The World Bank Cuts Global Growth to 2.5% From 3.6%

The Euro crisis is to blame for lower estimates.

Everybody needs a little coin these days….

Germany now expects to grow less than 1%. The revised GDP estimate is now 0.7% growth…

China’s lending rises yoy

China said to be cutting lending  

Of course the IMF news helps….

A new mine on line contributed to the production boost…

Inflate your problems away….

The Euro is at 1.2616

Print until oblivion

Currently the OMF has $385 billion on hand; they are seeking to boost that to $885 billion to help fund a trillion dolar funding gap over the next two years.

Full article

Asia

Europe

Futures

Currencies

Commodities

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

By Dan Nguyen, ProPublica. Updated Jan. 18, 2012

Well-funded interests on either side of SOPA and PIPA are lining up support among members of Congress. This database keeps track of where members of Congress stand. Findings are based on two factors: whether a member is a sponsor of the proposed bills, and each member’s voting record on the current bills’ precursors and alternatives. Click the links on the left to filter the supporters list.

See the list here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iit8vmloKFM&feature=player_embedded

(Reuters) – All New Jersey income tax brackets should be cut 10 percent, Governor Chris Christie proposed on Tuesday, saying the state was on the comeback trail due to harsh budget measures taken last year.

Read the rest here.

Workers at weight-loss surgery centers affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN ad campaign persuaded patients to have medically unnecessary surgeries and billed insurance companies for procedures that were never performed, a new lawsuit alleges.

Two women who formerly worked at surgery centers affiliated with the Lap-Band ad campaign claimed that surgery center executives covered up mistakes that contributed to the Sept. 8 death of Paula Rojeski, a Lap-Band patient from Orange County.

The new lawsuit seeks damages from eight people, including brothers Michael and Julian Omidi, who the lawsuit says run the weight-loss business from offices in Beverly Hills. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, also seeks damages from 13 companies it says are controlled by the Omidis.

The Omidis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At least five patients have died since 2009 following Lap-Band procedures at clinics in Beverly Hills and West Hills that are affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN marketing campaign, according to autopsy reports, lawsuits and other public records.

Manufactured by Irvine-based Allergan Inc., the Lap-Band is a ring that is surgically implanted around the stomach to discourage overeating. The 1-800-GET-THIN marketing company said in a court filing last year that it scheduled more than 10,000 Lap-Band surgeries in its first 15 months.

The lawsuit accuses the Omidis, their mother Cindy, three of their attorneys and two employees of violating the Racketeer Influenced or Corrupt Organizations Act, which Congress passed in 1970 as a tool against organized crime.

The lawsuit by former surgery center workers Dyanne Deuel and Karla Osorio accuses the defendants of running a “criminal enterprise” centered around a scheme to drive up revenues from the Lap-Band surgeries by billing insurers for procedures that were never performed and encouraging patients to have procedures they did not need.

Deuel and Osorio also accused the defendants of improperly sterilizing and reusing surgical instruments in an effort to reduce costs.

“What the slick advertising campaign doesn’t disclose are the horrific and gruesome conditions that our clients allege exist at these surgery centers and the fact that patient care is sacrificed for profit,” said Alexander Robertson, the Westlake Village attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Deuel and Osorio.

Source

I previously summarized research that two of my graduate students, James Felkerson and Nicola Matthews, are conducting on the Fed’s bail-out. Using data that the Fed was forced to release, they demonstrated that the cumulative total lent and spent on assets by the Fed was over $29 trillion.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHq7vXIjNFI 603 500]

By: Reuters

Rating agency Fitch said on Tuesday that Greece would default on its debt, although it said that such a default was likely to take place in an orderly manner.

“It is going to happen. Greece is insolvent so it will default,” Edward Parker, Managing Director for Fitch’s Sovereign and Supranational Group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in the Swedish capital. “So in that sense it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.”

The Fitch comments come after Moritz Kraemer, head of Standard & Poor’s rating agency’s European sovereign ratings unit, said on Monday Greece would default shortly on its debt obligations.

Parker said that Fitch believed that even a voluntary agreement by private investors to take a haircut on Greek debt would constitute a default.

Read the rest here.

(via)

Should 49ers fans be concerned about hooliganism?

I’m posting a letter to the editor from a shocked Saints fan that ran in the Tuesday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle because it deserves a broader community discussion. The letter, written by Don Moses of Mill Valley, describes ugly and profane epithets hurled at him and his two teenage daughters when they went to Saturday’s 49ers game against the New Orleans Saints. Moses decries the combative fan culture. His was not the only letter The Chronicle received from horrified Saints fans.
Another Saints fan who was at the game posted this on a New Orleans life website.
What do you think?
– Lois Kazakoff, deputy editorial page editor

Ugly side of 49ers’ big game
Letters to the editor, Jan. 17
I’ve lived in the Bay Area for 25 years but have remained a staunch Saints fan with close ties to New Orleans. My family still lives in New Orleans and has held our season tickets since 1967. I “get” the emotion of the game, the moment and the enthusiasm of the 49er fans.
Despite the extraordinary setting at the ’Stick, we were shocked by the hostility, vulgarity and intimidation that rained down on me and my two teenage daughters from the moment we stepped into the parking lots. Yes, we were proudly wearing our Saints colors; that’s what loyal fans do. And yes, we expected some good-natured jeering.

We had vulgarities screamed at us repeatedly in the parking lots and literally nonstop by the hooligans around us in the stands. While walking through the lots we had footballs thrown at us, guys screaming curses in our faces — my daughters asked if I had heard the guy who yelled “your mother’s a whore,” which I had, but couldn’t show a reaction for fear for my daughters’ and my own safety. We finally took to shadowing two cops that were strolling through the lots until we dashed for what we thought would be the relative sanity of the stadium.

The stadium was no better. Every other word from dozens of fans around us was an f-bomb shouted at the top of their lungs. There were seven or eight large 30- to 35-year-old guys directly behind us who cursed and threatened us the entire game. After one string of profanities I turned around to look at them and the most obnoxious and combative of the bunch yelled, “Do not turn around again! Do not ever turn around again” and punctuated it with a profanity. They used gay slurs repeatedly at the husband of a middle-aged couple in front of us, the only other Saints fan in our area, and called his wife a bitch.

One of my daughters asked me, “Why don’t you do something, Daddy?” Do what? Fight 10 guys, call/text security when all those guys behind me would know who would have fingered them?
Leave early? We almost did.

The hostility and threats of violence were a constant throughout our experience. It appeared to be ingrained in the fans’ culture, similar to the hooliganism that destroyed the reputation of English soccer. The long wait for the playoffs, the excitement of a big game? No excuse. I’ve been to big games in venues around the world and believe me, I’ve been a Saints fan my whole life so I certainly know about long playoff waits. The Vikings fans in the tailgate parties before the NFC championship game were eating crayfish and dancing along with the Saints fans — they weren’t threatened, they were having a great time.

Every 49ers fan, the team and it’s owners should be ashamed and embarrassed to wear the red and gold today. They won the game but are losers in every other way.

Don Moses, Mill Valley