China’s stocks fell to the lowest level since March 2009 as speculation the government will maintain real-estate curbs overshadowed a State Council plan to develop the nation’s central provinces.

China Vanke Co. (000002) and Poly Real Estate (600048) Group Co. paced declines among developers after the official Xinhua News Agency said China must prevent local governments from weakening real- estate controls. Hunan Valin Steel Co. (000932), part-owned by the world’s biggest mill ArcelorMittal, surged to a one-month high as the China News Service said Hunan province’s Changsha city unveiled an 829.2 billion yuan ($130 billion) investment plan.

“Market sentiment is pretty weak and it will take a while for investors to reverse their pessimistic expectations about the economy,” said Wang Weijun, a strategist at Zheshang Securities Co. inShanghai. “We’ll probably see more stimulus packages from the government going forward.”

The Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) dropped 0.5 percent to 2,126 at the close, erasing a 0.5 percent gain. The CSI 300 Index (SHSZ300) lost 0.5 percent to 2,347.49. The Bloomberg China-US 55 Index (CH55BN), the measure of the most-traded U.S.-listed Chinese companies, retreated 0.3 percent in New York yesterday.

Full Article 

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne came under renewed criticism after Britain’s recession deepened in the second quarter, prompting questions about his economic plans and whether he should remain at the Treasury.

The opposition Labour Party and economists including Stewart Robertson at Aviva Investors said Osborne should reconsider his fiscal squeeze after the economy shrank 0.7 percent, the most in more than three years. One coalition lawmaker questioned whether the chancellor should keep his job.

“There is enough to be seriously worried about and it casts doubt on the idea of an expansionary fiscal contraction,” said Robertson, chief European economist at Aviva in London. “It would be absolutely irresponsible for the government not to take note and say we have to take our foot off the brake.”

Osborne’s 2010 austerity program — which was extended for two years in November — envisaged that the economy would be growing by 2.8 percent this year. Instead, it is 0.9 percent smaller than in the third quarter of 2010, just after Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition came to power, and struggling to overcome aftershocks of the 2008 banking crisis and the euro- area debt turmoil.

Full Article 

Here is your daily list of hybrid movers under $10, click here for charts.

What the hell is that thing?

Read more here and here.

Undercover reporters posing as “Earth Supply and Renewal” — group dedicated to digging holes and filling them back in, meet with Labor Bosses, NY Legislator, and former NY Assemblyman, who tell them how to secure funding for “Bullshit” Green jobs.

John Hutchings, member of the Broome County legislature, told the undercover reporters posing as “Earth Supply and Renewal” his opinion on taxpayer-funded grant contracts; “You know the Green Jobs — Green NY, between us, a lot of it is bullsh*t”. Anthony Tocci, business manager for Local 601, tells Earth Supply and Renewal “You just wanna(sic) get the money. Then you figure out afterwards” Former NY assemblyman Ron Tocci is also featured laughing about the irony of the company’s services: “One thing about it, it’s shovel ready.”

CNSNews.com) – The number of workers taking federal disability insurance payments hit yet another record in July, increasing to 8,753,935 during the month from the previous record of 8,733,461 set in June, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration.

The 8,753,935 workers who took federal disability insurance payments in July exceeded the population of 39 of the 50 states. Only 11 states—California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey—had more people in them than the number of workers on the federal disability insurance rolls in July.

Full Article 

HAHA, gotcha bitch!

Asia is barely down and mixed. Here.

Futures are down, a lil’bit. Here

Europe? Only slightly down. Here.

Fuck you shorts, you are dead.

Heat waves in southern Europe are withering the corn crop and reducing yields in a region that accounts for 16 percent of global exports at a time when U.S. drought already drove prices to a record.

Temperatures in a band running from eastern Italy across the Black Sea region into Ukraine reached 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) or more this month, about 5 degrees above normal, U.S. government data show. Corn, now in the pollination phase that creates kernels, risks damage above 32 degrees, said Cedric Weber, the head of market analysis at Bourges, France- based Offre et Demande Agricole, which advises farmers on sales.

Full Article 

Man Group Plc (EMG) surged as much as 12 percent in London trading after the world’s biggest publicly traded hedge fund manager said it would double its planned cost cuts and reduce reliance on products with steeper commissions.

Man Group plans to reduce expenses by $100 million over the next 18 months, adding to $95 million of cost cuts announced in March, the London-based company said in a statement today. The company also plans to sell fewer so-called guaranteed products, which produce high commissions for employees and have drawn subdued demand from customers.

Full Article 

Copper rallied from a three-week low while oil rebounded and European stocks rose as the outlook for China’s manufacturing improved. The yen strengthened on concern Europe’s debt crisis is worsening.

Copper in London gained 0.8 percent to $7,460 a metric ton at 8 a.m. in London, oil added 0.7 percent and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SPX) climbed 0.4 percent. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were little changed. The Australian dollar increased 0.3 percent. The German three-year yield rose three basis points to 0.01 percent, above zero for the first time since July 18.

Full Article 

European stocks retreated for a third day, their biggest three-day drop in more than three months, as insurance companies declined. U.S. index futures slid, while Asian shares were little changed.

Faurecia (EO) SA retreated 2.6 percent after cutting its full- year target after first-half profit fell. Elan Corp. tumbled 14 percent after the results of a study for an Alzheimer’s drug failed to show that patients improved. Swatch Group AG (UHR) gained 2.2 percent after posting sales and profit that increased.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) dropped 0.3 percent to 251.13 at 8:57 a.m. in London. The benchmark measure has slumped 4.4 percent over the last three days as concern mounted that Greece will default and more Spanish regions will follow Valencia in seeking a bailout.Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring in September fell 0.3 percent today, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.1 percent.

Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had the outlooks for their Aaa credit ratings lowered to negative by Moody’s Investors Service after markets closed yesterday. The ratings company cited the risk that Greece will leave the 17-nation euro currency and the “increasing likelihood” of collective support for European countries such as Spain and Italy, according to a statement.

Full Article 

Does Syria want to be invaded? Because Saddam’s threats of WMD’s kept us out of that country… The Middle East’s tyrants seem to have this knack for saying and doing all the right things to get us really interested in them for all the wrong reasons.

(CNN) — The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Monday that the country has chemical or biological weapons, but would never use them against its citizens — only against foreign attackers.

“Any stocks of (weapons of mass destruction) or any unconventional weapon that the Syrian Arab Republic possesses would never be used against civilians or against the Syrian people during this crisis at any circumstance, no matter how the crisis would evolve,” ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told reporters.

“All the stocks of these weapons that the Syrian Arab Republic possesses are monitored and guarded by the Syrian army. These weapons are meant to be used only and strictly in the event of external aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said Monday.

The United States called for Syria to never use the weapons and keep them safely stored.

Read more here.

House Republicans said Monday they were “disappointed” with the Obama administration’s plan to waive mandatory work requirements for welfare and questioned the legal grounds being used to make such changes.

“We are disappointed to see that the administration through this action and others seems intent not on helping to get Americans back to work,” said the letter signed by 76 House Republicans.

The one-page letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also states the administration is instead intent upon increasing Americans’ reliance on welfare and other government programs.

The work requirements in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families legislation were signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996.

The letter points out the addition of the work requirement had bipartisan support in Congress and that President Clinton upon signing them said the act “honors my basic principles or real welfare reform.”

The changes were detailed in a July 12 “information memorandum” from HHS telling states they could seek a waiver from the TANF program’s strict work requirements.

Among the legal questions raised in the lawmakers’ letter Monday to Sebelius were whether waivers are applicable to the Social Security Act and what legal authority allows for such “underlying flexibility in federal law.”

Two Republican governors already differ on the issue.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has lashed out at the plan, suggesting the administration has exceeded its authority, while Florida Gov. Rick Scott has suggested the flexibility would allow him to keep the work requirement.

Read more:

Full article and chart

Republicans maintain that the 2 percenters include business owners who would lose the incentive to add jobs if they had to pay higher marginal tax rates.

“Those who will be punished in the president’s proposal are A, small business owners, and B, those who are most likely to contribute to economic growth,” Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in an interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” July 15. “We might be able to find one economist who thinks it’s good for the economy trying to raise those taxes, but we would wear out a car trying to find a second.”

Full Article 

A politician who says something rational, it’s amazing.

“I’m not sure there is any way in a free society to be able” to stop a deranged individual from assembling a deadly arsenal, Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said today on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“If there were no assault weapons available and no this or no that, this guy is going find something, right?” he said. “He’s going to know how to create a bomb.”

Full Article