Gazprom is Considering All Contracts in Yuan or Rubles

“A little over a month ago, when Russia announced the much anticipated “Holy Grail” energy deal with China, some were disappointed that despite this symbolic agreement meant to break the petrodollar’s stranglehold on the rest of the world, neither Russia nor China announced payment terms to be in anything but dollars. In doing so they admitted that while both nations are eager to move away from a US Dollar reserve currency, neither is yet able to provide an alternative. This changed rather dramatically overnight when in a little noticed statement, Gazprom’s CFO Andrey Kruglov uttered the magic words (via Bloomberg):

• GAZPROM READY TO SETTLE CHINA CONTRACTS IN YUAN OR RUBLES: CFO

In other words just as the US may or may not be preparing to export crude – a step which would weaken the dollar’s reserve status as traditional US oil trading partners will need to find other import customers who pay in non-USD currencies – the world’s two other superpowers are preparing to respond. And once the bilateral trade in Rubles or Renminbi is established, the rest of the energy world will piggyback.

But wait, there’s more. Because only now does Gazprom appear to be unveiling all those “tangents” that were expected to hit the tape in May. Among Kruglov’s other revelations were that Gazprom is in talks on a Hong Kong listing and is weighing the issuance of Yuan bonds. Gazprom is also considering selling bonds in Singapore dollars, the CFO said at briefing in Moscow. Wait, you mean that by alienating and embargoing Russia from western (USD, EUR-denominated) funding markets, it has pushed the country to turn to its pivoting partner, China and thus further cementing the framework for the next Eurasian strategic alliance?

Unpossible

But wait, there’s still more….”

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“Barclays Plc (BARC) was so bent on lifting its private trading venue to the upper ranks of Wall Street dark pools that it lied to customers and masked the role of high-frequency traders, according to New York’s attorney general.

Barclays falsified marketing materials to hide how much high-frequency traders were buying and selling, according to acomplaint filed today by Eric Schneiderman. Barclays runs one of Wall Street’s largest dark pools, a private trading venue where investors can trade stocks mostly anonymously.

Schneiderman has taken a leading role in seeking to reform how equities trade in the $23 trillion U.S. stock market, examining whether exchanges and dark pools give unfair perks to high-frequency traders. His suit against Barclays says clients such as institutional investors were the losers, led to believe they were safe from predators on a trading venue where aggressive trading strategies were in fact encouraged….”

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“Insanity is coming at US in huge waves. This week really saw a lot of new tea leaves presented to those working through the puzzle of the MAN MADE disaster. We are indeed living in interesting times, and I believe they will be studied and written about for decades and centuries into the future. I also believe this time period offers the greatest opportunity’s in history if played from an applied Austrian economic perspective, and a good handle on history. They are one and the same actually. So let’s look at some of the vignettes we covered this week:

• An Islamic Caliphate has been born, World War III has BEGUN!
• Central Banks Lifeboating themselves
• Highest Market Cap for US bank since 2001?
• The Dollar and the DODO bird
• Friday night info dump
• UNRELIABLE SUPPLY
• SILVER coiled and ready to LAUNCH?
• Federal Reserve FOLLIES
• Political correctness that short circuits an invaluable gathering of EXPERIENCE

An Islamic Caliphate has been born, World War III has BEGUN!

Lightly covered by the Mainstream News, a new and vicious ISLAMIC caliphate has been born and World War III has commenced. The Middle East will be irreparably changed in the near future or should I say engulfed in FLAMES. The spineless leaders of the developed world have allowed order to be DESTROYED rather than place the proper emphasis on peace through strength. Now we will pay the price of the breach for their fiduciary duties. Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 said: “walk softly and carry a big stick”, sadly those wise words have been lost and forgotten. Relearning this will be extremely difficult as humpty dumpty has fallen, and putting him back together again may be an impossible task. Global and regional leadership is dead in the developed world: where are the Reagans, Churchill’s and Thatcher’s of the world for this generation. The bold leaders NOW with visions for the future reside in the Chinas, Russias, Singapores and al Qaedas of the world.

“If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.”

– President Ronald Reagan, 1983

The Caliphate calls itself ISIS (the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria) and is a ruthless Al Qaeda political force. Numerous reports of beheadings, mass executions and random killings to foster TERROR in the eyes of their opponents are occurring and it is working. If you are a Christian or Shiite Muslim, the sentence is immediate death upon discovery or capture. Thousands have already been executed already and posted on the internet. A small army of less than 10,000 men has faced and beaten forces 10 times their size.

Soldiers are taking off their uniforms to avoid certain death that capture insures. Then, the terrorists take the discarded uniforms and use them to move freely behind enemy lines. They have now captured major IRAQI military bases and are well armed and supplied with MODERN WEAPONS. At this point, stopping them is not an option. They then retain the territory, oil fields, refineries and the funds for future JIHAD. I can promise you 10’s of thousands of jihadists are making their way there from around the world to participate in the JIHAD state. They have already looted over $450,000,000 million dollars from banks, while the oil insures ongoing income. This is not a group that wants to live peacefully with their neighbors. No, they want to consolidate long enough to develop plans for the next excursion to expand their territory, treasure and sharia law.

“The Syrians and the Iraqis have made their own beds–so why stick our noses in now? The answer is that al Qaeda, ISIS and others will not stop at Iraq and Syria. Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others will be next.”

– General Jack Keane ret.

To them, it is convert to Sunni Islam or be killed as INFIDELS. For many of the terrorists that will not be enough and if they capture the US embassy (to me this is just a matter of time, just like the Viet Nam War). The carnage and death to many Americans is assured. Mercy is and will not be considered. It is part of their power over their adversaries. The power of abject FEAR!

In my opinion the greatest manmade disaster and OPPORTUNITY in history is unfolding in every corner of the world. Are you diversified or operating with EYES WIDE SHUT? Are you prepared to turn it into opportunity by properly diversifying your portfolio? Adding absolute return investments which have the potential to thrive (up and down markets) regardless of what unfolds economically or politically? This is what I do for investors; help them diversify into investments which are created to potentially thrive in the storm. For a personal FREE consultation with me CLICK HERE!

The main stream news breathlessly reports the news without telling the audience the grim conclusions that can already be made. The administration is calling for a multi ethnic reconciliation of the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds before help is considered, placing an impossible task for the Iraqi government on the table to prevent the US from having any possibility providing assistance. This type of reconciliation takes weeks and months to accomplish… do you really think that republicans and democrats could reconcile overnight in Washington? The world knows through the experience of the last 6 years that there is no challenge or previous commitment from which America will not retreat. This administration in Washington has systematically undermined the strongmen of the Middle East and, if we ever find out the truth, maybe had a hand in overthrowing them. Did any of you think someday you would be rooting for IRAN to prevail in IRAQ? Me neither but now it is in my daily prayers as the developed world will just sit around and let us be destroyed. There is no shrinking from this moment. We must confront it or be killed by it as we shall soon see!

“Think subcontracting the job to Iran is the right call? Surely, no one wishes a Middle East managed by the ayatollahs in Tehran. Don’t care? Remember the admonition of the 9/11 Commission: “The most important failure was one of imagination.” Imagine what controlling vast areas of the Middle East will do for extremists of all stripes.”

– General Jack Keane ret.

Say what you will about Saddam Hussein, Moamar Qaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, strong men and dictators who held power in an iron and sadistic grip. But they all understood the DEADLY NATURE of FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAM and DID NOT ALLOW IT TO GAIN FOOTHOLDS in their COUNTRIES. They also controlled the thousands of years of tribal animosities in their countries, which as we can see was and is enormous. Just stopping ISIS is insufficient. They must completely be vanquished and the territory they hold liberated. Nothing less, or a regional war will widen into conflicts/attacks throughout Europe and then the world. Nothing like that will be considered by the developed world and many in the Middle East wish to see the latter happen. ISIS has been primarily funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait up to this point. Since the conflict has flared, Putin has sent arms, tanks and supplies into Ukraine in the last week. When can we expect the next move by China to be? Will they widen their grasp of the South China Sea? SOON! A weak US military and NATO will be challenged as NEVER BEFORE around the world. The socialists and leaders of the developed world are weak as kittens and spineless as worms. Mark my word, World War III has JUST BEGUN!

It has been a wild and woolly weekend as the news just keeps shocking a numb population too weary to keep up with the tea leaves: Important announcements about central banks lifeboating themselves from their own money printing, rotating HUGE parts of their reserves from INTANGIBLE financial assets to tangibles.

Central Banks Lifeboating themselves…..”

Full article

“Since the dark days of 2008, employers have taken some steps to fix the 401(k), the backbone of the nation’s private retirement-savings system. But Nobel laureateRobert C. Merton says that in the rush to upgrade these plans, plan sponsors and administrators have overlooked one big problem: They are managing these plans with the wrong goal in mind.

“The seeds of an investment crisis have been sown,” the MIT professor of finance writes in an article in the July-August issue of Harvard Business Review, which was published Tuesday. “The only way to avoid a catastrophe is for plan participants, professionals, and regulators to shift the mind-set and metrics from asset value to income,” writes Merton, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1997.

In recent years, employers have tried to improve 401(k)s by introducing features such as automatic enrollment and products including target-date funds. But in his article and in a recent interview with Encore, Merton said these moves weren’t likely to be sufficient. To fix the 401(k), he argues, employers and the financial services companies that manage these plans must get past the ongoing obsession with two things: Account balances and annual returns. These metrics, Merton says, are far less important than one other: The amount of sustainable income an employee can expect to receive in retirement.

By disclosing annual income, instead of (or in addition to) an account balance, Merton says, employers will help employees quickly and easily calculate how much of their annual salary they can expect to replace in retirement, together with Social Security. As a result, employees will be better able to take action to ensure they are on track to retire as planned.

But that’s only half the battle. In order to accurately calculate how much retirement income a participant’s 401(k) balance will purchase, the plan sponsor must assume the money will be invested in an inflation-adjusted deferred annuity or long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. These investments, Merton writes, ensure “spendable income” that’s “secure for the life” of the bond or annuity and are “the very assets that are the safest from a retirement income perspective.”

That’s not to say that 401(k) money shouldn’t be invested in stocks. In fact, Merton says, 401(k) investment managers should invest participants’ savings in a mixture of “risky assets,” including equities, and “risk-free assets,” such as long-term U.S. Treasuries and deferred annuities…..”

Full article 

“The Obama administration cleared the way for the first exports of unrefined American oil in nearly four decades, allowing energy companies to start chipping away at the longtime ban on selling U.S. oil abroad.

In separate rulings that haven’t been announced, the Commerce Department gave Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Enterprise Products Partners LP permission to ship a type of ultralight oil known as condensate to foreign buyers. The buyers could turn the oil into gasoline, jet fuel and diesel.

The shipments could begin as soon as August and are likely to be small, people familiar with the matter said. It isn’t clear how much oil the two companies are allowed to export under the rulings, which were issued since the start of this year. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security approved the moves using a process known as a private ruling.

For now, the rulings apply narrowly to the two companies, which said they sought permission to export processed condensate from south Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale formation. The government’s approval is likely to encourage similar requests from other companies, and the Commerce Department is working on industrywide guidelines that could make it even easier for companies to sell U.S. oil abroad.

In a statement Tuesday night, the Commerce Department said there has been “no change in policy on crude oil exports.”

Under rules imposed after the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, U.S. companies can export refined fuel such as gasoline and diesel but not oil itself except in limited circumstances that require a special license. The embargo essentially excludes Canada, where U.S. oil can flow with a special permit.

Lawmakers enacted the ban after Arab countries declared an embargo on shipments to Western nations because of their support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The embargo caused oil prices to quadruple and led to rationing at gas stations across the U.S.

But as drilling companies tap shale formations across the U.S., so much oil is flooding out of the ground that prices for ultralight oil have fallen as much as $10 or more below the price of traditional crude. As a result, producers have lobbied aggressively to relax the export ban, saying they could get a higher price from foreign buyers than from U.S. refiners…..”

Full article

“Where some investors see nothing but rolling green fields and placid summer lakes, others see black swans circling high above.

Such is the picture painted when comparing the widely followed Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index—the market’s “fear” gauge— and its sister measure, the Skew, aka the “Black Swan Index,” which charts, well, lots of fear. (The black swan is a metaphor for a highly unusual occurrence and took on added significance in the market following Nassim Taleb’s 2007 book, “The Black Swan.”)

While the VIX is closing in on historic lows and has tumbled nearly 20 percent year-to-date— meaning there is a high level of complacency among investors— the Skew has surged in June, rising more than 12 percent for the month.

Taken together, the two measures reflect an interesting dichotomy among investors.

One crowd, buying plain-vanilla VIX options, anticipates a smooth ride, while the other is not necessarily anticipating but at least bracing for not just an ordinary market disruption—say, a weak economic number or one-off geopolitical event—but something really off the wall happening and knocking the seemingly indestructible stock market for a major loop.

“It’s just up like a hook for the whole month of June,” said Catherine Shalen, the CBOE’s director of research. “What’s happening is that in spite of the fact that everybody says the VIX is low and the market is complacent, the market is not complacent in every way. This is telling us that some investors who trade in options believe that the probability for a sharp, three-standard-deviation move has increased.”

The VIX measures near-term or next-term options whose price targets have not been hit—called “out of the money”—and its long-term average is around 20, as opposed to the 11 where it traded Tuesday. The Black Swan, or Skew, uses an options formula to gauge risks greater than the VIX. A reading of 100 indicates little risk of “fat tail” or highly unusual events; the index is now trading around 139 and was at 143 Friday, its second-highest level ever…..”

Full article 

The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter by the most since the depths of the last recession as consumer spending cooled.

“Gross domestic product fell at a 2.9 percent annualized rate, more than forecast and the worst reading since the same three months in 2009, after a previously reported 1 percent drop, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. It marked the biggest downward revision from the agency’s second GDP estimate since records began in 1976. The revision reflected a slowdown in health care spending.

Consumers returned to stores and car dealerships, companies placed more orders for equipment and manufacturing picked up as temperatures warmed, indicating the early-year setback was temporary. Combined with more job gains, such data underscore the view of Federal Reserve policy makers that the economy is improving and in less need of monetary stimulus.

The first-quarter slump is “not really reflective of fundamentals,” said Sam Coffin, an economist at UBS Securities LLC in New York and the best forecaster of GDP in the last two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “For the second quarter, we’ll see some weather rebound and a return to more normal activity after that long winter.”

Durable Goods

Another report showed orders for business equipment climbed in May, showing corporate investment is helping revive the economy after the slump at the start of the year. Bookings for non-military capital goods excluding aircraft rose 0.7 percent after a 1.1 percent drop in April, according to the Commerce Department.

Demand for all durable goods — items meant to last at least three years — decreased 1 percent, reflecting declines in the volatile transportation and defense categories…..”

Full report

“A month ago we showed a chart that, in our humble opinion, summarized all that is wrong with the US housing market. The chart in question showed the April breakdown of existing home sales on a Y/Y basis by pricing bucket.

Needless to say, what the chart showed was the symptomatic, and schizophrenic, breakdown of US housing into two camps: the housing market for the 1%, those costing $750K and above, where the bulk of transactions are mostly between non-first time buyers, and typically take place as all cash transactions, and the market for “everyone else” which continues to deteriorate.

Moments ago the NAR released its May data, which on first blush was widely lauded as bullish: the topline print came at a 4.9% increase, rising from 4.65MM to 4.89MM, above the 4.74MM expected. Great news… if only on the surface. So what happens when one drills down into the detail? As usual, we focused on the last slide of the NAR breakdown, located at the very end of the supplementary pdf for good reason, because what it shows is hardly as bullish.

So how does this “housing recovery” in which the NAR has proclaimed the “sales decline is over” look on a granular basis.

The answer is below, and it is even worse than the April data. It also explains why first time buyers have dropped to even further cycle lows of just 27%, down from 29% both a month and year ago.

This is bad because while in April there was a modest increase sales in house buckets from $250 all the way up to $1MM +, in May the only bucket that had an increase in sales from a year ago was that exclusively reserve for the ultra-richest….”

Full article 

Compustat, I/B/E/S, FirstCall, Goldman Sachs

Even if the week didn’t start with the bang it ended with last week, the “this-market-is-looking-expensive” chatter will not be put down against the backdrop of a dovish Fed and an S&P 500 SPX -0.01% that has 22 record closes under its belt for the year so far. (The current bull market still has a below-average number of highs, read on.)

Goldman Sachs, for one, doesn’t see much standing in the way of more stock-market gains. In a note to clients on Friday, chief U.S. equity strategist David Kostin and his team said they expect the S&P 500 to grind up over the next two-plus years as earnings growth continues, and rolling forward their 12-month price target to 2,000 — 2,100 in 2015 and 2,200 in 2016 are further-out targets. (Note that of the most bearish Wall Street analysts, Deutsche Bank’s David Bianco also thinks stocks are looking pricey, but doesn’t see the S&P 500 reaching 2000 until end 2015.)

From Goldman comes the question and answer of how to find a happy meeting place at the intersection of value and growth.

Goldman Sachs

The forward p/e ratio for the S&P 500 is at 16.5, an 18% premium to the average seen during similar real interest-rate environments of 1% to 2%, notes Kostin. The average seen since 1976 is 13.5 times along with real interest rates of between 1% and 2%. And margins have also stagnated at a record high level since 2011….”

Full article

“About 26% of Americans have no money saved to handle emergencies, according to a new poll that showed households making little progress over the past year in their ability to deal with financial trouble.

The Bankrate.com survey results released Monday also found that two-thirds of respondents said they have less than the recommended six months’ worth of readily available savings to cover living expenses, such as rent or mortgage payments, utility bills and food costs, in case of a lost job or other difficulties.

Both figures were only slight improvements from Bankrate.com’s survey last year, which found that 27% of respondents had no emergency savings and that 71% didn’t have enough to last six months.

“Americans continue to show a stunning lack of progress in accumulating sufficient emergency savings,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for the financial information website.

About a third of respondents — 34% — said they were less comfortable with their savings than they were a year ago. Just 18% said they were more comfortable.

The struggle to build an emergency fund came even though the personal savings rate calculated by the Commerce Department has doubled from a record low of 2% in 2005 during the subprime housing market boom to 4% in April….”

Full article

“The U.S. economy is approaching the Fed’s economic targets faster than expected and might push the central bank to accelerate plans to increase interest rates, Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser said on Tuesday.

Plosser said he had increasing confidence in economic growth, and addedthat inflation was trending higher and unemployment likely to fall faster than many of his central bank colleagues project.

“The current data suggest economic strength is fairly broad-based,” Plosser, who is a voting member of the Fed’s policy-setting committee this year, said in morning remarks at the Economic Club of New York.

While he supported the Fed’s most recent policy statement, which seems to place an initial interest rate increase sometime next year, Plosser said he had “growing concerns that we may have to adjust our communications in the not-too-distant future. Specifically, I believe the forward guidance in the statement may be too passive.”

Using different variations of what is known as the Taylor Rule, for example, Plosser said the current economic projections of Fed officials would produce a target interest rate of anywhere from 1.5 percent to as much as 4 percent by the end of next year—higher than that currently expected by most policymakers. Depending on economic conditions, the appropriate rate could even be as much as 4.7 percent…..”

Full article

“There is a specter haunting Europe: a trio of economic problems that threaten the continent’s prosperity and social stability, all of which revolve around the notion of the “One Percent.”

Similar to many other parts of the world, Europe’s first One Percent challenge involves the relative and absolute enrichment of an already fortunate class — the one percent who are Europe’s wealthiest citizens. The One Percent problems are the possibility of too many years of anemic economic growth of about one percent and “lowflation” — or an inflation rate that hovers around one percent.

Combined, this One Percent Troika translates into the persistence of excessively high unemployment and a damaging debt burden, accentuating what the European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi, has already described as a fragile and uneven recovery. And the longer this persists, the greater the damage to Europe’s political and social well-being.

All of this is the result of both history and current policies. With the notable exception of Germany, most countries have dragged their feet in implementing reforms to spark economic growth and create jobs. The situation has been further aggravated by an unbalanced economic and financial policy stance that favors those who already control substantial financial assets over the needs of average workers.

Given how close Europe was two years ago to financial fragmentation and economic implosion, some may be tempted to think that the One Percent Troika is not that bad after all. Worsening inequality is tempered by Europe’s welfare system; one percent growth is better than the recession that the region recently experienced; and stable lowflation is not as harmful as outright deflation or unanchored inflation.

It could also be that this troika is sustainable for a while…”

Full article

“The Interpreter Magazine is a “special project” of the Institute of Modern Russia. By “Modern Russia,” its creators mean, Russia as imagined by Wall Street and London. The “institute” is run by disgraced Russian billionaire oligarch, convicted criminal, and long-time Western proxy Mikhail Khodorkovsky, his son, and Washington lobbyists. It includes contributors such as Catherine A. Fitzpatrick who literally worked for the US State Department’s propaganda arm, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and convicted financial criminal George Soros’ faux-rights advocate Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Soros’ Open Society Institute itself.

The Interpreter is overtly a clearinghouse for anti-Russian propaganda and ceaselessly promoted by corporate-funded and directed faux-rights advocates like the Neo-Con lined National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Freedom House – both of which are funded and perpetuated by the US State Department itself.

In an entry titled, “Russian Defense Ministry Apologizes For Lying About White Phosphorus,” we discover the degree to which The Interpreter is propaganda. Upon reading the entry, we find out that the Russian Defense Ministry did no such thing as “apologize.” Instead, what is described is a war crime committed by Neo-Nazi Right Sector militants working on behalf of Kiev’s “Security Service of Ukraine” (SBU). Right Sector captured the journalists, interrogated them, and coerced a confession from them. Right Sector then simply claimed they worked for the Defense Ministry and their coerced confession constituted a formal apology for “lying,” before handing the captured journalists over to Kiev’s SBU.

The entry claims:

“Then a video of one of the detained reporters, Evgeny Davydov, appeared on pro-Kiev media, showing him confessing while he was still in captivity that he was forced to put in false information by editors in Moscow, and that in fact he wasn’t even in Slavyansk when the broadcast was edited and had obtained no footage from the town.”

The entry then admits:

“The two correspondents from Zvezda, a TV channel of the Russian Defense Ministry, Davydov and Nikita Konashenkov had been detained 14 June outside Slavyansk, reportedly by Right Sector militants who transferred them to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) where they were investigated on suspicion of espionage.”

Far from proving or disproving the use of white phosphorus in eastern Ukraine, the propaganda stunt instead illustrates that Nazi Right Sector militants are still operating in eastern Ukraine, taking journalists hostage – a serious crime – and working directly with the regime in Kiev. Regarding the alleged use of white phosphorus, RT’s report and Russian officials themselves clearly call for an investigation, and nothing more. And while the use of white phosphorus is being contested by Western media houses, the aerial and artillery bombardment of populated regions in eastern Ukraine is confirmed, and ongoing…..”

Full article 

“WASHINGTON, DC – From the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes to the Puget Sound, industrial facilities dumped more than 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s waterways in 2012, according to a new report by Environment America Research and Policy Center. The “Wasting Our Waterways” report comes as the Environmental Protection Agency considers a new rule to restore Clean Water Act protections to 2 million miles of critical waterways across the nation – a move bitterly opposed by the lobbyists for corporate agribusiness, including the American Farm Bureau.

“America’s waterways should be clean – for swimming, drinking, and supporting wildlife,” said Ally Fields, clean water advocate with Environment America Research and Policy Center. “But too often, our waters have become a dumping ground for polluters. The first step to curb this tide of toxic pollution is to restore Clean Water Act protections to all our waterways.”

Based on data submitted by polluting facilities themselves, the group’s report uses information from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory for 2012, the most recent data available. Major findings of the report include:

• Our nation’s iconic waterways are still threatened by toxic pollution – with polluters discharging huge volumes of chemicals into the watersheds of the Great Lakes (8.39 million pounds), the Chesapeake Bay (3.23 million pounds), the Upper Mississippi River (16.9 million pounds), and the Puget Sound (578,000 pounds) among other beloved waterways.
• Tyson Foods Inc. is the parent-company reporting dumping the largest discharge of toxic chemicals into our waterways, with a total of 18,556,479 lbs – 9 percent of the nationwide total of toxic discharges. Of the top ten parent-companies by total pounds of toxics released, four are corporate agribusiness companies (Tyson Inc., Cargill Inc., Perdue Farms Inc, and Pilgrims Pride Corp.).
• Corporate agribusiness facilities, the report also finds, were responsible for approximately one-third of all direct discharges of nitrates to our waterways, which can cause health problems in infants and contribute to “dead zones” in our waters. For example, pollution in the Mississippi River watershed has contributed to the massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico….”

Full report

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndshbH3qZ6Y 450 300]

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30bgr6lr46g 450 300]

“No state is needier than West Virginia when it comes to fixing crumbling highways, airports and water works, with annual repair needs of $1,035 per resident that’s three times the national average.

Yet even with borrowing costs hovering close to four-decade lows, lawmakers rejected a January proposal to sell $1 billion of bonds to repair roads that run through the Appalachian Mountains. Budget cuts were a more immediate concern, they said.

Across the U.S., localities are refraining from raising new funds in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression left them with unprecedented deficits. Rather than take advantage of Federal Reserve policy that’s held benchmark interest rates at historic lows since December 2008, they’re repaying obligations by the most on record.

“When you’re trying to be frugal, it’s probably not the time to eat caviar,” said Margaret Staggers, head of West Virginia’s House transportation committee, who said she was unable to persuade Democratic colleagues to support the bond plan.

The legacy of the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009 still looms large for America’s states and cities. While revenue has revived, governments are under pressure to increase funding for education and other services after years of cuts. They’re balancing those needs against required payments toward entitlements such as pensions, having set aside $1.4 trillion less than they’ve promised to retirees, according to Fed data.

Pennsylvania Hangover

“There’s a psychological hangover,” said Uri Monson, chief financial officer of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. “We’re not going to go out and borrow unless we absolutely have to.”

Issuance this year has tumbled to $123 billion nationwide through June 13, down 20 percent from the 2013 pace, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s also 30 percent below levels seen in 2010, the final year of the federally subsidized Build America Bonds program, which was designed to spur infrastructure investment.

Since 2010, states and localities have lowered their bond load by $111 billion, the most since the Fed began keeping records in 1945. They’ve paid down the liabilities even as yields on 20-year general obligations have averaged 4.25 percent in the five years since the recession, the lowest since 1969, according to Bond Buyer data.

Corporate Contrast

In contrast, Apple Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have led investment-grade companies selling $648 billion of dollar-denominated debt this year, a record pace, Bloomberg data show. The 3.05 percent yield on the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Corporate Index is within 0.4 percentage point of an all-time low reached in May 2013.

States’ and localities’ spending on construction has fallen every year since its 2009 peak, declining $39 billion, or 13 percent, over the period, U.S. Commerce Department figures show. Their investments in roads, schools and office buildings account for the smallest share of the economy since at least 1947.

“Infrastructure is one of the only ways that states and local governments directly affect commerce in the United States — the trucks have to use the roads and bridges, the boats have to use the ports,” said Daniel White, an economist with Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

“If we continue to let them deteriorate, it could have disastrous consequences,” he said.

Peak Days

State and local spending on roads, railways and other infrastructure crested as a share of the economy during the post-war population boom. In the first quarter, the expenditures accounted for 1.4 percent of the economy, less than a third of the 1967 level, according to data compiled by Moody’s Analytics.

America’s governments would need to spend about $3.6 trillion through 2020 to put everything from roads and water to sewers and electricity networks into adequate shape, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, based in Reston, Virginia. That’s about $1.6 trillion more than governments are expected to dispense.

“We are not investing adequately in maintaining our infrastructure,” said Joshua Schank, president of the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington. “We are missing an opportunity to borrow at lower rates in order to do it.”

Governments aren’t avoiding the market altogether. Municipalities routinely borrow billions of dollars each week for public works….”

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“A collection of over 100 of the world’s communist, Islamist, and socialist tyrants, along with some elected but mostly corrupt Third World regimes, gathered in Bolivia at the G77 plus China summit to demand what they called a “New World Order to Live Well.” United Nations boss Ban Ki-moon joined the anti-American, anti-freedom, anti-national sovereignty, anti-free market festivities, calling on the assembled rulers — the biggest bloc at the UN — to keep pushing “sustainable development” and global-warming alarmism with the goal of foisting global governance on humanity. Despite its significance, the historic 50th anniversary G77 summit went largely unnoticed in the establishment press.

In their final declaration, signed by more than 130 rulers from around the world, the regimes called for what amounts to global tyranny, central planning, and massive wealth redistribution from Western taxpayers to oppressive Third World governments. Everything must be in “harmony” with “Mother Earth” under a “sustainable” UN “international climate change regime,” they said. From a stronger UN better able to implement its “mandates” to empowering the UN General Assembly as an “emblem of global sovereignty” and advancing aglobal reserve currency run by the IMF, the radical screed demands a dramatic planetary transformation.

“We fully respect the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, particularly as they relate to equality among States,” the regimes said in the final agreement, calling for the “strengthening” of the UN for a wide variety of purposes. “We recognize that the United Nations needs to improve its capabilities and capacities to fully implement its mandates and to ensure the effective delivery of its programs in the social and economic development fields.” The agreement, dubbed the “Declaration of Santa Cruz: For a New World Order for Living Well,” also called for empowering the despot-dominated UN General Assembly to be a sort of veto-proof planetary legislature…..”

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“Euro-area manufacturing and services activity weakened in June amid a further slowdown in France’s economy, underscoring the fragility of the recovery in the 18-nation region.

A Purchasing Managers Index for both industries slipped to 52.8 in June from 53.5, Markit Economics said today. That’s the 12th month the gauge has exceeded 50, the mark that signals expansion. Economists predicted a reading of 53.4, according to the median of 25 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. A measure of Chinese manufacturing rose to a seven-month high.

The euro area is struggling to sustain a recovery that received a bleak assessment from the International Monetary Fund on June 20. Earlier this month, the European Central Bank introduced a negative deposit rate, announced targeted loans to stimulate lending and held out the prospect of asset purchases to stoke growth and inflation in the region.

“The pace of recovery is slowing down,” said Martin van Vliet, senior economist at ING Groep NV in Amsterdam. “The further weakening of the PMI vindicates the ECB’s recent decision to implement further monetary easing.”

The euro dropped 0.1 percent today and traded at $1.3582 at 10:55 a.m. Frankfurt time. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index is down 0.6 percent at 346.15.

Chinese Manufacturing

In China, a preliminary factory PMI from HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit rose to 50.8, exceeding the 49.7 median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, and a final reading of 49.4 in May.

The euro area’s manufacturing gauge fell to 51.9 in June after 52.2 in May, and the measure for services eased to 52.8 from 53.2.

“Hopefully the recent stimulus measures from the ECB will help revive growth again……”

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