters on the outskirts of Seoul.
Asiana on Sunday said the flight, which had originated in Shanghai, had carried 291 passengers and 16 crew members. The passengers included 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans, 64 U.S. citizens, three Indians, three Canadians, one French, one Vietnamese and one Japanese citizen.
Dale Carnes, assistant deputy chief of the San Francisco Fire Department, said 49 people were hospitalized with serious injuries. Another 132 suffered moderate and minor injuries.
Five people were in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital, according to spokeswoman Rachael Kagan. She said a total of 52 people were treated for burns, fractures and internal injuries. Three people were critical at Stanford Hospital.
TOO LOW, TOO FAST
Survivor Benjamin Levy told a local NBC station he believed the Asiana plane had been coming in too low.
"I know the airport pretty well, so I realized the guy was a bit too low, too fast, and somehow he was not going to hit the runway on time, so he was too low ... he put some gas and tried to go up again," he said in a telephone interview.
"But it was too late, so we hit the runway pretty bad, and then we started going up in the air again, and then landed again, pretty hard."
Levy said he opened an emergency door and ushered people out. "We got pretty much everyone in the back section of the plane out," he said. "When we got out there was some smoke. There was no fire then. The fire came afterward."
Vedpal Singh, a native of India, was on board the flight along with his wife and son when the aircraft struck the landing strip.
"Your instincts take over. You don't know what's going on," said Singh, who had his arm in a sling as he walked through the airport's international terminal and told reporters he had suffered a fractured collar bone.
Asiana, South Korea's junior carrier, has had two other fatal crashes in its 25-year history.
A senior Asiana official said the pilot was Lee Jeong-min, a veteran pilot who has spent his career with the airline. He was among four pilots on the plane who rotated on two-person shifts during the 10-hour flight, the official said.
A San Francisco airport spokesman said that a component of the facility's instrument landing system that tracks an incoming airplane's glide path was not working on Saturday.
Pilots and air safety experts said the glide path technology was far from essential for a safe landing in good weather. (Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, Alistain Barr, Sarah McBride, Ronnie Cohen, Poornima Gupta, Laila Kearney, Dan Levine, Gerry Shih, Jonathan Weber, Peter Henderson, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Jonathan Allen and Barbara Goldberg in New York.; Editing by Bill Trott and Doina Chiacu)

Dollar strides to fresh high after U.S. jobs boost

By Marc Jones
LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar climbed to a three-year high on Monday and gold was hovering near a three-year low, as last week's strong U.S. jobs data continued to feed expectations of a stimulus cut by the country's central bank.
The dollar index (.DXY), which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, rose to 84.588, its highest since July 2010, before a slight drop back in early European trading left it at 84.436.
Friday's better-than-expected U.S. jobs data bolstered the view the Federal Reserve will start reducing its long-running stimulus program, but analysts are now wondering whether the dollar's recent rise will continue at the same pace.
"Clearly the dollar is on the front foot and so the question is: can it sustain the momentum?," said Rabobank senior currency strategist Jane Foley.
"As it gains ground it acts as implicit monetary tightening so that could make some of the Federal Reserve governors quite nervous. I do think there will be plenty of opportunity to take some profits in these dollar positions."
Europe's broad FTSEeurofirst 300 stock index started the week up 0.8 percent, regaining some of the ground lost at the end of last week as investors focused on Greece as it looks set to reach a deal with its lenders over its latest aid payment.
Portugal's recent crisis also appeared to ease over the weekend after the country's prime minister promoted the head of the junior coalition party to be his deputy in a bid to defuse the country's political rift.
In the bond market, German Bund futures rebounded from Friday's sell-off and euro zone periphery debt also saw early gains.
Gold, often favored by investors as a hedge against inflation, hovered near a three-year low at $1,220.59 an ounce, meanwhile. It has dropped 10 percent since Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last month the U.S. could scale back stimulus.
(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Compliance deadlines loom for U.S. global tax evasion law

By Patrick Temple-West and Ajay Shamdasani
WASHINGTON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - In one week, the United States is scheduled to begin registering foreign financial firms with U.S. customers for a new anti-tax evasion law, despite industry lobbying to secure another implementation delay.
The Internal Revenue Service still has not finalized sign-up instructions for the new online portal, due to open by July 15 in one of the last steps toward implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) of 2010.
Hundreds of thousands of banks, insurance companies and investment funds with U.S. customers are required to register with the IRS, an arm of the U.S. Treasury, by October 25 to avoid FATCA penalties starting on January 1, 2014.
"At this point people have thrown up their hands," frustrated by the lack of guidance despite the looming deadline, said Laurie Hatten-Boyd, a principal at Big Four accounting firm KPMG LLP. Treasury officials will need to consider postponing the penalties if they do not produce guidance before the end of July, she said.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the industry's largest trade group, last month renewed its call for FATCA penalties to be delayed until 2015.
The Treasury has missed FATCA deadlines before. The law's start date was delayed once already, by a year, to January 1, 2014.
A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the status of the portal, saying only that work was going ahead on implementing FATCA.
The law is an unprecedented effort to root out U.S. tax evasion on a global scale. It requires foreign financial institutions to report to the IRS information about U.S. client accounts worth more than $50,000.
It has been decried by companies and U.S.-ally countries as unilateral, over-reaching and a breach of privacy.
U.S. law requires that Americans pay taxes on their global income, not just domestic income.
Banks that do not share client information with the IRS face up to a 30 percent withholding tax beginning in 2014.
There are fears that late advice from the IRS on the registration process could create a registration bottleneck later this year, leading to financial institutions being hit with penalties in 2014 through no fault of their own.
"The worst-case scenario is that the portal is overloaded," said Karl Egbert, a lawyer with Dechert LLP in Hong Kong.
In an effort to address some foreign concerns, the United States has signed FATCA deals with nine other governments so far that allow firms to report U.S. client information via their local tax authorities rather than directly to the IRS.
About 80 countries are in negotiations with U.S. Treasury officials about such pacts, known as intergovernmental agreements (IGAs), analysts said.
Germany on Friday passed legislation to implement its IGA with the United States.
The United States aims to get as many countries as it can behind the legislation.
Chinese government officials have so far been publicly dismissive of FATCA, throwing into question whether financial firms in Hong Kong will be able to comply with the FATCA law. Hong Kong is "initialing some preliminary discussion" with U.S. officials, a Hong Kong government spokesman said.
A deal with Canada has been stalled for months. A Canadian government official declined to comment on the progress of its talks with the United States.
To draw other governments into deals, U.S. Treasury officials are pushing for congressional legislation that would grant more bank account information-sharing across borders going in both directions.
But Republican members of Congress already have introduced legislation aimed at thwarting this effort.
(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Howard Goller and Tim Dobbyn)

Are Corporations Trying to Distract Us with Social Issues While They Take Control of Our Economy?

I was having breakfast with a friend in North Carolina the day after that state voted against gay marriage, and after Barack Obama said on television that he now supported it. My friend knew I had supported the cause for a long time, so he asked me what I thought of Obama’s comments. I said “I think he’ll be tacking to the right economically once he’s re-elected.”
I was right, but not because I have any special predictive gifts. History had provided the background for Obama’s changed views while Republicans had pioneered his tactics.
One key to Obama’s “evolution” can be found in Thomas Frank’s 2004 book,  What’s the Matter with Kansas? In it, a frustrated Frank argued that conservatives had persuaded heartland Americans to vote against their own interests by using social issues like gay marriage and abortion. His arguments resonated with a lot of liberals. Many of my friends expressed anger, frustration, and even contempt for the way “values voters” (as Republicans called them) repeatedly undermined their own economic needs in the voting booth.
Is it their turn? Politicians are winning liberal hearts and minds on social issues, while at the same time embracing a corporate political agenda based on ever-greater wealth for the few and increasing austerity for the many.
Let’s be clear: The term “social issues” is not used dismissively. These are human rights issues which speak to our core values of personal freedom and social justice. But are these just causes being exploited by corporate-backed politicians?

The answer seems to be yes.
Politicians in the “liberal Kansas” school are increasingly outspoken on issues like reproductive choice and gay marriage, while at the same time continuing to promote their corporate economic agenda. Many, if not most, of them are so-called “centrist” Democrats from the Bill Clinton wing of the party. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat turned Republican, is also a prominent member of the “personally liberal, economically conservative” clique.
They’re not alone. I’ve known more than a few corporate leaders and Wall Street executives, and most of them were quite liberal on social issues too. It makes sense, when you think about it. When your goal is money, you’re not likely to care what people do with their bodies – as long you get their wallets.
That’s the “liberal Kansas” strategy in a nutshell.
Frank considered the “Kansas” phenomenon a liberal political failure, and he was certainly right about that. He also  derided the centrist Democrats as “criminally stupid” for “pushing the party to forget blue-collar voters and concentrate instead on recruiting affluent, white-collar professionals who are liberal on social issues.”
That’s also correct, if the Democratic Party ever wants to win consistently and build a working majority. But it’s beginning to look as if, at least where its base is concerned, the Democratic “Kansas” strategy is working. It seems that most of party’s rank and file is happy to let this rightward economic shift continue, as long as its leaders say the right things about social issues.
Democrats campaigned on populist themes in 2012 campaign. But as soon as the election was over the party’s leaders returned to what Frank described in 2004 as “endless concessions on economic issues, on welfare, NAFTA, Social Security, labor law, privatization, deregulation, and the rest of it.”
Since his re-election, Barack Obama has proposed to cut Social Security, echoed the deficit hysteria of the right, continued to negotiate NAFTA-like trade deals in secret (hidden from Congress and the public but  available to 600 “corporate advisors”), and continued to privatize the military/national security state. (He has also pursued the most aggressive anti-whistleblower presidential campaign in American history.)
Republished with permission from: AlterNet

 

America’s New Cold War: European Allies Outraged at Snowden Revelations

There is a depressing statistical comparison that should shame all of us who voted twice for Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House. Our man, a former constitutional law professor who pledged to reverse the Bush administration’s abuses of national security concerns, has charged seven government whistle-blowers, including Edward J. Snowden, with violating the Espionage Act. That’s more than double the combined three charged with leaking classified information by all previous presidents, George W. Bush included. The defense of his unprecedented prosecution of those who dare tell us the truth is that we live in particularly dangerous times, an obviously absurd notion given the civil wars, foreign threats and other sources of mayhem periodically experienced by most of the world’s nations. At its best, the “metadata” aggregation, including the logs of all email traffic and telephone calls, is a paranoid assault on our right to personal space enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. At worst it is an out of control grab for worldwide power over the new information age.
As a New York Times account Sunday suggests, “A close reading of Mr. Snowden’s documents shows the extent to which the eavesdropping agency now has two new roles: It is a data cruncher, with an appetite to sweep up, and hold for years, a staggering variety of information. And it is an intelligence force armed with cyberweapons, assigned not just to monitor foreign computers but also, if necessary, to attack.”
Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.
A surveillance power run amok? The latest disclosures from Snowden’s leaks published in the German magazine Der Spiegel on Sunday turn out to have nothing to do with national security and everything to do with a compulsive and unseemly snooping not only into the lives of ordinary citizens throughout the world but also into the diplomatic correspondence, including trade and other negotiating strategies, of some of our closest allie
How inconvenient to the outraged innocence of the National Security Agency and its private for-profit counterpart Booz Allen Hamilton to find the names of France, Italy, Japan and Mexico among the 38 embassies and missions bugged at will by our electronic spooks, along with the Washington and Brussels office of the European Union. The code-named Dropmire bugging of the encrypted fax machine at the EU and other invasions of the organization’s private data were, as The Guardian summarized Sunday the content of the leaked documents, “to gather inside knowledge of policy disagreements on global issues and other rifts between member states.”
Germany is one of those member states, prompting that nation’s justice minister to declare Sunday: “If the media reports are correct, this brings to memory actions among enemies during the Cold War. … If it is true that EU representations in Brussels and Washington were indeed tapped by the American secret service, it can hardly be explained with the argument of fighting terrorism.”
This was a sentiment echoed by French President Francois Hollande on Monday: “We demand that this stop immediately. … There’s enough evidence for us to ask for an explanation.” And French technology minister Fleur Pellerin was so impressed with the significance of the information leaked by Snowden that she entertained the idea of an international whistle-blower protection for individuals who leak information exposing what they believe is illegal activity. “There is no international statute that allows for the protection of these people if necessary,” Pellerin said Monday. “I think it is a good occasion to get into the subject, which is a gray area of international law.”
Republished with permission from: AlterNet

15 Signs That The Quality Of Jobs In America Is Going Downhill Really Fast

By Michael Snyder
Wal-Mart - Photo by Arthur Jacob
Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience.  Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open.  But it wasn’t always like this.  When I was in high school, I was immediately hired when I applied for a job at McDonalds because they were so desperate for workers that they would hire just about anyone that could flip a burger.  But in this economic environment, a single nationwide hiring event conducted by McDonalds resulted in a million job applications, and only a small percentage of those applicants were actually hired.  Our economy simply does not produce enough jobs for everyone anymore, and the percentage of “good jobs” continues to decline.  That means that it is getting really hard to find a job that will enable you to support a family, and a lot of people end up doing jobs that they are massively overqualified for.  But when times are tough, people are going to do what they have to do in order to survive.
One thing that we have seen in recent years is an explosion in the number of “temp workers” in America.  Even some of the largest companies in America are using them.  They like the flexibility of being able to bring in workers when they need them and of being able to dump them the moment they don’t need them anymore.  Sadly, those that work in the “temp industry” often work in deplorable conditions for very little pay.  The following is a brief excerpt from an absolutely outstanding Pro Publica article
In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.
This is not Mexico. It is not Guatemala or Honduras. This is Chicago, New Jersey, Boston.
The people here are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They are regular employees of temp agencies working in the supply chain of many of America’s largest companies – Walmart, Macy’s, Nike, Frito-Lay. They make our frozen pizzas, sort the recycling from our trash, cut our vegetables and clean our imported fish. They unload clothing and toys made overseas and pack them to fill our store shelves. They are as important to the global economy as shipping containers and Asian garment workers.
Many get by on minimum wage, renting rooms in rundown houses, eating dinners of beans and potatoes, and surviving on food banks and taxpayer-funded health care. They almost never get benefits and have little opportunity for advancement.
But these are the types of jobs the U.S. economy is “creating” these days.  Low paying part-time jobs are continually becoming a bigger part of the economy.  This is one of the primary reasons why the middle class in America is shrinking.
You can’t support a family on what most of these part-time jobs pay.  But our economy is not producing many high quality full-time jobs these days.  The average quality of American jobs just continues to sink.
The following are 15 signs that the quality of jobs in America is going downhill really fast…
#1 The number of part-time workers in the United States has just hit a brand new all-time high, but the number of full-time workers is still nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.
#2 In America today, only 47 percent of adults have a full-time job.
#3 Even though the U.S. economy created nearly 200,000 jobs in June, the number of full-time jobs actually decreased.
#4 There are now 2.7 million temp workers in the United States – a new all-time high.
#5 One out of every ten jobs in the United States is now filled through a temp agency.
#6 The U.S. economy has actually lost manufacturing jobs for four consecutive months.
#7 The official unemployment rate has been at 7.5 percent or higher for54 months in a row.  That is the longest stretch in U.S. history.
#8 According to one recent survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
#9 At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#10 High paying manufacturing jobs continue to be shipped overseas.  Sadly, there are fewer Americans employed in manufacturing now than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.
#11 Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#12 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs.  60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#13 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs.  Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#14 At this point, an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#15 According to a study that was released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States qualify as “good jobs” at this point.  In a previous article, I detailed thethree criteria that they used to define what a “good job” is….
#1 The job must pay at least $18.50 an hour.  According to the authors, that is the equivalent of the median hourly pay for American workers back in 1979 after you adjust for inflation.
#2 The job must provide access to employer-sponsored health insurance, and the employer must pay at least some portion of the cost of that insurance.
#3 The job must provide access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.
All of this is absolutely heartbreaking.
Once upon a time, just about any adult that was willing to work hard in America could go out and find a good paying job that would support a middle class lifestyle.
Now those days are gone forever.
But different conditions exist in different parts of the country.
What are you seeing in your area?
Are good jobs difficult to find?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…