Subculture of ‘Mericans Prepare for Civilization’s Collapse

(Reuters) – When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon.

“In an instant, anything can happen,” she told Reuters. “And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.”

Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as “preppers.” Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.

They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government.

Preppers, though are, worried about no government.

Read the rest here.

South Carolina Exit Polls: How Different Groups Voted

(Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.

Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn’t brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.

The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks’ offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.

In recent weeks the Justice Department has come under renewed pressure from members of Congress, state and local officials and homeowners’ lawyers to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation of mortgage servicers, the biggest of which have been Covington clients. So far Justice officials haven’t responded publicly to any of the requests.

While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm’s clients included the four largest U.S. banks – Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co – as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.

Read the rest here.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Congress has the constitutional right to legislate permits for cross-border oil pipelines like TransCanada’s Keystone XL, according to a new legal analysis released late on Friday.

The study by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service could give a boost to Republicans drafting legislation to overturn a decision this week by President Barack Obama to put the $7 billion Alberta-to-Texas project on ice.

Historically, U.S. presidents have made executive decisions on pipelines that cross borders. But Congress had the power all along to weigh in on the permits, said the study, done by four legislative attorneys with the CRS.

“If Congress chose to assert its authority in the area of border-crossing facilities, this would likely be considered within its Constitutionally enumerated authority to regulate foreign commerce,” the study said.

Read the rest here.

“Right now there are no talks. There will be consultations with the EU and the IMF to determine where we stand and then we’ll see. It (negotiations) has again become complicated with the new demands over the coupon,” said a person with direct knowledge of the talks.”

This is a guest post by Chris Cook, former compliance and market supervision director of the International Petroleum Exchange.

All is not as it appears in the global oil markets, which have become entirely dysfunctional and no longer fit for its purpose, in my view. I believe that the market price is about to collapse as it did in 2008, and that this will mark the end of an era in which the market has been run by and on behalf of trading and financial intermediaries.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Home sales hit an 11-month high in December and the number of properties on the market was the fewest in nearly seven years, pointing to a nascent recovery in the housing sector.

The National Association of Realtors said on Friday existing home sales increased 5 percent to an annual rate of 4.61 million units, with all four of the nation’s regions recording gains.

Sales of both multifamily and single-family homes rose.

“It seems that the housing sector may be slowly picking itself up off of the mat,” said Omair Sharif, an economist at RBS in Stamford, Connecticut.

Read the rest here.

What do the markets have to do with the election? Not much.
Barry Ritholtz
Washington Post, January 15 2012

~~~

Just about this time every campaign cycle, the pundits get all excited about what Mr. Market is saying about the election: What does this candidate or that mean for the stock market returns? Will an incumbent victory bode well or poorly? Are stock prices telling voters which candidate will be friendlier to future market returns?

Read the rest over at Ritholtz’s Blog.

Read the rest here.

Charity alone will not solve the world’s problems. Capitalism can help and at the same time put people back to work. There has always been a gap between what the government can provide and what the private sector can produce, a gap charities have long helped to fill. But as our world and economies evolve, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to reconsider how to fill this gap – to rethink the relationship between economic and social challenges, so that benefits and opportunities are available to more people.

Read the rest here.

From Spaceweather.com :

Active sunspot 1401 erupted yesterday, Jan. 19th around 16:30 UT, producing an M3-class solar flare and a full-halo coronal mass ejection (CME). The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud expanding almost directly toward Earth:

Read the rest here.

By: John Carney
Senior Editor, CNBC.com

It’s bonus day at Goldman Sachs.

Officially known as “Compensation Communication Day,” today is the day when many at Goldman are finding out what their bonus will be.

And it’s “really ugly” today, according to one Goldman employee.

A midlevel Goldman Sachs [GS  108.74    1.06  (+0.98%)   ] employee who works in the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities division put it this way: “It’s a bloodbath. People are trying to put on a strong face but there are a lot of clenched jaws.”

One thing that makes the situation even more intense is that many receive the news of their bonus in a very public way.

Read the rest here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHegVr-armo&feature=related

The S&P 500 Technology sector has gotten off to a great start to 2012.  While it has gotten a bit overbought in the short term, the sector is closing in on a key resistance level that bulls would love to see broken.  This resistance level is the sector’s pre-financial crisis closing high of 441.36, which is just 1.59% away from where the sector is currently trading.

Read the rest and see the pretty graphs here.

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The revamped school lunches at Los Angeles Unified School District have won awards, commending them for improving the menu at the second largest school district in the nation. Too bad the students don’t agree.

Rejecting healthful alternatives like vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles, students are throwing them in the trash by the thousands, bringing junk food from home and buying instant noodles and other decidedly unhealthy fare from the “black markets” that have begun to thrive at campuses across the district, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The wholesale rejection to its healthy menu comes about a year after a very public food fight with TV chef Jamie Oliver. Oliver filmed a few weeks of his ABC series “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” at one LAUSD campus, but the permit was terminated abruptly.

The series’ first season featured Oliver trying to revolutionize the eating habits and food policies of Huntington, W. Va.

The district said they welcomed Oliver, but not his cameras, in an effort to avoid gimmicks, like filling a school bus with 57 tons of white sand to represent the amount of sugar LAUSD students consume weekly in flavored milk.

The kerfluffle led to LAUSD’s decision to change the menu in favor of healthier options. The district decided to do away with chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk.

Now, the Times reports cartons of plain milk are being thrown away en masse, unopened, along with uneaten entrees. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students, who are ditching lunch and are suffering from hunger-related ailments.

The complaints have been heard and LAUSD is planning changes to the menu, the Times reports. Burgers and (healthy) pizza are coming back, and dishes like quinoa salads and brown rice cutlets are out.

Read the rest here.

H/T Ritholtz

As for all federal taxes, CBO found that in 2007 the top 1% paid an average rate of a little under 30%, compared to 15.1% for middle-income earners. In calculating this overall tax burden, CBO takes account of payroll taxes, which moves the rate of the lowest 20% of earners into positive territory at 4.7%. CBO also apportions to individuals who are shareholders the tax that corporations pay on corporate profits.

The main point is that the average effective tax rate on the richest 1% is already twice as high as that of the middle class. No matter how many times Mr. Buffett asserts it, secretaries and plumbers do not on average pay a higher tax rate or less in taxes than do CEOs. Here is what the CBO concludes: “Taken as a whole, the federal tax system is progressive.”

What America is Thinking on Energy Issues

Washington, D.C., January 18, 2012 – Seventy percent of American voters favor increased access to U.S. oil and natural gas resources, and similar numbers believe more oil and natural gas development would provide major benefits to the nation, including more U.S. jobs, according to a new poll released today.

“Voters know developing more of America’s homegrown energy makes sense for our economy and our energy security,” said API President and CEO Jack Gerard. “Our economy will demand large amounts of oil and natural gas for at least several more decades even as the role of alternative energy increases. Common sense says we should have Americans producing that oil and gas here at home as much as possible.”

The recent API telephone poll, conducted by Harris Interactive, among 1,005 registered voters found that large majorities believe that more U.S. oil and natural gas development could lead to more American jobs (87 percent), help the U.S. economy and reduce consumer energy costs (83 percent), increase the nation’s energy security (82 percent), and deliver more revenue to the government (72 percent). Over two-thirds (70 percent) believe that some in Washington are intentionally delaying domestic oil and natural gas development, potentially hurting the economy and leading to higher energy costs for consumers.

Read the rest here.