‘Stars Are Aligning’

“The stars are aligning to push the market higher,” Brian Jacobsen, who helps oversee about $209 billion as chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, said in a telephone interview. The jobs data“was a very encouraging report. It should silence a lot of the skeptics out there who are saying that Europe is going to push the U.S. into a recession.”

Romney told CNN on Feb. 1 that “I’m not concerned about the very poor”

Republican presidential candidateMitt Romney’s statement that the “very poor” don’t concern him comes at a time when the portion of Americans living in deep poverty is the highest in more than a generation while assistance varies widely and is inadequate.

“Virtually any food bank in any city in America would tell you that they have not been able to keep up with the demand,”said Bill Shore, founder and chief executive officer of Share Our Strength, a national charity that fights childhood hunger.“That means more rationing of food, not allowing families to take as much as they would have before and being open shorter hours.”

More than 20 million Americans live in a household with income of less than half the federal poverty rate, the level social scientists often use as a category for the very poor, according to census data for 2010. Last year that meant an annual income below $11,057 for a family of four.

The portion of the population in that category was the highest in at least 35 years and has almost doubled since 1975, from 3.7 percent then to 6.7 percent in 2010.

Now this will certainly upset a few cocktail hours at Davos.....

The United States indicted Wegelin, the oldest Swiss private bank, on charges that it enabled wealthy Americans to evade taxes on at least $1.2 billion hidden in offshore bank accounts, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.

The announcement, by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, represents the first time an overseas bank has been indicted by the United States for enabling tax fraud by U.S. taxpayers.

The indictment said the U.S. government had seized more than $16 million from Wegelin's correspondent bank, the Swiss giant UBS AG, in Stamford, Connecticut, via a separate civil forfeiture complaint. Because Wegelin has no branches outside Switzerland, it used correspondent banking services, a standard industry practice, to handle money for U.S.-based clients.

UBS could not be reached for immediate comment.

The charges against Wegelin, of fraud and conspiracy, provide a rare glimpse into the world of Swiss private banking in the wake of a crackdown on UBS AG. In 2009, UBS paid $780 million and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department over charges it engaged in fraud and conspiracy by enabling scores of Americans to evade taxes through its private bank. The bank later turned over the names of more than 4,500 clients, a watershed in Swiss bank secrecy, which protects the confidentiality of clients and their data.

The indictment signals a ramping up of pressure on 10 other Swiss banks under investigation by the Justice Department, including Credit Suisse, Julius Baer and Basler Kantonalbank.

PEMEX claims gringos are stealing natural gas!!!

Petroleos Mexicanos’ production unit filed an amended lawsuit against Shell Chemical Co., Marathon Petroleum Co. and ConocoPhillips (COP) Co. alleging they and other U.S. companies traded natural gas condensate stolen from Mexico.

“Even absent knowledge or intent, however, the defendants’ use, purchase, and sale of stolen Mexican condensate in the U.S. was without right or title from the Mexican government, and therefore, was wrongful under the laws of Mexico and the U.S.,” Mark Maney, an attorney for Pemex, said in the Jan. 27 amended complaint filed in federal court in Houston.

The cases are Pemex Exploracion y Produccion v. BASF 4:10- cv-01997 and Pemex v Big Star Gathering Ltd, 4:11-cv-2019, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).

Mr. Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor

On Wednesday morning in an interview with CNN, Mr. Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” a comment that has ricocheted around the Web and cable news channels.

I guess the very poor are something less than American....

USA: Millionaires would pay a minimum 30 percent effective tax or their fair share!!!

Millionaires would pay a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate under a law introduced on Wednesday in the Senate with the backing of President Barack Obama and named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Nicknamed the "Buffett Rule," the tax bill reflects President Obama's view of the unfairness he says is represented by Buffett's tax anomaly - that Buffett pays a lower effective rate than his secretary does.

The "Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012," introduced by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, has almost no chance of passage this year as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has sworn off tax increases.

Revenue generated from the tax has yet to be officially calculated, but Whitehouse said it could raise $40 billion to $50 billion a year.

In October, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, introduced the American Jobs Act, which included a first version of the Buffett rule as a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires. It never came to a vote.

About 94,500 taxpayers, a quarter of all U.S. millionaires, pay a lower tax rate than the bulk of middle-income taxpayers, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Buffett makes a living off investments, which are taxed at 15 percent for capital gains and qualified dividends. Buffett's secretary earns a salary and is taxed in wage-income tax brackets that range from 10 percent to 35 percent.

The tax fairness issue flared last month when Republican Mitt Romney, one of the wealthiest men ever to run for president, and his wife Ann came under pressure to release their tax returns.

Documents released last week showed they paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and expect to pay a 15.4 percent effective tax rate when they file their returns for 2011.

President Obama in his State of the Union address last week when he called for the 30 percent minimum tax. Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek, attended the speech as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama.

Obama is building an America for the 99% v Romney who is building it for the 1% = that's the choice

Drawing ever-clearer lines between himself and his leading Republican challenger, President Obama on Wednesday promoted a new proposal to help burdened homeowners, casting it as an alternative to those who contend that the nation’s housing market must bottom out before homeowners can expect relief.

The person who made that bottoming-out argument? Mitt Romney, whose strong victory in the Florida primary on Tuesday reinforced the belief of Mr. Obama’s advisors that he will be the Republican nominee.

“It is wrong for anybody to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom,” Mr. Obama said to applause at a community center here. “I refuse to accept that, and so do the American people.”

Housing values in this affluent suburb of Washington have plummeted by a quarter, the president said. More than half of all homeowners in Las Vegas, he added, were underwater on their mortgages, meaning that what they owe is more than their house is worth.

In October, Mr. Romney told the editorial board of the Las Vegas Journal-Review that he believed the housing market needed to bottom out. Nevada, which will hold its Republican presidential caucuses on Saturday, has been hit harder by foreclosures than any other state.

The housing market gave the president an opening to hammer his theme of economic fairness for the middle class, which he said had been victimized by unscrupulous banks and mortgage brokers.

“This housing crisis struck right at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America: our homes,” he said. “The places where we invest our nest eggs, places where we raise our family, places where we plant roots in our communities, the places where we build memories.”

“We need to do everything in our power to repair the damage and make responsible families whole again,” Mr. Obama told an enthusiastic crowd of about 400 in a gymnasium.

The housing plan, parts of which require Congressional legislation, aims to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, by streamlining the financing process and clearing the way for people with underwater mortgages to obtain new mortgages.

Visiting the Washington Auto Show on Tuesday, Mr. Obama inspected new hybrid vehicles from Ford, Dodge and General Motors, and reminded spectators of his administration’s role in bailing out two of the Big Three carmakers.

“It’s good to remember the fact that there were some folks who were willing to let this industry die,” the president declared. “Because of folks coming together, we are now back in a place where we can compete with any car company in the world.”

And who was it who argued that the government ought to let the carmakers fail? Mitt Romney.

Wall Street for President; I mean Mitt Romney.....is that Government by, for and with the PEOPLE???

Mitt Romney’s investment background, criticized by some of his Republican presidential rivals, is helping him build a financial advantage over them.

In the fourth quarter of last year, eight of the 10 biggest donors to Romney, co-founder of Boston-based Bain Capital LLC, a private-equity firm, worked for banks and investment funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on U.S. Federal Election Commission information released yesterday. Citigroup Inc. (C) employees gave $196,600. Those at JPMorgan Chase & Co. donated $180,518, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) workers contributed $106,580.

For the whole campaign, Goldman Sachs employees and their families have been the largest source of campaign cash for Romney, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks political money.

“Wall Street supports someone they consider one of their own and the candidate perceived to be the most committed to promoting policies they prefer,” said Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy atFordham University in New York.

Russia refuses to Condemn Syria with the rest of the UN Security Council

The battle over Syria moved to the United Nations on Tuesday with Western powers and much of the Arab world confronting Russia and its allies in the Security Council over their refusal to condemn the Syrian government for its violent suppression of popular protests.

As top diplomats gathered in the Council chamber for the showdown, the drumbeat of violence continued without pause in Syria, where government forces used heavy weapons and tanks to push rebels back from strongholds near Damascus. 

At the United Nations, the two sides skirmished over a draft Security Council resolution proposed by Morocco that calls for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to leave power as the first step of a transition toward democracy. 

But behind all the arguments lurked the ghost of Libya, with Russia determined to block any resolution that might be construed as a license for regime change. The Arabs and top Western diplomats argued that endorsing the demonstrators was the minimum step required to support popular demands for change that began with peaceful demonstrations and have evolved into an increasingly armed uprising. 

“The Syrian government failed to make any serious effort to cooperate with us,” Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, told the Security Council about Arab League efforts to mediate the dispute. “The government killing machine continues effectively unabated.” 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and several other countries, argued that Libya was a “false analogy.” The plan for a gradual democratic transition “represents the best efforts of Syria’s neighbors to chart a way forward, and it deserves a chance to work,” she said.

The proposed resolution, which most likely would not be voted on before Friday, called for Mr. Assad to cede power to his vice president, who would help form a unity government that would prepare for elections. It is unlikely that Mr. Assad would heed the demands to step down, even if the resolution made it through the Council.

House & Senate wish to remain above the law on insider trading = read the not so fine print.

WASHINGTON — In an effort to regain public trust, the Senate voted Monday to take up a bill that would prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks and other securities on the basis of confidential information they receive as lawmakers. 

The vote was 93 to 2. 

Senators of both parties said the bill was desperately needed at a time when the public approval rating of Congress had sunk below 15 percent. 

“The American public has no confidence in Congress,” said Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, who introduced an earlier version of the legislation. 

At the same time, Democratic senators moved to tap into concerns about comparatively low tax rates paid by some of the nation’s top earners, introducing a bill that would require households with more than $1 million of adjusted gross income to pay at least 30 percent of it in taxes. 

A handful of lawmakers have tried for years to enact restrictions on stock dealing by members of Congress. But their efforts drew little support until new attention on the practice last year — coupled with election anxiety — prompted a flood of backing for the idea and support from President Obama in his State of the Union address. 

The bill states that members and employees of Congress are not exempt from the federal law and regulations that ban insider trading. 

“No member of Congress and no employee of Congress shall use any nonpublic information derived from the individual’s position as a member of Congress or employee of Congress, or gained from performance of the individual’s duties, for personal benefit,” the bill says. 

Federal securities law does not explicitly exempt members of Congress, but experts disagree on whether and when lawmakers may be found to have violated the law. The bill is meant to eliminate any ambiguity.

It says that lawmakers have “a duty arising from a relationship of trust and confidence” to Congress, the federal government and the citizens of the United States — a duty they violate by trading on nonpublic information. 

The bill also requires members of Congress to disclose the purchase or sale of stocks, bonds, commodities futures and other forms of securities within 30 days of transactions. The information would be posted on the Web in a searchable format. 

In his speech last week, Mr. Obama urged Congress to act, citing what he called “the corrosive influence of money in politics.” 

“Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress,” Mr. Obama said. “I will sign it.”

The Senate was already writing such a bill. 

However, the bill does not subject lawmakers to a second type of restriction suggested by Mr. Obama, who said Congress should “limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact.”

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's suggests G20 should let the aging and sick die of their illnesses v being provided healthcare....Think Hitler had a similar policy...

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned it may downgrade "a number of highly rated" Group of 20 countries as of 2015 if their governments fail to enact reforms to curb rising health-care spending and other costs related to aging populations.

Developed nations in Europe, as well as Japan and the United States, are likely to suffer the largest deterioration in their public finances in the next four decades as aging populations strain social safety nets, S&P said in a report published on Monday.

"Steadily rising health-care spending will pull heavily on public purse strings in the coming decades," S&P analyst Marko Mrsnik wrote in the report. "If governments do not change their social protection systems, they will likely become unsustainable."

If no reforms are adopted, health-care-related credit downgrades would likely start within three years, eventually leading to an increase in the number of junk-rated countries as of 2020, the study showed.
Health care will likely be the fastest-growing expenditure for developed countries, which already have high social protections and rapidly worsening demographic profiles. For example, Japan's population is expected to decline by 30 percent by 2060, with two out of every five people turning 65 or older, according to official data.

Twitter to be Censored: Possibly at the request of Saudi investor...

Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, through his investment firm Kingdom Holding Co., has dropped $300 million into Twitter and now Twitter’s announcement this week that it was going to enable country-specific censorship of posts is arousing fury around the Internet and seems connected. 

The Saudi’s like most Middle East Dictatorships don’t want their people talking to each other or the world at all and certainly not freely = uncensored.

Commentators, activists, protesters and netizens have said it’s “very bad news” and claim to be “#outraged”. Bianca Jagger, for one, asked how to go about boycotting Twitter, on Twitter, according to the New York Times. (Step one might be… well, never mind.) The critics have settled on #TwitterBlackout: all day on Saturday the 28th, they promised to not tweet, as a show of protest and solidarity with those who might be censored.

Even bacteria don't poop where they eat and drink...

A southern Chinese city contained a toxic metal spill that threatened water supplies for 1.5 million people and contaminated a tributary feeding rivers that run to Hong Kong and Macau. 

Crews in the city of Liuzhou used ships to spread canvas across the Longjiang River and stop the cadmium, China National Radio reported today. Tests done at 6 p.m. yesterday at Liuzhou’s water plants met national standards, it said.

The cadmium spill, first detected Jan. 15, killed fish and prompted panic buying of bottled water, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. Authorities dumped hundreds of tons of chemicals into the river to neutralize the cadmium, according to Xinhua.

Any cadmium in the water will be “greatly diluted” by bigger rivers and reservoirs downstream and levels of the metal won’t exceed safety standards in neighboring Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macau, China National Radio reported yesterday, citing Xu Zhencheng, a researcher involved in the spill cleanup.

Cadmium, used in batteries and paint pigments, may cause kidney dysfunction and cancer, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Liuzhou is prepared to discharge water from upstream reservoirs to help dilute the metal, today’s radio report said, citing Gan Jinglin, the city’s director of environmental protection.
Tests conducted Sunday evening found that cadmium concentrations at the Liuxi water plant were 0.0046 milligrams per liter, within national standards, the radio report said, citing local authorities.

Liuzhou may stop drawing water from the river and use reserve and ground water instead if the level of cadmium reaches double the normal rate, China National Radio said, citing Liuzhou Mayor Zheng Junkang.
All seven heavy-metal production plants located upstream have suspended operation in order to curb potential sources of pollution.

Newt Gingrich: his ideas are a mixture of the alarming, the implausible and the banal.

Newt Gingrich, unexpectedly, has become a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. He won the South Carolina primary and is now the front-runner in some polls nationally. He has been debating well, shaking off criticism of his personal life and doing his best to bolster his reputation as an ideas man.


Regrettably, on economics, where the country could use some fresh thinking, his ideas are a mixture of the alarming, the implausible and the banal. 

Shocking but True!!! USA 1.6 million children are homeless....

The number of homeless children is at an all time high in the United States. One in 45 children, totaling 1.6 million, is currently homeless, according to a 2011 study by the National Center on Family Homelessness. California is ranked the fifth highest state in the nation for its percentage of homeless children. An increasing number of children are dependent on poverty-stricken single moms.

Russians' to fight for free and fair elections!

Russia's opposition, for all its efforts to remain peaceful, could be headed for a confrontation with authorities as the date of its next major demonstration draws near.

The Moscow municipal government rejected the opposition’s request to hold their protest march “For Honest Elections” as planned on Feb. 4, on the grounds that it would "disrupt the normal functioning of vital municipal services, create obstacles . . . for traffic, and violate the rights of citizens not taking part in the event,” according to a document published on an opposition Facebook page.  More than 22,000 people have signed up on Facebook to attend the march, despite a forecast temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Opposition leaders are discussing the possibility of holding the march without a permit -- a move that may expose demonstrators to arrest and even violence. In his blog on the web site of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, the journalist Sergey Parkhomenko stated the grim truth: “Everything, of course, depends on the protestors themselves, on their courage, decisiveness, and sense of responsibility.

Meanwhile, the opposition and the government are taking measures to ensure that presidential elections, scheduled for March 4, are free and fair -- or at least perceived as such. Last Wednesday, reported the Moscow Times, 16 prominent cybernauts announced the foundation of the League of Voters, which, acting as “a coordinating and advisory body for activists,” will “use the Internet to connect activists nationwide who are agitating for fair elections.” Firebrand anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny “was barred from being a member because of his stated presidential ambitions,” the article said.

Police Brutality American Style =Oakland

A march to take over a vacant building by members of the Occupy movement in Oakland, Calif., turned into a violent confrontation with the police on Saturday, leaving three officers injured and about 200 people arrested. 

The clashes began just before 3 p.m. when protesters marched toward the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, the police said, and began to tear down construction barricades. Officers ordered the crowd to disperse,” the Oakland police said in a press release. 

Officers responded with smoke, tear gas and beanbag projectiles. 

Most of the arrests occurred in the evening, when large groups of people were corralled in front of the Downtown Oakland Y.M.C.A. on Broadway. At one point, one group of protesters broke into the City Hall building. 

On a livestream broadcast on the Web site oakfosho.com, dozens of protesters could be seen sitting cross-legged in darkness on the street in front of the Y.M.C.A. Their hands appeared to be bound behind them, while police officers stood watch. Occasionally the protesters sang or cheered. 

The events were part of a demonstration dubbed “Move-in Day,” a plan by protesters to move into the vacant convention center and use it as a commune-like command center, according to the Web site occupyoaklandmoveinday.org. 

“We were going to set up a community center,” said Benjamin Phillips, 32, a member of the Occupy Oakland media team. “It would be a place where we could house people, feed people, do all the things that we have been doing.” 

After a series of violent episodes, including a clash in which a Marine veteran of Iraq suffered a fractured skull when struck by a projectile in a confrontation with the police, Ms. Quan relented and permitted the protesters to return to the plaza. But two weeks later, in response to fears of renewed violence, she ordered the plaza cleared again. 

Mr. Phillips, who said he is a veteran of the United States Air Force, spoke Saturday night from his home on Grand Avenue where he had stopped to rinse tear-gas residue from his contact lenses. He described the scene in front of the Y.M.C.A. as “terrifying.” 

“This is disgusting, because this is not the way that America is supposed to work,” he said. “You’re supposed to be able to have something like freedom to assemble and air your grievances,” he said. 

“It’s bizarre,” he said of the police reaction. “It’s not something you expect to see in the United States, and we’ve seen it over and over in Oakland.”