U.S. Olympic Uniforms: Made in China by Democratic Donor’s company

Outsource much?

Lawmakers were livid to discover that the United States’ Olympic team uniforms were made in China. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) even suggested “they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over again.”

Read the article here.

Whew…It seriously might be time to look at some bottom feeding…

European stock strategists are backing away from their most-pessimistic forecasts as policy makers agree on measures to tackle the region’s debt crisis.

While sticking to predictions for losses of as much as 16 percent, Morgan Stanley’s Ronan Carr raised his recommendation on European equities to neutral on July 2 and Alain Bokobza of Societe Generale SA said he has started to reduce the underweight call he’s had for at least two years. Exane BNP Paribas said investors can find bargains among companies most reliant on economic growth.

Read the article here.

Will it be enough to keep Turbo Tim out of the fray?

According to a June 2008 memo obtained by FOX Business, Geithner, who was then president of the New York Federal Reserve, listed six changes aimed at making it more difficult for banks to distort Libor.

The disclosure comes as lawmakers step up the heat on bankers and regulators in the wake of Barclays (BCS: 10.16, +0.03, +0.30%) reaching a $452 million settlement for allegedly intentionally manipulating its Libor rates. More than a dozen banks are being probed for their handling of Libor.

It’s not clear if the memo will be enough to demonstrate Geithner and other U.S. regulators did enough to prevent the deliberate under reporting of Libor rates.

The Stock Sage has posted a chart of $CRB, which is worth reviewing.

Go here to see the chart and his analysis.

Just another instance of big government and how big business is destroying the rights and freedoms of the citizens in the best country in the world. Perhaps this issue is of no real importance to most city dwellers, but the greater picture is the future of our rights and the rights of generations to come.

Cheers on your weekend !

Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under attack. Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities and were forced to stop, sometimes through violent ac-tion, by agents of misguided government bureaucracies, and seeks to figure out why.

Filmmaker Kristin Canty’s quest to find healthy food for her four children turned into an educational journey to discover why access to these foods was being threatened. What she found were policies that favor agribusiness and factory farms over small family-operated farms selling fresh foods to their communities. Instead of focusing on the source of food safety problems — most often the industrial food chain — policymakers and regulators implement and enforce solutions that target and often drive out of business small farms that have proven themselves more than capable of producing safe, healthy food, but buckle under the crushing weight of government regulations and excessive enforcement actions.

Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasona-bly burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.

NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan Chase said Friday that a bad trade had cost the bank $5.8 billion this year, almost triple its original estimate, and raised the prospect that traders had improperly tried to conceal the blunder.

“This has shaken our company to the core,” CEO Jamie Dimon said.

The bank said managers tied to the bad trade had been dismissed without severance pay and that it planned to revoke two years’ worth of pay from each of those executives.

JPMorgan said it had lost $4.4 billion because of the trade from April through June, and its chief financial officer said the bank had lost an additional $1.4 billion in the first three months of the year.

Dimon’s original estimate of the loss from the bad trade, disclosed in a surprise conference call with Wall Street analysts on May 10, was $2 billion.

The bank said an internal investigation, including emails and voice messages, had called into question the values that traders placed on certain bets, and that the traders may have been seeking to mask losses.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Read here:

U.S. equities blasted off this morning to put in over 1% gains in the first hour of trade. Our performance has pushed European markets to double late day gains.

The world is giddy over China GDP data not going into the ‘tirlet’ (sic) and hopes are rising of more global central banks puts.

The Constanza rally is on!

Market update

3D heat map  ,

S&P A/D Lines  ,

NASDAQ A/D Lines 

“A government program that allows businesses to implement “voluntary protection” for its workers has resulted in missed inspections, numerous industrial accidents and at least 80 deaths.

“The investigation into the collapse of Iowa brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group is notable for one name that has not yet turned up: JPMorgan Chase.

JPMorgan, the country’s biggest bank, held customer accounts for Peregrine, doing business as PFGBest. But in alleging that Peregrine took customer money, the National Futures Association and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have claimed that customer money is missing not from a JPMorgan account, but from a U.S. Bank account.”

Full article

“More than half of the United States hosts areas considered natural disaster sites by the US Department of Agriculture following a ravaging dry spell that has left more than 1,000 counties in 26 different states destroyed.

The USDA says droughts and fires are to blame for their recent labeling of much of the US as being in a state of natural disaster. Among those effected by damage, reports Bloomberg News, are around one-third of the country’s farmers, which contributes in making this declaration the largest ever of its kind by the Department of Agriculture.

“Agriculture remains a bright spot in our nation’s economy,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tells the country this week in an official statement. “We need to be cognizant of the fact that drought and weather conditions have severely impacted farmers around the country.”

States that contain the 1,016 counties considered natural disaster sites include California, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Hawaii, to name a few. More than half of the Midwest region — the heartland of America’s agriculture community — is currently experiencing moderate to extreme droughts.”

Full article

“A recent meeting of the US Federal Reserve revealed that members of America’s central bank are not very optimistic about the future of the country’s economy.

Even though the Fed is at odds regarding what to do in terms of helping economic growth — and it still remains unclear whether or not a third round of quantitative easing (QE3) is to come — the official forecast from the bank suggests that the US may be sliding into a crisis.

Details from the Fed’s last meeting have been released to the public, and the minutes from that gathering reveal that the economists that oversee much of the inner-workings of the country’s fiscal policy remain concerned with the state of America.”

Full article

“Regulations introduced since the financial crisis of 2008-09 have improved the financial system, but not enough, says Sheila Bair, former chairwoman of the FDIC.

“There are new regulations that are substantial,” she tells Yahoo. “It’s safer, but it’s not as safe as it should be.”

Not surprisingly, then, Bair thinks the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which celebrating its second anniversary this month, is helpful but leaves problems yet to solve.”

Full article

“The Federal Reserve will probably move to stimulate the economy via easing measures this year, though such policy tools can’t guarantee that the country won’t slide into recession, says Robert Wiedemer, financial commentator and best-selling author of “Aftershock.”

U.S. recovery remains tepid, with consumer confidence waning, personal spending flat and job creation minimal, prompting talk the Federal Reserve will roll out a fresh round of bond buybacks from banks, a stimulus took known as quantitative easing (QE).”

Video article

“One of the biggest effects social media has had on B2B marketers is in the way it has cajoled (or in some cases coerced) big companies into behaving like groups of like-minded people instead of faceless, corporate entities. Fact is, it is no longer feasible for corporations to maintain a pretentious façade. It’s too easy for the world to see inside. And if the inside of a company does not match its outsides (i.e., marketing image) this creates a level of conflict potentially ruinous to the firm.”

Full article

“Facebook is apparently working on a job postings board that will launch later this summer, according to a report by the WSJ. “Facebook Jobs” will be an aggregator that pulls in job postings by third party providers and makes them available in one place and creates a searchable database of jobs for users to browse.”

Full article

Gapping up

APKT +6%, ANGO +5.1%, NWY +4.5%, RECN +4.3%, JPM +2.5%, SLV +1.2%,

JBLU +1.2%,  QCOR +1.7%, KMI +1.1%, CTCM +1.4%, FTE +3%, APKT +6% ,

MRK +1.4%, PBR +3.6%, SD +1.3%, CHKP +1.3%, WFT +1.1%, RIG +1.1%, BP +0.5%,

RDS.A +0.2%,  MGM +1.1%, LVS +1.0%, PAAS +1.4%, GDX +1.3%, SLW +1.1%, ABX +1%,

RIO +0.8%, VE +2.6% , ANGO +5.1%, NWY +4.5%, RECN +4.3%, JPM +0.3%

Gapping down

TEU -13.7%, TWO -1.4%, DRI -1.4%, DB -1%, DISCA -1.3% ,  DF -1.9%,  TWO -1.4%,

LXK -13.7%, IGTE -3.1%, DRI -1.4%, WFC -0.3%,

DF, DLR, ELLI, FTE, GGP, GOOG, INFY, KMI, PNRA, RNR, RYL, R, SKS, CRM,

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In Play ,

On the Wires 

Up until last week rail traffic was pretty much in favor of an expanding economy. This week’s data is showing a mixed bag:

Full look