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Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by AuntB
The government probably were able to add some of their own spending on this one to make the numbers look "better than expected"
Again folks, the bottom line is simple: You cannot continually borrow and spend more than you make, yet this is the game that governments have continually played for 30 years, and private businesses have attempted to "lever up" to "take advantage" of this without regard to the mathematical inevitability of this strategy's failure.
More dominoes may be about to fall in Europe. A new selling wave swamped government bond markets on the continent Tuesday, driving yields sharply higher in France, Belgium, Austria and Spain, among others. Despite its AAA-credit rating, France's 10-year bond yield soared to 3.68%, up from 3.42% on Monday and the highest since April. The yield has surged from 2.50% in early September. Belgian 10-year bond yields rose to 4.91%, from 4.59% on Monday.
The reduction, equal to about 1 percent of the staff, is an estimate and may change, according to the person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the cuts. Among the jobs eliminated may be 900 from the division that includes the bank’s trading and investment banking operations, the person said. Citigroup, ranked third by assets among U.S. lenders, employed about 267,000 people at the end of the third quarter.
“As part of our ongoing efforts to control expenses, we are making targeted headcount reductions in certain businesses and functions across Citi,” Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a spokeswoman for New York-based Citigroup, said in an e-mailed statement.
Bank of America Corp. retail customers are the least satisfied among clients of the biggest U.S. lenders and the most likely to defect to competitors, according to a Harris Interactive poll.
Nine percent of people with Bank of America accounts were “not at all likely” to continue to use the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender, the survey, scheduled to be released today, shows. That is triple the rate of JPMorgan Chase & Co. customers and 50 percent more than Wells Fargo & Co.
Bank of America, the second-biggest U.S. lender by deposits, angered some customers when it announced plans to charge $5 a month for debit-card use. The firm dropped the fee this week after JPMorgan, the biggest bank, and No. 3 Wells Fargo abandoned the tactic.
Other new fees, including those for checking accounts, may push clients to credit unions, said Carol Gstalder, an executive vice president at Harris Interactive
Germany and Britain clashed over taxes and the future shape of the European Union, as the euro- area sovereign debt crisis exposed a widening breach between the U.K. and its partners in the 27-nation bloc.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t let the U.K. “get away” with its refusal to back a financial-transaction tax, a top official in her party said today. Hours earlier, British Prime Minister David Cameron rebuffed Merkel’s call for political union in Europe, dismissing it as “utopian visions.”
“Germany and the U.K. are on a collision course,” Jan Techau, director of the Brussels-based European center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a phone interview. “The clashes we see now about deepening ties in the EU have always been there, but the crisis makes them more visible. Now it’s crunch time.”
Moody's downgraded on Wednesday its ratings of 10 German public-sector banks including BayernLB and Deutsche Hypo saying they were now less likely to receive state support if needed.
"The rating actions reflect Moody's assumption that there is now a lower likelihood that these banks would receive external support, if required," it said.
It noted that EU rules restricted support and that Germany had set up a bank resolution scheme.
Nevertheless it said the ratings of the banks, mostly what are known as Landesbanken, still incorporate a high expectation of support as they are ultimately publicly-owned and account for more than one third of lending and deposits.
The actions affected the senior debt and deposit ratings of the banks.
BayernLB and Deutsche Hypo both had their ratings lowered by three notches to "Baa1" from "A1".
We have highlighted again and again that the credit market has not been as comfortable as stocks with the US financial sector for the last few weeks and today it seems reality is starting to sink in as BAC trades with $5 handle and $MS a $14 handle back to one-month lows.
Up until now, fraudclosure and robosigning were both merely civil offenses, and as such the banks were actively doing all they could to bury any and all pending litigation under a large settlement umbrella, wash their hands of the whole affair and move on, with nobody in danger of actually walking the plank and certainly not in danger of going to jail. That has all changed as of now, following a Nevada Grand Jury handing down criminal indictments against two title officers employed by Lender Processing Services Inc. for allegedly directing and supervising a robo-signing scheme, in which documents filed in foreclosure cases were signed without proper legal review, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said Wednesday.
The full indictment is below. Needless to say every single Bank of America in-house counsel is feverishly reading this right now, as the feces just got real for both Brian Moynihan and Ken Lewis.
But the move could provide an extra layer of protection for the Fed against the risk that a dealer bank goes belly up.
I think we have maybe a few months -- it could be weeks, it could be days -- before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it.
EFSF spreads broke 190bps for the first time - clearly signaling the market's perception of the AA/A as opposed to AAA/AA creditworthiness. French spreads traded wide of 196bps (record wides).
Italian spreads are breaking resistance and heading back to the lofty record wides of last week.
Yields in a Spanish auction of 10-year bonds rose to an euro lifetime high of 6.975 percent and the country sold 3.56 billion euros ($4.8 billion).
*MERKEL REJECTS JOINT EURO BONDS, ECB AS LENDER OF LAST RESORT
There are clearly liquidity problems again, but they are directly tied to solvency. The Euro basis swap isn't getting worse because US banks don't have money to lend to European banks, they don't want to lend to European banks. Maybe we should be worried the Fed knows something we don't about how bad it is and are trying this ploy again, because it is one of the few things they can do to help Europe?
We are trying to decide what is funnier: Italy cancelling bond auctions and telling the world it does not need the cash, even as its Treasury Director tells the world the country will need to raise €440 billion... that's €440,000,000,000 in cash, next year, or that as Reuters reported earlier, the country has simply decided not to issue preliminary Q3 GDP data.
But such is life when your equity is €14.5 billion and your total holdings of Italian bonds ar... €40 billion!
EU's Juncker says that German debt level is a cause for concern according to a German newspaper - RTRS
EU's Juncker says Germany has higher debts than Spain but 'no-one wants to know about that' - RTRS
CALIFORNIA REVENUE MAY TRAIL FORECAST BY $3.7 BLN, ANALYST SAYS
CALIFORNIA REVENUE SHORTFALL MAY MEAN SHORTER SCHOOL YEAR
EU's Van Rompuy tells Monti he has full faith in Italy's ability to overcome problems, contribute to stability of EUR
UK Conventional Gilt auction for GBP 4bln, 5.0% 2018 Gilt, bid/cover 1.92 vs. Prev. 1.99
EU Task Force says Greece has EUR 60bln of unpaid taxes
German economy minister says Merkel alone in commitment for EU treaty change
German economy minister says opposes ECB buying of sovereign bonds
To summarize: Spain sold €3.56 billion euros of a new ten-year benchmark bond, well below the €4 billion targeted. The average yield on the bond was 6.975 percent, the highest paid since 1997, and almost 2% higher compared to the 5.433% paid on October 20.
The result: Spain Bund spreads are at a record 499 and about to pass 500 bps: the level at which LCH hiked Italian bond margins, and is resulting in another round of rumor of an imminent Spanish bond margin hiked which in turn would lead to more selling of sovereign bonds both in Spain and everywhere else.
French Bund spreads hit a record 202 earlier, a level which will be promptly taken out;
Fed's Bullard says Europe is too far away to affect American households
Fed's Bullard sees 3-3.5% growth in 2012, warns on Europe
Fed's Bullard says US banks do not have great exposure to Europe, but there are some unknowns
DARWIN, Australia — Fresh from announcing an expanded American military presence in Australia, a plan that has angered China, President Obama came to this remote northern town that will be the base of operations and told American and Australian troops it is “the perfect place.”
“We are deepening our alliance and this is the perfect place to do it,” said Mr. Obama, speaking in a steamy air force hangar to about 2,000 people, mostly Australian troops in green camouflage uniforms but with 55 American Marines salted among them. “This region has some of the busiest sea lanes in the world.”
The president said the moves were not intended to isolate China, but they were an unmistakable sign that the United States had grown warier of its intentions.
China has invested heavily in military modernization and has begun to deploy long-range aircraft and a more able deep-sea naval force, and it has asserted territorial claims to disputed islands that would give it broad sway over oil and gas rights in the East and South China Seas.
"As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia Pacific a top priority," Obama said. "As a result, reductions in U.S. defense spending will not -- I repeat, will not -- come at the expense of the Asia Pacific."
Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by DangerDeath
How about Australian citizens looking for jobs, what, they are so well off they don't need any jobs? and since when the US is now exporting labor force to foreign countries, what happen to illegal immigration looking for jobs in the US.
I guess we should just now gather the illegals at the border and in the coast of Florida and ship them to Australia for jobs after all the Marines will be protecting their rights to work.
What a joke Globalization has become. or better yet the desperation of the profeteers.
In addition, Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Keltz, director of strategic planning and policy for the U.S. Pacific Command, told journalists in a telephone call Wednesday from Hawaii that the United States has based some of its most sophisticated weapons in the Pacific, including squadrons of F-22 fighters and C-17 transport planes.
"The Chinese can squawk about it," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. "But it's not like having an aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea."
FITCH SAYS ITALY RATING MAY BE CUT IF IT LOSES MARKET ACCESS
FITCH SAYS ITALY RATING COULD BE CUT TO LOW INVESTMENT GRADE
FITCH SAYS ITALY IS PROBABLY ALREADY IN RECESSION
FITCH SAYS MONTI GOVERNMENT MAY REMAIN IN POWER TO APRIL 2013
As Reuters and Corriere report, thousands of Italians took to the streets in several cities on Thursday to protest against what they called a "bankers' government" led by economist Mario Monti, and there were clashes with police. Students in Italy's financial capital Milan threw firecrackers at police trying to prevent them approaching the Bocconi university, which is chaired by Monti and has become a symbol for the new executive of technocrats he has formed to tackle Italy's debt crisis. Police responded by charging the students with batons.
In another shot at a major problem with the Italian economy, Monti said the use of cash should be reduced to cut an underground economy that accounts for nearly 20 percent of GDP.
While many Americans continue to struggle to save money, members of Congress are getting richer.
A Roll Call analysis of Congress members' financial disclosure forms showed their collective net worth was more than $2 billion in 2010 - a 25% leap from 2008. Minimum net worth in the House of Representatives rose to $1.26 billion, with minimum Senate net worth at $784 million.
With a median net worth of $891,506, Congress members are nine times wealthier than the average American household - and some Congressional leaders are exceedingly richer.
About 11% of Congress has net worth of more than $9 million, landing them in the top 1% of America's wealthy.
According to a CBS News "60 Minutes" segment that aired Nov. 13, congressional "insider trading" might be a key factor in their financial success. Congress members may be using information gained from their "insider" positions to make highly profitable trades in the stock market.
This form of insider trading may be unethical, but it's also legal.
"This is a venture opportunity," Peter Schweizer, a fellow at Stanford University's conservative think tank the Hoover Institution, told "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft. "This is an opportunity to leverage your position in public service and use that position to enrich yourself, your friends, and your family."