“The Republican-controlled House will vote next week to permit the government to borrow more money to meet its obligations, a move aimed at heading off a market-rattling confrontation with President Barack Obama over the so-called debt limit.

Full details aren’t settled, but the measure would give the government about three more months of borrowing authority beyond a deadline expected to hit as early as mid-February, No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia said Friday. (Read More: GOP May Seek Short-Term Debt Limit Extension)

The legislation wouldn’t require immediate spending cuts as earlier promised by GOP leaders like Speaker John Boehner of Ohio. Instead, it’s aimed at forcing the Democratic-controlled Senate to join the House in debating the federal budget. It would try to do so by conditioning pay for members of Congress on passing a congressional budget measure.

“We are going to pursue strategies that will obligate the Senate to finally join the House in confronting the government’s spending problem,” Boehner told GOP lawmakers at a retreat in Williamburg, Va. “The principle is simple: `No budget, no pay.”‘

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We all need more paper…

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[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um1lA9m4wL0 450 300]

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MIDDLETOWN, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — Police are investigating after a woman was attacked and stabbed multiple times inside a New Jersey store Thursday afternoon.

The victim, identified by her family as 29-year-old Kerri Dalton of Keansburg, also had a baby with her inside the Middletown Bed Bath & Beyond store, when the attack occurred.

The alleged assailant, 19-year-old Tyrik Haynes, is accused of repeatedly plunging a knife into Dalton around 4 p.m., puncturing both her lungs in an apparent random attack.

A published report indicated that Haynes is being held on $1 million bail on an attempted murder charge.

Dalton was stabbed more than a dozen times and Medevaced to Jersey Shore Medical Center, where she remained in stable condition late Thursday night.

The baby was unhurt and was with family, Young reported.

The manager of the Staples store next door to the scene said she saw the assailant moments before the attack lurking about on the sidewalk.

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Former U.S. vice president Al Gore recently netted a huge payday by selling his cable station. Now, it appears he’s making another big profit buying Apple’s (AAPL) stock on the cheap.

Al GoreAccording to a filing with the Securities and Exchanges Commission, Gore — a director on Apple’s board — exercised an option to purchase nearly 60,000 shares of the tech giant at the bargain basement price of $7.48, costing him a total of about $445,000.

But with Apple’s current market price at about $500 a share, Gore’s holdings are worth $29.75 million, giving him a huge windfall-on paper at least.

Gore, however, could easily afford to buy Apple’s stock at the prevailing market price.

(Read more: Facebook’s New Search Effort Is Being Run by Former Google Employees)

In early January, the environmental crusader sold his Current TV venture to Qatar-based news organization Al Jazeera for $500 million. Published reports say the sale of Gore’s 20 percent stake in the network – worth an estimated $100 million – would bring his net worth to about $300 million.

The vice president’s purchase comes at a time when the tech giant’s shares have been under massive selling pressure, as investors doubt its ability to ward off competitive pressures and maintain its reputation for innovative products.

This week, the stock hit its lowest level since Feburary 2012, just ahead of what analysts say will be a pivotal earnings report next week.

 Source: Yahoo

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Many people are now fully believing in a true recovery. Admittedly, it seems the data has been getting better in dribs and drabs. Dribs and drabs is precisely the problem. All the data we collate comes to us in dribs and drabs.

As humans it is hard wired in our brains to hope, be optimistic, to offset negativity with something positive in the moment that we can grab onto. 

It is only when you take a step back and look at the complete picture should we realize where we came from and where we are headed. When looking at the entire picture one begins to understand the gravity of our economy and reality at hand. Take it from the S&P, the road ahead is not looking so hot!

While i remain hopeful and optimistic that the future will bring better times not just for myself , but for the country as a whole; I have a hard time swallowing all the data and digesting it away as trivial.

The following presentation is a collection of graphs and facts that snowball into a real horror story.

It is presented in a neutral fashion with little opinion outside of being amazed and alarmed of the state of the statistics.

When taken in as a whole body of results, it can not be shrugged off or talked away like the pundits on t.v. who keep pounding into our brains that the recovery is real, getting better, etc.

It also justifies the fears of the blogosphere.

Remember everything is about timing.

At this time when the  markets are starting to hit new highs we have talk about currency wars, repatriation and hoarding of gold by central banks, small investors unanimously jumping into equities, millionaires coming back to the tables, analysts agreeing about it being the best time to invest, etc.

Perhaps “doing what ever it takes,” as a remedy is really what is ultimately killing us.

Central banks should be feeding all of society as opposed to the banks who take our grandchildren’s money to bid up the prices of all assets while being stingy in the lending department to society.

While i believe the S&P could go as high as 1525ish -1550 it would be foolish not to hedge yourself and to be ready for a major correction.

As a last note, i think it is time for all corporations to follow the $COST model.

If all corporations followed this model we would have a healthier society and could look forward to a real recovery. After all, the rise of the middle class is a major component to the success of this empire. Bifurcation, having a two class system will only end in the fall of the empire.

Greed is no longer a good thing!

Cheers on your weekend !

If you click the title it will bring you to youtube and you can then full screen the video. Definitely recommended to view all the charts properly.

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYkl3XlEneA 450 300]

 

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2bYJQFQMs8 450 300]

 

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“IN THEORY, PRIVATELY RUN PRISONS are simply another municipal resource that for-profit management companies like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group believe can be run cheaper and more efficiently than in the hands of government agencies: a free market alternative to the bureaucratic red tape of waste and regulation in the world of penitentiary administration. But running a penitentiary is not the same as running a municipal sewage authority. Having a monetary value tied to human incarceration and justice creates a deeply perverse incentive that should not exist in the world of commerce. When the for-profit prison industry places the iron fist of criminal justice in the invisible hands of the market and sells it as a cost-cutting measure, it is hard not to interpret as anything but the predatory capitalism of a self-perpetuating slave state.

¤

Most criticisms of privatizing prisons have come in the form of labor, management, and financial issues. This is an argument of numbers in which critics hope to show that the same cost-cutting measures that enable private prisons to be profitable are also to blame for subverting the security, accountability, and quality of life standards of those facilities. The promise of a more efficient penitentiary runs in stark contrast to various, well-publicized examples of private prisons accused of devolving into “gladiator schools” of violence and decay, run by fewer, inexperienced, undertrained, and underpaid staff who may not respond to such chaos responsibly. Cost overruns, sometimes well above what any state-run facility would charge, often eliminate any pretense of a financial benefit. Accusations of corruption, cronyism, and excessive CEO pay are commonplace.

One private prison has been accused of colluding with gang members to help manage inmates and save on staffing costs. Others have actively avoided housing sick inmates, leaving the higher medical care costs that those patients might incur to the state and federal penitentiaries. The legalization of interstate prisoner exchanges has only enabled this practice further. Private prisons can now cherry-pick low-cost, low-threat inmates, not just from other state-run prisons nearby, but also from across the country, to fill empty beds and maximize cell occupancy. Prisoners can be transferred to the state with the fewest regulations on prisoner treatment and facility standards.

Private prisons have also been able to profit off of their captive audience by overcharging on prison services such as interstate phone calls. Not just an overpriced luxury, phone access can be the sole source of communication between inmates and their family, friends, and legal representation, especially if they have been transferred far from the state that originally imprisoned them. The end result being that prisoners can find themselves out of contact with anybody who can advocate on their behalf, hindering the appeals process and giving them little recourse against abuse.

Still, numerous studies detailing the failings of private prisons have not stood in the way of their development, largely because there is such a desperate need for prison space in the United States. America’s outsized prison population is the largest in the world, easily dwarfing that of various totalitarian regimes across the globe. The sheer quantity and percentage of those behind bars in America has grown exponentially ever since the initiation of the War on Drugs in the 1970s. The overcrowded conditions exacerbate violence on prisoners and staff alike. The prevalence of rape that has resulted, often dismissed in popular culture as an extension of justice served, is a horrible standard for any society….”

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From The Big Picture

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Source 

“Two-out-of-three Americans recognize that their constitutional right to own a gun was intended to ensure their freedom.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of American Adults think the purpose of the Second Amendment is to make sure that people are able to protect themselves from tyranny. Only 17% disagree, while another 18% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter orFacebook.

The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on January 16-17, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.”

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“A woman survives being thrown onto the tracks during a vicious attack in the SEPTA subway.

We want to warn you that the video above may be difficult to watch.

Raw Video of Subway Attack

The attacker and the woman were alone at the SEPTA subway station at 8th and Race in Chinatown on Tuesday afternoon. He asked to borrow a light for his cigarette. Then, without warning, he attacks her, drags her onto the landing and throws her down onto the tracks.

SEPTA Chief of Police Thomas Nestel tells NBC10 the woman, 23, was very fortunate she walked away with only bumps, bruises and some cuts…..”

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“Only weeks after a meeting of the International Telecommunication Union in Dubai sparked worldwide outrage, the UN’s telecom branch remains adamant about re-writing the rules of the Web.

Following a meeting of ITU members last year, participants involved in the United Nation’s telecom group announced that they hoped to re-write a multilateral communications treaty, in turn causing a whole new set of international laws to structure the way the Internet works.

Although the United States and dozens of other countries have refused to sign the proposal, the ITU is nevertheless powering through with plans to put new rules and regulations on the world’s Internet, including implement sweeping deep-packet inspection powers and other efforts that could censor the Web.

With the US contributing the lion’s share of the organizations funding, advocates for an open Internet are asking for all that to change.

According to the just-launched website defundtheitu.org, the UN group currently spends around $180 million annually to advocate for that revamped treaty. But while the United States opposes the very actions the ITU seeks, they at the same time contribute a massive amount of the group’s resources.

“The ten most oppressive countries in the Open Net Initiative’s ranking of online freedom all sided against the Internet, and none of them are giving the ITU as much as the US is,” the site claims. In fact, insists the site, the US government gave nearly $11 million to the ITU in 2010 — almost 8 percent of its total budget — all the while opposing the group’s attempt at creating a bill that some say would change the Web as we know it.

“It’ll be the biggest power grab in the UN’s history, as well as a perversion of its power,” blogger Arthur Herman wrote for Fox News last month.

Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, the general secretary of the ITU, has said his group has no interest in threatening free speech and instead insists a new treaty is a “chance to chart a globally-agreed roadmap to connect the unconnected, while ensuring there is investment to create the infrastructure needed for the exponential growth in voice, video and data traffic.” US lawmakers say the ITU would do so much more, though — censor the Web, in fact — which caused the US House of Representatives to unanimously agree to reject the proposal.

“The unanimous vote is meant to send a signal – as a show of strength – to other countries meeting at the telecommunications summit that both the White House and its lawmakers oppose any role the U.N. might take in Internet governance or regulation,” ZDNet reported in December….”

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“Spot market

prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) have reached $18 per million BTUs and could go higher this year as supplies of the fuel appear to be softer than many traders had originally thought. LNG production dropped sharply in 2012 and is expected to grow only slightly this year.

Most of the world’s supply of LNG is delivered under long-term contracts, which means that any disruption to energy supplies caused by natural or man-made disasters could push spot prices sharply higher almost instantly….”

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“Rail traffic is bumpy as usual at this time of year so its’ not easy to take away much from this week’s swing, but we saw a big reversal from last week’s dip as intermodal traffic jumped 10.4% versus last year.   The 12 week moving average is up to 1.92% which is still consistent with a weak economy….”

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“Since the end of last year the bullish optimism for 2013 has risen to an almost fevered pitch.  Concerns of any further disruption from the Eurozone have faded into the mist.  With the“fiscal cliff” issue resolved, and little concern that the “debt ceiling” will not be raised, the worries of a domestic drag have been all but alleviated.  Furthermore, despite slowing earnings and revenue growth, the outlook for 2013 earnings growth is remarkably ebullient.  According to the vast majority of the media, analysts and portfolio managers there is absolutely nothing to be worried about, particularly given the fact that every major central bank is now engaged in some sort of financial easing campaign, and the markets should surge to record highs by year end.

However, maybe it is in this very optimistic outlook that we should find at least the smallest grain of concern.  Bob Farrell once stated: “When all experts and forecasts agree – something else is going to happen.”   As a portfolio manager I am not paid to garner portfolio returns but rather manage the risk of loss.  It is in the risk management, as we discussed previously, that long term returns are achieved.  It isn’t as fun, or as sexy, as driving a Ferrari at top speed but the crashes won’t kill you either.

There are many ways to measure investor optimism.  The chart below is the composite index of bullish sentiment of both individual and institutional investors.  As you can see the index is now at levels normally associated with the beginnings of market peaks.

The next chart is of the Volatility Index.   The volatility index, which is used as a gauge of investor fear, is currently at levels normally associated with extreme complacency.  What is important to note is that the level of complacency is not the concern but rather how quickly such complacency can turn to fear.

The last chart is my composite indicator which….”

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“I like this post from Josh Brown about the inevitability of the market cycle and learning to love it.  If there’s one thing that’s certain in the investment world it’s that markets cycles never really change that much.  The market spends most of its time fooling most of the people most of the time.  Just when you think you’ve got it figured out it does exactly what you wouldn’t expect.  Guys and gals have been trying to figure this puzzle out for centuries.  So, rather than let it eat you apart, learn to love it:

“The next crisis is coming. The seed has already been planted in some remote corner of the financial realm.

That seed is germinating deep beneath an obscuring layer of thick, black soil.

It will sprout and be ignored someday soon, breaking just above the surface while the people walk by obliviously.

Then it will be noticed and denied, dismissed as unimportant….”

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“Norwegian Cruise Lines, the No. 3 cruise ship operator in North America, priced shares of its IPO, and the stock begins trading Friday.

Norwegian Cruise Line, the No. 3 cruise ship operator in North America, priced shares of its initial public offering late Thursday at $19 a share, and when it opened Friday, the stock soared to over $25.

The shares began trading at 10 a.m. ET, and quickly jumped to nearly $26 a share before losing a bit of steam.

Late Thursday, shares of the Miami-based operator of 11 cruise ships were priced at $19 a share, signaling a strong reception from investors. The pricing was well above the expected range of $16 and $18 a share.

The deal raises $447 million for the company, since it sold 23.5 million shares. It will trade under the ticker “NCLH” on the Nasdaq electronic exchange….”

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Names to consider: $DDD, $SSYS, $CIMT, $PRCP, & $ONVO

“(MoneyWatch) As technology theorist Ray Kurzweil pointed out in “The Age of Spiritual Machines,” the pace of innovation has been accelerating for centuries. A graph of such technological change looks a lot like the curve for Moore’s Law, the tech industry dictum that processor speeds double every 18 months.

Innovation is accelerating, and when the next great transformative change comes odds are that it will involve 3D printing.

3D printers aren’t exactly new;  indeed, they’ve been around for decades. But over the last few years, these printers have started to drop precipitously in price and have become generally more accessible and easy to use. Right now, you can buy any number of 3D printers for as little as $1,000, or what a typical laser printer cost 15 years ago. The difference, of course, is that while laser printer print ink on paper, 3D printer create real 3D objects on your desktop while you wait.

 

 

The 2013 Consumer Electronics Show was something of a coming out party for 3D printing. There were many 3D printers on display, many challenging established limitations. Various vendors showed off models that purported to be the cheapest or to print the largest objects within a consumer-friendly price range.

And the industry is evolving quickly. A simple printer like the MakerBot Replicator, which  retails for $1,700, churns out simple objects in a single color, while the Replicator 2X can print objects in two colors for $2,800.

 

• Woman gets world’s first 3D printed jaw transplant
• MakerBot pulls 3D printable gun parts from Thingiverse
• Pirate Bay says physical 3D objects future of downloads

 

Creating replacement household items like replacement doorknobs and shower curtain rings is an obvious application for 3D printers, but there’s at least one clear limitation: Most people can’t design things like that themselves….”

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“The fiscal gloom hanging over U.S. cities and local governments will lift slightly in 2013 as the pace of spending cuts slows, according to an economic assessment presented on Thursday to a mayors’ conference in the U.S. capital.

Real state and local government spending will decline by 0.5 percent this year, compared to a 1.3 percent drop in 2012, said James Diffley, director of regional economics for IHS Global Insight.

“In the state and local government sector the pace of budget tightening has eased slightly and revenues have begun to improve, but as you all know all too well, municipalities remain under severe pressure,” he said.

In December, local governments shed 14,000 jobs, compared to state governments that gained 4,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department, showing that cities and counties continue to struggle with spending.

“Many of the problems we have stem from an economy that still has not kicked in and got back to where we were,” said Scott Smith, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona, at the meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“We still have too many of our citizens who are out of work – who are unemployed or underemployed.”

Cities rely primarily on property taxes for revenues, and when the housing bubble burst, their income slowly collapsed. Property tax assessments have not picked up yet, while states and the federal government have pared the aid they send to local governments, forcing many cities to continue to slash spending….”
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“The U.S. economic recovery is entering the home strait, though unemployment is still very high and may only come down gradually, outgoing U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.

“I think in the recovery, if you do basketball, we’re in the early part of the fourth quarter,” Geithner said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The United States was further advanced than other countries in balancing debt against income and cutting leverage risk in the financial system, and “we are through the big adjustment in housing,” he said….”

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