Winter In America Gets Colder : Why We Choose Poverty

Politics / Social Issues Oct 19, 2013 - 10:49 AM GMT

By: Raul_I_Meijer

Broadly speaking, if we look at what has happened to the world's rich economies from 1945 to today, we can say that in the first 30 years, 1945-1975, real wealth - as expressed in standard of living - across the board, for the vast majority of people, increased.
Over the next 30 years, 1975-2005, the standard of living still seemed to rise, but if we look behind the numbers and between the lines, we see that much of the wealth increase over that period is illusional, because it was increasingly based on credit, i.e. it was borrowed from the future, while at the same time, the costs of "really big ticket" items such as education and health care were moved away from governments and towards citizens, where they began an unstoppable ascent (and we paid for them with credit).

There are umpteen different ways to define standard of living, but it seems quite reasonable to say that, as societies, we hit the top of our wealth in the mid to late 1970's, although valid arguments can be made for an even earlier date.
And then from about 2005 onwards, we have entered payback time. A fast increasing part of our budgets started to go towards continually rising costs for education, health care etc., AND interest payments on what we borrowed in the previous three decades AND interest payments on what we borrowed to both make those payments and keep the illusion of (increasing) wealth alive. In a glaring example, housing prices went up not because people got richer, but because they could borrow more.
In another example, across the western world, coming out of WWII, many if not most countries were dedicated to providing equal (and therefore necessarily free) access for everyone to the best health care and education available. And look at us now ...
Today, in 2013, debt numbers all over are at levels that nobody would have believed possible only 30 years ago. Household debt, national debt and corporate debt hang around our necks like so many nooses, and all we can do to prevent ourselves from suffocating is to borrow more. And so, inevitably, debt levels rise further. And just as inevitably, more and more people fall by the wayside; they can't keep up anymore. They are either too much in debt already, or they can't find a job that pays enough - provided they find a job at all - or both. In the process, we have become, the vast majority of us, entire societies of debt slaves, living in constant fear of losing a job and/or a home, and/or contracting a disease.
And it's not just paying back their own debt which people find ever harder: much of the debt from the financial - and overall corporate - sector has been transferred to the public sector, first becoming national debt and then trickling down into household debt through taxes and cuts to services.
This is a choice we make as - members of our - societies. It may be advertised to us as some kind of law of nature, but there's no such law, it's simply a choice. The only possible way to improve our societies, so we are told, is through economic growth. In the same vein, we are told that we actually do have economic growth again today, just not enough. That's not really credible either, although some growth faithful might claim that it all depends on which data you use. The S&P hit another record, so all must be well.
It is a choice, and it is an ongoing trend that is far from being finished. Those who do have wealth today are not going to voluntarily take a step back and say I have enough. A few individuals may, but the vast majority will continue to look for more. In the absence of actual growth, and in the presence of increasing debt, they can and will only achieve that by pushing the poor deeper into poverty. That is the real choice, even as faith in eternal growth makes it easy, if not necessary, to deny that such a choice exists.
Or to put it in different words: we continue to live with the idea of recovery, which in our minds equals a return to what we had, plus added growth. For some of us that may come true, but for a very rapidly increasing number amongst us, it will not. Because, and it's high time we acknowledge this, at this point in time, the only way the upper echelons of our societies can achieve some level of growth is to take it away from everyone else. And those upper echelons, mind you, demand exponential growth, which means, in a society that cannot grow, that the numbers of poor people will rise exponentially as well.
The incessant repetition of the "recovery is just around the corner" mantra has a hugely distorting effect on people's behavior in that even those who would be inclined to listen to appeals for redistribution of wealth and income will tend to turn a deaf ear if they are convinced no such redistribution is needed because those who are poor today will soon, any moment now, be made rich(er) by the recovery. This also makes it much easier to label redistribution of wealth as, just to name a term, communist.
And that's a very twisted picture that can exist only because we have such poor memories, especially when it suits us. Because in reality, we are of course already seeing a huge redistribution of wealth today, only this one increases inequality instead of decreasing it. Which means all those dreams about equal access for everyone to the best health care and education available are long gone. If we would only redistribute wealth in such a way that it would see us return to the level of inequality that existed when those dreams were relevant, 60-odd years ago, much of our poverty conundrum would be solved. It is really as simple as that.
It's ironic that one of the undoubtedly most capitalist countries on the planet, Switzerland, appears to take wealth redistribution more serious than any other, with a slew of referendums (yes, they have actual democracy) aimed at decreasing income inequality. In March, one such referendum forced public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on executive compensation. In November, there's a vote on the 1:12 initiative, which stipulates that executives can't make more than 12 times the salary of the lowest-paid employee. Which somewhat perversely means executives have a very good reason to raise that lowest salary: they themselves can get 12 dollars for every single dollar they give the employee, so an extra $1000 per month for the latter translates into $144,000 extra per year for the bosses.
Another referendum, to be held at an as yet unspecified date, calls for everyone in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state. That initiative, though it may have many great - liberating - consequences, will probably not make it, because it makes people think that it induces laziness.
The Swiss are not the only people considering a basic income rather than a minimum wage (Beppe Grillo wants it in Italy), and it's a bit of a shame that no-one actually tries it for their country, just so we can see what happens. For one thing, those who want to see a smaller government apparatus should jump on the basic income idea; much of what governments do these days is linked to all sorts of benefit programs, and these could disappear almost entirely. Isn't it just absolutely hilarious in that light to realize that those most opposed to big government are also most opposed to a basic income? Talk about having your cake and eating it too.....
Meanwhile, the growth mantra is so deeply imbedded in our minds that no-one deems it necessary to answer a question I've long been asking: What Do We Want To Grow Into? . The need for eternal growth is simply accepted as a given. That is as much a pity as it is definitely not smart.
Still, if nobody wants to answer that particular question, maybe we should turn it around a little, and ask slightly different questions, like:

1) Given the numbers on poverty and unemployment cited below in this article, how likely do you think it is that your economy - as a whole - is actually growing (i.e. expanding)?

and:

2) Do you feel it's desirable to live in a society where, even if there would be growth, it can apparently only be achieved by throwing ever more of your fellow citizens off and under the bus?

not to mention:

3) How long do you think such a society can last?

Questions like these will easily be thrown upon the commie heap, and even be labeled unpatriotic, but they're really just a bunch of simple questions, which seamlessly lead to yet another question: what kind of society is unable and unwilling to answer such questions about itself?
Why don't I inundate you with some random data, and when you feel it gets a bit much please realize that this is only a small sample, and on any given day I could make it 10 times more:
Herald Extra:

Poverty stuck at 15% - record 46.5 million Americans

The nation's poverty rate remained stuck at 15% last year despite America's slowly reviving economy ...

More than 1 in 7 Americans were living in poverty, [up from the] 46.2 million of 2011 ...

[..] For the past year, the official poverty line was an annual income of $23,492 for a family of four.

Poverty remained largely unchanged across race and ethnic groups. Blacks had the highest rate at 27.2%, compared to 25.6% for Hispanics and 11.7% for Asian-Americans. Whites had a rate of 9.7%.

Child poverty stood at 21.8%.

CNS News:

Census on Obama's 1st Term: Real Median Income Down $2,627; People in Poverty Up 6,667,000; Record 46,496,000 Now Poor

In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, there were approximately 39,829,000 people living in poverty in this country. In 2012, there were 46,496,000. That is an increase of approximately 6,667,000—of 16.73% - from 2008 to 2012.

In 2008, the year Obama was elected, people in poverty represented 13.2% of the national population. In 2012, they represented 15.0% of the population.

Economic Collapse Blog:

They Denied That We Were In A Depression In 1933 And They Are Doing It Again

90.5 million working age Americans are considered to be "not in the labor force".

The labor force participation rate is the lowest it has been in 35 years.

516,000 Americans "left the labor force" . That was a brand new all-time record high.

The number of private sector jobs dropped by 278,000 [in august 2013].

77% of the jobs that have been "created" so far this year have been part-time jobs.

Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

New American:

The Real Unemployment Rate

The nominal unemployment rate is still high, but the real jaw-dropping fact is the number of working-age Americans who are not working. Today that is 100,000,000 Americans out of a total population of about 310,000,000. Demographically, about 80,000,000 Americans are minors and about 40,000,000 are age 65 or older. That leaves approximately 190,000,000 Americans who are adults of working age. About half of those do not have a full-time job.

When those "Not in the labor force" are added to those "Unemployed," then those who are not working is growing: 99.5 million in April 2011, 100.3 million in February 2012, 100.5 million in March 2012, and 100.9 million in April 2012. When counting both those "Not in the labor force" (though in the age in which most Americans work) and "Unemployed" as a single group, then those who are not working, but are in the age group in which Americans normally work, has remained steady and high: 41.6% in April 2011, 41.5% in February 2012, 41.5% in March 2012, and 41.6% in April 2012.

Zero Hedge:

While the Establishment survey data was ugly due to both the miss and the prior downward revisions in the NFP print, the real action was in the Household survey, where we find that the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 516,000 in one month, which in turn increased the total number of people outside the labor force to a record 90.5 million Americans.

Michael Snyder:
In America today, only 47% of adults have a full-time job.
According to one recent survey, 76% of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60% of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58% of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
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.

At this point, an astounding 53% of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
According to a study that was released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6% of all jobs in the United States qualify as "good jobs" at this point. [..]
... the three criteria used to define what a "good job" is are:

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 [..]

3 The job must provide access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan. [..]

The St. Louis Fed:

A record 28 million Americans have part-time jobs ...

Washington Post:

Low fast-food wages come at high public cost

[US] taxpayers are spending nearly $7 billion a year to supplement the wages of fast-food workers, even as the leading fast-food companies earn billions of dollars in annual profits, according to a pair of reports released Tuesday.

More than half of the nation's 1.8 million "core" fast-food workers rely on the federal safety net to make ends meet, the reports said. Together, they collect nearly $1.9 billion through the earned income tax credit, $1 billion in food stamps and $3.9 billion through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program ... [..]

LA Times:

Most Americans expect to work during 'retirement'

More than 4 in 5 older Americans expect to keep working during their latter years, a sign that traditional retirement is out of reach for vast swaths of society, according to a new survey.

Among Americans ages 50 and older who currently have jobs, 82% expect to work in some form during retirement, according to the poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In other words, "retirement" is increasingly becoming a misnomer. The still-sluggish economy, battered 401(k) retirement plans and inadequate savings are upending traditional notions of retirement.

Add in an expected increase in lifespans and the result is a generation of workers facing dim financial prospects for what used to be known as the golden years. Excluding pensions and homes, 39% of survey respondents said they have $100,000 or less saved for retirement. Nearly one-quarter have less than $10,000.

And despite conventional wisdom, people can’t count on simply working until they drop. One-third of retirees say they didn't have a choice in the decision to leave the workforce, the survey found. In other words, many were pushed out by ill health or layoffs. Among retirees younger than 65, the figure is 54%.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

Extreme poverty on the rise for older women

An alarming number of women over the age of 65 joined the ranks of the extreme poor last year, according to a new report by the National Women's Law Center titled "Insecure & Unequal," which analyzed recently released data from the Census Bureau.

The retirement picture for nearly 1 million older women in America whose income fell below extreme poverty levels last year -- $5,500 or less in annual income -- is anything but golden. They never have enough to cover the cost of food, medicine and housing, and are forced to make tough choices each day on what sacrifices they must make to survive. [..]

Pro Publica:

The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed

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.

Across America, temporary work has become a mainstay of the economy, leading to the proliferation of what researchers have begun to call "temp towns." They are often dense Latino neighborhoods teeming with temp agencies. Or they are cities where it has become nearly impossible even for whites and African-Americans with vocational training to find factory and warehouse work without first being directed to a temp firm.

In June, the Labor Department reported that the nation had more temp workers than ever before: 2.7 million. Overall, almost one-fifth of the total job growth since the recession ended in mid-2009 has been in the temp sector, federal data shows. But according to the American Staffing Association, the temp industry’s trade group, the pool is even larger: Every year, a tenth of all U.S. workers finds a job at a staffing agency.

[..] The temp system insulates the host companies from workers’ compensation claims, unemployment taxes, union drives and the duty to ensure that their workers are citizens or legal immigrants. In turn, the temps suffer high injury rates, according to federal officials and academic studies, and many of them endure hours of unpaid waiting and face fees that depress their pay below minimum wage.

Christian Science Monitor:

Suburban poverty across the country grew 53% between 2000 and 2010, more than twice the rate of urban poverty, according to a recent report by the Brookings Institution. For the first time, more poor people live in the suburbs than in cities. "I think suburban poverty is here to stay," says Alan Berube, one of the authors. "It's not going to revert back to the cities."

CNBC:

... the 400 wealthiest Americans now have more money [over $2 trillion] than the poorest 50% of all Americans combined.

US News:

A Different Type of Poverty

Even though we don't have starvation, we do have an amount of poverty that leads to malnutrition, that leads to a series of diseases that we don't tend to associate with First World countries, that leads to massively truncated life expectancy, and all but guarantees that from one generation to the next, poverty is going to be transmitted.

There are a lot of people with an awful lot of money, but there are an awful lot of people with absolutely nothing. And then there's a lot of people in the middle who, as the economic recession deepened in 2008-10, experienced downward mobility. Maybe that's one of the differences. In the 1960s, the country was clearly on an upward trajectory.

New York Times:

House Republicans Pass Deep Cuts in Food Stamps

House Republicans narrowly pushed through a bill on Thursday [Sep 19] that slashes billions of dollars from the food stamp program, over the objections of Democrats and a veto threat from President Obama.

[..] Republican leaders, under pressure from Tea Party-backed conservatives, said the bill was needed because the food stamp program, which costs nearly $80 billion a year, had grown out of control. They said the program had expanded even as jobless rates had declined with the easing recession.

[..] even with the cuts, the food stamp program would cost more than $700 billion over the next 10 years.

Washington Times:

One in four kids in poverty, despite U.S. gains

The White House may be touting a message of an improved economy — and claiming on its website that President Obama is all about helping those of lesser financial means — but meanwhile, nearly one-quarter of America’s youth are struggling in poverty, a new report reveals.

Nearly one in four children lived in poverty in 2012 [..]

New Hampshire’s childhood poverty numbers rose significantly in just a year’s time — and what’s worse, the state bragged on the lowest child poverty rate in the entire nation for a full decade. In 2011, the rate of poverty for that age group was 12%. A year later, it rose to 15.6%. And in all the years from 2007 to 2012, that figure jumped more than 75% ...

Meanwhile, around the nation, 16.4 million children were reported to be living in poverty in 2012. Of that, six million are aged 6 and younger. That comes in comparison to 2007 numbers, when the national poverty rate for youth stood at 18%, or 13.1 million children, UPI reported.

The researchers used the federal definition of poverty — a family of four with less than $23,283 a year.

On the White House website, Mr. Obama is described as a "lifelong advocate for the poor" ...

And it's not as if America is the only place where the inequality process plays out. Even if we leave southern Europe alone for the moment, a country like Britain is pretty bad, for example, with a government that invites rich foreigners to buy up the nation's assets while it leaves its own citizens in the cold, often literally, as the Guardian reported yesterday:

British Gas raises energy prices by 9.2%

British Gas will raise energy prices by an average of 9.2% next month, piling further financial pressure on 7.8 million households and reigniting the political row over soaring gas and electricity prices. Parent company Centrica became the second of the big six energy firms to announce a price rise after SSE raised prices last week. The average annual dual-fuel bill with British Gas will increase by £107 to £1,297 ($2,100).

Centrica blamed the above-inflation hike on higher costs for wholesale energy and delivering gas and electricity to homes, and government's "social and environmental programmes" which are paid for through customers' bills.

Also from The Guardian this week:

Food poverty is an attack on society

[UK] food banks are now helping three times as many people as they were a year ago. Oxfam and the Red Cross are both supporting food programmes. Another British charity, Save the Children, has launched a UK campaign expressly to raise awareness of the issues behind the steep rise in numbers of young people caught up in poverty. This cannot be what David Cameron's "big society" was supposed to look like.

The government is in denial. Ministers talk of chaotic families, of individuals making bad choices. They suggest the underlying reason for the trebling of the numbers receiving food parcels from the Trussell Trust in the six months to September – to an astonishing 355,000 people – was a spread in the number of food banks. Of course, each of these is a factor. But even taken together, they don't begin to account for the surge of desperation represented by the figures.

People on the ground tell a different story. Roughly a third of their clients are driven to desperation by delays in benefit – no change in proportion, only in the numbers. The new factor is the impact of changes in benefit, as the bedroom tax and sanctions bite, and councils get to grips with ever tighter budgets and smaller crisis funds. That now accounts for a fifth of those entitled to food parcels (which are only available to those with a formal referral).

And even in Germany, the one remaining - western -stalwart of growth fanatics, it's the people who pay the price. from Al Jazeera:

Does Germany have a poverty problem?

"It's a fact that differences between those who have lots and those who have little have been growing wider," Templin Mayor Detlef Tabbert, a member of the Left party, told Al Jazeera in his office. He blames German tax policy and employers who pay wages "that are below the level of dignity" for the gap.

The gap between the haves and have-nots is more substantial if one looks at wealth instead of income: A government report published earlier this year found the richest 10% of German households own about 53% of the country's wealth - with the bottom half holding a scant one%.

Unlike most European countries, Germany has no national minimum wage. Instead, there's a complex patchwork of about 480 minimum wages, depending on the type and location of the job. These can vary from 7.50 euros ($10) to 13.70 euros ($18.50) an hour.

This development, this process, is not going to go away by itself, inequality in wealth and income will keep increasing, and ever more people will end up under the bus. It's a choice we make as a society. Even if we do somehow achieve a period of real economic growth, it will make little difference anymore for the poorer: it will be swallowed up whole by the demand for growth embedded in the richer parts of society.
The desire for growth has become a sort of auto-immune disease, in which the body, the society, in the absence of external food sources, preys upon itself. We need to consider the potential consequences of this, and ask ourselves if they add up to the kind of society we wish to live in, and we want our children to grow up in. Right now, we're choosing poverty, and we should ask ourselves why we do that.
There are millions of Americans who've been unemployed so long they no longer even count as unemployed. There are millions more working jobs that don't pay the bills. This can and will not simply be undone by a growing economy. Many are scarred for life, and that certainly goes for the huge numbers of children growing up in poverty and now seeing their food stamps cut to boot. Leaving aside whether we see rising inequality as a good or a bad thing, we need to realize that it is a choice we make for ourselves and others: there is no need for 25% of our children to be too poor to function well, there is enough wealth in our societies to provide for them. We would just need to redistribute that wealth, and to limit inequality to the levels we had when our economies were doing better than they ever have, before or since. Would that really be such a bad thing? Are we truly better off creating this fake Darwinian jungle we have today? Just asking.
And then of course there's that last remaining question: "How long do you think such a society can last?"
By Raul Ilargi Meijer
Website: http://theautomaticearth.com (provides unique analysis of economics, finance, politics and social dynamics in the context of Complexity Theory)
© 2013 Copyright Raul I Meijer - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Raul Ilargi Meijer Archive

Obamacare's Creeping Terror on the Middle Class

Garrett Baldwin writes: Over the weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle delivered a stunning message that discourages and demotivates American workers from earning more income and promotes greater government dependency.
It's all thanks to sloppy incentives created by the Affordable Healthcare Act.
The Chronicle reported that Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said last week that workers in California should consider reducing their 2014 income and work hours in order to qualify for Obamacare subsidies.

"If they can adjust (their income), they should," said Pollitz. "It's not cheating, it's allowed."
For a California family to fall under the 400% of poverty-level ceiling (the threshold to qualify for government assistance), the family's net income must be at or below $62,040. However, if they make just $1 more than this amount, they will not qualify for thousands of dollars in public assistance to purchase healthcare.
Earning $62,041 would trigger a massive increase in taxes and cost of healthcare premiums for the family.
In progressive terms, that amounts to a loss of a subsidy worth more than $10,000 each year for a family of four.
This is all part of a perverse welfare system that has for decades discouraged economic advancement.
As these Obamacare incentives now begin to creep into the lives of the middle class, the government is playing an extremely dangerous game with state dependence. This will have a staggering impact on the economic health of the middle class.

Incremental Income Displacement

For decades now, a debate has swelled on the influence of welfare on the motivations of Americans to find work or advance their careers to the next level. Some critics have argued that welfare discourages work and enables some to live off the production of their neighbors.
Meanwhile, supporters of the system believe it is a vital safety net that prevents Americans from living in squalor and limits economic inequality.
While the welfare system may have the best intentions, it is poorly designed. It's a flawed system that creates disincentives for workers to climb the ladder of economic development.
Then individuals decide to stay at lower-paying jobs to maintain welfare benefits instead of taking better pay, more responsibility, and freeing themselves of government dependence - a line known as the "welfare cliff."
Just take this example from Pennsylvania...
Gary Alexander (the state's secretary of Public Welfare) explained in 2012 that a single mother is better off making $29,000 than she is making $69,000 thanks to the massive influx of public programs available to support her and two children.
At $29,000 in gross income, she will end up with $57,327 in pay and social benefits. But as she begins to increase her gross income (or take-home pay), those benefits erode, and her net income and benefits begin to shrink.
She would not make the same amount of money to pay her own way until she adds another $40,000 in gross pay. In fact, her net income at $69,000 is still lower than the benefit-laden salary above since she would only have $57,045 after taxes.
The welfare-related benefits remove the incentive for her to take a new, better-paying job - even if the new position offers greater career-building skills and development. That's how the flawed welfare system gets people hooked to government programs.
Now Obamacare will allow this problem to slowly creep into the economic decisions of the middle class. This will trigger a serious impact on entrepreneurialism, the public debt, and growth in the economy.

Obamacare's Creeping Terror on the Middle Class

Pollitz encouraged any family thinking of getting subsidized health insurance from Covered California in 2014 to cut their incomes down to qualify. But Pollitz failed to understand the consequences of her suggestion...
When Americans make less money, they contribute less to the public treasury. However, these same Americans will be pulling thousands of dollars out of the pool and placing a greater strain on available resources.
Over time, this will create a perpetual downward spiral where more is being consumed than being produced. The only way to stop-gap the problem is to borrow more, tax more, and spend more, while politicians pretend that the collective drain on society isn't a problem.
Americans will have to make the irrational economic decision to pay more and attempt to earn more money through extra work if the nation wishes to survive the consequences of this law. It is all part of an ongoing trend that continues to plague society as we move from a productive class to a privileged class, where people expect more money and benefits for less work.
In the United States, we used to have the world's greatest entrepreneurial class in the world. We built bridges and buildings and businesses.
Now, we just reach into one another's pocket.
And Obamacare is a shining example of the perverse incentives Congress continues to peddle.

Source :http://moneymorning.com/2013/10/15/want-cheaper-healthcare-just-make-less-money/

GDP vs. GFD

We must increase our debt limit so that we can pay our bills.

Today there is a great sense of relief that has swept the nation as news flowed through the media that the government shutdown had come to an end.  After all, during the 16 days of the shutdown, there was great hardship inflicted on the average American as the stock market rose by 2.4%, government workers that were furloughed received a 2+ week paid vacation and interest rates fell from a peak of 2.65% on October 1st to 2.59% on October 17th.  Outside of the financial markets, which were never concerned of a "default," the reality is that the government shutdown did likely clip up to 0.5% off of 4th quarter's GDP.  While that clip to economic growth created by the government standoff is temporary - the ongoing persistant weakness of economic growth is another issue entirely.  This is the focus of this discussion.

The most disturbing sentence uttered during the debt ceiling debate/government shut down, that should raise some concerns by both political parties, is:

"We must increase our debt limit so that we can pay our bills."

Think about that for a moment.   The U.S. has become the single largest debtor nation on the planet as welfare dependency rises, government spending continues to increase and economic growth slows.  However, what is ironic about this situation, is that it is the continuing increases in debt which is directly responsible for the decreases in economic growth.  The chart below shows government debt as a percentage of GDP as compared to annualized rate of change in economic growth.

Since the beginning of 2009 very little of the increases in government debt, which was used to fill the gap created by excess expenditures, returned very little in terms of economic growth.  In fact, as of the second quarter of 2013, it required $5.61 of debt to create just $1 of economic growth.

As I discussed recently in "The Long Game Of Hiking The Debt Ceiling:"

"The chart below shows the current projected rates of debt to real GDP through 2018 according to the CBO estimates versus the current annual run rate of $1.1 trillion."

"At the current rate of debt increase the U.S. will pushing 130% of debt to real GDP by 2018.  This is, of course, not including the funding needs that will ultimately be required to support the increased costs of the entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare and now the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  The reality is that debt needs will substantially increase as entitlement programs continue to consume ever larger chunks of the current budget.  By 2020 the current welfare programs alone are expected to require 75% of all federal revenues and this does not include the impact of the ACA.  This, of course, is unsustainable."

President Obama was very correct in his speech, following the resolution of the government shut down, by stating that one of the three things that the government should focus on in the short term is budget reform.  The current pace of increase in the participation of social welfare programs from food stamps and disability claims to social security and Medicare is creating an ever increasing consumption of current revenues.  The implementation of another social welfare program will only create an additional drag on the revenue/expense equation. 

While the President did note that the deficit was indeed shrinking; this is due to the massive surge in tax revenue created by the fears over the fiscal cliff. With the final tax filing and payment date, October 15th, now behind us we will begin to see the deficit once again widen.  This is simply due to the fact that ordinary tax revenue trails government expenditures by a wide margin. 

So, while the government shutdown is now temporarily behind us, at least for the next 90 days, the real battle lies ahead.  Unfortunately, there is little desire to truly reform spending or the budget.  It requires sacrifices that no one is willing to make.  However, the wakeup call really should be the fact that we are making the statement that "we have to increase our debt simply to pay our bills."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-17/most-dangerous-line-uttered-during-debt-ceiling-debate 

NSA Revelations Kill IBM Hardware Sales in China

Wolf Richter   www.testosteronepit.com   www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
The first shot was fired on Monday. Teradata, which sells analytics tools for Big Data, warned that quarterly revenues plunged 21% in Asia and 19% in the Middle East and Africa. Wednesday evening, it was IBM’s turn to confess that its hardware sales in China had simply collapsed. Every word was colored by Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s hand-in-glove collaboration with American tech companies, from startups to mastodons like IBM.
But the fiasco was tucked away under the lesser debacle of IBM’s overall revenues, which fell 4.1% from prior year, the sixth straight quarter of declines in a row. Software revenue inched up 1%, service revenue skidded 3%. At the hardware unit, Systems and Technology, revenue plunged 17%. Within that, sales of UNIX and Linux Power System servers plummeted a dizzying 38%. Governmental and corporate IT departments had just about stopped buying these machines.
IBM quickly pointed out that there were some pockets of growth in its lineup: business analytics sales rose 8%, Smarter Planet 20%, and Cloud, that new Nirvana for tech, jumped 70%. But in the overall scheme of things, they didn’t amount to enough to make a big difference.
All regions were crummy. Revenues in Europe/Middle East/Africa ticked up 1%. In the Americas, they ticked down 1% – “The improvement came equally from the US and Canada and once again, we had strong performance in Latin America,” is how CFO Mark Loughridge spun the situation during the earnings call because it was less bad than last quarter.
But there was nothing to spin in Asia-Pacific, where revenues plunged 15%. Revenues in IBM’s “growth markets” dropped 9%. They include the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – where revenues sagged 15%. In China, which accounts for 5% of IBM’s total revenues, sales dropped 22%, with hardware sales, nearly half of IBM’s business there, falling off a cliff: down 40%.
Mr. Loughridge, in his prepared statement, tried to come up with a logical-sounding panic-free explanation:

We were impacted by the process surrounding China’s development of a broad based economic reform plan, which will be available mid-November. In the meantime, demand from state-owned enterprises and the public sector has slowed significantly as decision-making and procurement cycles lengthened.

So, would that unprecedented collapse of demand for hardware in China end after mid-November? Nope. These “changes will take time to implement,” he warned. In fact, he did not expect demand to pick up “until after the first quarter of next year.” Not anytime soon.
No one believed that rigmarole.
When an analyst needled him, Mr. Loughridge began to deviate from the scrip: “The hardware business across those elements of the product line accepting zSeries performance (IBM mainframe computers), it was down substantially. We were talking 40%, 50%. Enormous reductions on a year-to-year basis in a geography where we intended to see growth rates.”
They’d intended to see double digit growth rates. He referred to last year, when sales in China were up 19%, “driven heavily by really strong performance in hardware base,” he said. But suddenly, hardware sales collapsed “40%, 50%” from last year. IBM didn’t even have time to come up with a credible excuse. He was struggling to make sense of it, grasping at flimsy straws and the same economic reform plan theory that no had believed earlier, but this time, it got all tangled up:

And you got to look at that and say, what significantly accounts for that. And I would say, quite honestly, if you look at the elements in China and we have worked with the team in China that simply has been a substantial impact as the process surrounding China’s development of broad based economic reform plan takes shape. And that is going to be announced and available, we think in November and probably it will take some time to implement. So I think we are looking at a couple of quarters, but once that economic plan is announced, it adds clarity to market, we should see, I think and fairly within our team, a recovery in the demand pattern for state-owned enterprise public sector.

The explanation is more obvious. In mid-August, an anonymous source told the Shanghai Securities News, a branch of the state-owned Xinhua News Agency, which reports directly to the Propaganda and Public Information Departments of the Communist Party, that IBM, along with Oracle and EMC, have become targets of the Ministry of Public Security and the cabinet-level Development Research Centre due to the Snowden revelations.
“At present, thanks to their technological superiority, many of our core information technology systems are basically dominated by foreign hardware and software firms, but the Prism scandal implies security problems,” the source said, according to Reuters. So the government would launch an investigation into these security problems, the source said.
Absolute stonewalling ensued. IBM told Reuters that it was unable to comment. Oracle and EMC weren’t available for comment. The Ministry of Public Security refused to comment. The Development Research Centre knew nothing of any such investigation. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology “could not confirm anything because of the matter’s sensitivity.”
I’d warned about its impact at the time [read.... US Tech Companies Raked Over The Coals In China]. Snowden’s revelations started hitting in May. Not much later, the Chinese security apparatus must have alerted IT buyers in government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and major independent corporations to turn off the order pipeline for sensitive products until this is sorted out. As Mr. Loughridge’s efforts have shown, it’s hard to explain any other way that hardware sales suddenly collapsed by “40%, 50%” in China, where they’d boomed until then.
This is the first quantitative indication of the price Corporate America has to pay for gorging at the big trough of the US Intelligence Community, and particularly the NSA with its endlessly ballooning budget. For once, there is a price to be paid, if only temporarily, for helping build a perfect, seamless, borderless surveillance society. The companies will deny it. At the same time, they’ll be looking for solutions. China, Russia, and Brazil are too important to just get kicked out of – and other countries might follow suit.
In September, IBM announced that it would throw another billion at Linux, the open-source operating system, to run its Power System servers – the same that China had stopped buying. It seems IBM was trying to make hay of the NSA revelations that had tangled up American operating system makers. Linux, free of NSA influence, would be a huge competitive advantage for IBM. Or so it would seem. Read.... The Other Reason Why IBM Throws A Billion At Linux (With NSA- Designed Backdoor)

 http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-10-17/nsa-revelations-kill-ibm-hardware-sales-china

China Opens Capital Markets as U.K. Taps Overseas Yuan Business

The U.K. joined Hong Kong and Taiwan in being allowed by China to take part in a program allowing offshore yuan to be invested in Chinese securities, a move that bolsters efforts to internationalize the currency.
China approved an 80 billion yuan ($13 billion) quota for investors in London to buy onshore assets under the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said at a briefing in Beijing yesterday. The deal was part of a series of agreements signed during Osborne’s trip, which include direct trading between the yuan and pound and allowing Chinese lenders to open wholesale-banking branches in the U.K. capital.
People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan is opening up the nation’s capital markets as he seeks a greater role for the yuan in global trade and investment. Shanghai inaugurated a pilot free-trade zone last month that will allow trials of yuan convertibility under the capital account and permit overseas companies to sell debt denominated in the local currency.
“This is another sign that Governor Zhou has high level support to move forward with efforts to internationalize the yuan as a way to catalyze other reforms such as opening up the capital account,” David Loevinger, former U.S. Treasury Department senior coordinator for China affairs and now an emerging-market analyst at TCW Group Inc., said in an interview from Los Angeles yesterday. “Clearly, the establishment and growth of RQFII are the most noticeable changes. This is a direction they want to head in.”

Frankfurt, Paris

China started the program in 2011 as a way to encourage greater worldwide usage of yuan, allowing investors holding the currency overseas to buy domestic bonds, stocks and money-market instruments. Regulators said in July they would expand it beyond Hong Kong and Taiwan to the U.K. and Singapore.
“RMB internationalization clearly is a part of overall strategy of financial reforms, which is high on the agenda,” said Jahangir Aziz, head of emerging Asia economic research at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a phone interview from Washington yesterday. “People shouldn’t be surprised by China’s opening up of its financial sector.”
Yesterday’s agreements make the pound the fourth major currency to have direct trading links with the yuan, after the dollar, Japan’s yen and Australia’s dollar, putting London ahead of Frankfurt and Paris in a bid to become Europe’s hub for the Chinese currency.
In June, the Bank of England became the first among European central banks to establish a currency-swap facility with China, supporting yuan users by providing liquidity when needed.

‘Western Hub’

Osborne said yesterday that further agreements on yuan settlement and clearing are planned. Talks will begin to enable Chinese banks to establish wholesale branches in the U.K. for the first time, allowing them to scale-up their business activities, Osborne said.
In a Twitter posting yesterday, Osborne said Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s biggest bank by market value, will become the first Chinese bank to issue yuan-denominated bonds in London. The Chinese lender will sell bonds next month, according to the post.
“My ambition is to make sure London is the western hub for yuan business,” Osborne said at yesterday’s briefing. “More trade and more investment means more business and more jobs for Britain.”
China’s currency has become the ninth most-actively traded in the world, up from 17th in 2010, according to a September report by the Bank for International Settlements.

36% Rally

The yuan touched 6.1007 per dollar yesterday in Shanghai, the strongest since the government unified official and market exchange rates at the end of 1993. The currency has strengthened 36 percent against the dollar and 47 percent versus the pound since a peg to the U.S. currency was scrapped in July 2005.
The daily value of yuan trading in London now stands at about $5 billion a day, double the daily volume in 2012, Osborne said, citing data by HSBC Holdings Plc. HSBC forecast in March that the currency will be fully convertible within five years and that a third of China’s total trade will be settled in yuan by 2015, making it one of the top three global trade settlement currencies by volume.
The nation’s 25.4 trillion yuan onshore bond market offers more choice, better liquidity and higher yields than are available in Hong Kong, where there is 253 billion yuan of Dim Sum debt outstanding, according to data compiled by Bank of China. Ten-year government bonds yielded 4.07 percent in Shanghai yesterday, compared with 3.67 percent in Hong Kong.
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story:
Henry Sanderson in Beijing at hsanderson@bloomberg.net; Fion Li in Hong Kong at fli59@bloomberg.net Ye Xie in New York at yxie6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daliah Merzaban at dmerzaban@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-15/china-u-k-agree-on-yuan-pound-direct-trading-investment-quota.html 

2nd source confirms Chase capital controls

(NaturalNews) I admit that when I saw today's breaking news on InfoWars.com about Chase Bank limiting cash withdrawals and banning international wire transfers, I was skeptical. Many readers didn't believe it, either. So just to check it out, I called my own accounting team to ask if we had received a similar letter from Chase, announcing that no international wire transfers would be allowed after Nov. 17th.

Sure enough, we were sent the same letter! I've posted a JPG image of the letter below so you can read it for yourself.

Or Click here to see the hi-res scan of this letter. This is the letter that we received directly from Chase. This is not secondhand information.

The letter clearly states that beginning November 17:

• All international wire transfers will be disallowed.

• All cash activity, including cash withdrawals and deposits, will be halted at "$50,000 per statement cycle." How are businesses who deal with a lot of cash (such as restaurants) supposed to function under such restrictions?

Chase Bank representatives told Natural News "everything is fine"

We called and spoke with Chase Bank to ask why these capital controls were being implemented on November 17th.

Their response was that these changes were being implemented "to better serve our customers." They did not explain how blocking all international wire transfers would "better serve" their customers, however.

Chase Bank specifically denied any knowledge of problems with cash on hand, or government debt or any such issue. They basically downplayed the entire issue and had no answers for why capital controls were suddenly being put into place.

Dropping the hammer on capital controls

This is the beginning of the capital controls we've been warning about for years. Throughout history, when governments are on the brink of financial default, they begin limiting capital controls in exactly the way we are seeing here.

Following that, governments typically seize government pension funds, meaning the outright theft of pensions for cops, government workers, etc., is probably just around the corner.

Finally, the last act of desperation by governments facing financial default is to seize private funds from banks, Cyprus-style. The precedent for this has already been set in Cyprus, and when that happened, I was among many who openly predicted it would spread to the United States.

This is happening, folks! The capital controls begin on November 17th. The bank runs may follow soon thereafter. Chase Bank is now admitting that you cannot use your own money that you've deposited there.

This is clearly stemming from a government policy that is requiring banks to prevent cash from leaving the United States. Such policies are only put into place when a huge financial default event is expected.

More updates to follow. Stay tuned to Natural News for intelligent analysis of why this is happening. We are already receiving word that this may have something to do with the "Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act" and we are looking into it further.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/042529_Chase_bank_capital_controls_financial_red_alert.html#ixzz2hw7MA2ib

Chase Bank Limits Cash Withdrawals, Bans International Wire Transfers

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
October 16, 2013

Chase Bank has moved to limit cash withdrawals while banning business customers from sending international wire transfers from November 17 onwards, prompting speculation that the bank is preparing for a looming financial crisis in the United States.

Numerous business customers with Chase BusinessSelect Checking and Chase BusinessClassic accounts have received letters over the past week informing them that cash activity (both deposits and withdrawals) will be limited to a $50,000 total per statement cycle from November 17 onwards.

The letter reads;

Dear Business Customer,

Starting November 17, 2013:

- You will no longer be able to send international wire transfers. You will still be able to send domestic wires and receive both domestic and international wires. We’ll cancel any international wire transfers, including reccurring ones, you scheduled to be sent after this date.

- Your cash activity limit for these accounts(s) will be $50,000 per statement cycle, per account. Cash activity is the combined total of cash deposits made at branches, night drops and ATMs and cash withdrawals made at branches (including purchases of money orders) and ATMs.

These changes will help us more effectively manage the risks involved with these types of transactions.

Another letter (PDF) received by Peak to Peak Charter School, a college in Colorado, states that the option to send both international and domestic wire transfers has been withdrawn from Chase business savings account holders.

Shortly after we posted this story, other Chase business customers confirmed they had also received similar or identical letters.

“I’m a Chase customer with both of the type accounts mentioned and got the letter posted,” wrote one.

“I have been a loyal customer of Chase for 11 years and I received the letter for my business and when I called about this I was told basically piss off and find another bank!” added another.

Chase is obviously very keen to make it hard for their customers to have any kind of control over their savings and is trying to prevent them from sending dollars abroad, prompting concerns that Cyprus-style account gouging could occur in America.

The move to limit deposits and withdrawals while banning international wire transfers altogether is a bizarre policy and will cripple many small and medium-sized businesses with Chase accounts. Buying stock from abroad in any kind of quantity will now become impossible for many companies, while paying employees will also be a headache.

Why has Chase announced such a ludicrous and restrictive policy change and is it related to the potential for a US debt default?

Speculation is rife that the bank is preparing for some kind of economic crisis by “locking down” its customers’ money. Although most still expect a deal to be struck to prevent a US debt default, its impact would “shake financial markets to a degree not seen since the Great Depression,” according to experts.

Others fear the move to restrict international wire transfers is part of a plan to protect against a near-future collapse of the US dollar.

Whatever the truth behind the policy change, Chase really needs to publicly explain its reasoning in order to quell the speculation.

The bank’s reputation was already under scrutiny after an incident earlier this year where Chase Bank customers across the country attempted to withdraw cash from ATMs only to see that their account balance had been reduced to zero. The problem, which Chase attributed to a technical glitch, lasted for hours before it was fixed, prompting panic from some customers.

Earlier this month it was also reported that two of the biggest banks in America were stuffing their ATMs with 20-30 per cent more cash than usual in order to head off a potential bank run if the US defaults on its debt.

The image below shows another example of a Chase business customer receiving the same letter.

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*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

http://www.infowars.com/chase-bank-limits-cash-withdrawals-bans-international-wire-transfers/

Definition of an Eligible Contract Participant

(18) Eligible contract participant

The term “eligible contract participant” means—

(A) acting for its own account—

(i) a financial institution;

(ii) an insurance company that is regulated by a State, or that is regulated by a foreign government and is subject to comparable regulation as determined by the Commission, including a regulated subsidiary or affiliate of such an insurance company;

(iii) an investment company subject to regulation under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a–1 et seq.) or a foreign person performing a similar role or function subject as such to foreign regulation (regardless of whether each investor in the investment company or the foreign person is itself an eligible contract participant);

(iv) a commodity pool that—

(I) has total assets exceeding $5,000,000; and

(II) is formed and operated by a person subject to regulation under this chapter or a foreign person performing a similar role or function subject as such to foreign regulation (regardless of whether each investor in the commodity pool or the foreign person is itself an eligible contract participant) provided, however, that for purposes of section 2 (c)(2)(B)(vi) of this title and section 2 (c)(2)(C)(vii) of this title, the term “eligible contract participant” shall not include a commodity pool in which any participant is not otherwise an eligible contract participant;

(v) a corporation, partnership, proprietorship, organization, trust, or other entity—

(I) that has total assets exceeding $10,000,000;

(II) the obligations of which under an agreement, contract, or transaction are guaranteed or otherwise supported by a letter of credit or keepwell, support, or other agreement by an entity described in subclause (I), in clause (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), or (vii), or in subparagraph (C); or

(III) that—

(aa) has a net worth exceeding $1,000,000; and

(bb) enters into an agreement, contract, or transaction in connection with the conduct of the entity’s business or to manage the risk associated with an asset or liability owned or incurred or reasonably likely to be owned or incurred by the entity in the conduct of the entity’s business;

(vi) an employee benefit plan subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.), a governmental employee benefit plan, or a foreign person performing a similar role or function subject as such to foreign regulation—

(I) that has total assets exceeding $5,000,000; or

(II) the investment decisions of which are made by—

(aa) an investment adviser or commodity trading advisor subject to regulation under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80b–1 et seq.) or this chapter;

(bb) a foreign person performing a similar role or function subject as such to foreign regulation;

(cc) a financial institution; or

(dd) an insurance company described in clause (ii), or a regulated subsidiary or affiliate of such an insurance company;

(vii)

(I) a governmental entity (including the United States, a State, or a foreign government) or political subdivision of a governmental entity;

(II) a multinational or supranational government entity; or

(III) an instrumentality, agency, or department of an entity described in subclause (I) or (II);  except that such term does not include an entity, instrumentality, agency, or department referred to in subclause (I) or (III) of this clause unless (aa) the entity, instrumentality, agency, or department is a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of paragraph (17)(A); (bb) the entity, instrumentality, agency, or department owns and invests on a discretionary basis $50,000,000 or more in investments; or (cc) the agreement, contract, or transaction is offered by, and entered into with, an entity that is listed in any of subclauses (I) through (VI) of section 2 (c)(2)(B)(ii) of this title;

(viii)

(I) a broker or dealer subject to regulation under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78a et seq.) or a foreign person performing a similar role or function subject as such to foreign regulation, except that, if the broker or dealer or foreign person is a natural person or proprietorship, the broker or dealer or foreign person shall not be considered to be an eligible contract participant unless the broker or dealer or foreign person also meets the requirements of clause (v) or (xi);

(II) an associated person of a registered broker or dealer concerning the financial or securities activities of which the registered person makes and keeps records under section 15C(b) or 17(h) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78o–5 (b), 78q (h));

(III) an investment bank holding company (as defined in section 17(i)  ^[2] of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78q (i));  ^[3]

(ix) a futures commission merchant subject to regulation under this chapter or a foreign person performing a similar role or function subject as such to foreign regulation, except that, if the futures commission merchant or foreign person is a natural person or proprietorship, the futures commission merchant or foreign person shall not be considered to be an eligible contract participant unless the futures commission merchant or foreign person also meets the requirements of clause (v) or (xi);

(x) a floor broker or floor trader subject to regulation under this chapter in connection with any transaction that takes place on or through the facilities of a registered entity (other than an electronic trading facility with respect to a significant price discovery contract) or an exempt board of trade, or any affiliate thereof, on which such person regularly trades; or

(xi) an individual who has amounts invested on a discretionary basis, the aggregate of which is in excess of—

(I) $10,000,000; or

(II) $5,000,000 and who enters into the agreement, contract, or transaction in order to manage the risk associated with an asset owned or liability incurred, or reasonably likely to be owned or incurred, by the individual;

(B)

(i) a person described in clause (i), (ii), (iv), (v), (viii), (ix), or (x) of subparagraph (A) or in subparagraph (C), acting as broker or performing an equivalent agency function on behalf of another person described in subparagraph (A) or (C); or

(ii) an investment adviser subject to regulation under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 [15 U.S.C. 80b–1 et seq.], a commodity trading advisor subject to regulation under this chapter, a foreign person performing a similar role or function subject as such to foreign regulation, or a person described in clause (i), (ii), (iv), (v), (viii), (ix), or (x) of subparagraph (A) or in subparagraph (C), in any such case acting as investment manager or fiduciary (but excluding a person acting as broker or performing an equivalent agency function) for another person described in subparagraph (A) or (C) and who is authorized by such person to commit such person to the transaction; or

(C) any other person that the Commission determines to be eligible in light of the financial or other qualifications of the person. 

 

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/1a 

NFA fines Salt Lake City firm Interbank FX LLC $600,000

NFA fines Salt Lake City firm Interbank FX LLC $600,000 for failure to report trade data and failure to keep accurate books and records

October 15, Chicago - National Futures Association (NFA) has issued a $600,000 fine against Interbank FX LLC (Interbank), a registered futures commission merchant, Forex Dealer Member and retail foreign exchange dealer Member of NFA located in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Decision, issued by NFA's Business Conduct Committee (Committee), is based on a Complaint filed on October 15, 2013 and a settlement offer submitted by Interbank.

The Committee found that for most of calendar year 2011 Interbank failed to report certain trade execution data to NFA through the Forex Transaction Reporting Execution Surveillance System (Fortress). The Committee also found that during an NFA investigation focused on Interbank's activities throughout 2010 and 2011, NFA was unable to fully evaluate the firm's trade execution practices due to recordkeeping deficiencies at Interbank.

Interbank neither admitted nor denied the allegations.

The complete text of the Complaint and Decision can be found on NFA's website at www.nfa.futures.org.

http://www.nfa.futures.org/news/newsRel.asp?ArticleID=4320

Fed Gets Bigger in Markets as QE Prompts New Tools

By Caroline Salas Gage and Liz Capo McCormick - Oct 14, 2013

The Federal Reserve is getting more involved in debt markets as it tries to compensate for the impact of its almost $4 trillion balance sheet on short-term interest rates.
Policy makers are testing a new tool intended to improve their control of near-term borrowing costs. The facility would allow banks, broker-dealers, money-market funds and some government-sponsored enterprises to lend the Fed unlimited amounts of cash overnight at a fixed rate in exchange for borrowing Treasuries in so-called reverse repo transactions.
The facility is the latest innovation from a central bank that has participated on an unprecedented scale in U.S. debt markets since the credit crisis began in 2007. It’s designed to help policy makers -- buying $85 billion of bonds a month -- siphon off excess cash in the banking system when they begin to tighten policy. Three rounds of so-called quantitative easing have enlarged the Fed’s balance sheet to almost $3.8 trillion.
The new tool -- called the fixed-rate, full-allotment overnight reverse repo facility -- also is aimed at helping Fed officials address distortions in the market caused by their securities purchases.
“It will serve to put whatever floor they want under rates,” said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. “You’re providing pretty broad-based access to Fed balances as an investment option.”

Limited Effect

While the Fed gained the ability in 2008 to pay interest on cash it holds in the form of excess bank reserves, that tool has limited effect in anchoring borrowing costs because only banks could park their funds at the central bank, Crandall said. By now offering to pay a fixed rate to a wider range of counterparties for their cash overnight, policy makers should be able to improve their control of near-term rates, he said.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been testing the tool since last month. It is the branch of the Fed that implements monetary policy, such as by purchasing securities it holds in the so-called System Open Market Account.
“By offering a new, essentially risk-free investment, one would expect that anyone with access to such a facility would generally be unwilling to lend instead to someone else” at a lower rate, New York Fed President William C. Dudley said in a speech in New York Sept. 23.
Securities dealers use repos to finance holdings and increase leverage. Money-market mutual funds, the primary cash providers in the repo market, use the agreements as a means to earn interest on cash through short-term, lower-risk investments.

Beneficial Source

“When the Fed’s facility becomes fully functional, we think that is going to become a really beneficial source of high-quality supply that money-market funds are hopefully going to be very involved in,” said Peter Yi, director of short-duration fixed income at Northern Trust Corp., which has $803 billion in assets under management. “That has been one of the bigger game changers in terms of what can help the supply story in the future. Since it’s a fixed-rate facility, the Fed is going to be able to have pretty meaningful control over short-term rates and keep volatility around them more contained.”
Rates on some Treasury bills and in the repo market slid below zero as the Fed’s three QE programs reduced the amount of government debt available. At the same time, heightened regulations that require banks to boost their capital have increased demand for so-called risk-free assets such as Treasuries.

Negative Zone

Treasury bills that mature in a month traded close to zero percent between the start of May and the end of September, falling into the negative zone several times including as recently as Sept. 27. Yields surged last week to the highest since 2008, ending at 0.2484 percent, as investors shunned securities at risk of default while Congress struggled to reach an agreement that would lift the debt ceiling.
Under QE, policy makers direct the markets desk at the New York Fed to buy securities from primary dealers, or brokers who are authorized to trade directly with the central bank. That adds funds to the dealers’ accounts and creates reserves at their clearing banks. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Feb. 27 that the central bank may not sell the bonds on its balance sheet as part of its eventual exit from unprecedented stimulus.
With “the amount of bonds that have been piling up on the Fed’s System Open Market Account” there “has been a collateral shortage,” said Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research LLC in Chicago. “What worries me about the Fed is that in reacting to the fact that their actions have created an unintended consequence in a free market, instead of saying ‘Oh, maybe we ought to re-think these actions,’ their answer is ‘No, we’ll go manipulate that problem now.’ Where does this end?”

Higher Yields

The rate for borrowing and lending Treasuries for one day in the repo market averaged 0.058 percent between June 30 and the end of September, compared with 0.29 percent at the end of last year, according to the Deposit Trust & Clearing Corp. General Collateral Finance Treasury Repo Index. The rate followed Treasury bill yields higher last week on concerns that the U.S. might not make required payments on some debt securities later this month. The DTCC repo rate was 0.176 percent on Oct. 11.
Repo and Treasury bill yields have fallen most of this year, even as policy makers have kept the target for the federal funds rate locked in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.
The new facility the Fed is testing is intended to “establish a floor on money-market rates and to improve the implementation of monetary policy even when the balance sheet is large,” Dudley said Sept. 23.

‘Risk-Free Asset’

Allowing the Fed to lend unlimited amounts of cash under the facility “would increase the availability of a risk-free asset, satisfying the demand when the appetite for safe assets increases,” Dudley said. “This should help tighten the relationship between these and other money-market rates.”
Short-term debt markets often have shown borrowing costs below the 0.25 percent interest banks can earn on cash they hold at the Fed.
The federal funds effective rate -- the average daily market rate on overnight loans between banks -- was 0.09 percent on Oct. 10 and has traded below the interest rate on reserves for four years. That distortion is in part because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance companies under government control, became “significant sellers” of funds in the overnight market and aren’t eligible to place cash on deposit at the Fed, according to a December 2009 research paper by the New York district bank.

Crashing Below

“The Fed is not allowed to pay a deposit rate to non-banks, but with the repo facility it can pay an interest rate” on their cash to prevent borrowing costs “from crashing too low below the target,” said Michael Cloherty, head of U.S. interest-rate strategy in New York at Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC Capital Markets unit, one of 21 firms that trade directly with the Fed.
The facility is the latest step in policy makers’ preparations for eventual withdrawal of record monetary stimulus. The Fed has been expanding its tri-party reverse repo counterparties beyond primary dealers since 2010 to shore up its ability to drain this liquidity. In these arrangements, a third party acts as the agent for the transaction and holds the security as collateral. The Fed now has 139 counterparties: 94 money-market mutual funds, six government-sponsored entities, 18 banks and its 21 primary dealers.

‘Decent’ Control

“This is just one more tool and they’ve got a number of tools now,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “They will have a reasonably decent amount of control when the time comes.”
Dudley said the central bank is testing the facility to make sure there are “no glitches” and to observe how it “impacts individual investor demand relative to other market rates.” Dudley said Fed officials also will “see how sensitive that demand is to changes in market conditions, such as quarter-end, that increase the demand for safe assets.”
The New York Fed has removed an average of $8.74 billion a day from the banking system through 15 tests of the fixed-rate reverse-repo facility that began Sept. 23. The maximum bid for such transactions, which may run through Jan. 29, was raised to $1 billion on Sept. 27 from $500 million originally. Ultimately, the facility is intended to have no limit on the amount.
The peak of reverse repos allocated and counterparty usage in any of the daily operations so far came on Sept. 30 as banks and funds sought to park cash safely to shore up their balance sheets at the end of the quarter. The New York Fed drained $58.2 billion from the banking system that day, with 87 out of the 139 possible counterparties using the program.

Balance-Sheet Strains

“When you end up seeing participation of $50 billion or more, then you’re talking about something that is actually relieving a few of the balance-sheet strains on days when the market is particularly tight,” Crandall said. “It’s intended to be more than just a plumbing test.”
Given the scarcity of Treasuries in repo markets because of the Fed’s debt purchases, the amount of securities primary dealers borrow daily from the central bank has risen this year. When securities are hard to obtain in the repo market, dealers can go to the New York Fed to borrow the debt. The central bank’s lending of Treasury notes and bonds averaged $15.1 billion a day this year, compared with an average of $10.5 billion last year, Fed data show.
The new facility increases the Fed’s power to control short-term funding rates and address dysfunctions caused by its bloated balance sheet, according to Joe Abate, a money-market strategist in New York at Barclays Plc. That will lead to an exit that is “more smooth than people expect.”
“At the end of the day, reserves will not matter,” Abate said. “The Fed will have basically drawn a line in the sand because the Fed will have said it will absorb any amount at this fixed rate. That is significant.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Caroline Salas Gage in New York at csalas1@bloomberg.net; Liz Capo McCormick in New York at emccormick7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net; Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2013-10-14/fed-gets-bigger-in-markets-as-qe-prompts-new-tools.html 

22 Reasons To Be Concerned About The U.S. Economy As We Head Into The Holiday Season

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog [11],
Are we on the verge of another major economic downturn?  In recent weeks, most of the focus has been on our politicians in Washington, but there are lots of other reasons to be deeply alarmed about the economy as well.  Economic confidence is down, retail sales figures are disappointing, job cuts are up, and American consumers are deeply struggling.  Even if our politicians do everything right, there would still be a significant chance that we could be heading into tough economic times in the coming months. 
Our economy has been in decline for a very long time, and that decline appears to be accelerating.  There aren't enough jobs, the quality of our jobs continues to decline, our economic infrastructure is being systematically gutted, and poverty has been absolutely exploding.  Things have gotten so bad that former President Jimmy Carter says that the middle class of today resembles those that were living in poverty when he was in the White House.  But this process has been happening so gradually that most Americans don't even realize what has happened.  Our economy is being fundamentally transformed, and the pace of our decline is picking up speed.  The following are 22 reasons to be concerned about the U.S. economy as we head into the holiday season...
#1 According to Gallup [12], we have just seen the largest drop in U.S. economic confidence since 2008.
#2 Retailers all over America are reporting disappointing sales figures, and many analysts are very concerned about what the holiday season will bring.  The following is an excerpt from a recent Zero Hedge article [13]...

Chico’s FAS [CHS] Earnings Call 8/28/13:

“Traffic was our issue in quarter two. In a highly promotional and challenging environment, comparable sales result was a negative 2.6 percent on top of a positive 5.6 percent last year and a positive 12.8 percent in 2011.”

William-Sonoma [WSM] Earnings Call 8/28/13:

“The retail environment, it seems to indicate there’s still a lot of uncertainty out there, that the promotional environment has not gone away and that the retail environment in general continues to be choppy, especially with the recent earnings releases and this global unrest, and we just don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”

Zale Corp [ZLC] Earnings Call 8/28/13:

“Overall, we continue to take a conservative view of market conditions in both the U.S. and in Canada. That being said, we do expect to continue to achieve positive top line growth. We expect store closures will impact our overall revenue growth for the year by about 250 basis points. It represents net closures of approximately 50 to 55 retail locations.”

DSW Inc. [DSW] Earnings Call 8/27/13:

“We did have a traffic decline in Q2, sort of similar to what just about every other retailer in America has reported.”

Guess? [GES] Earnings Call 8/28/13:

“The Korean business continued to be strong as revenue grew in the high single digits in local currency during the quarter. This was offset with the weakness from China, where we are seeing clear evidence of a pullback in consumer spending behavior because of the slowdown in the economy.”

Aeropostale [ARO] Earnings Call 8/22/13:

“Our business trends in the second quarter did not change materially from earlier in the year, which was disappointing given the level of change we registered with the brand. This performance in the third quarter outlook is being influenced by a challenging retail environment, with weak traffic trends and high levels of promotional activity.”

#3 Domestic vehicle sales just experienced their largest "miss" relative to expectations since January 2009 [14].
#4 One of the largest furniture manufacturers in America was recently forced into bankruptcy [15].
#5 According to the Wall Street Journal, the 2013 holiday shopping season is already being projected to be the worst that we have seen since 2009 [16].
#6 The Baltic Dry Index recently experienced the largest 4 day drop that we have seen in 11 months [17].
#7 Merck, one of the largest drug makers in the nation, has announced the elimination of 8,500 jobs [18].
#8 Overall, corporations announced the elimination of 387,384 jobs [19] through the first nine months of this year.
#9 The number of announced job cuts in September 2013 was 19 percent higher [19] than the number of announced job cuts in September 2012.
#10 The labor force participation rate is the lowest that it has been in 35 years [20].
#11 As I mentioned the other day [21], the labor force participation rate for men in the 18 to 24 year old age bracket is at an all-time low [22].
#12 Approximately one out of every four [23] part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.
#13 Incredibly, only 47 percent [24] of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.
#14 U.S. consumer delinquencies are starting to rise again [25].
#15 The Postal Service recently defaulted [26] on a 5.6 billion dollar retiree health benefit payment.
#16 The national debt has increased more than twice as fast [27] as U.S. GDP has grown over the past two years.
#17 Obamacare is causing health insurance premiums to skyrocket [28] and this is reducing the disposable income that consumers have available.
#18 Median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row [29].
#19 The gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is at an all-time record high [30].
#20 Former President Jimmy Carter says that the middle class in America has declined so dramatically that the middle class of today resembles those that were living in poverty when he was in the White House [31].
#21 According to a Gallup poll [32] that was recently released, 20.0% of all Americans did not have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed at some point over the past year.  That is just under the record of 20.4% that was set back in November 2008.
#22 Right now, one out of every five [33] households in the United States is on food stamps.  There are going to be a lot of struggling families out there this winter, so please be generous with organizations that help the poor.  A lot of people are really going to need their help during the cold months ahead.