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Mr. Cain Thaler

Stock advice in actual English.

Are Gas Prices Headed Lower Still?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Just in time for the start of the summer driving season, U.S. drivers are enjoying some relief at the pump, much sooner than past years.

Early May is typically about the time of year that gas prices hit their peak, as refineries switch over to start making the summer blend required after Memorial Day. In 2008, the record high price for gas of $4.114, didn’t come until July 17.

But this year the average national price for a gallon of unleaded has already been declining slowly but steadily for just over a month, shaving about 20 cents off a gallon of unleaded in that time. And with oil prices also falling, more declines at the pump are expected.

“You have seen an early peak in gasoline prices, and barring any headlines from Iran, that [decline in prices] should be the case throughout the summer,” said Mike Fitzpatrick, editor-in-chief of Kilduff Report’s Energy Overview.

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Shocker: Occupy DC Is Financed By SEIU

Occupy DC has gotten an upgrade from the run-down tent village where they once lived, now that one of the country’s most powerful labor unions is paying for office digs in downtown Washington.

The Service Employees International Union, one of President Obama’s biggest supporters, is paying the protest group’s $4,000-a-month rent at the Institute for Policy Studies, institute spokeswoman Lacy MacAuley told Fox News on Wednesday.

She said SEIU recently extended the offer, so Occupy organizers went shopping for office space and decided on a “separate, side suite” at the institute’s headquarters.

An Occupy spokeswoman confirmed the group is working from the space. The group settled in Monday, as first reported by The Washington Examiner.

At least one union member is not pleased with the arrangement.

SEIU member Kandy Gonzalez said Wednesday that she and other members were upset with the union spending dues on non-union concerns.

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House Votes To Shield Automatic Military Spending Cuts

Maybe they shouldn’t have agreed to those cuts in the first place? Fucking idiot Tea Party freshmen.

The House of Representative has voted to change the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, in order to protect the Pentagon from some automatic spending cuts.

The bill passed on a 218-199 vote.

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Obama Threatens Veto of DOJ Appropriations Bill Over Block Of Gun Control Law

President Barack Obama has threatened to veto a Department of Justice appropriations bill House Republicans passed because, among other things, it includes a provision that blocks a gun control law his administration used Operation Fast and Furious to pass.

The Obama administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote, and began implementing, a new rule that would require gun dealers in the four U.S. states that border Mexico to report sales of multiple semi-automatic rifles to the ATF.

In the 2013 fiscal year budget for the Department of Justice and related agencies, House Republicans inserted a rider, or condition, that would force the ATF to not implement that rule.

In a statement the White House released upon receiving the House appropriations bill, the administration threatened it would veto the legislation because of that ATF rider, among other things.

In the statement, the White House called that rider blocking the ATF rule’s implementation one of the few it “strongly opposes” because the Obama administration thinks it represents “problematic policy and language riders that have no place in funding legislation.”

Several House Republicans have charged that the Obama administration had an anti-gun agenda when it carried out Fast and Furious, and are particularly wary of Attorney General Eric Holder, who once expressed the need to “brainwash” the American people into disliking firearm ownership.

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Relations Between China, Philippines Heat Up

The dispute between China and the Philippines over the countries’ maritime boundaries seems to have moved to a much more dangerous level — and could soon include the United States.

China is now warning of a potential war with its Asian neighbor.

“No matter how willing we are to discuss the issue, the current Philippine leadership is intent on pressing us into a corner where there is no other option left but the use of arms,” said an editorial in the state-controlled China Daily newspaper.

The dispute is over a small group of islands called the Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines that both nations claim as their territory.

Last month, a tense standoff took place between navies of both countries, after military vessels from the Philippines tried to stop a Chinese fishing fleet from entering the territory.

Non-military ships from both nations remain in the area to enforce their claim.

The shoal is about 140 miles from the coastline of the Philippines, which insists its claim is supported by international law.

The nearest Chinese-controlled land mass is several hundred miles away.

But China claims most of the South China Sea. Its claim spreads far to the southeast and includes waters very close to other Asian nations, such as Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

It is thought the South China Sea has vast quantities of oil and gas beneath it and all of these nations want to stake their claim.

It’s also a widely perceived as a potential flashpoint between the countries; it is also a major international waterway of the United States, which uses it to have its fleets pass through to the Middle East.

China announced today it was suspending all tours of the Philippines by Chinese nationals because of the risk, it says, for their safety.

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49% Of Americans Are Not Saving For Retirement

America has a serious problem saving for retirement.

About 49% of Americans say they aren’t contributing to any retirement plan, according to a new survey conducted by LIMRA, a trade association for the financial services industry.

“The findings from this survey were disturbing, given that people will increasingly need to rely on their personal savings to make ends meet in retirement,” said Matthew Drinkwater, associate managing director at LIMRA’s retirement research division.

People ages 18 to 34 are the least likely to be saving, with 56% reporting that they are not currently contributing to a retirement plan like an IRA or a 401(k).

“In order to have the adequate savings necessary to meet their financial needs in retirement — which could last 20 or more years — it is critical that these individuals begin saving systematically early in their working years,” Drinkwater said.

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Greece No Closer To Forming Government, Venizelos Says

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos said Wednesday there has been no success so far in negotiations to form a coalition government after weekend elections resulted in a deadlock.

Venizelos, a former finance minister whose PASOK party came in third with 13.18 percent, is next in line to take over the mandate of trying to cobble together a coalition and said he would continue the efforts when he is handed the task on Thursday.

Alexis Tsipras, head of the Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, was leading the talks on Wednesday, and met with Venizelos as well as the heads of other parties on the right and left of the political spectrum. Tsipras has been seeking support for a left-wing government that will reject the terms of Greece’s international bailout — which critics say will lead the country out of the euro.

Sunday’s election result was a severe blow to PASOK, which has dominated Greek politics along with the rival conservatives New Democracy for four decades and stormed to victory with a landslide in the previous elections in 2009.

Its popularity suffered from the harsh austerity measures it imposed in return for two multibillion euro international bailouts. The measures, which included salary and pension cuts and repeated tax hikes, have left Greece in a fifth year of recession.

Venizelos insisted it was imperative for Greece to remain within Europe’s joint currency.

“Mr. Tsipras asked me if we would address the possibility of supporting a unity government that would freeze the process (of austerity) … I answered that the country has no time to waste and we cannot examine any option that would prolong the recession,” Venizelos said.

“The vast majority of the country wishes to remain in the euro,” he added. “And exit from the euro would result in mass poverty, a loss of value of property, income and prospects. Greece would lose many decades.”

Tsipras met later with conservative New Democracy head Antonis Samaras, who came first in Sunday’s polls with 18.85 percent of the vote and 108 seats in the 300-member parliament.

Given that the Communist Party refuses to join any government and no parties are talking to the extreme right Golden Dawn, which won 21 seats, no coalition can be formed without Samaras.

But the views between him and the radical left remain as wide apart as ever.

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EFSF Will Now Only Be Giving Greece $4.2B

They decided to withold a billion tomorrow, as the dick measuring contest continues.

Outraged German cabinet members are also demanding that they withdraw all aid to Greece.

Hooray.

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Commodity Funds Caught Long Energy To The Teeth

As recently as last month, ever higher crude oil prices and $5 a gallon gas were still regarded as inevitable. Naturally, much of the blame was placed at the foot of speculators, or “gamblers,” propping up the prices for their greedy and otherwise nefarious purposes.

Since then gas prices have dropped to levels much lower than they were a year ago and WTI has fallen off a cliff, falling over 10% in May alone. How could the speculators have allowed for such drop? Breakout asked Fox Business News contributor Phil Flynn, also a senior energy analyst at PFG Best.

“I’m shocked!” shouts Flynn from the floor of the CME. According to Flynn, most of the commodity funds (read: speculators) were caught heavily long in oil when the market turned, causing them massive losses. “I’ll tell you why: it’s because they never controlled the price in the first place!”

Flynn takes the gamblers’ reversal of fortune as “more proof that whenever somebody blames the speculators for the prices [of energy], they really don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Assuming the speculators aren’t about to get credit for any decline in crude prices, Flynn says the fundamentals are to blame for the recent sharp decline.

Newly Socialist France and the lunacy in Greece are creating uncertainty that weakens demand. In combination with the glut of oil, stockpiled when a military stand-off with Iran seemed inevitable, the price of crude and other forms of energy are dropping due to the laws of economics.

Unless Europe is “solved,” which is unlikely if not impossible, or a hot war breaks out in the Middle East, Flynn says “sell the rallies” is the dominant strategy. To him the only real question is whether or not a trader should go so far as to short crude or natural gas.

With the fast drop below $100 a barrel in WTI crude, Flynn says its new price range is likely to be somewhere between $90 and $95 a barrel, causing him to “be a little careful” going short.

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AEC Expanding Into Southern California With Historic Property Purchase

CLEVELAND, May 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Associated Estates Realty Corporation (NYSE, NASDAQ: AEC) today announced that it will expand to Southern California by building apartments on Wilshire Boulevard in the highly desirable Miracle Mile submarket of Los Angeles.

Associated Estates purchased the historic Desmond’s Tower at 5500 Wilshire Blvd. and the adjacent parking lot. The acquired property comprises 2.21 acres with the parking lot area being entitled for apartments. Associated Estates plans to build up to 175 apartments and structured parking. Desmond’s Tower is a 78,800 square foot office and retail building that has several tenants, including the internationally acclaimed Ace Gallery.

The apartments will be known as The Desmond on Wilshire and construction is expected to begin spring of 2013. Merit Enterprises, Inc. (“Merit”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Associated Estates, will act as construction manager.

“The Desmond is an exceptional opportunity and a terrific way to develop our first Southern California apartment property in a highly sought after location on Wilshire Blvd.,” said Jason Friedman, Vice President of Construction and Development. “We are excited about expanding into this market,” Friedman added.

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Energy Department Cuts Summer Gasoline Price Forecast

NEW YORK (AP) — The government says gasoline will be cheaper this summer than previously expected thanks to a drop in the price of oil.

The Energy Department says drivers should pay an average of $3.79 per gallon at the pump from April through September. That’s down 16 cents from last month’s outlook and not that dramatic an increase from last summer’s average of $3.71 per gallon.

This month’s forecast is a reversal from previous warnings of a sharp rise in gasoline prices. The government had said last month that gasoline prices in May could jump above a monthly average of $4.01 per gallon.

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Moody’s: Half of Brazilian Companies Remain Exposed To Liquidity Risks

Sao Paulo, May 07, 2012 — While corporate liquidity in Brazil has improved modestly over the last year, practices continue to lag global standard and companies remain more reliant on banking relationships rather than the international capital markets when compared to Mexico and the U.S., says a new special comment by Moody’s Investors Service.

“Market improvement over the past year allowed a number of companies to tap the capital markets and extend debt maturities,” said Filippe Goossens, a Moody’s Senior Vice President and an author of the report.

Moody’s concluded that 59% of the 39-rated companies—excluding homebuilders— have adequate or good liquidity, compared to the 81% observed in Mexico. Moody’s defines the degree of liquidity risk by considering each company’s cash needs to fund debt maturities from December 31, 2011 until December 31, 2013 against available cash sources.

Brazilian companies remain exposed to varied liquidity risks including potential credit market disruptions, the ongoing sovereign crisis in Europe, a potential hard landing in China, the fragile global economy and foreign exchange volatility, says Moody’s.

Companies in Brazil often rely heavily on bank financing and government-owned financial institutions, although few companies have committed bank lines of credit. Moody’s notes that this is a common practice in Latin America as companies prefer to maintain high cash balances to cover upcoming maturities and retain flexibility. Foreign exchange volatility also remains a key issue for companies with high levels of foreign currency denominated debt.

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Why Has Obama Been So Soft On Banks?

The presidential election is well under way but as President Barack Obama tries to position himself as the defender of the middle-class who will protect the 99% against corporate malfeasance and too big to fail banks, he may find himself in a precarious position. His record does not necessarily reflect his rhetoric and at the same time Wall Street donors have padded his campaign coffers.

Wall Street fell in love with the promise of change and Obama’s intellectual approach to governing the country during the 2008 presidential election. Obama raised nearly $16 million from Wall Street, nearly double the amount of his Republican rival John McCain, and eventually won the election on a promise to break the” business per usual” mindset in Washington.

Over the course of Obama’s three plus years in office, his tone toward Wall Street has shifted dramatically from the days of the campaign trail. He has routinely spoken out against the big banks and their role in what led to the worst financial crisis since 1929. He has chided the “fat cats” on Wall Street, much to their chagrin, for excessive compensation packages during a time when real wages have fallen to levels not seen since the 1970s.

But as it turns out, Obama’s bark has been much worse than his bite on the issue of the big banks.

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Mainstream Media Now Starting To Believe Lower Gas Prices Inevitable…

Mainstream media spent much of early 2012 selling consumers on the idea that $5 per gallon gas was inevitable. Not wanting to seem insensitive to genuinely cash-strapped consumers, pundits and politicos blamed Iran, energy policy and speculative “gambling” as the cause of the march towards all-time high prices at the pump.

Then, just when the outrage was truly building, crude oil and gasoline prices started moving lower. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil has fallen 10% since the start of May! According to AAA, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline has dropped to $3.76 from $3.92 in just the last one-month period. Still painfully high but well below what we were paying this time last year -$3.96 a gallon.

According to Phil Flynn, contributor to the Fox Business Network and senior energy analyst at PFG BEST, the recent decline in energy prices is only getting started. The admittedly “pro-giddy” Flynn says there’s a glut of oil available and lessening demand; an economics 101 recipe for falling prices.

Flynn runs through a list of reasons why crude oil is weak, including record OPEC output, the crumbling economy in Europe, and a run of horrible economic in the U.S., culminating in Friday’s atrocious jobs report.

“The question isn’t why oil is falling,” he says. “The question should be why it’s held up so good so long?”

An even better question for Americans is how crude oil can be down 10% but gasoline prices only half that much.

Flynn says one reason for the “stickiness” of gas prices is the seasonal “summertime blends” mandated by the Government in order to cut down smog. The cleaner burning gas makes it easier to breathe but costs more than the norm. This makes gas more expensive in the summer than it is in the winter.

Seasonal blends aside, Flynn thinks pump prices are going lower.

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US Postal Services Requires $34B Bailout

What really infuriates me about this is that I remember last summer, when the debt limit was being argued over, and every Democrat was insistent that the US Postal Service was off limits because their budget was, I quote, “separate from the US budget.”

How separate are they now?

The U.S. Postal Service is often the butt of jokes, but there’s nothing funny about the agency’s bottom line.

The USPS is losing up to $25 million dollars a day. Until now, taxpayers have not been on the hook for its mounting losses, but that could be about to change. A bailout recently approved by the Senate would appropriate $34 billion in federal money.

“If the post office was a business, it would be in bankruptcy,” said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. “It’s insolvent.”

Ironically, however, Congress shares much of the blame. For years, the Postal Service begged Washington for the freedom to cut its own budget by closing post offices and cutting employees. But Congress, under pressure from rural constituents and labor unions, prevented the cuts, and the service continued to bleed red ink.

In December, the USPS said it wanted to close more than half of its mail processing centers, eliminate 28,000 jobs, end overnight delivery of first-class mail, close 3,700 local post offices and end Saturday delivery.

The Senate said no, prohibiting the Postmaster General from taking those actions altogether, or delaying them for two to three years.

For the time being, the Postal Service has a moratorium on office closings — but that moratorium expires on May 15, absent an elusive compromise between the House and Senate.

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Greek Leader Tsipras Lays Out Agenda

Athens, Greece (CNN) — Greek leftist leader Alexis Tsipras on Tuesday laid out the radical agenda he hopes to pursue if he becomes prime minister, including the cancellation of severe budget-cutting measures forced on the country by international lenders.

Laws which cut pensions and salaries and those which “cancel basic workers’ rights” must be annulled, Tsipras said as he started efforts to form a governing coalition in the wake of parliamentary elections on Sunday.

He also called for state control of the banks, which “remain in the hands of the managers who bankrupted the system,” he said.

The Greek people voted clearly to reject the austerity demanded by international lenders, Syriza Party leader Tsipras said.

The two parties that made the agreement with international lenders “don’t have a majority any more to vote for the plundering of the Greek people,” Tsipras told lawmakers.

Tsipras met Greek President Karolos Papoulias earlier on Tuesday to get instructions to try to cobble together a government in the wake of elections that left the country’s political system in chaos.

Syriza will have three days to form a government.

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For Europe, Now The Hard Part

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — European Union officials are expected to begin debating ways to boost economic growth, after voters in France and Greece rejected austerity.

The focus on growth comes after Socialist party leader Francois Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s presidential election Sunday. In Greece, voters punished the two main political parties, raising concerns that a weak coalition government will backtrack on the nation’s bailout program.

At the same time, many European economies have tumbled into recession as austerity measures — budget cuts and tax hikes — take a toll on growth.

Hollande has said he would renegotiate the “fiscal compact” that most EU leaders signed late last year to incorporate a “growth dimension.” The pact is designed to increase fiscal discipline and prevent a future crisis by ensuring that governments respect deficit rules and do not overspend.

Eurozone unemployment hits record 10.9%

But analysts say Hollande will probably back down on this issue to avoid a conflict with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been the most vocal supporter of austerity.

Given the shifting political winds, the most likely outcome will be a new “growth compact” to complement the fiscal treaty, according to James Goundry, an analyst at IHS Global Insight.

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American Tax Dollars Are Financing The Taliban

American taxpayers are encountering a drumbeat of bad news from Afghanistan: Insurgents are launching coordinated complex attacks and implanting record numbers of IEDs. Strained by more than a decade of war, US troops, are implicated in Koran-burning, desecration and renegade killings.

Today the news broke that United States officials, in a futile hope of quelling violence, have been party to a pernicious “catch-and-release” system that facilitated the secret release of high-level insurgent detainees, who are then free to strike at American forces again.

As American taxpayers try to process these indicators of a failing war, do they also know that their taxes are helping to bankroll the Taliban?

When I was embedded with American troops in insurgency-wracked eastern Afghanistan, soldiers began telling me that the U.S. government wastes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each year on scandalously mismanaged aid and logistics contracts connected to the war. The soldiers told me there was a toxic system that links distracted American officials, private U.S. corporations, powerful Afghan insiders-and the Taliban. One way or another, everyone was in on the take.

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For Europe, Austerity To Growth Move Harbors Risks

The pendulum doesn’t normally swing this fast.

In a matter of a few short months, Europe has swung from a continent burdened by debt and consumed by the idea of austerity as a means of sharply reducing the cost of government to a continent sill laden by debt but now consumed by growth.

Voters on Sunday made clear in elections in France, Greece and Germany that they’ve had enough austerity. No more layoffs, no more pay cuts, no more scaled-back benefits.

Instead, the French voters who threw out incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy in favor of Socialist Francoise Hollande and the Greek and German voters who supported anti-austerity parties in national and local elections are seeking something far more nebulous than mandated budget cuts: sustainable economic growth.

“The problem is, while we are now looking at ‘growth’ as a solution, that’s highly likely to disappoint,” said Peter Tchir, a founder of TF Market Advisors in Connecticut.

Tchir said austerity measures drafted and approved in recent months for debt-addled European nations, usually as part of a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank, “attempted to be good for the economy.”

Tchir is skeptical that shifting that strategy 180 degrees virtually overnight will benefit Europe or global markets.

“There are no magic bullets,” he said. “Growth will fail and we are back to having too much debt.”

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Jury Favors Oracle In Google Lawsuit, Hit Impasse

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal jury in San Francisco has reached an impasse on a key issue in Oracle’s copyright-infringement case against Google, handing the database-software company a major setback.

Oracle had been seeking up to $1 billion in damages on copyright claims after alleging that Google Inc. built its popular Android mobile software by stealing some of the technology from Java, a programming platform that Oracle Corp. bought two years ago.

In delivering a partial verdict Monday, the jury found that Google infringed on the largest of Oracle’s claims, but it couldn’t agree on whether Google’s use was legally protected “fair use.” Without that determination, it will be difficult for Oracle to win major damages.

Monday: Lawyers make closing arguments on the copyright issues. Judge sends case to jury for deliberation.

The jury also found that Google infringed on Oracle’s copyright on nine lines of Java code that is in Android, but Oracle can only go after statutory damages on that one. Those damages can range from $200 to $150,000.

Google is moving for a mistrial. Google prevailed on other claims.

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