The Hoarding of Cash by Europe’s Banks May Cause Massive Corporate Defaults

The plan is working….consolidate till no end.

Not taking a steep haircut has been hampering a resolution; talks continue…

Have you not had enough time ?

“Russia vowed to block any United Nations Security Council resolution that calls for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power.

Such demands “will simply never get approval,” Alexander Lukashevich, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said by telephone from Moscow today. “This should be a matter for dialogue between the Syrians themselves and shouldn’t be imposed through a resolution.”

Arab and Western nations are seeking to pass a UN resolution supporting the Arab League’s call for Assad to step down and facilitate a peaceful transfer of power. Russia, as a permanent Security Council member, can veto any resolution.”

Full article

Reports say that Tibetan protesters stormed a police station with knives and petrol bombs and as a result the police opened fired upon them. This is the second day of deadly clashes.

Full article

South Korea grew the smallest amount in two years as q4 exports sank on Europe’s non consumption…growth still remains at 3.4%

Bow down to Apple innovation 

The dollar continued its slide against the Euro

Europe and Asia were called higher by the clam and his commentary on interest rates. Since the dollar is weak commodities rose over night leading the rally.

Europe

Asia

Asia

Europe

Futures

Currencies

Commodities

LIBOR, EURIBOR, 10 year yields for Italy, Spain, France, and Germany

The Japanese govt is in discussions to privatize Tepco for $13 billion. Shares of Tepco are up 4% on that news.

At $79 a pop per year, Amazon Prime is a steal. Maybe even a little too good. Full story.

Today’s high volume / high hybrid movers, click here for charts

Paul Roderick Gregory, Contributor

Warren Buffet’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, served as a stage prop for President Obama’s State of the Union speech. She was the President’s chief display of the alleged unfairness of our tax system – a little person paying a higher tax rate than her billionaire boss.

Bosanek’s prominent role in Obama’s “fairness” campaign piqued my curiosity, and I imagine the curiosity of others. How much does her boss pay this downtrodden woman? So far, no one has volunteered this information.

Read the rest here.

First Estimate of Solar Cycle 25 Amplitude – may be the smallest in over 300 years

The rematch of the 2008 thriller between the Giants and the Patriots is attracting huge interest on ticket resale websites, where thousands of seats originally priced at $900 and $1,200 are selling for $2,500 to $15,000. StubHub even listed a street level suite for $882,375 today, hours after the Giants defeated the San Francisco 49ers for a berth in the big game. Full Article

As shown in the chart below, 86% of the stocks in the S&P 500 are currently trading above their 50-day moving averages.

Charles Kadlec, Contributor

The biggest under-reported story of the South Carolina primary is winner Newt Gingrich’s campaign promise to convene a gold commission to “look at the whole concept of how do we get back to hard money.”

The only job of the Fed should be to “maintain the stability of the dollar because we want a dollar to be worth 30 years from now what it is worth now,” said Gingrich, pointing out price stability encourages savings and investment because people know what the dollar will be worth when comes time to spend it.

Monetary reform can be the issue that propels Gingrich above the tawdry attacks on his personal life and questions about his reliability all the way to the Republican nomination, because it puts him ahead of Governor Romney and Senator Santorum on a policy that enjoys a clear plurality of support among Republicans, Democrats, blacks, whites, hispanics and individuals across all income categories.

When the Rasmussen polling firm last October asked 1000 likely voters if they were “favorable or unfavorable about returning to the gold standard,” 44% were favorable versus 28% unfavorable.  However, when the respondents were asked: Would you “favor or oppose returning to a Gold Standard if you knew it would reduce the power of bankers and political leaders to steer the economy?” those in favor increased to 57% versus only 19% opposed.

All the candidates agree on the need to repeal ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, to reduce the regulatory burden on American business and to cut corporate and personal income tax rates through tax reform.  But, Governor Mitt Romney promises to follow in President Obama’s footsteps as a weak dollar President, especially relative to the Chinese. Senator Rick Santorum’s website is strangely silent on the issue of monetary policy, even though the gyrations in the value of the dollar have demonstrably hurt the middle-class and manufacturing more than any other single policy.

Gingrich has seized this opening to build his appeal as the conservative candidate who can defeat President Barack Obama by making monetary reform integral to his campaign to increase the prosperity, security and liberty of the American people.

Read the rest here.

If you’ve come to Davos for answers, panels are not the place to start. An hour into the “TIME Davos Debate on Capitalism” there were, by my count, just two or three concrete proposals for creating jobs.

The panel included Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan; Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein; Ben Verwaayen, the CEO of Alcatel-Lucent; Raghuram Rajan, a renowned economist; and Sharran Burrows, the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.

The focus of the panel wasn’t quite “Is 20th century capitalism failing 21st century society?” Instead, it was most certainly about non-specific change at the margins. Rajan called for better worker training, Burrows wants corporations to invest a portion of their income into job creation and a VC audience member bemoaned the U.S. immigration policy and a lack of skilled workers. Despite a few exchanges between Burrows and Alcaltel’s Verwaayen, there was almost nothing in the way of real debate.

Take the “too big to fail” banks, for example. When asked about the issue, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan claimed that his bank simply needed to be massive to serve an increasingly global economy:

Read the rest here.