Investment Watch Blog – 2012

Global Internet censorship is here.  SOPA and PIPA have been stopped (at least for now) in the United States, but a treaty known as ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is far worse than either of them.  ACTA was quietly signed by Barack Obama back on October 1st, 2011 and most Americans have never even heard of it.  But it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it.  This new treaty gives foreign governments and copyright owners incredibly broad powers.  If you are alleged to have violated a copyright, your website can be shut down without a trial

Incredible images emerged of a hulking freighter wearing mangled pieces of a steel bridge on its bow after a collision in southwestern Kentucky Thursday night.

In the pictures, the 312-foot Delta Mariner idles, still partially in the bridge’s path, and clearly looks much too large to fit beneath the aging Eggner Ferry Bridge, which crosses the Kentucky Lake Reservoir.

The cargo vessel was carrying space rocket parts for the United Launch Alliance, intended for a vehicle that was scheduled to be shot into orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Wreck: The cargo ship Delta Mariner slammed into the bridge spanning

Remember this?

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-I’m Bank says it has not decided whether the

By JEFFREY LORD

As Ronald Reagan used to say: Well…

Yesterday we took note of former Reagan State Department official Elliott Abrams’ piece over at NRO that went after Newt Gingrich on his relationship with Reagan. While voting regularly with Reagan as a young congressman from Georgia, Gingrich, claimed Abrams, “often spewed insulting rhetoric at Reagan, his top aides and his policies to defeat Communism.” Abrams then goes on to cite ” a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986.”

Or sort of cites it.

In fact, I’m sorry to say, what appears to be going on here is that Elliott Abrams, a considerably admirable public servant and

Bloomberg’s Trish Regan (yes, she is no longer at CNBC), has just announced that the bank which earlier announced it is shutting down its catastrophic prop trading desk (at which point shreholders let out a sigh of relief), has proceeded with slashing banker pay by 30% for overall comp and some bonuses by as much as 70%. This follows earlier announcements by Bank of America and Morgan Stanley which earlier said they would limit cash bonuses to $150K for senior positions. At the end of the day, the biggest losers are secondary, non-financial New York jobs (supposedly there are some: rat exterminators;

Flavia Krause-Jackson and Tal Barak Harif
Bloomberg
January 27, 2012

A “massive” aerial and naval blockade of Iran, reminiscent of the 1962 U.S. quarantine of Cuba, is needed to stop the Islamic regime from pursuing nuclear weapons, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said.

The European Union’s ban on imports of Iranian crude and other economic sanctions “might not be sufficient” to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Steinitz, 53, said today in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York.

The gravity of a potential nuclear-armed Iran is such that stronger action is needed, he said. A “massive blockade,” so that “no one can even go out,”

This chart was just tweeted out by the St. Louis Fed.

Federal government expenditures shrunk at an annualized rate of over 7% in Q4!

SOURCE

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-shrinking-federal-government-2012-1#ixzz1khU4NdJf

Here’s the good news for Mitt Romney from the tax returns his campaign released this morning: he’s due a refund!

It’s true. Don’t listen to all the left-wing nonsense about Romney paying hardly any taxes while ordinary Americans stagger under the burden of Uncle Sam’s demands. According to their preliminary 1040 for 2011, Mitt and his wife Ann are paying the federal government too much, not too little. Last year, in making quarterly advance payments on their tax liability, they overdid it by $207,818, which come April 15th they will be entitled to get back.

O.K., I’m joking—not about the figures, which are accurate,

From NYT:

DENVER — Proponents of marijuana have argued for years that the drug is safer than alcohol, both to individuals and society. But a ballot proposal to legalize possession of marijuana in small amounts in Colorado, likely to be on the November ballot, is putting the two intoxicants back into the same sentence, urging voters to “regulate marijuana like alcohol,” as the ballot proposition’s title puts it.

Given alcohol’s long and checkered history — the tens of thousands of deaths each year, the social ravages of alcoholism — backers of the pro-marijuana measure concede there is a risk of looking as if they have cozied

From Economic Policy Journal:

This anti-capitalism campaign launched by the elitists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is getting really over the top and landing in the winter mud of London.

The latest is an op-ed in the Financial Timeswritten by David Dewhurst and Naomi Colvin, who are identified as members of the economics working group at Occupy London.

Their screed is absurd from beginning to end and is titled, “How Hayek Helped Us to Find Capitalism’s Flaws.”

They begin with this…

Read full article…

Who knew Indecision 2012 would include a Space Oddity?

Romney hit the nail on the head. NASA is a big part of the Florida economy, so Newt’s in Florida, talking about a NASA project. In SC he was talking about the new interstate and dredging port Charleston (allow larger ships, more business, into the city). In NH he was talking about a VA hospital so folks didn’t have to go to Boston for care. He’s just cashing in on local issues for the campaign. Not saying Romney is an angel, but Newt’s a total scum bag with this shit –

I got a glimpse this morning of what Lance Knobel calls Davos’s “class distinctions, even if you have a white badge” — I was invited to a breakfast meeting under the auspices of something called the Industry Partnership Meeting for Financial Services. Which reminds me of that great line from In the Loop :

What you have to do is you’ve got to look for the ten dullest-named committees happening out of the executive branch. Because Linton is not going to call it “The Big Horrible War Committee”. He’s gonna hide it behind a name like “Diverse Strategy”, something so dull

That figure also excludes the amount in US Treasuries that are rolled over each year. In 2010 the US Treasury issued $8.4 trillion in new US Treasuries (bills, bonds, notes, and TIPS) of which around $7 trillion was replacements (rollovers) for expiring matured Treasuries that were paid out to holders.

www.TreasuryDirect.gov

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Michael Snyder: When it comes to government debt, it is not just new debt that is the problem.  Every single year, governments around the world must “roll over” gigantic mountains of debt that come due.  That means that the actual borrowing that takes place each year is far greater than the

http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/01/26/what-happens-when-canadas-housing-bubble-pops/?utm_source=_BPIvjiB8fqogaK&utm_content=ml21&utm_medium=email

A few days ago, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney released another alarming, albeit muted, warning shot about the state of the Canadian real estate market. Some properties in Canada are “probably overvalued,” the central banker said during an interview with CTV. Last week Finance Minister Jim Flaherty hinted he is also worried about housing: “We watch the housing market carefully and we are prepared to intervene if necessary,” he said.

So, are we literally living in a bubble? And when it bursts, will it get as ugly as it did south of the border? Here’s where the most recent speculation

1. The Obumer ask for $1.2 trillion in more debt
2. The National debt will exceed $16 trillion by years end
3. NLRB is giving special rights to unions they never had in their hsitory
4. Keystone Pipeline Project is now called the “half and half project” as he’s for unions and for environmental crazes at the same time
5. Al Sharpton becomes mind reader as he says the Arizona Governor is a racist as the #1 race card is tossed out
6. Housing money is just there just for the taking as billions are given to targeted people
7. US banks have been extorted to

This morning, The New York Times published a lengthy report with details about the harsh conditions of working in the factories of an Apple parts supplier or Apple product manufacturer. The report includes this chilling opening:

The explosion ripped through Building A5 on a Friday evening last May, an eruption of fire and noise that twisted metal pipes as if they were discarded straws.When workers in the cafeteria ran outside, they saw black smoke pouring from shattered windows. It came from the area where employees polished thousands of iPad cases a day.

The report also recalls a scenario in which a factory had to call the parents

Researchers have found brain stimulation via small electric shocks can boost memory and learning

A machine which stimulates your brain with tiny electric shocks can improve memory, problem-solving and mathematical abilities,psychologists have found.

But Oxford University researchershave warned that the machine could spell trouble if it gets into the wrong hands or is used incorrectly, especially when it comes to children whose brains are still developing.

While the brain-stimulation technique has been previously used to treat cognitive impairment, new research shows it can also boost mental abilities among healthy adults.

Dr Roi Cohen Kadosh, a neuroscientist, uses a high-tech system called transcranial direct current stimulation

From breitbart:

Nazi death camp survivors marked Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland on Friday, while in Austria guests at a far-right ball were accused of “dancing on Auschwitz graves”.

In the United States, President Barack Obama and his possible opponent in the November vote Mitt Romney remembered the victims, while Norway and Romania acknowledged their roles in the World War II horror.

Survivors joined Israeli and Polish officials at ceremonies for the 67th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau at the site of the former camp where the Nazis killed more than a million people, mostly European Jews.

“This place remains a wound on the soul of Europe and