Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Where does Romney stand on CDS? Like deregulate it all, right?


...JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) (click here) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon railed against higher capital requirements last year at the same time his bank was using derivatives to hedge more than $1 trillion of loans and bonds.
Those bets, which led to $2 billion of losses, wouldn’t have been necessary if JPMorgan did what banks once did: rely on bigger capital buffers rather than credit-default swaps to hedge against souring loans. One hundred years ago the equity of U.S. lenders was about 20 percent of total assets, compared with 9 percent now, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve. For JPMorgan, it was 7 percent last quarter....

...Shifting Risk

Bankers at New York-based JPMorgan invented credit-default swaps, or CDS, in the 1990s as a way of reducing the capital financial institutions need to hold. The contracts require the seller to pay face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a borrower default, allowing firms that buy the swaps to shift some of their credit risk to third-party investors, at least in theory.
In the same decade, U.S. and European banks pushed to revise global regulations to let them reduce the capital they needed to hold against assets that their own models showed as less risky, such as top-rated mortgage-backed securities....


The GOP candidate for President shadows financial market blunders to cover their failures by minimizing the event. Why does that sound familiar, like "W".


This is a very stark example of how exactly Romney intends to play games with the American electorate while he allows all his Wall Street cronies to 'game the system.' There is no outrage, there is no ridicule, it is all MINIMIZATION of the event. Bush did the exact same thing and look where we are today!


I will go so far as to say Romney is simply a mouthpiece for Wall Street and can't begin to understand what a Credit Default Swap is. His experience is in salvage operations and that is a simple task and small potatoes compared to what Dimon is involved with.

THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2012

...It was one of the dumber things the Romney (click here) campaign said this week and it's getting almost no coverage. On NBC's Today show, campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said that the JPMorgan trading debacle was no reason to go and start regulating Wall Street banks. "The leadership of that company will be held accountable for this trading loss, but we don't want to punish companies," he said. "There was no taxpayer money at risk. All of the losses went to investors, which is how it works in a public market."

Fehrnstrom apparently has no earthly idea "how it works in a public market." Plenty of people who weren't investors in JPMorgan are harmed by this -- most notably you....



Anyone notice the envy Romney and friends have of President Obama? Fundraisers that have a price of $50,000 per plate and now a high end hangout for the next one. I do believe Mitt is the jealous type.



Do tell, darling.

With Democrats portraying Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch millionaire and "vulture capitalist" from his years at Bain Capital, the GOP presidential candidate may be handing opponents some ammunition when he holds a fundraiser Wednesday at a 65,000-square-foot estate that's opulent, even for upscale Hillsborough.

The exclusive location of the 95-room Carolands Chateau, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and tickets running as high as $50,000 apiece aren't the only reasons Romney's political foes are stirred up.
The former Massachusetts governor's fundraiser is co-chaired by billionaire Meg Whitman, his former employee at Bain Capital and the 2010 Republican candidate for California governor who promised to produce 2 million new jobs if elected. Now Whitman is CEO of Hewlett-Packard, which said last week it plans to lay off 25,000 workers....

"Beryl" is a soaker.

May 30, 2012
2230:00z
UNISYS Infrared GOES East Satellite (click here for 12 hour loop)

Fairly strong strong winds were in Wilmington during the torrential rains. Rains so heavy they acted as though it were fog and limited visibility.


When standing outside in the rain, the winds were definitely strong enough to lean against to maintain balance. The ceiling was very low and there were meso-tornadic clouds lining the entire structure of the storm.


The rain fell so hard, it created mud that splashed up on the sides of walls and onto sidewalks. There was no staying dry. In order to maintain dry clothing a person would have to be covered in rain gear from head to toe. It was no time before I was soaked, even my rain jacket leaked around the cuffs into my arms as the wind was driving the rain sideways. It was sincerely a storm to respect.


May 30, 2012 5:41 PM
...The remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl (click here) spun off a tornado that destroyed three homes and damaged dozens of others near the North Carolina coast Wednesday as the system sped toward the Atlantic, authorities said.
Between 40 and 50 homes were damaged near Peletier in the western part of Carteret County, said county Emergency Services Director Jo Ann Smith. She said there were no reports of injuries.
Many homes suffered only minor damage, but three were destroyed when the winds came through shortly before noon, she said.
Casey Dail, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Morehead City, said investigators confirmed it was a tornado that caused the damage but said the strength of the twister had not yet been determined.
The remnants of the storm were skimming the North Carolina coast and prompting flood watches in eastern North Carolina. Beryl was expected to gain strength even as it loses its tropical characteristics.
Heavy rains from the storm caused some scattered street and lowland flooding near Wilmington, N.C., as the system approached. Loris., S.C., near the border of the two Carolinas, received more than 3 inches of rain, and radar showed heavy showers along the Interstate 95 corridor in the two states...

Solyndra? Romney really wants to go there? Fine. Let's do this thing!


...Solyndra and Bain Capital (click here) have become the battleground on which President Obama and Mitt Romney are warring over who would best lead the U.S. economy. 
Obama's top aides on Wednesday, for a second day in a row, sought to prevent Romney's attacks on the bankrupt, taxpayer-backed solar company Solyndra from overshadowing the Obama campaign's criticism of Romney's private-equity background....
We already know oil will double in price in ten years. There has been absolutely NO PLAN by the GOP for five decades since scientists have warned the USA Government and other world leaders about the dangers of CO2 and the ever burgeoning scarcity of oil.

NOTHING. Nothing was done to provide alternative fuels a place in the USA economic plan for energy. It is a JOKE, Romney brings up Solyndra as a reason for voting on economic issues. This is outrageous. What Romney is doing is hiding the money he will make when his cronies continue to receive their billions US for oil subsidies.

…As both oil industry profits and gas prices continue to rise, (click here) Congressman Bruce Braley (D – IA) believes that it is time to end the billions of dollars worth of subsidies that the United States hands out to oil companies on an annual basis. In his proposed Clean Energy Jobs bill, Braley would end the tax breaks and other subsidies that flow to the oil industry, and use that money instead to create clean energy jobs, invest in biofuel production, and pay down the national debt….

...The President proposed $302 million for solar energy research and development (up 22 percent); $123 million for wind energy (a 53 percent increase); and $55 million for geothermal energy (up 25 percent). But fossil fuels subsidies are holding back growth in burgeoning clean energy industries, which face a momumental challenge to compete with entrenched industries that receive far greater government subsidies....


But, wait. Let's be fair. Romney knows the rhetoric, the subsidies are for more exploration and more research, after all without research Halliburton wouldn't have discovered hydraulic fracturing. So, let's say there are subsidies needed for oil exploration and research. Why is it the petroleum industry is exempted from recording their failures and their antiquated methods of obtaining oil. Why is it the petroleum industry is coveting the Arctic Ocean in hopes the shipping channel is viable and there won't be ice there for some time to come. Why is it the petroleum industry won't admit drilling through frozen methane in the Arctic, the same frozen methane hydrates that prevented the capping of the ruptured well head for the Deepwater Horizon, is the most insane idea for energy to date?


Better yet, let's not victimize the petroleum industry's CEOs, let's ask Willard Mitt Romney why he intends to continue the same antiquated ideas that caused the oil disaster in the Gulf and continue to deregulate an industry that will only do it again?


If Romney is elected President, there will be no additional oil to lower prices. We all know we cannot drill out way out of this and any promises he makes are lies. Again, the GOP will DO NOTHING to return prosperity to the American people, they will continue to be draconian elites without any ideas for changing the way the USA secures its energy future.

Romney is doing his level best to identify with Birthers to hide his illegal status.

...Real estate magnate and reality TV star Donald Trump, who toyed with a presidential run himself, is yet again stirring up the waters surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate, continuing to question whether the president was born in the United States. Despite the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate last year, the “birther” conspiracy abounds, with Trump still raising doubts that the president was born in Hawaii....


Romney was born in a plane over Utah while his parents flew from Kenya to find safe harbor in Canada. Once arriving in Canada they managed to pioneer their way into Michigan where over time they infiltrated the GOP grassroots unknown to anyone.


It is his loyalty to Canada that inspired RomneyCare in Massachusetts. Not only that but by tanking a steel industry in the USA it left Canadian automakers in better condition to market their goods in the USA and remove more monies from the Middle Class along with their jobs.


To prove how much of an insane man Romney is, Ioannis Metaxas, the cruel dictator of Greece was born on the same day as Willard Mitt Romney. 

IT IS AN OMEN to what would come of the USA should he become President. He is probably a reincarnation of Metaxas!

No one is gambling with lives. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is leading this effort.


Obama gambling that Syria won't be election liability (click here)


Where does the media get the nerve to enter politics into life and death in the Middle East? Where does that self-righteous power come from? Certainly not decency.

7:43AM BST 30 May 2012
Another day of deadly violence on Tuesday was the bloody backdrop to Annan's last-gasp efforts to salvage his peace plan, with 98 people killed, most of them civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The daily toll, from the British-based monitoring group, included 61 civilians, 28 government troops and nine rebel fighters, as the country slipped further towards civil war.
On the diplomatic front, the apparently coordinated expulsion orders issued by the European Union, the United States and other governments including Australia, Canada and Switzerland – were in response to the earlier killing of at least 108 people, nearly half of them children, during an assault by pro-government forces last week....
Regardless of how Reuter tries, there isn't going to be another Iraq. There just isn't. The day of the dictatorship of Bush/Cheney and Mr. Cabal himself Rumsfeld is over.


I am quite confident President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton along with our military leadership beginning with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta are involved in seeking solutions. Just because the media has been leaked the details, intimidation won't work. There are people at risk from a ruthlessness that knows no boundaries. This isn't up to the media and their holier than thou demands. It is up to those who can seek stability and peace for Syria without throwing the entire Region into uproar.



Red Crescent donates cash for food supplies in Gaza (click here)

Vital programme targets most vulnerable refugee families
Published: 00:00 May 31, 2012
Gaza The United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Authority (UAERCA) has generously contributed around Dh3 million ($817,000) for food for the poorest refugees in Gaza.
Over the last five years, the UAERCA offered Dh18.4 million in food assistance to Gaza Strip.
The donation will support some of the most vulnerable Palestine refugee families requiring assistance under the Agency’s social safety net programme (SSNP). This programme targets refugee families most in need in UNRWA’s five fields of operation through providing food assistance, including baskets of essential commodities such as flour, rice, oil, sugar and milk.
After what will soon be five years of tight access restrictions and blockade, much of the population of the Gaza Strip remains unemployed and dependent on aid.