Rattner is just another example of the appointments Obama makes.

Steven Rattner, a founder of the Quadrangle Group joined the Obama administration as the car czar last year to help oversee the bailout of the automaker unions at General Motors and Chrysler. The Quadrangle Group has just agreed to settle a corruption investigation with Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s office and the Securities and Exchange Commission. No current employees of Quadrangle were involved in the allegations just the former ones. The NY case involves bribing individuals close to the state’s former comptroller in order to convince the state to invest state employee pension money in their funds. But it involves corrupt pension, 401, and Roth pension dealings everywhere. Some Americans are restricted to investing their pensions in a small handful of thieving funds that pay little except for kickbacks and risk everything. Rattner is just another example of the appointments Obama makes. They all deserve prison.

“This case has started a national investigation of public pension funds all across the nation,” said Mr. Cuomo, the attorney general of New York State, in a media call. “A significant amount of this country’s wealth are in these public pension funds and I fear — seeing what we’ve seen in New York — that it’s going to be a serious problem for the nation.”


GE, Bank of America, Goldman, George Soros and the other Wall Street thieving socialists plunder America every day. GE/MSNBC/Pravda and Goldman had themselves declared banks in 2008 so that they could borrow at 0.5% interest to invest in risk free Treasury bonds paying them 2% to 4% (depending on the maturity length). Any moron in banking can dial in the profit they want now and future American grandchildren will be saddled with the national debt. The Banks of America continue to steal from taxpayers and contribute to the socialist candidates who allow this thievery to continue along with derivatives which the bankers themselves know are dangerously run by overpaid moral cretins.

Yet GE profit from continuing operations fell to $2.34 billion, or 21 cents a share, from $2.85 billion, or 26 cents, a year earlier, the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company said today as revenue declined 4.8 percent to $36.6 billion, trailing analysts’ projections. GE/MSNBC/Pravda continues to operate the world's largest socialist/fascist propaganda machine, MSNBC/Pravda. They would outlaw the American Tea Party if they could.


Google slumped 4.2 percent in early New York trading after the company said first-quarter costs rose 18 percent, double the increase in the previous period. Google's earnings disappointed since the masters of hype were indicating higher results ignoring the cost of the company’s expansion and the cyber attacks of Red China.

ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp. retreated with oil prices.

World Outlook
China stopped approving permits to import soybean oil from Argentina, the world’s main supplier of the edible oil. China acted after the Argentina increased antidumping measures against Chinese imports. China dumps its products worldwide and reacts with trade wars when other nations resist the dumping.

Doubts remained as to whether the weakest of the European currency's 16 members would actually get the bailout fund much less be able to manage its 300 billion euro debt. A similar situation exists for the states of Kalifornia and New Yawk City.

Week's Economic Calendar
Fear of the stock and bond markets increased demand for safe treasuries consequently the Treasury Department auction of $26 billion in three-month bills ran at a discount rate of 0.155 percent. That's down from 0.175 percent last week and the lowest in two weeks. Another $27 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.240 percent. That's below last week's 0.265 percent and the lowest since March 8.
On the other hand inflation continues to drive up rates on longer-term securities. The Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 0.47 percent last week from 0.43 percent the previous week.

The National Federation of Independent (small) Business’s optimism index dropped to 86.8 last month from 88 in February indicating that confidence among U.S. small businesses fell to the lowest level since July 2009. Executives grew more concerned about earnings and sales and seven of the index’s 10 components declined from February with only one advancing. The measure of earnings expectations showed the biggest decline in March, dropping 4 points to minus 43 percent. Thirty- four percent of respondents cited “poor sales” as the top business concern, the same as in February, and the net percent of owners projecting higher sales, adjusting for inflation, fell to minus 3 percent.
The U.S. trade deficit, which measures the gap between national exports and imports, is up by 7.4% over the previous month. The trade deficit climbed to $39.7 billion as both imports increased at a greater rate than exports. This means the great projected American productivity increases that have been reported may not be real because if American productivity improved faster than the rest of the world the deficit would decline.
Retail sales rise a healthy 1.6%, average hourly earnings for US workers fell 0.2%, and consumer prices were up a slight 0.1 percent in March. FED's Beige Book indicated that the FED thinks the recovery has started and it is only eight months after Jimmy Cramer imagined the recovery started. The stock market predicted the recovery 13 months in advance.

Yesterday:
Unemployment claims
The Labor Department says first-time requests for jobless benefits rose to 484,000 last week, the highest level since late February. Economists were expecting claims to fall to 440,000. High unemployment is considered a key stumbling block to a strong, sustained economic recovery.
NY St Manufacturing Index
Industrial Production
RealtyTrac Inc reported this morning that the number of foreclosures in the first quarter surged 35% from the 1st quarter of last year. At the same time 16% more households were added to the list of those in default and now facing foreclosure. A RealyTrac executive said the U.S. is on track for more than a million repossessions this year.

Today:
Housing Starts
Consumer Sentiment


Market Outlook April 16

Yesterday the broader NYSE declined on sharply higher volume again showing the stock market is extremely inflated and ready to pop. Once again the volume corrected NYSE failed to set a new high since September 2009.

The NYSE closed down yesterday on sharply higher volume bouncing off the same highs of September 20 and January 11. The uncorrected NYSE has shown succeeding new highs just as the other narrow markets that manipulated volume. The NYSE volume may not be accurate but at least it is not completely fabricated as other volumes are. Most other indices do not report the volume of transactions in their own indices but rather just report NYSE volume for any index. Just look at what they report for the DOW, NASDAQ and S&P. Corrupt Wall Street now reports garbage rather than transaction value for most things. Wall Street is obviously defrauding the government by manipulating their tax obligations downward in addition to their highway robbery through the bailouts and stimulation package. And in return Wall Street is already heavily funding the democrat-socialists party for this November's elections.

Obama and the democrat-socialists have pumped up and set the stage for short sellers of every breed to sweep in and attack American investors. It is very hazardous right now because individual popular stocks like PALM show just how badly an investor in Jim Cramer's favorite growth sector can be savaged. Other stocks such as Boom are being savaged internally with management literally buying Boom stock at 0$ per share and selling it to hide mushrooming Administrative salary increases by diluting the value of the stock instead. The management of BOOM is slowly milking that company dry. Go look for yourself.


World Markets
Asian markets were down sharply over night; Shanghai down -1.1%, Hong Kong down -1.3%, India down -0.3%, and Japan down -1.5%.

European markets are again currently flat in the range from -0.1% to 1 % this morning about half way through their day.

Today US pre-market futures are down -0.1% to -0.3% at 8:00 AM EST.

We expect the markets to crack sharply soon under the uncertainty of higher taxes to cover socialist corruption and spending of $trillions on vote buying corruption rather than infrastructure. Most of the government spending is on false starts like uneconomical wind and solar power and unaffordable things like battery powered GM cars and GM union benefits. The purpose of socialists is to first create a class society to divide the nation and then fuse the criminal, corrupt, and indolent segments into a permanent subclass. Next they encourage the growth of the subclass by boosting illegal immigration from Haiti, Mexico and other failed welfare states with the promise of citizenship and a comparative life of luxury on the dole.

America could very well have another Revolution or Civil War. If GE/MSNBC/Pravda and other America haters, thieves, corrupt politicians, indigents, socialist fascists, socialist communists, and socialist environmental morons lie and claim they are the majority and can re-write the American Constitution to legally steal from the productive Americans… then it is likely that true Americans will rise up and take back their country and purge the thieving tyrants. When America was created only productive Americans who owned property and contributed in good standing in the community were entitled to vote. Now felons in prison and the "incurable" community pedophiles down the street can vote while ACORN brown shirts stand outside and try to intimidate productive community members and even poll workers as they enter the buildings.