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Food Roulette

Often times there is no real win when it comes to eating out. The higher the quality of the restaurant the better your chances are.

Perhaps drinking a lot of alcohol could be a strategy, but it will likely complicate things.

Good luck dining out is all i can say if your not willing to go haute.

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Capital Economics Cautions of a Crisis Out of Turkey and Venezuela

“With the bloom coming off the emerging markets rose, one economic model has drawn a circle around two countries that stand the greatest risk of falling into a crisis.

David Rees, emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, said the firm has developed five criteria to identify whether a country’s economy has overheated to the point where it is threatening to develop into a full-scale problem.

The good news is that the Capital model finds no country in “immediate threat of crisis.”

But the bad news is that at least two countries are tilting in that direction and could pose danger to investors.

Rees identifies the endangered duo as Turkey and Venezuela.

Turkey’s stock market has surged 7.3 percent in 2013 and is up 42 percent over the past 12 months. The country outperformed virtually all other emerging markets in 2012 as it modernizes its economy and pushes pro-growth programs.

Venezuela’s markets tell an even more robust story, with the Caracas exchange booming 37 percent this year and more than 200 percent over the past 12 months. While some feared the rally might falter due to political upheaval after President Hugo Chavez’s death, the market has gone on its merry way.

Despite the powerful gains, Rees advises investors to watch five factors: Growing current account deficits; rapid credit expansion; surging short-term external debt; bubbling stock market prices (50 percent is considered a red flag); and large growth in real exchange rates…..”

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Gold Expert: Prices Fell Do to Central Banks Activity Trying to Avoid a Short Squeeze

“Theories about what triggered gold’s recent drop are “cover stories,” says Chris Powell, co-founder of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), an organization focused on exposing, opposing and litigating against collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial instruments.

The reason the metal fell was because central banks stepped in and gutted gold prices to avert a short squeeze in London, he noted.

Gold saw its biggest two-day drop ever, reported CNBC, which compared the decline with the stock market crash of 1987…..”

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AMG Expects Hybrids to be the Super Cars of the Future

“Mercedes-Benz in-house tuner AMG is best known for its thunderous, cacophonous V-8 gasoline engines. The brand’s latest model is something of a departure, though.

The 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLA 45 AMG still offers ballistic performance, but uses only a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine–albeit turbocharged to 355 horsepower.

AMG has now said that it’s a trend it expects to continue — while hybrids knock high-performance diesels aside in the pursuit of both power and economy.

According to Edmunds (via our sister site Motor Authority), AMG Chairman Ola Källenius thinks hybrids will be the future of performance vehicles.

Diesel, says Källenius, doesn’t deliver the aggressive characteristics of a gasoline engine — nor its pure throttle response, nor the NASCAR-style sounds common to many AMG products.

Hybrids, on the other hand, still allow automakers to use gasoline engines as a main source of propulsion, without sacrificing too much in the way of efficiency.

AMG will produce a hybrid vehicle “when the market is ready for it and in markets [that require it] due to their regulations”….”

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Bill Ackman Says He is Still Hanging With $JCP

“Two days after J.C. Penney’s board of directors ousted Ron Johnson from the chief executive role, hedge fund manager and board member Bill Ackman has broken his silence to say he’s sticking by the beleaguered department store retailer, according to a report.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Ackman told “Women’s Wear Daily” in his first public comments about the retailer since Johnson was fired. “In fact, we’re going the other direction. We’re digging in.”

On Monday, the company announced that former CEO Mike Ullman, who held the position from 2005 to 2011, would take over again in the middle of a planned multi-year turnaround that hasn’t gone well so far.

Last year, comparable same-store sales dropped 25 percent as J.C. Penney customers turned away from its new everyday low price strategy, which replaced heavy discounting and couponing.

As sales have slid, so has the value of both the company’s stock price and Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management fund’s stake in the company. The fund currently holds 17.8 percent of the retailer’s outstanding shares.

The fund manager helped recruit Johnson last year, and had previously defended him throughout the company’s struggles but turned more critical of Johnson on Friday, shortly before he was fired….”

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Expectations for Inflation Climb to 4.5 Year Highs in the U.K.

“The U.K. 10-year break-even rate, an index of annual inflation expectations, climbed to the highest level in more than 4 1/2 years after the nation sold index-linked securities at an auction today.

The 30-year break-even rate was close to the highest in almost two years as the Debt Management Office sold 1.6 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) of inflation-linked gilts maturing in 2024 in the second bond sale of the fiscal year starting this month. The pound advanced to the highest level in seven weeks against the dollar. U.K. 10-year government bonds were little changed.

“There is ongoing demand for inflation-protected securities,” said Simon Peck, a fixed-income strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “There’s more room to go in the 30-year area. Longer-term break-even rates can move higher.”

The 10-year break-even rate, derived from the difference in yield between gilts and index-linked securities, rose four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 3.38 percentage points as of 10:52 a.m. London time, after reaching 3.39, the most since September 2008. The 30-year break-even rate was little changed at 3.47 percentage point after touching 3.51 on Feb. 14, the most since August 2011.

The U.K. sold index-linked gilts due in March 2024 at a so- called real yield of minus 1.262 percent, the debt office said on its website. Investors bid for 1.86 times the amount of securities allotted.

Gilt Yields….”

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Calling All Iron Clad Speculators: Natty Gas Could Benefit from Extra Ordinary Hurricane Season

“The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season will be “above average” with 18 tropical storms, nine of which will intensify into hurricanes, forecasters at Colorado State University predicted on Wednesday.

Four of the hurricanes will be major with sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour (178 kph), the leading U.S. storm research team said.

An average season brings about 12 tropical storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, according to CSU. The hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

The prediction for a busier 2013 season was based on two factors, the researchers said. Hurricanes thrive on warm water and the Atlantic Ocean has warmed in recent months.

There is also little expectation of an El Nino effect this summer and fall.

El Nino is a warming of surface waters in the tropical Pacific that occurs every four to 12 years and has far-ranging effects around the globe. The weather phenomenon creates wind shear that makes it harder for storms to develop into hurricanes in the Atlantic-Caribbean basin.

The researchers said there was a 72 percent chance that a major hurricane will hit the U.S. coast this year, compared with a historical average of 52 percent….”

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Madoff email to MarketWatch: “The Banks Were Complicit and Contributing to My Crime”

“Bernard Madoff, speaking out from prison, says the banks knew of his Ponzi scheme all along. The perpetrator of a history-making $50 billion Ponzi scheme wrote in a letter to MarketWatch from jail that he is now telling government committees the story.

Madoff: “From my first interview to the media I have said that ‘the banks must have known,’ and were complicit and contributing to my crime.”

In the emailed letter, he pointed to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM -0.27%, Bank of New York Mellon Corp.  BK -0.04%, HSBC Holdings PLC  HBC +0.83% and Citigroup Inc.C -0.32% as having access to information about his scam. He added that other banks also knew.

Madoff wrote that “the trustee seems unwilling to act on my offer” to help and is therefore “offering this information to the appropriate governmental committees in the hope that this information will prove helpful in future regulation of the appropriate institutions.”

The House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee had no immediate comment on whether they had received information from Madoff. A spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency declined to comment, and a spokesman for the Treasury Inspector General’s office did not return calls from MarketWatch….”

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Italian Business Confidence Unexpectedly Rises

“Italian business confidence unexpectedly rose in March even after inconclusive elections last month produced a political gridlock in the nation mired in its fourth recession since 2001.

The manufacturing-sentiment index rose to 88.9 from a revised 88.6 the previous month, Rome-based national statistics institute Istat said today. Economists had predicted a reading of 88, according to the median of 12 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.

Italy’s Feb. 24-25 vote failed to produce a clear majority, raising concerns the next government may fail to address the country’s economic issues.

Outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti said last week that gross domestic product will fall 1.3 percent this year as exports may fail to offset the effect of shrinking domestic demand….”

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Fred Hickey a Tech Guru Analyst Says Techs Have Rolled Over and He is Going Short

“Fred Hickey, the tech stock guru who runs The High-Tech Strategist newsletter, just made a rare bearish call on Twitter.

“For the 1st time in a long time I have begun to short big-cap tech stocks,” he said. “Despite money-printing rally, techs have rolled over – for good reasons.”

Unfortunately, he won’t be providing further details until some time next week.

Hickey is a regular on Barron’s exclusive Roundtable.

Here are his tweets….”
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Capital Controls in Cyprus Expected to Last Years, Euro to Take the Toll

“Cyprus is on the verge of an unprecedented financial experiment: imposing controls on money transfers in an economy that doesn’t have its own currency.

Countries from Argentina to Iceland have used similar measures in the past to defend against devaluation. Being part of the euro zone may make it harder for the Mediterranean island to enforce restrictions, as any money that leaves the banking system can be taken out of Cyprus without losing value.

That also may make it more difficult to meet the goal set yesterday by Finance Minister Michael Sarris to lift any controls in “a matter of weeks.” When economies in Asia and Latin America tried to stem the outflow of money in the 1980s and 1990s, they ended up keeping the measures in effect for six months to two years. Iceland, another island nation with an outsize banking system, still has capital controls five years after its banks collapsed in 2008.

“Thanks to political mismanagement, we now have a first: capital controls in the euro zone,” said Nicolas Veron, a senior fellow at Bruegel in Brussels and a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “How long is temporary? It could turn out like Iceland, extending to many years.”

Russian Deposits…”

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German Business Confidence Unexpectedly Falls

“German business confidence unexpectedly fell from a 10-month high in March as Cyprus inflamed the euro region’s debt crisis.

The Ifo institute in Munich said its business climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, declined to 106.7 from 107.4 in February. That’s the first drop in five months. Economists predicted a gain to 107.8, according to the median of 42 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. In France, industrial confidence was unchanged this month.

With the European Central Bank threatening to cut off emergency funding for Cyprus’s banks unless it agrees to the terms of a European Union-led bailout, the tiny Mediterranean island has re-ignited concerns about the euro and roiled financial markets. Still, German investor sentiment unexpectedly rose to a three-year high this month and the Bundesbank said the nation’s economic recovery remains on track.

“While the decline in confidence is certainly a damper after the recent surge in optimism, the scenario of a moderate recovery gradually picking up speed in the course of the year hasn’t changed,” said Heinrich Bayer, an economist at Deutsche Postbank AG in Bonn. Uncertainty around Cyprus may weigh on the outlook for companies, “but it probably won’t have any real consequences for the German economy,” he said.

Executives’ Expectations…”

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The Thought Process Behind Cyprus

“The Deeper Meanings of Cyprus   (March 18, 2013)

The deposit-confiscation “bailout” of Cyprus reveals much about the Eurozone’s fundamental neocolonial, neofeudal structure.

At long last, Europe’s flimsy facades of State sovereignty, democracy and free-market capitalism have collapsed, and we see the real machinery laid bare: the Eurozone’s political-financial Aristocracy will stripmine every nation’s citizenry to preserve their power and protect the banks and bondholders from absorbing losses.

The deposit-confiscation “bailout” of Cyprus confirms the Eurozone’s fundamental neocolonial, neofeudal structure and the region’s political surrender to financialization.

The E.U., Neofeudalism and the Neocolonial-Financialization Model (May 24, 2012)

Let’s list what Cyprus reveals about the true state of financial-political power in Europe:

1. The Core-Periphery terminology masks the real structure: the E.U. operates on a neocolonial model. In the old Colonialism 1.0 model, the colonizing power conquered or co-opted the Power Elites of the periphery regions, and proceeded to exploit the new colonies’ resources and labor to enrich the Imperial core.

In Neocolonialism, the forces of financialization (debt and leverage controlled by State-enforced banking cartels) are used to indenture the local Elites and populace to the financial core: the peripheral “colonials” borrow money to buy the finished goods manufactured in the core economies, enriching the Imperial Elites with A) the profits made selling goods to the debtors B) interest on credit extended to the peripheral colonies to buy the core economies’ goods and “live large”, and C) the transactional skim of financializing peripheral assets such as real estate and State debt.

In essence, the core banks of the E.U. colonized the peripheral nations via the financializing euro, which enabled a massive expansion of debt and consumption in the periphery. The banks and exporters of the core exacted enormous profits from this expansion of debt and consumption.

Now that the financialization scheme of the euro has run its course, the periphery’s neocolonial standing is starkly revealed: the assets and income of the periphery are flowing to the core as interest on the private and sovereign debts that are owed to the core’s central bank and its crony money-center private banks.

This is not just the perfection of neocolonialism but of neofeudalism as well. The peripheral nations of the E.U. are effectively neocolonial debtors of the core (quasi-Imperial) banks, and the taxpayers of the core nations (now reduced to Germany and The Netherlands) are now feudal serfs whose labor is devoted to making good on any bank loans to the periphery that go bad.

Though we can term the E.U. a plutocracy or oligarchy, the neofeudal structure compels us to distinguish a class of those holding wealth and political power that is not limited to national border: this is an Aristocracy.

Serving the Aristocracy is a well-paid technocrat class of factotums, lackeys, toadies and enforcers. Below this well-compensated caste of technocrats is the larger class of debt-serfs, enslaved to interest payments on either their own debts or the debts of others, and bound by their class powerlessness to protecting banks and bondholders from losses.

Cyprus merely adds an expropriation twist to this well-oiled plunder: deposits will be expropriated directly to insure no Imperial (core) banks or bond holders lose money on their absurdly risky loans to periphery nations and serfs.

2. This is a supranational plunder. While commentators can wile away years debating how much Germany benefited from the euro, the real core is not national, it is supranational banks and the political machinery of the E.U. the banks have effectively captured.

The citizenry of Germany may approve or disapprove of the Cyprus expropriation, but it doesn’t matter either way: their own serfdom to banks and bondholders is simply being masked: the bailouts of periphery nations are transparently bailouts of core banks and bondholders…..”

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Investor Confidence Rises Unexpectedly in Germany

“German investor confidence unexpectedly rose to a three-year high in March, suggestingEurope’s largest economy will return to growth.

The ZEW Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim said its index of investor and analyst expectations, which aims to predict economic developments six months in advance, increased to 48.5 from 48.2 in February. That’s the highest since April 2010. Economists forecast a decline to 48.1, according to the median of 40 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.

The Bundesbank predicts the economy will expand in the current quarter after contracting 0.6 percent in the final three months of last year. Business confidence improved for a fourth month in February. Still, political turmoil in Italy and the specter of a bank run in Cyprus are spooking financial markets and threatening to derail an economic recovery in the euro area,Germany’s biggest export market….”

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SocGen Expects a Mass Exodus Out of South African Bonds

“South African bonds face the risk of a sell-off by foreign investors as the rand’s plunge dims the allure of the nation’s debt, according to Societe Generale SA. (GLE)

The rand’s 8.2 percent fall against the dollar this year is the worst of 25 emerging marketsmonitored by Bloomberg. South African 10-year yields have climbed 12 basis points this month, compared with a 13 basis-point drop for similarly-rated Mexico.

Risks for foreign investors have increased as South Africa posted a current-account deficit close to a four-year high in the fourth quarter after mining strikes and slower growth in Europecut exports from Africa’s largest economy. A widening shortfall requires more foreign inflows to fund imports, a source of funds that has dwindled after record 2012 purchases.

“There is trouble brewing in South African markets,” Benoit Anne, the London-based head of emerging-markets strategy at SocGen, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday. “We may be getting closer to a real-money investor capitulation, the market equivalent of a volcano eruption.”

SocGen is underweight South African bonds in its Emerging- Market Optimal Local Bond Portfolio. The nation’s debt of all maturities longer than one year has lost 7.4 percent for dollar investors this year, the third-worst after Japan and the U.K. among 26 sovereign markets tracked by the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies and Bloomberg….”

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Analysts Anticipate China to Be Dovish This Year to Maintain Growth

China’s new leaders may further loosen interest-rate controls this year while allowing limited changes to one-child and household-registration policies that threaten to restrain growth, a survey of analysts shows.

Twelve of 16 analysts expect China to relax or remove the cap on deposit rates or the floor on lending rates, according to a Bloomberg News survey conducted ahead of Xi Jinping’s appointment as president tomorrow. A majority sees at least minor changes to the birth and registration policies.

Reduced restrictions on banks competing for deposits may boost returns to China’s savers, aiding efforts to switch the economy’s engine of growth to consumer spending from exports and investment. Xi and incoming Premier Li Keqiangmay be more cautious on changes to the one-child policy and the so-called hukou system, which denies education and social welfare benefits to millions of migrant workers in cities.

“Financial-market reforms should continue because there aren’t so many political or technical stumbling blocks,” saidLouis Kuijs, chief China economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in Hong Kong and a former World Bank researcher. Hukou changes are “more complicated” and the one-child policy is so entrenched in Communist Party thinking that “it’s not so easy” to leave behind, he said.

China’s leaders, set to complete a once-a-decade handover of power at the meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing that ends March 17, are trying to support a rebound in growth from a 13-year-low without spurring excessive inflationor risks in the financial system.

Flexible Rates…”

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25% of Germans Polled Would Vote to Leave the Euro

“One in four Germans would be ready to vote in September’s federal election for a party that wants to quit the euro, according to an opinion poll published on Monday that highlights German unease over the costs of the euro zone crisis.

Germany’s mainstream parties remain solidly pro-euro despite grumbling over bailouts of countries such as Greece. A German taboo on nationalism, rooted in atonement for the crimes of the Nazi era, has helped to muffle eurosceptic voices.

But the poll conducted by TNS-Emnid for the weekly Focus magazine showed 26 percent of Germans would consider backing a party that wanted to take Germany out of the euro and as many as four in 10 Germans in the 40-49 age bracket would do so.

“This suggests there may be potential here for a new protest party,” Emnid chief Klaus Peter Schoeppner told Focus.

The survey canvassed the views of a representative sample of 1,007 people on March 6-7.

A new eurosceptic movement called ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) comprising mostly academics and business people is due to hold its first meeting later on Monday in a northern suburb of Frankfurt….”

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Fit for the Clink

[youtube:/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYtRze2OmHw 450 300]

Link for iPhone users: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYtRze2OmHw

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62% of Americans Believe the Republican Party is Out of Touch, and 36% of Republicans Agree

“The Grand Old Party is not looking so grand these days in the eyes of most Americans, or even among a significant portion of their own party members.

 

A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 62% of respondents believe the Republican Party is out of touch with the rest of the country. Furthermore, 36% of Republicans feel the same way about their party.

 

The survey also revealed that a majority of Americans (56%) think the GOP is not open to change, and 52% say the party is too extreme.

 

Meanwhile, Republicans are losing the popularity contest versus President Barack Obama.

 

A new Bloomberg poll says 55% of Americans approve of Obama’s performance in office, while only 35% of respondent have a favorable view of the Republican Party….”

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