Friday, August 20, 2010

CIA forms new center to combat nukes, WMDs

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100819/D9HM8F100.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA is opening a counterproliferation center to combat the spread of dangerous weapons and technology, a move that comes as Iran is on the verge of fueling up a new nuclear power plant.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday that the new unit would place CIA operators side by side with the agency's analysts to brainstorm plans to "confront the threat of weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical and biological."

The center would formalize the collaboration between the agency's analysts and operators, a close working relationship that CIA spokesman George Little said already has yielded intelligence successes.

Little cited their work in last year's revelation of the "discovery of the Syrian covert nuclear reactor and Iran's undeclared uranium enrichment facility near Qom." That Iranian city is the ideological center of Iran's Shiite rulers.

Paul Brannan, a senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security, said another CIA success was the slowing down of Iran's nuclear centrifuge operations at Natanz. The agency, he said, sneaked "faulty parts into Iran's nuclear supply chain."

That operation, Brannan said, "is an example of where you'd need both analysts to tell you what type of parts would Iran need that you could inject, and the operations side to work with trading companies to try to get the parts in there."

Active ISO Burner Freeware

http://download.cnet.com/Active-ISO-Burner/3000-2646_4-10602452.html
Active ISO Burner will allow you to burn an ISO image file to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+R DL(Dual Layer), DVD-RW and DVD+RW (including double layer, DL). Active@ ISO Burner software accepts command line parameters to automate ISO images burning process.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

MT4 on the decline? Crashing build 226 unresolved

http://eesfx.com/portal/17-ees-customer-support-requests/163-mt4-crashing-8192010.html#163 Posted support ticket on eesfx.com customer support forums

http://forum.mql4.com/34560

Last week, the number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance rose for the third time in a row, to 500,000

http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/19/news/economy/initial_claims/index.htm
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A government report Thursday brought bad news for workers and the economy: The number of unemployed Americans seeking a financial lifeline has reached its highest level in nine months.

Last week, the number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance rose for the third time in a row, to 500,000, according to a Labor Department report released Thursday.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Google suggests name changes to escape misspent youth

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-change-names-to-escape-cyber-past-warns-Googles-Eric-Schmidt.html
Eric Schmidt suggested that young people should be entitled to change their identity to escape their misspent youth, which is now recorded in excruciating detail on social networking sites such as Facebook.

"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," Mr Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The Federal Reserve is undertaking a "dangerous gamble"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38693128

The Federal Reserve is undertaking a "dangerous gamble" by keeping rates at near zero for so long, and must start raising rates or risk damaging the nascent U.S. recovery, a top Federal Reserve official said on Friday.

 
 

"To be clear, I am not advocating a tight monetary policy," Kansas City Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig said in the text of a speech to the Lincoln, Nebraska, Chamber of Commerce. "I am advocating a policy that remains accommodative but slowly firms as the economy itself expands and moves toward more balance."

Hoenig has been the lone dissenter on the Fed's policy-setting panel, which on Tuesday repeated the U.S. central bank's pledge to keep interest rates extraordinarily low for an "extended period."

The Fed took the further step of saying it would begin reinvesting cash from maturing mortgage bonds to buy more government debt. The decision reflected the Fed's concern over the 

slowdown in the economic recovery it helped bring about by cutting rates to near zero in December 2008 and buying nearly $1.3 trillion in mortgage-linked debt to shore up the housing market.

However, Hoenig said Friday he believes the economy "barring specific shocks and bad policy ...should continue to grow over the next several quarters."

The Fed should raise its short-term target to 1 percent, pause to wait for the economy to adjust, and then raise it to 2 percent once it is clear the recovery is on a reasonable growth path, he said, repeating a proposal he has made before.

"I believe that zero rates during a period of modest growth are a dangerous gamble," Hoenig said Friday.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

QE2 signals economic collapse

http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/11/news/economy/economic_collapse_GDP_unemployment.fortune/

FORTUNE -- The Great Depression. Wall Street in 1987. Japan in 1997. Points of economic collapse are generally crystal clear in the rear-view mirror. Professional politicians in Japan have been telling stories for 20 years as to why they can prevent economic stagnation. In the US, the storytelling started in 2007. All the while, stock market and real-estate prices have repeatedly rallied to lower-highs, then collapsed again, to lower-lows.

Despite the many differences between Japan and the US, there is one similarity that continues to matter most in the risk management model my colleagues and I use at Hedgeye, our research firm -- debt as a percentage of GDP. Now that the US can't cut interest rates any lower, the only option left on the table is what the Fed just announced it would start doing -- buying Treasury debt. And that could lead the country to the brink of collapse: According to economists Carmen Reinhart & Ken Rogoff, whose views we share, crossing the 90% debt/GDP threshold is the equivalent of crossing the proverbial Rubicon of economic growth. It's a point from which it's almost impossible to return.


 

On July 2nd, we cut both our third quarter 2010 and full year 2011 GDP estimates for the US to 1.7%. At the time, the consensus around US economic growth estimates was about 3%. Now we're starting to see both big brokerage analysts and the Federal Reserve gradually cut their GDP estimates, but not by enough. Even our estimate for 2011 is still too high.

Slowing growth, both domestically and in China, is core to our bearish views on both the strength of the US dollar and US equities. There will be a downward bias to our US growth estimates as long as debt-financed-deficit-spending continues to be the solution politicians and central bankers turn to as a fix to our financial crisis.

Markets trade on expectations. Yesterday's zig-zag in the S&P 500 was unlike most sleepy August trading days in America. That's because the 'government is good' crowd leaked word that this second round of "quantitative easing," known as QE2, was coming, and that Ben Bernanke was going to respond to our buy-and-hope begging. (The first round of quantitative easing was the Fed's unprecedented purchase of agency debt to prop up the housing market, along with credit facilities for big banks, which began in 2008 and ended earlier this year.)

To think that we have institutionalized market expectations to this degree is downright frightening. It seems impossible but true that all rallies start and end with rumors about what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a humble looking man of government, had to say at 2:15 PM EST yesterday afternoon, or any other day he makes a statement.

So now what?

With 40.8 million Americans on food stamps (record high) and 45% of the unemployed having been seeking employment for 27 weeks or more (record high), what's left if (or when) QE2 doesn't kick start GDP growth? Should we start begging for QE3? Should we cancel the bomb of the National Association of Realtors' existing home sales report, scheduled for public release on August 24th? Or should we bite the bullet and accept that current economic policy dictates 0% returns-on-savings, even as Washington continues to lever-up our future to the point of economic collapse?

Before the Fiat Fools -- Hedgeye's name for political actors and bankers who have placed their hopes of economic recovery in printing endless supplies of new cash -- run out campaigning for QE3, maybe they should analyze some real time market results to yesterday's announcement of QE2:

1)The US dollar is battling for resuscitation after 9 consecutive down weeks -- down 9% since June.

2) US Treasury yields are making record lows on the short end of the curve, with 2-year yields striking 0.49%.

3) The yield spread (in this case the difference in return between 10-year and 2-year Treasury bills, which shows a long-term confidence when high) continues to collapse, down another 4 basis point day-over-day to 223 basis points.

4) The S&P 500 is down below its 200-day moving average (a common signpost for the health of a market or stock) of 1115.

5) US Volatility (VIX) is spiking from its recent stability.

6) In Japan, long time quantitative easing specialists found their markets closing down overnight by 2.7%, which makes them down 11.9% for the year to date.

Lest our doom and gloom seem built entirely on technical measurements, what they boil down to is actually quite simple -- an idea about our country which dates back to 1835. Alexis De Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, which was published that year, seemed to warn of this day when he wrote: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

-- Keith R. McCullough is CEO of Hedgeye, a research firm based in New Haven, Conn. 

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Taleb betting on the collapse of government bonds

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/-black-swan-author-taleb-says-he-bets-on-collapse-of-government-bonds.html

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who warned that unforeseen events can roil markets in "The Black Swan," said he is "betting on the collapse of government bonds" and that investors should avoid stocks.

"I'm very pessimistic," he said at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in Johannesburg today. "By staying in cash or hedging against inflation, you won't regret it in two years."

Treasuries have rallied amid speculation the global economic recovery is faltering, driving yields on two-year notes to a record low of 0.4892 percent today. The Federal Reserve yesterday reversed plans to exit from monetary stimulus and decided to keep its bond holdings level to support an economic recovery it described as weaker than anticipated. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index retreated 16 percent between April 23 and July 2, the biggest slump during the bull market.


 

Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.

Let's get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.

What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/u-s-is-bankrupt-and-we-don-t-even-know-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html

Thousands of online banking customers have accounts emptied by 'most dangerous trojan virus ever created'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1302062/New-trojan-virus-Zeus-v3-empties-online-bank-accounts.html#ixzz0wJhjn8Yl

Thousands of online banking customers have accounts emptied by 'most dangerous trojan virus ever created'

Read more: 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1302062/New-trojan-virus-Zeus-v3-empties-online-bank-accounts.html#ixzz0wJuVG4kE

Monday, July 19, 2010

3.26% Guaranteed by US Government

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-19/treasury-futures-rise-a-fourth-day-as-slowing-growth-boosts-safety-demand.html Treasury 10-year futures contracts held gains from a three-day rally as economists said reports this week will show U.S. housing starts fell and a measure of the outlook for economic growth declined.

Two-year yields were near a record low as declines in stocks around the world boosted demand for the relative safety of government debt. The difference between yields on 10-year notes and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, a gauge of expectations for consumer prices, narrowed to 1.71 percentage points, three basis points away from a nine-month low.

"U.S. Treasuries are still attractive," said Sungjin Park, who helps oversee the equivalent of $51 billion in debt assets as head of fixed income in Seoul at Samsung Investment Trust Management, South Korea's largest private investor. "A double- dip recession is inevitable" in the U.S., he said.

The implied yield on 10-year futures contracts for September delivery was little changed 3.26 percent as of 10:47 a.m. in Singapore, based on electronic transactions at the Chicago Board of Trade. The price was 123 7/32.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Finance ‘experts’ wish for Forex Tax

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/18/tobin-tax-financial-transactions

Finance experts call for 'Tobin tax' on foreign exchange trades

• Levy of 0.005% on $1m foreign exchange deal would be $50

• Billions of transactions a year would raise about $33bn

http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/

CLS 3rd Party Participant list:

http://www.cls-group.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/TP%20List.pdf

Survey finds discrepancy in Unemployment figures: Real unemployment 22%, 28%

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/what-is-the-real-unemployment-rate/19556146/ Raghavan Mayur, president at TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, follows unemployment data closely. So, when his survey for May revealed that 28% of the 1,000-odd households surveyed reported that at least one member was looking for a full-time job, he was flummoxed.