Urgent Web Bot Update Ref: 10/25

The following in from Clif at www.halfpasthuman.com on Saturday – changes somewhat our expectation for the way things will be working out both in markets and in the defense world over the next month:

“Heads up! Reality Change Ahead!

in running our MOM (model of modelspace) cleanup of the lexicon prior to tuning, it became apparent that October 25 turn in emotions globally will be dominated by a [lock down/implosion] of the [planetary financial/banking system]. The data suggests that such things a [currency trading] and [commodities trading] as well as many other [digital trading forms] will be [suspended]. Some will never resume, or if they do, they will be in entirely different forms. There may be a [banking lock up] in many countries emanating from the USofA outward. There may be [inter bank lock downs] in which [central banks] and [wealth storage clearing houses] will not be able to function. There are data sets suggesting that the rapid shift into building tension language on the 25th originates from and is propelled by the [financial system implosion] that then morphs over into [dollar rejected by all] a mere 10/ten days (more or less) later. There may be shut downs of all kinds of banking activity within the USofA and the rest of the anglosphere.

The [sudden/urgent travel] of the [administration (obama et al) minions] in early November, under this MOM background load shows up as being about [desperately trying] to get the rest of the [planet] to [loan] the actual [resources/wealth] to [restart] the [USofA banking system].

This MOM data set can be wrong in a way that the larger modelspace can not. The MOM set is so small that if it is wrong it is usually widely so. However, the data sets here are so focused, and bring in such crisp emotional shifts relative to the same days (10-25-2009), that it made sense to prepare this note.

If correct, this is the beginning of “The Big One” relative to the dollar and the central banking system. Everything else in the modern world depends on this structure…so it will be a big one throughout all of the social infrastructure.

If MOM is correct, then the [dollar death] will be way more dramatic and waaaay shorter than i had first thought. MOM is showing very dramatic language shifts (albeit against a much smaller background) for not only October 25, but also in a very sharp crocodile tooth pattern from November 4 through December 10th indicating a very very emotionally choppy time.

So, heads up! Reality shift (time/event bump) just ahead. If MOM is correct, there will be some additional levels of [visibility] on October 10th through the 15th that will put a focus on the ‘trigger’ that will show on October 25th and beyond.

Masa Katsu! Pie up now, panic later.

clif and cathy and igor.

The usual caveats here – doesn’t mean, for example that war between Iran and Israel won’t happen, it just means if it does (which is may anyway) it will be so far down the food chain as to pale in terms of personal impact.

If you didn’t have anything else to do this weekend, you might be pondering: “How could I survive – and for how long – if there were market suspensions, hold-ups of executions of electronic transactions and all the other things other countries have gone through when faced with calamitous financial events?  Refer to any Argentinean or Icelander who’s been there…  Sure means out earlier piece this morning may be closer to the mark than comfortable….

http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm

Obama seeks to ‘give government new powers to seize key companies’

Obama to propose strict new regulation of financial industry

President Obama is expected to unveil a plan that would give the government new powers to seize key companies whose failure jeopardizes the financial system.

The plan would give the government new powers to seize key companies whose failure jeopardizes the financial system, as well as creation of a watchdog agency to look out for consumers’ interests.

Reporting from Washington — The Obama administration this week will propose the most significant new regulation of the financial industry since the Great Depression, including a new watchdog agency to look out for consumers’ interests.

Under the plan, expected to be released Wednesday, the government would have new powers to seize key companies — such as insurance giant American International Group Inc. — whose failure jeopardizes the financial system. Currently, the government’s authority to seize companies is mostly limited to banks.

But critics say the easing of the financial crisis that gripped the country last year appears to have reduced the momentum for some of the most far-reaching proposals, such as merging several banking regulatory agencies.

They’re also concerned that the proposed agency whose mission would be to protect consumers against financial misconduct wouldn’t have the authority to do so for a wide-enough range of products.

“This is too little, too late,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), based on his understanding of the plan. “It’s going to be way less than it should be.”

On Monday, Obama administration officials sketched the outlines of the plan the president is to unveil Wednesday. They said it would seek to reduce gaps in regulatory oversight, rein in the use of mortgage-backed securities and other complex derivatives, reduce incentives for companies to take excessive risk and give the government new power to quickly intervene during any future crises.

“We had a system that proved too unstable, too fragile. . . . Those are things we have to change,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Monday at an economic forum in New York.

The administration also is expected to propose creation of a regulatory body for financial products marketed to consumers, such as credit cards, whose oversight is now spread over several agencies.

In addition, the administration wants to impose regulation over the market for derivatives — the murky financial contracts used to hedge risky investments — including new reporting and disclosure requirements. Institutions that originate loans would be required to retain 5% of the credit risk when the loans are turned into securities.

All the proposals would have to be approved by Congress in a process the administration hopes to complete by the end of the year.

In the heat of the financial crisis last year, there were widespread calls for the government to merge several banking regulatory agencies into one to reduce gaps in oversight and stop what might be called “regulator shopping.”

For example, AIG was able to choose the Office of Thrift Supervision for its non-insurance financial business when it bought a small savings and loan in the late 1990s. That office has been viewed as a weaker regulator, and was strongly criticized in a government report this year for ignoring repeated warning signs about Pasadena-based IndyMac Bancorp before the thrift’s failure last summer.

“I’m concerned that people think we’ve stepped back from the brink of disaster and so they’re not as committed to seeing real meaningful reforms adopted,” said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America.

For their part, business groups have worried that the Obama administration might go too far in responding to the financial crisis with new regulations, stifling the market and hurting financial firms at a time when the economy is still weak.

They have been pushing back against some of the proposals floated by the administration, lawmakers and consumer advocates, such as a consumer protection agency for financial products.

But Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents large financial institutions, said there was still a strong impetus in Washington for regulatory reform and dismissed the suggestion that the Obama administration had missed its chance to implement it.

“This has moved at lightning speed,” he said. “You’re talking about a historic piece of reform.”

Administration officials also have dismissed suggestions that they had moved too slowly, saying they had pushed ahead despite calls from some quarters for them to wait until the end of the crisis before acting.

“There are people who believe that the wrong time to reorganize the fire department is while the fire may still be burning,” Lawrence H. Summers, chairman of the White House’s National Economic Council and Obama’s chief economic advisor, said in a speech Friday. “The president has concluded very strongly that that view is wrong. . . . Experience teaches that once the crisis has passed, the will to reform will pass as well.”

Douglas J. Elliott, an economics fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former investment banker, said there was still enough political momentum to pass major reforms. But as the financial crisis has eased, there is less ability to tackle the difficult turf battles involved in merging regulatory agencies.

For that reason, Elliott said, the Obama administration appeared more focused on setting new rules and principles than on the blowing up the government’s regulatory structure.

“There are entrenched interests that benefit and are allied with each of these agencies. . . . That just makes it hard,” he said.

“As far as I can tell, the administration doesn’t think it’s as important to get that structure right as to get the rules right and make sure people are focused on acting the right way.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-financial-regs16-2009jun16,0,4262249.story

10 things that won’t survive the recession

1. Free tech support

The practice still employed by some companies of paying humans to answer phones and solve consumers’ problems with hardware or software will become a thing of the past. PCs, laptops and hardware peripherals, as well as application software will be purchased like airline tickets, with price becoming the sole criteria for many buyers. In order to compete on price, companies that now offer real tech support will replace it with message boards (users helping users), wikis, wizards, software-based troubleshooting tools and other unsatisfying alternatives.
2. Wi-Fi you have to pay for

Everyone is going to share the cost of public Wi-Fi because the penny-pinching public will gravitate to places that offer “free” Wi-Fi. Companies that charge extra for Wi-Fi will see their iPhone, BlackBerry and netbook-toting customers — i.e., everybody — taking their business elsewhere. The only place you’ll pay for Wi-Fi will be on an airplane.
3. Landline phones

Digital phone bundles for homes (where TV service, Internet connections and landline phone service are offered in a total package) will keep the landline idea alive for a while, but as millions of households drop their cable TV service and as consumers look to cut all needless costs, the trend toward dropping landline service in favor of cell phone service only will accelerate until it’s totally mainstream, and only grandma still has a landline phone.
4. Movie rental stores

The idea of retail operations where you drive to a store, pick a movie, stand in line and then drive home with the movie will become a quaint relic of the new fin de siècle (look it up!). The new old way to get movies will be discs by mail, and the new, new way will be downloading.
5. Web 2.0 companies without a business plan

The era when Web-based companies could emerge and grow on venture capital, collecting eyeballs and members at a rapid clip and deferring the business plan until later are dead and gone. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Twitter. Sand Hill Road-style venture capital is shrinking toward nothing, and investors in general will be hard to come by. Those few remaining investors will want to see real, solid business plans before the first dollar is wired to any start-up’s bank.
6. Most companies in Silicon Valley

Tech company failures and mergers will leave the industry with a low two-digit percentage (maybe 25%) of the total number of companies now in existence. Like the automobile industry, which had more than 200 car makers in the 1920s and emerged from the Depression with just a few, Silicon Valley is in for some serious contraction. The difference is that the auto industry ended up with the Big Three, whereas the number of tech companies will grow dramatically again during the next boom.
7. Palm Inc.

Elevation Partners, which has among its principals U2′s Bono, pumped a whopping $100 million into the failing Palm Inc. this week.

The idea is to give the company time to release its forthcoming Nova operating system, which will take the cell-phone world by storm and give Apple a run for its money. It would have been far more efficient, however, to just flush that money down the toilet. With the iPhone setting the handset interface agenda, BlackBerry-maker RIM kicking butt in the businesses market, and Google stirring up trouble with its Android platform, this is no time for a clueless company like Palm to be introducing a new operating system. By this time next year, Palm will be gone. And so might Elevation Partners.
8. Yahoo

Yahoo Inc. is another company that can’t seem to do anything right. Or, at least, can’t compete with Google. Yahoo will be acquired by someone, and its brand will become an empty shell — used for some inane set of services but appreciated only by armchair historians (joining the ranks of Netscape, Napster and Commodore).
9. Half of all retail stores

Many retail stores are obsolete and will be replaced by online competitors. Entire malls will become ghost towns. By this time next year, most video game stores, book stores and toy stores — as well as brick-and-mortar shops in many other categories — will simply vanish. Amazon.com will grow and grow.
10. Satellite Radio
I’m sorry, Howard Stern. It’s over. The newly merged Sirius XM Radio simply cannot sustain its losses. The company is already deeply in debt and would need to dramatically increase subscribers over the next six months in order to meet its debt obligations. Unfortunately, new car sales, which account for a huge percentage of satellite radio sales, are in the gutter and stand-alone subscriptions are way down.

Change is hard. But efficiency is good. While boom years gives us radical innovation and improve consumer choice, recessions help us focus on what’s really important and accelerate the demise of technologies and companies that are already obsolete.

So say good-bye to these 10 things, and say hello (eventually) to a new economy, a new boom and a new way of doing things.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Mobile+and+Wireless&articleId=9124260&taxonomyId=15&pageNumber=2

Ohio running low on unemployment money

COLUMBUS, Ohio — With unemployment rising, state officials warn that Ohio’s fund for paying jobless benefits is dwindling and could be empty by next month.

When that happens, the state will be forced to take out a federal loan to keep the unemployment checks flowing, for the first time in 26 years.

Gov. Ted Strickland says he’s asking Congress for federal aid to replenish the fund, so the state won’t have to borrow. If Ohio were to have trouble paying back a loan, it could face high interest costs and the threat of automatic tax increases on the state’s employers after two years.

http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/Trust%20Fund%20Solvency%20Update%202008-Final.pdf

Iceland trading halted

OMX Nordic Exchange Iceland hf. Announcement from the exchange – Trading Halt with all financial instrument issued by following companies – Symbol (EXISTA, GLB, KAUP,LAIS,STRB,SPRON)

The Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority has decided to suspend
temporarily trading in all financial instruments issued by Exista hf. (symbol:
EXISTA), Glitnir bank hf. (symbol: GLB), Kaupthing bank hf. (symbol: KAUP),
Landsbanka Islands hf. (symbol; LAIS), Straum Burdaras investment bank hf.
(symbol: STRB) and Sparisjodur Reykjavikur og nagrennis hf. (symbol: SPRON) and
which have been admitted to trading in a regulated market. This decision is
made in order to safeguard the equality of investors while awaiting an
announcement.

http://www.omxnordicexchange.com/newsandstatistics/marketnotices/Article/?msgId=674689&lang=en

Food Stamp Participation Increases As Economy Slows

Almost a million more people participated in the federal government’s food stamp program for the needy between April and July, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program.

The latest federal statistics indicate that nationally, participation in the low-income nutrition supplement program rose from 28.08 million in April to 29.05 million in July, the last month for which the figures are available, a department spokeswoman said.

The July figure is the highest since the all-time peak of 29.8 million in November 2005, in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, spokeswoman Jean Daniel said.

She said the current national numbers probably reflect economic troubles, such as the spring flooding in the Midwest, that were at work in the early summer and spring. There often is a delay of a few months after a crisis before people sign up for the program.

“From a historical perspective, it’s usually a lag time of two to three months,” she said.

Experts said yesterday that the figures also reflect the broader national economic distress.

“The economic downturn is the obvious reason that most people are turning to the food stamps program at this point,” said Colleen M. Heflin, an assistant professor at the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. “I think it’s a much better barometer of the pain on Main Street than the larger economic barometers.”

James P. Ziliak, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky, said low-income families are “turning to the food stamp program for assistance because they’re having difficulty making ends meet” as a result of stagnant wages and rising prices for gas and other essentials.

“The food stamps program is quite sensitive to changes in the overall macroeconomy,” he said.

In the Washington area, food stamp use has risen sharply over the past year.

The District had a 9.2 percent jump, from 83,000 in July 2007 to almost 91,000 in July this year.

In Maryland, participation went up 14.9 percent over the same period, from 324,000 in July 2007 to almost 373,000 this past July.

And the number of Virginia residents in the program rose 7.5 percent, from 517,000 in July 2007 to 556,000 in July this year.

Nationally, the numbers have been rising steadily for several years, despite periodic dips. There were 25.5 million participants in July 2005; almost 26 million in July 2006; and 26.6 million in July 2007.

Food stamp use also spiked after the national economic recession of 1990-91, rising from an average of about 20 million people a month in fiscal 1990 to an average of 27 million a month in 1994 and then falling to 17 million in 2000, according to the statistics. The yearly numbers started heading up again with the recession of 2001.

The USDA’s Daniel said the economic upheavals of the past few weeks, such as the 159,000 jobs the economy lost last month, probably will not be reflected until the November numbers become available in late fall.

She attributed the increases in foot stamp use to rising economic troubles, improved program outreach, and more people who are eligible deciding to participate. Only about 67 percent of those eligible take advantage of the program, she said.

She said a certain public stigma remains regarding food stamps, even though a debit card has replaced the old stamps and, as of Wednesday, the program has a new name: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The program, which dates to 1964, is the largest federal nutrition initiative for low-income households, according to the USDA. It is available to people with low incomes and limited resources. Almost half of the participants are children.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301389_2.html

600,000 jobs lost – and counting

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Job losses have been mounting, and the slowing economy and credit crunch is likely to take an even greater toll in the coming months.

Analysts on average forecast that the monthly employment report expected Friday will reveal that the economy shed 105,000 jobs in September – the largest monthly loss in five years. The economy already has lost 605,000 jobs this year.

Unemployment is expected to remain at a relatively high 6.1%.

What’s more troubling is that hiring trends have deteriorated even further in recent weeks – and that won’t be reflected in government statistics until later this year.

Failing mortgages and struggling banks have made it difficult for businesses and consumers alike to borrow money. If businesses can’t borrow money, the thinking goes, they can’t expand stores or hire more people.

“A complete lockup of the credit markets will reverberate throughout the economy in a very severe fashion,” said Martin Regalia, chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby group. “If the economy weakens further, we’ll see truly dramatic unemployment.”

Regalia expects unemployment to reach 6.5% by the end of the first quarter next year, and 7% if nothing is done by the government to free up the capital markets. While the economy may stop shedding jobs at that point, he said those stubbornly high rates of unemployment could persist until the end of 2009.

Actual job losses are more difficult to predict. Regalia said 150,000 to 175,000 a month could be likely, significantly higher than today’s levels but far below the rate of 250,000 to 300,000 lost during the last recession in 2002.

The government is still negotiating a package that would enable the purchase of distressed assets from banks in the hopes of getting them to lend again. The $700 billion bailout was rejected in the House of Representatives on Monday, and the Senate is going to vote on a revised version on Wednesday night.

“If we don’t have measures to correct the situation, we will see more [job] losses,” said Joyce Bastoli, a vice president at Ajilon Finance Solutions, part of the staffing company Adecco. “If companies don’t have access to capital, we will see it trickle down.”
The real problem: Slowing economy

Still, while there were some encouraging signs that the credit crisis is not having as devastating an impact as some fear, the slowing economy looms large.

“We’re not seeing anything besides the normal tightening of credit you usually get at the end of an expansion,” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Association of Independent Businesses.

Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents smaller and mid-size manufacturers, said that most manufacturers are conservatively managed and have fairly low levels of debt. Tonelson is urging caution on any government bailout, saying banks should not be encouraged to resume their free-lending ways to consumers already overburdened with debt.

Even if businesses aren’t yet impacted by the credit crunch, they are certainly planning for slowing sales as credit to consumers dries up. That could mean fewer orders for goods – and fewer people needed to manufacture, ship, stock and sell those goods.

“It’s reasonable to expect not only job losses, but wage losses as well,” said Tonelson.

Said Daniel Penrod, an industry analyst with the California Credit Union League, a trade association for credit unions: “We haven’t really seen small businesses getting hurt because of access to money, but rather just because of the slowdown.”

With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, the next sector ripe for a hit is retail, said John Challenger, chief executive of global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. A survey by Challenger released Wednesday said that the number of job cuts in September rose 7.2% to 95,094.

“Consumers are tapped, it’s going to be a tough year,” said Challenger. “Unemployment is going up by leaps and bounds.”

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/01/news/economy/jobs_forecast/?postversion=2008100112

The Magnitude and Meaning of the Proposed Bailout

The plan proposed by President Bush and Secretary Paulson for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street is difficult for most people to comprehend. At NPP, we’ve been crunching the numbers and offer this analysis of what $700 billion means to taxpayers.

A healthy and productive economy requires substantial investment in affordable housing, health care, education and renewable energy. Taxpayers in the United States will be required to pay $700 billion for the Wall Street bailout. They should also know that for the same amount of money, they could secure the following:

51.6 million people with health care for four years OR

181.2 million homes with renewable electricity for four years OR

2.9 million elementary school teachers for four years OR

27 million four-year scholarships for university students

$700 billion is more than what is currently allocated for the U.S. war in Iraq. This amount would allow us to repair all of our nations 77,000 deteriorated bridges and still have $519 billion to spend; or it would allow us to rebuild all of our nations 33,000 deteriorating schools and still have $664 billion to spend. For more analysis and trade-offs at the State and Congressional District level, please visit National Priorities Project’s Trade-offs page online (www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs).

Take action:

Call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121

For more information about organizing for change, please visit:

TrueMajority, a project of USAction:

http://www.truemajority.org/

Read “A Call for Common Sense”

The Backbone Campaign:

http://www.backbonecampaign.org/

For more information, contact Jo Comerford at NPP: 413-584-9556; jo@nationalpriorities.org

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/magnitude

Our country has been hijacked.

All right, folks…round two. They have gone against what the people want, what the people desire, and what was voted upon in the house of representatives. I don’t live in USA anymore, but this concerns me.

DO SOMETHING.

Go protest, call the senate to voice your opposition NOW.

CALL THE SENATE SWITCHBOARD…

202-224-3121

FLOOD THE SWITCHBOARD. CALL ALL NIGHT, CALL ALL DAY TOMORROW.

They are going against us. It is time to revolt, it is time for revolution. The time is drawing near, and you are going to have to make some very difficult decisions.

202-224-3121

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Email: senator_reid@reid.senate.gov Phone: 202-224-3542

President George W. Bush
Email: comments@whitehouse.gov Phone: 202-456-1111

Bailouts Will Push US into Depression: Manager

The end result of the global economic slowdown may be the U.S. announcing national bankruptcy as the government cannot afford the bailouts that it promised and the market will not bail out the government, Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche, told CNBC on Thursday.

“We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe,” Hennecke said on “Worldwide Exchange.”

The estimated $300 billion cost of the Fannie/Freddie bailout will probably be considered as a loss that the government will have to take, therefore passing it on to taxpayers, he explained.

“We already have $3 trillion of debt, as far as the U.S. government is concerned. These debt figures across the U.S. economy are rising very sharply.”

When the government can no longer pass the United States’ “immense debt” on to taxpayers, it will turn to the holders of U.S. dollars, leading to the eventual downfall of the currency, Hennecke said.

“Definitely, it (the dollar) is not a safe place to be invested in, as real inflation is closer to 10 or 11 percent than the actual inflation numbers given by the U.S. government,” Hennecke said on “Worldwide Exchange”.

Investors should avoid exposure to debt and stay away from leveraging on any investment or asset, including property, Hennecke advised, adding that “banks have been too highly leveraged in the past, private households, everybody.”

Hennecke’s stock allocations are mainly Asian-based, especially in the Chinese market as the country’s government has a large amount of cash and the macroeconomics are fundamentally strong.

He also suggested investing in gold, despite the recent fall in price.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26656750/