TRUMP’S “DEAN SCREAM”: The Donald Loses His Cool On CNBC

Donald Trump was just on CNBC responding to allegations over his property dealings made by the New York Times. He blasted the paper for its report, and its reporter for refusing to appear on TV to defend his claims.

The New York Times reports that more than 300 people are suing Trump after he removed his name from properties they purchased. Those involved in the lawsuit allege there was no disclaimer that Trump was not the developer of the properties, but rather just “rented his name” to the actual developers.

Trump ended up going on a multi-minute rant in which he insulted CNBC anchor Simon Hobbs and slammed the New York Times.

Full story with video here

Rumor: Amazon has an “entire family” of Android devices coming this holiday

Amazon’s Android tablet is both the best and worst kept secret in the mobile industry. Everyone knows that Amazon is working on an Android device, but few know any of the specific details about its hardware or software. I recently took a break from blogging, but I had to come out of retirement for this post because it’s the most interesting Android topic that still remains a mystery. Read on after the jump to see what details I have dug up.

The Rumor

Amazon has an “entire family” of Android devices that will launch this holiday shopping season.

READ MORE

America’s waiting times are the worst in the developed world

Any discussion of waiting times must begin with the observation that France, Germany, Switzerland and many other developed nations manage to combine universal access to care with rapid access to care. It’s an unfortunate quirk of international health-care policy that Canada and England, the two countries that do struggle with waiting times, happen to be the two nearby, English-speaking countries in the sample, and so our impressions of government-run health-care systems are disproportionately influenced by their experiences.

That said, it’s important to understand that America also struggles with waiting times. Someone who can’t afford to go to the doctor, or can’t afford to purchase an elective surgery, waits. In some cases, they wait forever. In some cases, they’re killed by the delay. But we don’t count them as having “waited” for care, and so they don’t show up in measures of American waits. But which would you prefer? A three-month delay for an elective surgery? Or no surgery at all?.

Read the full article with charts here

Facebook is scared, says Chris Soghoian, the man who uncovered its Google smear campaign

This week’s revelation that Facebook has been running a smear campaign against Google has already caused a storm on this side of the Atlantic.

The tactic employed by Facebook, which has said it hadn’t intended a smear campaign, also sheds some light on the often unseen lobbying technology giants use

Multinational manufacturers Moving back to America

The dwindling allure of building factories offshore

“WHEN clients are considering opening another manufacturing plant in China, I’ve started to urge them to consider alternative locations,” says Hal Sirkin of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). “Have they thought about Vietnam, say? Or maybe [they could] even try Made in USA?” When clients are American firms looking to build factories to serve American customers, Mr Sirkin is increasingly likely to suggest they stay at home, not for patriotic reasons but because the economics of globalisation are changing fast.

Labour arbitrage—taking advantage of lower wages abroad, especially in poor countries—has never been the only force pushing multinationals to locate offshore, but it has certainly played a big part. Now, however, as emerging economies boom, wages there are rising. Pay for factory workers in China, for example, soared by 69% between 2005 and 2010. So the gains from labour arbitrage are starting to shrink, in some cases to the point of irrelevance, according to a new study by BCG.

“Sometime around 2015, manufacturers will be indifferent between locating in America or China for production for consumption in America,” says Mr Sirkin. That calculation assumes that wage growth will continue at around 17% a year in China but remain relatively slow in America, and that productivity growth will continue on current trends in both countries. It also assumes a modest appreciation of the yuan against the dollar.

KEEP READING HERE

Huge Cracks in Global Recovery Thesis; Industrial Production Unexpectedly Drops in Germany, France; UK Weaker than Expected

Before taking a look at industrial production, let’s take a look at how uneven the jobs recovery has been.

The New York Times reports A Jobs Recovery Is Happening Faster for Some Countries Than Others

THE financial crisis and the severe recession that followed destroyed jobs in every industrialized country. While many countries have started to recover, in only one major one, Germany, has unemployment declined to a level lower than it was in September 2008.

When the downturn began, Germany had about 25 percent of the population in the euro zone and a similar share of the unemployed workers. Its population share is about the same now, but it has only 17 percent of the unemployed.

If the euro zone were a fiscal union rather than just a monetary one, there would have been automatic subsidies through unemployment benefits and other programs for the weaker areas. If there were easy labor mobility in the zone, more workers would have moved to Germany. If there were separate currencies, the German mark would have appreciated against the other European currencies.

As it is, none of that happened. Many Germans resent the need to bail out other countries, and many people in those countries resent being forced to cut wages and payrolls in the name of restoring competitiveness

Full analysis at Mish’s

In a 15 month investigation, the EU found that that the Chinese government was significantly subsidising its coated fine paper industry by giving cheap loans, allocating land below market value and granting various tax incentives which are illegal practices under WTO rules. After this first-ever anti-subsidy proceeding launched by the EU against China, the EU today imposes definite countervailing duties ranging from 4% to 12% on this high quality paper imported from China. The investigation also brought to light that Chinese producers of coated fine paper exported their products to the EU at dumped prices, hence the EU will impose anti-dumping duties ranging from 8% to 35.1%, depending on the producer.

“This is the first time ever we put in place measures against the strategic and targeted subsidisation of a specific industry by the Chinese government. All these subsidies are not in line with the obligations China has signed up to when joining in 2001 the World Trade Organisation. Today’s measures will restore effective and fair trade conditions on the EU market”, said John Clancy, EU Trade Spokesman.

Full press release here

ALBANY – Escape from New York is not just a movie – it’s also a state of mind.

A new Marist College poll shows that 36% of New Yorkers under the age of 30 are planning to leave New York within the next five years – and more than a quarter of all adults are planning to bolt the Empire State.

The New York City suburbs, with their high property values and taxes, are leading the Exodus, the poll found.

Of those preparing to leave, 62% cite economic reasons like cost of living, taxes – and a lack of jobs.

Asia, on average, is down about 1% and oil is down just under $1. S&P futs are down 6

The old Hunt Bros. story never gets old in understanding key mechanics of the market place; be it silver or any other traded issue….

“05/12/11 Last night I lay back on my couch and had a couple of glasses of red, while reading an article from 1980 about the Hunt brothers and the events that surrounded the last spike in Silver to $50.

I found the article while surfing the web for financial news so I take no responsibility for the fact the original article was found in Playboy. Everyone reads Playboy for the articles, right?

It was a fascinating article and well worth the read for anyone interested in the markets. You can find the article here.

A short synopsis of the story is that the Hunt brothers, and in particular, Nelson Bunker Hunt, bought so much silver in the mid to late ’70s that they nearly cornered the market.

They bought 55 million ounces in late 1973 and early 1974 at around $3-$4 an ounce and sent 40 million ounces of it by chartered plane to Switzerland because they feared the US government would confiscate silver in the same way it had stolen gold from US citizens in the 1930s…..”

Full article

“A default would inflict catastrophic far-reaching damage on our nation’s economy, significantly reducing growth and increasing unemployment,” said Geithner in the letter to Bennet which was dated May 13. “Even a short-term default could cause irrevocable damage to the economy.”

Read the rest here.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftEZy3Qf-ZY 450 300]

[youtube:http:www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY420_U4U0I 450 300]

Before redundancy becomes the center piece perhaps curriculum should be closely reviewed. Also if we are to take this money away for legitimate reasons then perhaps they should be redirected towards science and math; subjects that are lacking compared to most developed nations.

“On May 13, legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives that would eliminate the Teaching American History (TAH) grants program at the U.S. Department of Education. The bill (H.R. 1891), the “Setting New Priorities in Education Spending Act,” would terminate 43 K-12 federal education programs the House Republican leadership contends are wasteful, ineffective and duplicative.

The National Coalition for History (NCH) strongly opposes this legislation.You will be receiving a follow-up message shortly from NCH on how to contact your Member of Congress in opposition to eliminating ALL federal funding for K-12 history education!

The bill was introduced by Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) who chairs the House Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education. It is the first of what are expected to be a series of bills in the House to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

The President’s fiscal year 2012 budget request for the Department of Education would eliminate Teaching American History grants (TAH) as a separately funded program. However, the Administration proposed consolidating history education into a new program called Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education. This reflects the President’s ESEA proposal, the Blueprint for Reformthat was released in March 2010.”

Full report

“Buried within legislation intended to help the Gulf region recover from the BP oil spill is a provision requiring lawsuits against oil companies to be heard in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Critics say the move would be a boon for industry, because so many fifth circuit judges have financial ties to oil businesses.

According to Think Progress:

“Ten of the Fifth Circuit’s sixteen active judges have oil investments, including Chief Judge Edith Jones, who owns as much as $330,000 in oil interests. Two Fifth Circuit judges, Jerry Smith and Eugene Davis, even ruled in favor of the oil industry in a major drilling moratorium case despite the fact that they both attended expense-paid “junkets for judges” sponsored by an oil-industry funded organization. A third Fifth Circuit judge, Edith Clement, actually serves on the board of this organization, despite an opinion from the federal judiciary’s ethics committee saying that Clement violates her ethical obligations by remaining on this board.”

Full article

“(Reuters) – U.S. crude futures fell more than $1 to as low as $98.53 a barrel in electronic trade on Monday, erasing Friday’s gains amid worries about European economies.

NYMEX crude for June delivery was trading down 95 cents at $98.70 a barrel in Globex electronic trading as of 2236 GMT on Sunday.

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori)”

Full article

Crack spreads trading @  $28.02 up 1.44%

“Reuters) – Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average .N225opened down 0.80 percent at 9,571.13 on Monday, while the broader Topix .TOPX shed 0.71 percent to 833.98.”

Full article

“Jeff Immelt, the boss at General Electric (GE) and the President’s Best Executive Friend Ever (“BEFE”) had this to say about reforming corporate taxes:

Our system is old, it’s outdated, it’s complicated — and all of us are for closing the loopholes. Absolutely, a lower corporate tax rate, and a territorial system, just like our global competitors have.

I love it when ‘Jeff Boy’ says “all of us”. Who is he referring to with that? American citizens in general? Not the case. Employees of big companies like GE? No, not them either. The “Us” that Jeff is referring to is America’s CEO’s and top exec’s. That lucky group comes to about 0.01% of the population.

Unfortunately, guys like Immelt have the President’s ear. That Jeff Boy is actually a formal adviser to the president while at the same time he is pushing a tax plan to benefit himself and another 30,000 execs is over the top. From GE’s top bean counter, Gary Sheffer:

GE favors closing loopholes, a lower corporate tax rate, and a territorial system in line with every other developed country in the world.

So GE and the rest of the execs are willing to give up loopholes, but in exchange they want a lower marginal rate and they want a territorial system.”

Full article