Financial fuckery thread

[Cain]

It's probably worth mentioning while everyone in the USA and UK is warbling on about how amazing the economic outlook finally is (because anemic growth in a couple of overbloated sectors built on fraud is amazing, apparently), China looks like it might be tanking soon:

China's factory growth eased to an expected six-month low in January, hurt by weaker local and foreign demand, a survey showed, a soft start for the year that heightens worries of an economic slowdown.

The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edged down to 50.5 in January from December's 51, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Saturday, in line with market expectations.

The change reinforces concerns that China's economy is stuttering and could drag on financial markets on Monday as global investors, already nervous about capital flight in emerging markets, find another reason to sell riskier assets.

There are other indications that not all is well in China either.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/business/international/as-china-slows-the-pain-hits-home.html
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11405
http://www.scmp.com/business/economy/article/1413690/davos-fear-economic-hard-landing-china-and-japan-enmity
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html

I dont know if this is linked to any of the above, but it's worth considering.  If China's economy is about to go down the tubes, well, a lot of people are going to be negatively impacted by that.  China's been a pretty safe bet for investment for several years now with it's ever expanding economy.  I have no doubt significant sums have been put into Chinese firms and banks, and those assets may now be at conisderable risk.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387

The extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking" and it costs the EU economy about 120bn euros (£99bn) annually, the European Commission says.

Ms Malmstroem said that in some countries public procurement procedures were vulnerable to fraud, while in others party financing was the main problem, or municipal bodies were badly affected. And in some countries patients have to pay bribes in order to get adequate medical care, she wrote.

The EU study includes two major opinion polls, which indicated that three-quarters of EU citizens consider corruption to be widespread in their country.

Four out of 10 of the businesses surveyed described corruption as an obstacle to doing business in Europe.

In Sweden, 18% of people surveyed said they knew someone who had received a bribe, compared with a European average of 12%, Ms Malmstroem said.

This is sure to cause a little bit of concern in certain circles. It's been the stance of the EU for a while that corruption only happens in places like Africa, India, Russia and China. I would suggest that these numbers are, as always, lower than reality and based in caution. The "1 in 5 know someone who took a bribe" should send big alarm bells out, considering that the Swedish economy is pretty dependent on exports.

It would seem that in times of austerity, people everywhere are more open corruption. Who would have thought?

[Cain]

So, about those dead people...

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/02/a-rash-of-deaths-and-a-missing-reporter-%E2%80%93-with-ties-to-wall-street-investigations/

In a span of four days last week, two current executives and one recently retired top ranking executive of major financial firms were found dead. Both media and police have been quick to label the deaths as likely suicides. Missing from the reports is the salient fact that all three of the financial firms the executives worked for are under investigation for potentially serious financial fraud.

The case of David Bird, the oil markets reporter who had worked at the Wall Street Journal for 20 years and vanished without a trace on the afternoon of January 11, has this in common with the other three tragedies: his work involves a commodities market – oil – which is under investigation by the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for possible manipulation. The FBI is involved in the Bird investigation.

Bird left his Long Hill, New Jersey home on that Saturday, telling his wife he was going for a walk. An intentional disappearance is incompatible with the fact that he left the house wearing a bright red jacket and without his life-sustaining medicine he was required to take daily as a result of a liver transplant. Despite a continuous search since his disappearance by hundreds of volunteers, local law enforcement and the FBI, Bird has not been located.

Let's just say I'm giving a little more credence to the possibility of foul play now....

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This smells like shit.  Just saying.

[Cain]

I'm still not entirely sold that something is happening.  However, I would be unsurprised to discover if this were the case, let's say.  It's possible that a lot of people who happen to work for banks being investigated are stressed out, and the New Year normally sees a jump in suicides anyway.  It could just be coincidence.

But my "suspicious bastard" gland is tingling.  Especially with a financial journalist vanishing only a couple of weeks beforehand.

[Reginald Ret]

A few questions regarding the stockmarket and the world economy.
Is it true that about 95% of the money being moved in the stockmarkets of the world is not in any way connected to any physical objects like food, water or buildings (or TV's, computers and make-up etc. etc. etc.)?
If not, then what is the percentage roughly?

How large a part of the world economy is stock market trading?

If these percentages combined lead to 50% or higher, does this mean that actual production and factories are irrelevant to the world economy?

[Cain]

According to the CIA World Factbook, the global economy is $71.83 trillion as of 2012.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, world stock markets were valued at $63.4 trillion as of 2012.

[Reginald Ret]

According to the CIA World Factbook, the global economy is $71.83 trillion as of 2012.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, world stock markets were valued at $63.4 trillion as of 2012.

Thanks.
So i think it is safe to say that the global economy is not really related to its production capacity. Ergo in a sane world the global economy going down the drain doesn't hurt normal people.

Sadly, this is not a sane world. Can't we reshape it or something?


PS I could have looked those numbers up myself, apologies for not doing so.

[hirley0]

the 3 day Jump in CDE ? kgs ?/?
PROMPS these links
u mean: estimated $ cost of thames flood {i have no idea WHAT i mean.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/10/flooding-costs-one-billion-pounds-insurance-expert-warns-rising-premiums







- -




thus my guess for the / cde/K spike is sell at 33&1/3 % Rise

[hirley0]

ad 50036
the 3 day Jump in CDE ? kgc ?/? Kilo gram centigrades for shorts
PROMPS these links
u mean: estimated $ cost of thames flood {i have no idea WHAT i mean.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/10/flooding-costs-one-billion-pounds-insurance-expert-warns-rising-premiums







- -




thus my guess for the / cde/K spike is sell at 33&1/3 % Rise



Fridays Close ? this post would NOT post . except by H&R:

[Salty]

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA190ES20140211?irpc=932&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Barclays said it would axe up to 12,000 jobs this year even as it raised bonuses for investment bankers, prompting fury among politicians and unions who said it had not learned the lessons of the financial crisis.

Gee, really? Maybe because it helped make it happen while contributing to the larget theft in human history with absolutely no legal reprucussions.
Maybe, just maybe, they think they can do whatever the hell they want.
For some reason.

[Reginald Ret]

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA190ES20140211?irpc=932&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Barclays said it would axe up to 12,000 jobs this year even as it raised bonuses for investment bankers, prompting fury among politicians and unions who said it had not learned the lessons of the financial crisis.

Gee, really? Maybe because it helped make it happen while contributing to the larget theft in human history with absolutely no legal reprucussions.
Maybe, just maybe, they think they can do whatever the hell they want.
For some reason.

Yep.
The behaviour you reward gets repeated.
This is basic conditioning.
Stop giving them cookies when they shit in your bed!

[Cain]

Silicon Valley has been involved in a wage-setting scheme for years

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/

In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple's Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google's Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other's employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple's board of directors and senior advisor to Google, emailed Jobs to confirm that Eric Schmidt "got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple."

Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information "verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?"

These secret conversations and agreements between some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley were first exposed in a Department of Justice antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010. That DOJ suit became the basis of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings — in the second half of the 2000s. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied attempts by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to have the lawsuit tossed, and gave final approval for the class action suit to go forward. A jury trial date has been set for May 27 in San Jose, before US District Court judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the Samsung-Apple patent suit.

This is pretty amazing.

[Junkenstein]

I'm honestly surprised. I would have thought Microsoft would have been the one to be involved in this cluster fuck much more prominently.

[Telarus]

Adobe & LucasWorks were also in on this. FUCKERS (this affects my industry, and if "engineer" wages have been kept down, every entry level position below them has been kept down as well).