Monthly Archives: April 2012
Sexy Russian Spy Anna Chapman Arrested Because She Was Getting Too Close To Someone Inside “Obama’s Inner Circle”?
via Ace
That’s what a former FBI counterintelligence officer reveals.
The Independent (UK) highlights the six hundredth revelation that Iraqi informant “Curveball” lied. They bury the actual new news — that the FBI felt it had to move quickly to arrest and deport Anna Chapman, for fear that someone close to Obama was about to snork her, and get caught in a “honey trap” (sex, followed by extortion for secrets/influence).
That someone “close” to Obama? A “sitting cabinet official,” this FBI counterintelligence officer says.
Read the rest here.
Comments »New Book Cites the Famous Perry “Oops” Moment and Other Follies to Painkillers
A Celestial Feast for Your Eyes
Denmark Tops the List in Happiness
Quality of life is important and Denmark tops the list in happiness. U.S. rates #11…
“Are you happy? It’s a question that economists and pollsters are asking all over the world, hoping to gain new insight into what brings us joy — and why people answer differently in different countries.
Bhutan is leading an international meeting Monday at the United Nations, seeking to establish “next steps towards realizing the vision of a new well-being” that include gauging happiness in different nations. The Asian country already has a national happiness index, and is urging others to follow suit.
How happy is your country? In a report released for the meeting, economists John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs round up what is known about happiness around the globe.
Different groups have asked different questions to measure happiness. In the widest such survey, Gallup asked people to rate their lives from 0 to 10. It found huge differences in global happiness: More than a third of Europeans ranked themselves an 8 or higher. Less than 5% said so in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to polls taken from 2005 to 2011, these were the happiest countries:
- Denmark
- Finland
- Norway
- Netherlands
- Canada
- Switzerland
- Sweden
- New Zealand
- Australia
- Ireland
The United States ranks 11th, just after Ireland. The unhappiest countries were Togo (ranked last), Benin, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Comoros, Haiti, Tanzania, Congo and Bulgaria. Bhutan, which pioneered the happiness index, is not included in the Gallup World Poll. (Other surveys rank countries differently from Gallup. To see some of the other rankings, read the full report.)….”
Comments »Buffet Advises Companies to Go Green or See Profits Go Lean
“Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said companies won’t last if they fail to consider the impact of their businesses on the environment.
“Taking shortcuts is not the pathway to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, nor is it an avenue toward satisfying customers,” Buffett, 81, said in a report published Monday on the website of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire’s Johns Manville building products subsidiary. “A company must invest in the key ingredients of profitability: its people, communities and the environment.”
Berkshire has bet on railroads and renewable energy as Buffett said demand will climb for products or services that are less harmful to the planet. After announcing the acquisition of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe, he told Charlie Rose in 2009 that that trains were the “most environmentally friendly way of moving goods” around the U.S., an advantage that would help ensure that the business lasts for a century or more.
Ceres, a Boston-based advocacy organization for investors and public interest groups, listed Buffett’s firm last year among the largest insurers that could more fully disclose how climate change threatens their business. And while Berkshire has wagered on electric vehicles with the purchase of a stake in China’s BYD Co., Buffett has also bet on oil producer ConocoPhillips.
Johns Manville, once the largest asbestos maker in the U.S., has shifted its business practices since claims from victims of the cancer-causing product forced the firm into bankruptcy in 1982. Berkshire bought the company in 2001.
Lessons Learned
“We take the lessons learned from these historical events very seriously,” Johns Manville said in the report, which details the company’s efforts at sustainability last year….”
Comments »Turns Out Solyndra Was Just a Warm Up; World’s Largest Solar Plant Goes Belly Up
“Solyndra was just the appetizer. Earlier today, in what will come as a surprise only to members of the administration, the company which proudly held the rights to the world’s largest solar power project, the hilariously named Solar Trust of America (“STA”), filed for bankruptcy. And while one could say that the company’s epic collapse is more a function of alternative energy politics in Germany, where its 70% parent Solar Millennium AG filed for bankruptcy last December, what is relevant is that last April STA was the proud recipient of a $2.1 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy, incidentally the second largest loan ever handed out by the DOE’s Stephen Chu. That amount was supposed to fund the expansion of the company’s 1000 MW Blythe Solar Power Project in Riverside, California. From the funding press release, “This project construction is expected to create over 1,000 direct jobs in Southern California, 7,500 indirect jobs in related industries throughout the United States, and more than 200 long-term operational jobs at the facility itself. It will play a key role in stimulating the American economy,”said Uwe T. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Solar Trust of America and Executive Chairman of project development subsidiary Solar Millennium, LLC.” Instead, what Solar Trust will do is create lots of billable hours for bankruptcy attorneys (at $1,000/hour), and a good old equity extraction for the $22 million DIP lender, which just happens to be NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, another “alternative energy” company which last yearreceived a $935 million loan courtesy of the very same (and now $2.1 billion poorer) Department of Energy, which is also a subsidiary of public NextEra Energy (NEE), in the process ultimately resulting in yet another transfer of taxpayer cash to NEE’s private shareholders.
As Bloomberg notes: “The company joins Energy Conversion Devices Inc., a U.S. solar manufacturer that suspended production last year; LSP Energy LP, the owner of a natural-gas-fired power plant in Mississippi; Ener1 Inc., maker of lithium-ion batteries for plug-in electric cars; solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC; and energy storage company Beacon Power Corp. (BCONQ) in bankruptcy.”
And so central planning fails again, and again, and again, and again. But it sure will be better with the centrally planned monetary (and in the absence of a working Congress – also fiscal) policy. Because this time it really will be different.
From Reuters:
Comments »Solar Trust of America and several affiliates filed for protection from creditors with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware. It estimated to have as much as $10 million of assets, and between $50 million and $100 million of liabilities….”
UBS Sees Higher Profit Margins and a Bias to the Upside Going Long
“There’s been a lot of talk about corporate profit margins hitting record highs. (More on this later.)
UBS’s top equity strategist Jonathan Golub is out with new research today, warning that the risks to investing in stocks these days are weighted to the upside.
“[I]t increasingly appears that our very reasonable expectations for earnings and multiples may prove conservative,” he wrote.
His current year-end S&P 500 target is 1,475.
The source of upside surprise: profit margins.
We expect earnings growth of 5.2% in 2012 and 8.7% 2013. A weaker dollar, higher oil prices, and improving foreign sales could provide upside revenue surprises. Additionally, rising capacity utilization rates could drive operating margins to new highs.
Here are the charts he supplied:
UBS
“Margins are driven by capacity utilization”
UBS
“Higher commodity prices are consistent with higher margins”
Golub’s argument tying capacity utilization to profit margins is a simple and elegant one.
But is it too simple?
Many experts have sounded off on the profit margin issue, overwhelmingly arguing that margins are topping, or that they have already topped.
GMO’s James Montier tied record margins to soaring government deficits. Building off of Montier’s work, John Hussman and BI’s Henry Blodget have argued that margins have peaked. Morgan Stanley’s David Greenlaw warned that the flattening of GDP combined with falling unemployment rates mean productivity is falling, which implies falling profit margins. Goldman’s David Kostin doesn’t see a collapse, but he sees margins coming in lower than the rest of the street.
To be clear, Golub isn’t committing to this call for higher margins. Rather, he is just pointing out that it’s an upside risk.”
Comments »Tomorrow’s Auto Report May Give a Clue to Friday’s Non Farm Payrolls
The Bear That Cried Wolf: Chart Porn for the Bears
Asian Markets Trade Mixed as The Yen Explodes Against the Greenback
“Most Asian stocks fell as the yen at its highest in almost a month versus the U.S. dollartempered the outlook for Japan’s exporters after a better-than-expected U.S. manufacturing report.
Honda Motor Co. (7267) and Toyota Motor Corp. were among the biggest drags on the MSCI Asia Pacific Index as the yen advanced, damping their earnings outlook. Metcash Ltd. , an Australian grocery distributor, dropped 3.5 percent after announcing store closures and job cuts. Billabong International Ltd., a surfwear maker that gets about 50 percent of revenue from the Americas, advanced 1.1 percent in Sydney.”
Comments »Greedy Mega Millions Woman Refuses to Share $105 Million Jackpot with Fellow $MCD Workers
“I was in the group, but this was separate. The winning ticket was a separate ticket,” the single mother of seven said as she and her fiancé left her home in the squalid Westport neighborhood to attend church.
Comments »Did $MSG and the New York Knicks Hide Jeremy Lin’s Injury to Sell Playoff Tickets?
Did the New York Knicks try to pump up sales of playoff tickets by hiding the news that Jeremy Lin had suffered a season-ending knee injury?
That’s the accusation leveled by Frank Isola of the New York Daily News.
Isola points out that Lin had an MRI that showed he had a torn meniscus in his left knee two days before the March 28 deadline for season-ticket holders to buy playoff tickets. And such cartilage tears almost always require surgery.
Isola’s column also notes that an e-mail was sent to fans with a picture of Lin leaping in celebration.
Madison Square Garden spokeswoman Stacey Escudero said the story’s “completely false.”
Lin didn’t announce his decision to have surgery until Saturday. But the question of who knew what about Lin’s injury arose last Friday when interim Knicks coach Mike Woodson said he had “no idea” when Lin would be able to return. Woodson also said it was possible Lin wouldn’t make it back this season.
Isola writes that within an hour of Woodson’s comments the Knicks’ media relations staff put out a statement contradicting the coach.
The Knicks are 2 1/2 games ahead of Milwaukee for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth, with 13 games to go.
Comments »The Bulls Get the Q Started With Full Flavor Crazy Taste Action
Decent PMI data in China and the U.S. helped markets get a lift today.
Commodities performed extremely well with copper posting a HUGE rebound after a long retreat.
All in all it was not a bad way to kick of the Q…
DOW UP 51
NASDAQ UP 28
S&P UP 10
GOLD UP $6.60
WTI UP $2.16
Not Such High Times: Feds Raid Marijuana ‘University’ in Oakland
Former Pfizer Executives to Face Trial Over Allegedly Concealing the Unfavorable Results of Drug Trials Involving Celebrex and Bextra
“Four former executives at Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug company. — Henry McKinnell, John LaMattina, Karen Katen, Joseph Feczko — as well as Gail Cawkwell, Pfizer’s current Vice President of Medical Affairs, will all face trial for allegedly concealing the unfavorable results of drug trials involving Celebrex and Bextra.Courthouse News Service(CNS) reports that U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain has denied requests made by defendants to dismiss the case, which means all five individuals will be held to account for their actions.
The securities class-action lawsuit, which was filed by theTeachers Retirement System of Louisiana(TRSL) on behalf of Pfizer stockholders, alleges that the five defendants violated federal securities laws by concealing the results of studies involving Celebrex, a COX-2 inhibiting anti-inflammatory drug, and Bextra, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that was pulled from the market in 2005.
According to the suit, the five defendants made misleading statements in their public filings about the drug trials, and also omitted important information that exposed both Celebrex and Bextra as being dangerous. And despite numerous attempts by Pfizer and the defendants to have the case dismissed or reconsidered, the case will now proceed as intended following Judge Swain’s ruling that the plaintiffs provide sufficient evidence to show that Celebrex and Bextra are “linked to adverse cardiovascular events to a statistically significant degree, and that these results were known to Defendants.”
Comments »Lucky Find: British businessman buys $2M Warhol for just $5
“LAS VEGAS — A British businessman picked up an original Andy Warhol drawing worth $2 million (£1.3 million) at a humble garage sale in Las Vegas.
The 1930s sketch, never previously seen in public, was hidden among a handful that art buff Andy Fields bought for $5.
The signed work, on tattered paper, is thought to have been etched by art world legend Warhol when he was either 10 or 11. Experts have hailed it the earliest known example of the late American’s Pop Art — for which he became famous decades later.
And dad-of-one Fields was told it might be worth 10 times its formal valuation….”
Comments »Obama Feels Confident Courts Will Uphold His Healthcare Law
“President Barack Obama voiced confidence Monday that the Supreme Court will uphold his health care law in his first public remarks on the issue since the three days of oral arguments last week.
In a rare instance of a president weighing in on a high court case in which the ruling has not yet been released, Obama suggested that the high court would be guilty of “judicial activism” if it overturned the law. He also argued that the justices should uphold the individual mandate, saying it’s a key — and constitutional — piece of the law.
“We are confident that this will be upheld because it should be upheld,” Obama said at a joint news conference at the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon….”
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Arizona Gets Frisky Passing a Sweeping Internet Censorship Bill
The state legislature of Arizona has passed a bill that vastly broadens telephone harassment laws and applies them to the Internet and other means of electronic communication.
The law, which is being pushed under the guise of an anti-bullying campaign, would mean that anything communicated or published online that was deemed to be “offensive” by the state, including editorials, illustrations, and even satire could be criminally punished.
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund breaks down Arizona House Bill 2549:
“The bill is sweepingly broad, and would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’ as well as certain sexual speech. Because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.”
First Amendment activist group Media Coalition has written to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, urging her not to sign the legislation into law.
The letter notes that the terms used in the bill are not defined in the statute or by reference, and thereby the law could be broadly applied to almost any statement.
“H.B. 2549 would make it a crime to use any electronic or digital device to communicate using obscene, lewd or profane language or to suggest a lewd or lascivious act if done with intent to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’” the letter notes. … ‘Lewd’ and ‘profane’ are not defined in the statute or by reference. ‘Lewd’ is generally understood to mean lusty or sexual in nature and ‘profane’ is generally defined as disrespectful or irreverent about religion or religious practices.”
“H.B. 2549 is not limited to a one to one conversation between two specific people. The communication does not need to be repetitive or even unwanted. There is no requirement that the recipient or subject of the speech actually feel offended, annoyed or scared. Nor does the legislation make clear that the communication must be intended to offend or annoy the reader, the subject or even any specific person.” the letter continues.
In this respect the law could even technically be applied to someone posting a status update on Facebook.
“Speech protected by the First Amendment is often intended to offend, annoy or scare but could be prosecuted under this law.”The Media Coalition letter continues….”
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