A fugly report on the ability to become wealthy

Tough times 

After peaking in September planned layoffs fell to 42.4k

Demand dropped 11.7%

The letter arrived just as Obama hit the all time worst president poll ratings…

“Omega Advisors Founder Leon Cooperman sent a scathing letter to President Obama yesterday, [via @andrewrsorkin] and its contents are just short of being outright brutal.

In the three page letter, Cooperman outlines his grievances with Obama’s administration, calling his policy decisions “profligate and largely ineffectual” and calling Obama out for using a political rhetoric that promotes the ideas of class warfare.

Cooperman came from very humble roots (his dad was a plumber in the South Bronx) but is now worth around $1.8 billion after rising through the ranks at Goldman Sachs in the 1980s and 1990s and starting Omega Advisors, a hedge fund sponsor.

The letter has clear and eloquent prose, but that only adds a sharper edge to the biting statements made by Cooperman. We picked out the best parts…

Cooperman’s biggest gripe with Obama is his policitizing of class division, which he feels exacerbates the problems facing Amercia.

I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions’ role in setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as “class warfare”. Whether this reflects your principled belief that the eternal divide between the haves and have-nots is at the root of all the evils that afflict our society or just a cynical, populist appeal to his base by a president struggling in the polls is of little importance. What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them.”

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The 6th ever cyber Monday seems to have done better than expected when it comes to online sales.

Companies like IBM reported a 33% increase in online sales yoy.

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"  --Lockhart supports current course of monetary policy 
   --Lockhart remains open to asset buying if circumstances warrant 
   --Lockhart: Fed shouldn't take any options off the table 
   --Lockhart: Unemployment to fall slowly through 2012 
   --Lockhart: US 4Q GDP likely between 2.5%-3% 
   --Lockhart: Europe can wound US most via unsettled financial markets 

   By Michael S. Derby 
   Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Expanding the Federal Reserve balance sheet via new purchases of bonds isn’t the tonic the economy needs right now, even as European financial woes threaten the outlook for the U.S., a central bank official said Tuesday.

“I am skeptical that further asset purchases will produce much gain in terms of increased economic activity,” Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said. “I don’t believe further bond purchasing by the Fed is a potent policy option given the set of circumstances we currently face.”

Lockhart is currently a voting member of the monetary policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee, and his comments came from the text of a speech he was to deliver before an event held by the University of Georgia Terry College of Business. The official spoke amid rising expectations the weak state of the economy and high unemployment will soon drive the Fed to expand its balance sheet beyond the current $2.8 trillion level, most likely through purchases of mortgage securities.

Central bankers have been debating in public comments the need for additional stimulus over recent weeks. While a number are uncomfortable with going beyond what the Fed is already doing–it has short-term interest rates near zero and is tweaking its current holdings to make overall credit cheaper–a key faction of officials are leaning toward doing more. These officials include New York Fed President William Dudley, vice chair of the FOMC, and Fed second-in-command Janet Yellen, who said Tuesday “the scope remains to provide additional accommodation through enhanced guidance on the path of the federal funds rate or through additional purchases of longer-term financial assets.”

Opponents of additional asset buying worry that in a time where many households are looking to cut debt, making credit cheaper simply won’t do much for the economy.”

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Home owners and investors are moving toward a deflationary perspective. Interest in a long term commitment are diminishing despite record low home prices and interest rates.

Forecast predict 62% home ownership by 2015.

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LONDON (AP) — The British government blamed the euro crisis for a big downgrade of the country’s growth projections and warned that it will only achieve its deficit-reduction goals if European leaders deliver a big, bold solution soon.

Britain’s Treasury chief George Osborne said Tuesday that Europe’s third-largest economy was being buffeted by the slowdown in the eurozone. Though Britain retains the pound, having opted out of joining the euro, around 50 percent of the country’s exports go to the 17-nation eurozone.

“If the rest of Europe heads into recession, it may prove hard to avoid one here in the U.K.,” Osborne told the House of Commons.

A number of economic indicators have shown that the eurozone is heading for recession in the wake of a crippling debt crisis that’s shown alarming signs of spreading from the relatively small economies of Greece and Ireland to much-bigger Italy and Spain.

Given the sharp deterioration in the eurozone, Osborne said the government was “undertaking extensive contingency planning to deal with all potential outcomes of the euro crisis.”

Osborne told lawmakers that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility now expects Britain’s GDP to grow by 0.9 percent this year, around half the 1.7 percent rate predicted in March. For next year, the OBR predicts growth of 0.7 percent, sharply down from the 2.5 percent prediction in March.

Its forecasts are in line with the Bank of England though slightly better than Monday’s projection by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that showed Britain already slipping into a mild recession.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve’s influential vice chair, said on Tuesday the U.S. central bank has room to ease monetary policy further to support a tenuous economic recovery.

Yellen said turmoil in financial markets stemming from both Europe’s banking crisis and general uncertainty about the outlook had increased the risks to the global economy, and that the Fed could offer additional support to U.S. growth.

“The scope remains to provide additional accommodation through enhanced guidance on the path of the federal funds rate or through additional purchases of long-term financial assets,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference sponsored by the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.

Yellen also called for policies to spur a faster recovery in the battered U.S. housing market, although she did not provide any specific recommendations.

The Fed in September decided to dip its toes back into the housing market by reinvesting proceeds of maturing mortgage and housing agency debt from its portfolio back into the mortgage-backed securities market.

L.B. was incredibly bullish when the world was unraveling in early ’09 into 2010.

Last year he says he was up 16%. His picks did well.

He is still constructive on the markets and feels the bears are full of opinion. Technically the markets have room to rally, but you’ll have to be a better stock picker.

Birinyi likes the following compaies: BLK, GM, PBCT,RMS, FP, RIMM

Fitch Ratings kept its pristine AAA rating on the U.S. on Monday, but the credit-ratings company downgraded its outlook to “negative” in the wake of the Supercommittee’s failure to find $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.

The development, which had been hinted at last week, could have been worse for the U.S. as McGraw-Hill’s (MHP: 41.20, +0.66, +1.63%) Standard & Poor’s slashed its credit rating for the first time ever in August.

However, the negative outlook indicates a “slightly greater” than 50% chance that Fitch downgrades the U.S. over the next two years.

“Failure to reach agreement in 2013 on a credible deficit reduction plan and a worsening of the economic and fiscal outlook would likely result in a downgrade of the U.S. sovereign rating,” David Riley, a managing director at Fitch, said in the report.

Fitch warned that its revised fiscal projections call for federal debt held by the public to exceed 90% of gross domestic product and debt interest payments making up more than 20% of total tax revenues by the end of the decade.

“In Fitch’s opinion, such a level of government indebtedness would no longer be consistent with the U.S. retaining its ‘AAA’ status despite its underlying strengths,” Riley said.

Growth remains at around 2% given congress extends most of the stimulus currently in place.

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DICK needs to retire….

The OECD fears Europe’s sovereign debt crisis infecting the global banking system and economic recovery.

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Online retail sales in the United States on the post-Thanksgiving shopping day known as “Black Friday” jumped 26 percent this year, led by Amazon.com Inc

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Foot traffic up 5% and sales were up 6.6%

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Shipping to Europe is dropping like a stone

This makes us very different from those Japan comparisons given their debacle occurred during a global credit expansion period.

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