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THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE DEAD STONED
A two-hour Occupy Denver march by at least 2,000 protesters through downtown was peaceful today — but, four hours later, chaos reigned in the heart of Denver.
Most protesters had left after the march ended at about 2 p.m., but a small group of demonstrators blocked Broadway and tensions rose after dining tents were pitched in the corner of Civic Center park.
Officers began making arrests at about 6:20 p.m. and by 7 p.m., police used pepper spray as they knocked down the “Thunderdome” dining tents. Some people screamed as the tents fell and handcuffed protesters soon lined East 14th Avenue. At least two police vans carried off those in custody.
Officers in riot gear first cleared Lincoln Park at about 5:30 pm
(Denver police officers keep watch on the march in downtown Denver on Saturday. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)
and then formed long lines along Broadway and across the middle of the intersection of Broadway and East 14th Avenue.
Across from them, in Broadway and in Civic Center park, were about one hundred remaining protesters — more than one dozen sat with linked arms.
Some screamed at the police and shouted “shame” at the officers.
Comments »“GREECE STYLE” NYC TIMES SQUARE POLICE LINE STRETCHES SEVERAL HUNDRED FEET LONG
SIGN OF THE TIMES SQUARE: 71 Arrested In NYC So Far Tonight
MR. CLOROX aka Carl Icahn Takes Stake in Navistar
Icahn discloses 9.8% stake in Navistar. Shares of NAV +3 in ah’s.
Comments »FLASH: FITCH MAKES THE BIG BANKS ITS BITCH
FLASH: RAJ RAJ GOING TO A FEDERAL POUND ME IN THE ASS PRISON
Raj Rajaratnam, the face of the biggest trading scandal in a generation, was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison, one of the longest ever sentences handed down for an insider case.
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 19 years and seven months to 24 years and five months behind bars for the former hedge fund titan. Rajaratnam’s lawyers — citing health problems, among other factors — had been urging the judge to consider a much more lenient sentencing range of six-and-a-half years to eight years and one month.
“His crimes and the scope of his crimes reflect a virus in our business culture that needs to be eradicated,” US District Judge Richard Holwell said in imposing sentence. The judge also ordered Rajaratnam to pay a $10 million fine.
Comments »Slovakia Parliament Members Approve EFSF Bailout Fund; Market Fails to Rally Off the News
Prepare for the Show Trial: Congress Plans Hearings on Volcker Rule
Congressional leaders plan to hold hearings on one of the more controversial parts of the Dodd-Frank financial reform known as the Volcker Rule that prevents the nation’s big banks from practices that federal regulators say are dangerous — but which have also generated enormous profits for Wall Street, the FOX Business Network has learned.
The hearing is being planned by the House Financial Services committee and comes as the final drafts of the rule have been approved by federal regulators this week. Named after former Obama Administration economic adviser Paul Volcker, the rule generally bars banks from businesses like “proprietary trading” or using firm capital to trade securities, and vastly limits the amount of money banks can invest in hedge funds and in private equity accounts.
Comments »YES WE CAIN, YES WE CAIN
Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
And in yet another sign of how volatile the Republican race has been with less than three months until the first nominating contests, the onetime frontrunner, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, has plummeted to third place, dropping more than 20 percentage points since late August.
“Cain is the leader … That’s the story,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.
Comments »FLASH: Slovakian Government Falls Apart
Due to failed ESFS vote, early elections have been initiated and the government is in fucking shambles.
How sweet of them.
Comments »ALERT: Slovakia Says No
***SLOVAK PARLIAMENT HAS REJECTED THE EFSF***
Comments »EU Banks Face Higher Capital Thresholds, While Fed Considers Easing Them in U.S.
BREAKING: SEC CHARGES UNITED COMMERCIAL BANK EXECS WITH HIDING MILLIONS DURING 2008 CRISIS
DRAMA QUEENS: Euro Leaders Postpone Crisis Summit
European leaders pushed back a debt- crisis summit amid opposition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s drive for deeper-than-planned writedowns of Greek bonds.
The Oct. 18 meeting was postponed to Oct. 23 as Europe gropes toward a master plan for dealing with Greece’s oversized debt, insulating the Spanish and Italian markets, and shielding banks from the fallout.
Europe needs a strategy for shoring up banks before unstitching a July accord to cut Greek bond values by an average of 21 percent, Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme said.
“It is a very sensitive item,” Leterme said in a Bloomberg Television interview at his Brussels residence yesterday. “You can’t at every European Council change the percentages and bring supplementary problems to banks.”
Germany and France, Europe’s dominant tandem, this week pledged a crisis-management breakthrough in time for a Nov. 3 meeting of Group of 20 leaders, the informal steering committee for the world economy.
Opposition to bigger Greek debt writedowns is coming from theEuropean Central Bank, which is against any backsliding from the July 21 accord on a second Greek bailout, a central bank official said yesterday. An appeal to “fully implement all aspects” of the July roadmap was inserted into last week’s monthly policy statement as a warning to Germany, the official said under condition of anonymity.
Economic-Review Mission
For Greece, the endgame drew nearer with an announcement that European Union, International Monetary Fund and ECB experts are likely to complete their economic-review mission today. Some “technical issues” remain to be sorted, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said in a statement yesterday.
“It is looking as if the July 21 agreement just isn’t sufficient and that’s been increasingly recognized in Greece and the rest of Europe,” Julian Callow, chief European economist atBarclays Capital in London, said yesterday on Bloomberg Television’s On the Move with Francine Lacqua.
Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy put bank recapitalization at the top of the priority list in an Oct. 9 declaration in Berlin that triggered a flurry of consultations in European capitals.
The German and French leaders each called for a “lasting” solution to the 19-month crisis, echoing language the EU used in March when it unwrapped what it labeled a “comprehensive” package to restore economic order.
Upgraded Strategy
The upgraded strategy hinges on finding a way to get more out of the 440 billion-euro ($602 billion) rescue fund.
“Further elements are needed to address the situation in Greece, the bank recapitalization and the enhanced efficiency of stabilization tools,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy said in setting the new summit date yesterday.
The summit, now slated for a Sunday when the U.S. and European markets are closed, will be preceded by a meeting of finance ministers on a date to be determined. Europe has traditionally chosen weekends for market-sensitive crisis management, as when the euro area created the rescue fund in May 2010.
A planned reinforcement of the fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility, faces its sternest test today with a vote in Slovakia’s parliament. One party in the governing coalition is holding out against approval.
Political jousting in Slovakia, a euro user since 2009, showed how Europe’s unanimous decision-making principle makes the emergency response hostage to local politics.
EFSF Ratification
Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova’s party is seeking to pressure rebel lawmakers by tying the EFSF ratification to a no- confidence motion, two government officials said under condition of anonymity yesterday.
Belgium’s Leterme said a veto shouldn’t derail the fund. He called on the remaining 16 euro governments “to take over the burden and we’ll have to defend the euro” in case Slovakia balks at ratification.
The strengthened fund will gain the power to buy bonds in the primary and secondary markets, offer IMF-style precautionary credit lines and enable the bolstering of bank capital.
Officials are working out how to scale up the EFSF’s firepower without requiring another round of parliamentary approvals or dipping into the balance sheet of the ECB. The central bank has ruled out granting the EFSF a banking license.
Under a workaround floated yesterday, the governments could use the EFSF to insure a portion of new bonds sold by debt- strapped nations, automatically extending the fund’s coverage.
EFSF resources “should be dedicated to enhance sovereign debt new issuance of securities, thus multiplying their effect,” ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio said in Milan yesterday.
Comments »FLASH: JOE THE PLUMBER IS RUNNING FOR CONGRESS
FLASH: FORECLOSURE LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT IMMINENT
Sources at Citigroup and Bank of America tell FOX Business that bank officials worked through the weekend and were in close talks with state attorneys general and the Department of Justice to try to wrap up a potential $20 billion settlement that could come as early as this week or next over improper mortgage practices and robosigning.
The would-be settlement involves foreclosure papers that were rubberstamped, allegedly pushing many out of their homes. JPMorgan Chase, Ally Financial and Wells Fargo are also involved in the talks, sources say.
Comments »FLASH: DEXIA RESCUE PLAN LOOKS TO BE SET
Franco-Belgian bank Dexia was set to be broken up and partly nationalised after being slammed by a funding squeeze in the latest warning sign about the health of Europe’s struggling lenders.
The rescue of Dexia, which has global credit risk exposure of $700 billion — more than twice Greece’s GDP — came as the leaders of French andGermany agreed in a joint press conference that European banks needed to be recapitalised, but papered over differences on how that would happen.
Details of the rescue were not revealed while Dexia’s board met in Brussels to approve the plan, but it will call for the bank’s Belgian retail unit and French municipal finance operations to come under government control.
Dexia was forced to seek state help for the second time in three years after a liquidity crunch hobbled the lender and sent its shares down 42 percent over the past week.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, his Belgian counterpart Yves Leterme and Luc Frieden, the finance minister of Luxembourg, where Dexia has a large presence, had found a solution for the stricken Franco-Belgian bank, Leterme’s office said early Sunday afternoon.
“The three governments have agreed to put a proposal to the board which fits completely with the goals of the Belgian government, which means to take over Dexia Bank Belgium, secure it and turn it into a very safe bank,” Leterme said after two hours of talks at Egmont Palace in Brussels — also the site of negotiations for a previous Dexia rescue in 2008.
At stake in the talks is how much each government will have to contribute to help wind down Dexia, a thorny subject given that Belgium and France are already struggling to contain large deficits.
The need to recapitalise banks is emerging as another strain for European governments whose budgets are already stretched. Belgium had a debt-to-gross domestic product ratio of 96.2 percent last year, lower only than Greece and Italy among euro zone members and on a par with bailout recipient Ireland.
“I am convinced that it is possible … by tomorrow morning to have an agreement in which Belgium resolves the issue without pushing up the debt level of our country too high,” Leterme told Belgian television before Sunday’s talks.
The burden of bailing out Dexia led ratings agency Moody’s to warn Belgium late on Friday that its Aa1 government bond ratings may fall.
Dexia, which used short-term funding to finance long-term lendings, has found credit drying up as the euro zone debt crisis worsened. This problem has been exacerbated by the bank’s heavy exposure to Greece.
Dexia’s near collapse stoked investors’ anxieties about the strength of European banks and coincided with growing talk about coordinated EU action to recapitalise banks across the continent.
Germany and France have so far been split over how to recapitalise shaky European banks. Paris wants to tap the euro zone’s 440 billion euro ($594 billion) European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to recapitalise French banks, while Berlin is insisting the fund should be used as a last resort.
There were fresh reports over the weekend that France’s top banks BNP Paribas and Societe Generale could agree to capital injections as part of a Europe-wide plan to boost lenders’ financial strength, although both banks continue to deny such plans.
Dexia’s overhaul will likely see its French municipal financing arm split from the group and merged with French state bank Caisse des Depots and Banque Postale, the French post office’s banking arm.
The Belgian government will nationalise Dexia’s largely retail banking business in Belgium. Media reports said it would have to pay 4 billion euros to do so.
Healthy units, such as Denizbank in Turkey, will be sold.
A ‘bad bank’ supported by state guarantees will hold 95 billion euros in bonds, including 12 billion euros of sovereign debt of weaker euro zone periphery nations.
Including 7 billion euros of securities linked to U.S. mortgages, France and Belgium may need to provide guarantees to cover up to 200 billion euros of assets, which would be more than 55 percent of Belgian GDP. Belgium, under an agreement reached between the governments on Sunday, will guarantee 60 percent of the bad assets while France will be responsible for most of the rest, sources familiar with the talks said.
The key issues are how to divide up the ‘bad bank’ asset guarantees, how much Belgium should pay to nationalise Dexia’s Belgian banking business and whether others, such as Belgium’s regions, would be involved in its purchase.
Dexia’s shares have been suspended since Thursday afternoon..
Comments »FLASH: FITCH CUTS SPAIN AND ITALY’S CREDIT RATINGS
Stocks turned lower Friday after Moody’s downgraded Italy and Spain’s debt ratings, adding to ongoing jitters over the euro zone debt crisis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average turned negative, led by BofA [BAC 5.9599 
-0.3201 (-5.1%) 
] and JPMorgan [JPM 31.16 -1.22 (-3.77%) ], afterlogging a three-day rally in the previous session.
The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were also lower. The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, traded near 35.
Among the key S&P sectors, financials lagged, while telecom gained.
Fitch slashed Spain’s rating to AA- from AA+, citing risks of slow growth and high regional debt, and Italy’s to A+ from AA-, adding the outlook on its long-term ratings is negative.
In Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were split ahead of crucial summit talks over the weekend over how to strengthen European banks and fight financial market contagion to prepare for a possible Greek default.
Meanwhile, Moody’s downgraded 12 UK financial institutions, saying it sees a decreased likelihood of government support for smaller institutions in particular but specifying the move does not reflect a deterioration in the financial strength of the banking system.
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