Nobody wants to work for minimum wage. When liberals raise the minimum wage more people give up because they think it is a disgrace to admit they work for minimum wage. The minimum wage should be left low and instead there should be a small corporate tax incentive to keep the ratio between the highest and lowest corporate annual wage smaller.

“Why S&P? They didn’t do anything that Moody’s or Fitch didn’t do,” said Peter Schiff, chief executive officer of the firm Euro Pacific Capital Inc. to Bloomberg. The whole thing looks like it is pure intimidation because Obama’s lack of budget control will likely lead to another US rating cut if he doesn’t shut down the rating agencies.  It is clearly a conflict of interest for the Obama administration to stifle the rating agencies and S&P may appeal to the World Court because the world community is what stands to loose if S&P cannot tell the truth about US Treasuries. 

Eric Holder’s Fast and Furious program required gun stores to give guns to anyone including potentially the criminally insane.  Executive order prevented freedom of information and cost many lives to be lost in Mexico.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110912,0,7611438.story

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/plan-let-drug-cartels-buy-guns-us-approved-highest-levels-doj

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?221304-Ex-ATF-official-s-gun-at-Mexican-cartel-shootout-that-killed-beauty-queen

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/01/18/holders-desperate-moves-to-keep-fast-and-furious-docs-from-public-eye-15337 

CEO John Chambers of Cisco said the U.S. economy was improving slowly, although it's too early to call it a trend. He added he expects the economic situation in Europe to get worse before it gets better.

Fed Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke would like to convince stock and bond investors that the end of the central bank’s bond buying won’t constitute a move toward tighter policy. That may be true but interest rates will rise anyway.   The Fed is currently acquiring $85 billion of securities each month which is more than most countries spend in a year.  The Fed conditions the markets to ignore the debt it is running up and would now like Jim Crammer/MSNBC/Pravda to condition investors to think easy credit will not stop as a prelude to the exit. Bernanke said Dec. 12 in Washington that he wants people to believe, the end won’t be “a turn to tighter policy.” The Fed for the first time linked the outlook for its main interest rate to unemployment in addition to inflation, and expanded its asset purchase program by buying an additional $45 billion in Treasury securities each month starting in January.   Ending the Fed’s third round of quantitative easing carries greater uncertainty than completion of the previous two because those were introduced with defined amounts and durations.   But the Fed cannot have it both ways.  The markets hit new highs when QE3 was announced and can expect to lose all the gains when the QE3 cash flow is gone.  Cohen, of Envision Capital Management Inc. in Los Angeles, already lowered the interest-rate sensitivity of their $325 million portfolio in preparation.  “The markets are on edge; and any hint that things are changing, and we will see the repercussions,” Cohen said. “I’m one of the old dinosaurs -- and I cannot remember when there was such a chorus in the investment landscape that all are calling for higher rates.” The world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co.; Rogers Holdings; Wells Capital Management Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. all have voiced concern about QE3.   Cohen said. Central bankers have been discussing possibly curtailing or halting their asset purchases this year. That surprised analysts and traders, pushing up yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note 0.07 percentage point that day.  

Gold now seems to be priced near the low end of its trading range.

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=UGL#symbol=ugl;range=2y;compare=;indicator=;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined

Gold declined to the lowest price this month in London as physical demand slows during this week’s Lunar New Year in Asia.  China, 2011’s second-biggest gold buyer, after India, and most Asian markets are closed for this week’s holiday. Gold is down 0.8 percent this year after rallying for a 12th straight year in 2012. “The absence of the Chinese market this week means demand from other regions has a larger gap to plug, thus exposing prices to a fragile floor,” Suki Cooper, an analyst at Barclays Plc in New York, wrote today in a report. Still, “the broader macro environment remains supportive for prices given low interest rates and global balance sheet expansion.” 

Nick Xanders, of BTIG Ltd. in London said the stock markets have gone up despite the fact that the financial numbers haven’t. It is asking a lot to buy the market today on the hopes of an improvement in the second half after what is looking to be a much weaker first half than was predicted.  

World Economies

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/index.html

Standard & Poor’s reduced Slovenia’s credit rating was cut to A- as the government’s announced support for state-owned banks will lead to higher-than-previously forecast debt.

Swiss property prices are surging as investors funnel money into one of Europe’s most stable economies amid the sovereign debt crisis and record-low interest rates.  Lenders will have to add about an extra 1 percent of risk- weighted assets linked to domestic residential mortgages to comply with Bern’s new rules.  They want to avoid a housing collapse like the one that crippled the economy in the early 1990s.  Swiss home prices are expected to fall 5% this year.

The recession in the euro area deepened showing the worst performance in four years. Gross domestic product in the 17-nation region fell 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter alone, much worse than the European Union’s statistics office predicted.  It is the worst since 2009. 

In Japan, GDP shrank an annualized 0.4 percent, amid falling exports and a business-investment slump, compared with the forecast for 0.4 percent growth. That followed a revised 3.8 percent drop in the third quarter, the Cabinet Office said.

Factory production in the 17-nation euro currency bloc coincidently rose 0.7 percent in December from the previous month, when it declined a revised 0.7 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said.

Chinese demand for cosmetics containing bird’s nest extracts illustrates just how backward the thinking in China still is today.  China is still the world’s center for the manufacture of disgusting animal excrement formula’s that deplete endangered species to satisfy extremely gullible people.

Vladimir Putin says Bernanke is endangering the global economy by abusing the US dollar monopoly. He’s now betting against Obama, Bernanke, and the US dollar.

“The fourth quarter was a double whammy for Europe, with austerity and exports to the U.S. falling off,” said Gilles Moec, co-chief European economist at Deutsche Bank in London.

Finally China’s markets are approaching a buy signal after four years that have seen MSNBC/Pravda falsely claiming China had recovered about four times per year.   Do you see their leading indicator very close to giving a reliable buy signal?  But it has to break through this resistance level first!

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=000001.SS#symbol=000001.ss;range=1y;compare=;indicator=;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

 The French market indicates stagnation since year 2000.

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EFCHI&t=my

German stocks in 2013 are now all-time highs the same as when the bubbles burst in 2000 and 2007.  See:

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EGDAXI#symbol=^gdaxi;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

 A triple-dip recession looms as UK economy falters again.  The British market indicates peaking in 2000 and stagnation since 2007.  Look at the recent sharp spike up in is stock prices the last month as Bernanke’s $85,000,000,000 each month even exceeds the capacity of the American economy to absorb and it begins to be wasted on investments abroad of which most will be lost forever.  QE crippled Japan by 1990 and they still have not recovered.  The Obama/Bernanke bubble will destroy even the British, French, German and others that are being sucked into this socialist tornado of cash.

 http://in.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EFTSE&t=my

 The Swiss market indicates stagnation since 2007.  But once again look at the spike up in stock prices with Bernanke’s $85,000,000,000/month gift from America to the stock and bond markets of the world as more people enter poverty, go hungry and lose their jobs under Socialism’s equality of poverty.

 http://in.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5ESSMI&t=my

  The NYSE is similar to the British and Swiss and indicates stagnation since 2007 but no spike up. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5ENYA+Interactive#symbol=^nya;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

 American Economy

The credit-swaps index rose 0.8 basis points as investor confidence deteriorated sharply. The contracts pay the buyer face value if a borrower fails to meet its obligations, less the value of the defaulted debt.  This gauge of U.S. corporate risk climbed as the recession in the euro-area deepened with the worst performance in four years.

The stock market continues disengaged from the economy and is becoming increasingly unstable because the FED has created a balance sheet bloated at a rate of $85,000,000,000 per month putting US stocks in the stratosphere.   

The DJA in 2013 is also now at a record high. Look at the spike up as $85,000,000,000 flows into markets each month.  http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=%5EDJA&t=my&l=on&z=l&q=l&p=&a=&c=

 This week

http://biz.yahoo.com/c/e.html

Feb 12

Treasury Budget Jan +2.88B As new taxes for 2012 come in

Feb 13

MBA Mortgage Index 02/09 -6.4% much worse from3.4%

Retail Sales Jan 0.1% down from 0.5%

Retail Sales ex-auto Jan 0.2% down from 0.3% 

Export Prices ex-ag. Jan 0.5% up sharply at 6% annual inflation rate from -0.2% 

Import Prices ex-oil Jan 0.2% up also -0.1% 

Business Inventories Dec 0.1% not increasing a fast as 0.3% last time

Crude Inventories 02/09 0.560M down from 2.623M with rising gasoline prices

Feb 14

 Initial Claims 02/09 341K fell from 366K

Continuing Claims 02/02 3114K fell from 3224K

Natural Gas Inventories 02/09 down -157 bcf 

Feb 15

Empire Manufacturing Feb 10.0 cancelled out last months decline of -7.8

Net Long-Term TIC Flows Dec $64.2B says foreigners continue to invest in the USA $52.3B

Industrial Production Jan -0.1% declined from 0.3%

Capacity Utilization Jan 79.1% topping out up from 78.8% . Production appears to be about as high as it can go without new investment.  The capacity and production numbers together contradict eachother.

http://www.martincapital.com/index.php?page=graph&view=capacity

Mich Sentiment Feb 76.3 improved from 73.8

 Markets February 15, 2013

 

Bernanke is pushing on a string.  The FED has run out of leverage at close to 0% short term interest rates.  When rates rise the bond bubble will burst and that wealth will evaporate over night.

http://www.martincapital.com/index.php?page=graph&view=interest_rates_long

The VIX is below where it was in 2007 before the last bubble burst.  A low VIX normally precedes a panic sell-off. Once that starts the VIX needs to go up above 30 before a bear markets normally ends.  http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EVIX&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=

Nobody wants to work for minimum wage.  When liberals raise the minimum wage more people give up because they think it is a disgrace to admit they work for minimum wage.  The minimum wage should be left low and instead there should be a small corporate tax incentive to keep the ratio between the highest and lowest annual wage smaller.

Is it possible that world trade just flat lined?  Obama’s policy is destroying American shipping now by supporting crippling wages ($180K/yr), benefits (9 wk vacations), and pensions (80%+of retirement salary) for unionized unskilled dockworkers while all other Americans pay for it in costs crippling the economy.  State and City workers have also coerced their benefits using union dues to elect corrupt politicians and buy arbitrators.  http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BDIY:IND/chart

 

World stock market updates:

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=europe